Been very busy with the manuscript and no time for this journal. Or I should say I haven't MADE time. Due date is the 30th so I'm moving ahead full speed. Have to stay focused and get it done.

After I publish, I'll be thinking about my patreon more seriously and getting more $$$ into the coming year. Sigh.

Anyway, this is a short entry just to note down for my habit tracker. Love, peace, and hair grease.

K's birthday is tomorrow, he turns 31.

XO Jeannise

Nothing happened yesterday worth remembering...But we watched Mitchells vs. the Machines and it was good.
The popcorn was good.
The streak here continues.

Main event yesterday was mom getting her credit card hacked. Somebody used it to purchase tickets to Brazil with one of these strange airlines that doesn't seem to have a real number online.
She called the local bank here and it should be resolved but it sent her into a paroxysm of stress. Mom has gained a lot of weight and she doesn't eat well. She has high blood pressure and high blood sugar. Worst of all, she is delusional about the habits that got her there in the first place and my dad is delusional about his contribution to it. He does most of the cooking now. He uses buckets of oil in everything.

With all the stress of these last few months it's my greatest fear something will happen to mom. I'm just praying she can change some habits and find a new will to live a long time. At least she has the garden which excites and motivates her.
Anyway, yesterday Denia's husband called Khem to ask if his Subaru was still for sale. K still has to fix it so he said no. I should come up with a nickname for Denia's husband.
Gaz?
Gaz and Khem used to be very close when Khem lived up North. K was a groomsman at Gaz's wedding to Denia, which is how I met him in the first place. Gaz and Denia live a fast life. He has a well paying job that is highly stressful, so he unwinds through partying and spending all his money. K & I are like the boring friends who enjoy a good time but want to be home by midnight.
K told me if he sold the Subaru to Gaz he'd be afraid the man would kill himself with it. The Subaru is FAST. It's got a turbo engine. I loved driving that thing but the gas mileage was terrible. K wants about $14k EC for it once he gets the battery fixed, or something.
Last night we put a bunch of movie names in a container and drew for one. We got Prince of Egypt.
Gorgeous movie but K hates singing in movies. LOL.
What else? It rained like crazy last night. Most likely no beach today.
Have to work. This journal and taking my vitamins are the only habits I have maintained consistently.

I want to be completely transparent and spill all the tea in here so I need to just double check on the privacy. Nobody from the island uses this platform I am 99% sure but you never know. If I found it, anyone can.

Being home I feel a hundred times more paranoid and stressed. I don't sleep as well and I don't eat well. Need to work on keeping my composure...and working hard so I can get the hell out of here.
-J

Yesterday couldn't wait to get out of the house. For some reason had the urge to dress like a trophy wife on her way to the yacht club brunch. Before I leave the house it's a crisis of whether to be modest and dress down, or YOLO with my gold and nice clothes. Most women here don't have much. Low salaries, many mouths to feed. Women usually try to look clean and presentable but there's a difference in style between those who can only shop at the island stores (think walmart but WORSE quality) and women who shop abroad. I don't want to sound like a snob but it's what I have observed.
99% of my clothes are from thrift stores in America, or I made them myself. Yesterday the top I was wearing was a handmade kerchief linen I sewed last month. When I lived in the states I just shopped (a lot, too much) at thrift stores exclusively as soon as I had my own money/transport, and I got a little obsessed with fibers and making the clothes I loved but couldn't afford.
Going to a New England boarding school full of wealthy, stylish people, and being a vain, self-conscious little nerd, I fixated on my appearance as a way to gain points since I was both broke and a bad student (though still a nerd. Just not an A student nerd). Once I got rid of my transition lenses and dome-of-the-rock sized backpack I even became pretty. Did that stop me obsessing about my appearance? No. If anything I got worse.
I don't wear makeup or high heels, I don't reveal a lot of my body, but I'm fanatical about clothes and jewelry.
Here, it feels less like fitting in and more like showing off. I don't like that feeling.

The heat WAS insane. We went to Caribbean Metals for some BRC for mom. Then we went to the Ministry of Transport. Or maybe it was the other way around. Anyway, K got the information he wanted and I got a doctor's form I need to fill out and bring back with my American license and national ID, and most likely hundreds of dollars. The truck console started smoking ominously but it was fine, according to Khem...

Dropped the BRC for mom. She somehow convinced him to stay through the week and help her on the weekend. He was supposed to drive back down to Mopo yesterday.

After that, we went up North to get the jumper cables back from his uncle Marcus. Marcus is the only person from his father's side of the family Khem speaks to. He owns and lives in some apartments on a riverbank. The apartments are trashy and Marcus is a comfortable bachelor. Maybe too comfortable. He was excited to talk to us about the election. Marcus used to live and work in Michigan and finagled an American Citizenship. He did not vote but he supports Trump because he said, to paraphrase, the Democrats are a part of the "elite" and think people are stupid. He is also (like most island men) uncomfortable with homosexuality. But he agreed that the government shouldn't interfere with womens' bodies. He excitedly told us that kale is a wonderful birth control method for women. Yes, kale. The plant.
He said, "America runs on two businesses. War and illness. They love war, and they want people to be sick. That's how they keep making money."

After we left Marcus to untie his goat from the basketball court, where she'd been happily eating grass all day, we pushed North again. It was 2pm. I got a big plate of local food, and Khem got KFC. We drove to the same beach we've been going to this week.
I could tell Khem had a lot on his mind. Sometimes he just won't tell me if he wants to be alone. He plays very close to his chest. He doesn't tell me everything. Humor is his way of masking his emotions. He never loses his temper, never gets overtly rattled by anything. Once I asked him how he does it. He mimed shoving a big thing inside a tiny box. It was funny. That's his way-- just make a joke, or get very quiet. He was quiet.
I figured it was his truck. His new project. While he walked around it silently, inspecting the undercarriage, the doors, I went to swim.
The water was amazing. Cool rain blew in and chattered on the surface of the waves. Cold rain, warm ocean. It was like music. A show of lights. The view of the bay was incredible. I twirled around feeling happy and so free. I swam a good while before K joined me. He started cracking jokes so I knew he was feeling better.
We stayed until sunset. I smoked. Got very high.
On the way back it was getting dark. We passed my uncle's wife standing at the bus stop. She's nice enough but a huge gossip. She asked if we could take her to B---, which is FAR, and up in the HEIGHTS. We were exhausted. Manual vehicle. The truck's brakes aren't good. It was dark. Boundaries. I said we couldn't and she said "go ahead, go ahead". I hoped she wasn't offended. Next time I see her I'll be very nice to her.
We then passed Denia, walking from work. She jumped in and started filling me up on gossip, all that going on with her business and her business partners. I am thirsty for any information on that subject. But we had to set her down quickly at another bus stop, because her place is even more dangerous to get to than my Aunt's. That's another story.
Denia was the only white person waiting for a bus. She usually is.
Another story.
We went to get air in the tires. The machine wasn't working at the first place. Or the second.
We drove home. K was extremely quiet again. Tired, probably. We'd been gone since 11 AM driving up and down. I don't remember what we did, but it was a hard sleep that night.

Feeling okay this morning. Missed my habits yesterday and wrote only 200 words. Unacceptable.

Better today-- Mom is still home sick.

-J

EDIT: Forgot to add I met a local woman named Jodi married to a Romanian guy. They live here and have a son named Theo (?) We bonded over natural fibers and moving back home from abroad. She was nice, friended me on instagram.

I picked up my order of vintage glass buttons from ebay. This is the LAST time I spend money on non-essentials. The buttons are nice, but too expensive to order here.

Good day yesterday.
The mundane: Mom was home sick. I sorted me and K's laundry and made a very basic lunch. Wrote about 1,000 words which was half of what I was supposed to and not good enough.
Mom is convinced once she builds the foundation downstairs she can build an apartment and rent it out for $2000 a month. This is what the new scamming contractor has told her. My mom will believe almost anything a contractor tells her. Where she finds the money I don't know.

She's getting better. The "Viral upper respiratory infection" AKA a bad cold, has laid her out but mom is tougher than she thinks.
She loves watching this Bibi The Monkey channel on youtube. I find it so creepy. I don't think these baby monkeys are being taken care of. They're trafficked animals made to perform for a camera. I gently tried to point out nobody knows what happens to the monkey after the camera shuts off. But she wants to believe and what's the point getting woke about a monkey on the internet. Mom has probably watched every one of the billion videos on that channel. Bibi learns to cook! Bibi waters the plants! Bibi takes a dump!
Right now Bibi is getting too big and not-cute for the cameras so they are training his "little sister" AKA his replacement. "Look isn't she so cute!?"
"Yeah. Yep. Adorable..."

The benefit of being "up north" is the beach. The other benefit is friends. Sometimes the beach is better than friends. Yesterday K and I went "Up North" to the most modern part of the island, which is full of resorts and shops and businesses. Only foreigners or locals who bought smart in the 90's and 00's can afford to live there now. Or the local oligarchs, obviously.
First we stopped to get some packages from the international shipping depot. My sewing machine foot pedal and power cord arrived and K got something to get the wiring in the truck windows fixed.
We got Doubles from our usual place by the roadside. The kid selling it is a handsome darkskinned boy with a very soft voice. I don't speak to 99% of men I encounter here but I like talking to this kid even if it's just about Doubles. He always says "god bless you" when we say goodbye.
Doubles are basically chickpeas in a mild curry over a fried roti-esque dough, with culantro, golden apple, cucumber and hot sauce. My FAVORITE.
Doubles secured, we then went to our usual beach, which just hosted a huge party and was all stirred-up and gross. But on the other side of the causeway, SURFERS!

You don't see them very often on island. K and I stopped to watch. It's something I've always wanted to try but dealing with the big deep ocean is beyond my courage. Very satisfying to observe from a safe distance, eating Doubles.
We drove (again) to a different beach, the same we went to yesterday. Sat on top the truck looking through my dad's old Peace Corps era binoculars. I rolled a J. Smoked it.
A dad was there with his young daughter, also smoking while she played in the sand. Then he joined her in the water and they had fun. It was good to see that.
The water was HEAVEN...that beach gets very deep but K and I have become better swimmers and we just swam around forever. I could feel the strength in my body, all the little changes since I started. I love being in the water.

Mom never learned to swim. None of her sisters did either. Her brothers all learned. It's not a common thing for girls on the island. Cultural programming tells girls not to dirty the dress, mess up the hair, strip in front of boys...be a good girl! A safe girl! Don't anger your parents. So the girls splash safely in shallow water while the boys do whatever they want. My grandfather was an accomplished swimmer who competed in races here back in the day. He took my mother and the other kids to the beach every single day. He was one of the divers that helped construct (or refurbish) the main harbor when we were a colony. And yet my mom never learned to swim.
Mom put my sister and I in swimming lessons at great expense to the family budget. This was a privilege granted to people of a certain class background and my parents were not wealthy. If a girl from the island can swim, and swim well, she most likely went to the aquatic center for an extended time.
Once, I was fucking around with a friend (another girl, better swimmer than me) and ended up far from shore on a floatie. The swim back was tough. When I got out of the water a local woman asked me in astonishment where I was from. "I'm from here," I said. She looked even more amazed. "Girls here can't swim like that," she said. That was honestly the moment I realized it wasn't just a thing that had happened to my mom. The cultural barrier prevents women in general from participating in one of the most basic ways to enjoy this part of their culture. I was so grateful to mom then for changing that for me.
One of the greatest gifts she ever gave me was the water. I'll never forget that.

After the swim we went home, and I was supposed to get back to work but K and I ended up talking about politics forever.
Today is election day. I asked K if he wanted to make a bet but we never agreed to anything.
I guess we'll see tomorrow.

-J

Still down in the south of the island with Khem's family. We're leaving for the north "sometime this morning" which means between 11AM and 1PM.

This house we're staying in belonged to his grandmother, who raised 10 children inside it by herself. It was much smaller back then. Two rooms. Over the years his aunts and uncles scrappily added to it, gave it stone walls (mostly) and stone flooring (barely), put in electricity and plumbing and all the fancy stuff. Now the house is under an unofficial collective ownership of all the siblings, though the majority don't live on island.

Despite the fact that another uncle in his 60's lives here full time too, and his mother, K pays all the bills for this house. His room is big enough to fit a desk, a chair, and a full-size bed. This cramped, dark room is where he's worked for the last decade to save up to buy the land in L---.


Yesterday K's mother and uncle Tino went down to their half-brother's farm in LaPwet because a young pig was being slaughtered. While they were gone I rolled a spliff and focused on getting to my word count. MJ is the only thing that helps me focus. I remember trying ritalin and adderall, when I lived in the states. Magical, scary.
While they worked wonders I didn't have the insurance/willpower to get a prescription for either. It's impossible for me to get those here. Psychiatrists on island don't believe in ADHD and they certainly don't believe a woman could have it. It's probably for the best I don't take addictive pharma drugs anyway so why complain.
A Native girl I knew once told me (quoting her herbalist mom) "the difference between medicine and poison is dosage". The herb is not "recreational" for me, but a true medicine. One spliff a day, sometimes half, that's it. With lots of tolerance breaks.

Anyway while I worked Khem did some DIY on his Mazda truck, screwing a piece of wood under the bed door handle and duct taping the ripped foam on the steering wheel so it fit under the cover. The truck needs a lot of work but it drives and clears the potholes. Starting to see why people hype up Manual so much. Down South, where the roads are wide and open, no traffic, it's a dream.
K's mom came back from Lapwet with lots of pork which she got to stewing immediately. Lucians know two ways to cook pork (and every other meat):
- Stewed
- Roasted

While she cooked I kept working in the living room. Then suddenly-- BANG! "AHHHH!"
I rushed into the kitchen. She was fine, but staring in shock at the shattered glass lid of the pot.
Most of the glass stayed intact. I helped her get the lid outside and sweep up the shards. Luckily it was the pot with the sweet potato, plantain and dasheen. AKA intact tuber foods easily siftable, instead of soup. Yikes. Not much glass got into the pot so it was deemed safe. But I did look carefully when I picked out my portion.
After we cleaned it up she immediately called her brother Tino off the island superstition about glass breaking, or something. Tino was fine, but it still had us wary all afternoon.
When I went down to the road, Khem was still working on the truck. I told him what happened with the pot cover and he told me once they bought a stove from S&S (think island Walmart, but 200x cheaper and worse) and while baking some bread the glass door exploded all over the kitchen.
I finished the rest of my spliff while K fiddled with the door handle some more. He doesn't smoke at all, or drink. An old light brown stray dog, ribs sticking out, came to watch. It had a long, slender face like K, and specifically like his father. I thought what if the breaking pot was about K's dad, but I didn't mention it.

We both went up and his mom (who does have a name, I promise) was done cooking. I ate, did the dishes, worked some more, then K came inside and ate, and I can't remember how we passed the rest of the afternoon but Tino came back with Black Pudding which was a treat, and there was even more pork to go around.
Later that night me and K watched that movie with FKA twigs. I give it a 5/10, he gave it a 6.
We were very tired, and I slept right after we finished the movie. For some reason I've been sleeping like a baby here.

My diet was f'ed up yesterday. I want to put on some more weight but eating pounds of fatty pork and sugar and salty SALTY food is no good.
Today we're going up North like I said, which means staying with my side of the family.

More later - J

Re-entering digital journaling after 15+ years...
A few days to mark a year since I decided to put my faith in the universe and move back to the island. Tired of America, the cold, my sister, the nihilism, and haunted by memories of these different people I had to become, over and over, just to survive here.
Lately I've been reflecting on this circular journey. My life was in many ways unconventional from the moment I was born. My father is American, my mother St. Lucian. I was an accident baby. Not planned, not expected, I just showed up and nobody knows how. Maybe my little baby-soul was curious to see Earth.
Looking back, it seems everything that's happened to me wasn't by my own design, but by accidental forces that randomly directed my destiny. My conception. Going to America. The kindness of strangers leading me across the country and the world. Random coincidence; sudden opportunity-- those shaped me into the woman I am. Is it luck? Don't know. I do feel very lucky. But never in control of anything.


Coming home has definitely been an adjustment. Hey, it's the third world. Things happen, shit breaks, nothing arrives on time. People are poor, angry, hot, mosquito-bitten and aimless.
The slave society that founded this country on the bones of indigenous people has cleverly adapted to the modern age. Ignorance keeps the class hierarchy alive and well here. We will never be free of it unless an age of enlightenment comes to this island. And all things come slowly, to small islands. Washing up on the shores. No sudden bolt of lightning will change this place. And nothing lasts-- nothing.

But we persist, because that's what islanders do no matter where we are.
One word:
Survive.