Riding the Bus in Nassau

Public transportation is perhaps on of the most educational experiences one can have in Nassau. Rather than having a taxi take you directly to a destination, buses make a circuitous route that allows one to understand how Bahamians actually live. When you enter the bus and face the front, there are two seats on the left and one on the right. As the bus fills up, seats along the aisle unfold and allows for more passengers to ride. The bus requires a cooperative spirit to allow people off when the bus arrives at their stop. People are generally convivial and it appears customary for a cursory “good morning” to the other passengers upon entering the bus.

Riding can be a joyful experience. One afternoon we were riding a bus near the College of the Bahamas as a nearby primary school was dismissing for the day. More and more children piled into the bus for the ride home. Typically each bus either has the radio or CD playing over the speakers. The children spontaneously broke into a singalong with the radio, enjoying a community experience. On another trip, after 5pm, I was riding with several people who had just finished a day’s work. The radio was playing classic soul and Anita Baker’s “Giving You the Best,” came on.  Although not as boisterous as the children, virtually the entire bus join Anita in song.  

On another trip through the Fox Hill settlement, perhaps one of the poorest neighborhoods of Nassau, two brothers aged approximately eight and five, got on the bus. As with all the children, these two little boys were neatly dressed in their school uniform with dark blue pants, a clean pressed white shirt and a red tie. The younger boy was clearly wide-eyed and nervous; the older boy tightly clutched the dollar bill that would pay both their fares. The younger brother took the seat directly behind his older brother and in front of Caitlin. At the sight of these siblings, bravely making their way to school brought an audible sigh from Caitlin. When they exited the bus, and the younger boy reached for the hand of his older brother, the entire back of the bus engaged in a collective feeling of warmth and nostalgia. 

Nature in New Providence

There is a thin metaphorical line between human cities and nature.

Smooth-billed Ani

Australian Pines along the beach

In rich urban areas around the world, humans often try to build a big, impenetrable barrier between themselves and nature. We spend an inordinate amount of time and money to try to keep nature from intruding into our living space. Granted, often what we try to keep out is pests (ants, flies, mosquitoes). But, of course, the line is never impenetrable. That fact is more obvious in some places. The island of New Providence, on which Nassau, the Bahamas sits, is 21 miles long by 7 miles wide. According to locals, it is increasingly hard to find birds and wildlife on the island. There are a number of itinerant dogs that roam neighborhoods and seem to integrate themselves into the Bahamian landscape. Beaches and water are obvious to the traveler in Nassau. Yet,I have noticed that it is uncommon to see shorebirds while on New Providence. The introduction of Australian Pines (Casuarina), a hearty tree that adapts salt and droughts to provide windbreaks, has hastened the demise of many indigenous plants by its aggressive growth. It is becoming harder to find the “real” Bahamas.

The decline of biodiversity does not mean that nature has been subsumed by humans. Across the island several building (in various states of repair) are slowing succumbing to the inexorable adaptation of nature. Trees and plants begin to reclaim land left fallow; paint and wood cannot resist water and wind. Nothing is static. While the decline in indigenous birds, animals and plants is noticeable, little sparrows that appear in the local Super Valu grocery stores is a reminder that it is impossible to completely draw a line between humans and nature and expect the latter to respect it.

Island countries like the Bahamas might be the one optimal places to observe this thin line. As the effects of climate change begins to mount, small island states like the Bahamas are particularly vulnerable. With the highest point of land a mere 206 feet (63 meters) above sea level (Mount Alvernia on Cat Island), a substantial rise in sea level will have devastating effects on the country. As an archipelago, rather than a volcanic island, the cottony is flat and vulnerable not only to rising seas, but to increased wave activity and stronger than normal storms as well. As I write this, small island states on the other side of the globe are being devastated by a major cyclone.

Nature has a way of reminding us periodically that humans cannot conquer it. We would do well to remember that and plan accordingly.

New Providence and History

The Bahamas is a relatively young country, gaining its independence in 1973. Its length of independence is not an indication of its history. The approximately 700 islands that make up the archipelago known as the Bahamas has a diverse and unique history that is obscure in the dichotomy of colonial versus independent state. Because approximately seventy-five percent of the six million tourists who visit the Bahamas annually do so via cruise ships, many of the most historic sites are not visited by international tourists. Most tourists who visit the Bahamas do so on the island of New Providence, which contains the capital city Nassau.

The Island Caves

The Island Caves on West Bay Road were thought to have once been inhabited by Lucayan Indians prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Although the encounter between Columbus and the Indians was peaceful, subsequent meetings be the Lucayans and Europeans would not go as well. Spanish explorers sought to enslave the Lucayans and by the 1520s all had disappeared from New Providence. Today the cave is the refuge for the Buffy Flower Bat, more commonly know as fruit bats. 

Although not well known today, there is evidence of the importance of the site as a tourist destination in the past. A sign painted onto the rock at the entrance to the caves notes that Prince Alfred visited the caves in December 1861. It is reminiscent of the Victorian era tourism in New Zealand in places such as Rotorua.

The disappearance of the Lucayans, occurring well before Britain took control of the territory, virtually erased the Native American population from the history books. Renderings of the people and suppositions into their lives and beliefs dot an exhibition at the Bahamas Historical Society Museum in downtown Nassau. Yet a full understanding of the people, and sites to commemorate the culture, are elusive.

The IODE Display at the Bahamas Historical Society Museum

On the other hand, it is easy to see vestiges of the Bahamas’ colonial history around New Providence. In neighborhoods such as Fox Hill, an area settled by freed slaves in the early nineteenth century, it is common to find streets with names such as Churchill and Dunkirk. The Historical Society Museum has an excellent display of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE) Bahamas, an organization that existed between 1901 and 2005 and celebrated the colonial links between the Bahamas and Great Britain. As I wandered through the exhibits in the museum I was struck by a large photograph prominently displayed on the far wall. The photograph is of twenty-seven primarily elderly white women at the “Farewell Meeting” of the IODE in 2005. More than thirty years after independence, the Bahamas was losing another link to its colonial history.    

The remnants of slave quarters at Clifton Heritage Site

A far more impressive destination is the Clifton National Heritage Site where an old eighteenth century house and slave villages have been saved from development on the southwest shore of New Providence. The historical site offers a tantalizing glimpse into a shrouded history that many would conveniently ignore. New Providence is where many of the British loyalists fled during the American Revolutionary War bringing slaves and English traditions. A little more than a generation later, many would migrate back to the American south as the British Empire took steps to end the institution of slavery. Some residents of New Providence began establishing homes in places like Florida and Georgia in order to protect their investment in the ownership of human beings and maintain the “peculiar institution” for another two generations.  

Clifton offers a unique insight into this forgotten time period and challenges many of our historical assumptions. Americans are often left with the impression that everyone in the colonies were in favor of the revolution. Many Bahamians known little of their own history prior to independence in 1973. The park, along with its natural and marine history, is a tonic to gaps in our collective knowledge.

Yet for the average tourist coming to New Providence, it is unlikely that he/she will see or know anything about this. The big cruise ships dock near the downtown section of Nassau and tourist will exit the boat right into trinkets and sanitized history. Most people do not venture more than two or three blocks from the cruise ship and if they do, most likely, their destination is a beach. Cruise ship tourism tends to reinforce our most basic understandings of how the world works and does not allow for reflective and thoughtful investigation.