Safe and Sound

It's been a busy several months! Let me see if I can sum-up...

Our second COVID test came back negative, so we moved back to Picasso in late August. Classes at The UWI Cave Hill began in September, so I was right on time. My classes were/have been 100% online, and that was challenging, since I really like to drag students into the field. Hopefully next term I'll be able to do that. Still, teaching online wasn't that bad for me, as I have prior experience doing so: I pioneered the Geography department's online program at University of Colorado Denver when I was there, and helped create an online master's degree program while I was at ASU. I also worked for Western Governor's University, which is a fully online university. So I am familiar with online pedagogy.

Things went well the first semester, even amidst COVID-era restrictions: we explored, we played in the ocean a lot, we set-up our house, we went to the movies (when that was not happening anywhere else in the world!) In November, my parents-in-law came to stay with us for an indefinite time. They left just a week or so ago, spending nearly six months on-island. It was super fun to explore with them. Delightful peeps, my parents-in-law! We spent all Christmas Day on a mostly-deserted beach. Simply wonderful!

In late December, a lava dome began forming in La Soufriere, a composite volcano on the island of St. Vincent. But that's not uncommon with composite volcanoes (Mt. St. Helen's has had continual lava/rhyolite dome growth since the early 1980s). "It will make great lectures for next term", I told myself.

But, the lava dome was the least of our worries in the first part of January, because there was a COVID outbreak around Christmastime. Apparently, a bus crawl of locals and tourists spread COVID (inadvertently) around the island, and that resulted in a lockdown for several weeks. Tourists and other visitors were breaking quarantine, leaving their rooms, going around town. When we spent a couple nights at a hotel here for my in-law's anniversary, we were appalled to see the "quarantiners" had access to a pool and could wander around the resort. That was NOT the case when we came in August: we spent 10 days in our hotel room, and never left it. The country was doing VERY well, recording only a few hundred positive people and a handful of deaths between March and December 2020. Since January, we're in the thousands of positive cases and several times more deaths. All from people being careless. Or just not caring, and flaunting the protocols like they don't mean anything. Upsetting.

So Barbados began limiting arrival flights. Which meant fewer tourists, which means less economy, which means tough living for most people. But Caribbean folks are anything if not resilient and, aside from a handful here and there like every country has, people here have been supportive and follow good COVID protocols. COVID restrictions were being gradually loosened, but then...

...La Soufriere erupted in early April, shooting ash over 8km into the air! It got caught in the upper level winds, and rained down on Barbados for a week or so. Now that was quite the surreal experience. I woke up Saturday morning after the eruption to find a fine dust inside our house (we leave our windows open at night). But it wasn't dust. It was ash! If you know anything about volcanic ash, you know that it's not really "ash" per se, but very small, microscopic rock fragments called "clasts". And they're very sharp. It can get into your throat and lungs and make small lacerations! While the smaller cuts can heal, larger ones can't. Scary! Just when we were getting a handle on COVID spread too.

Anyhow, the ashfall lasted about a week here, intermittently, and then petered-out. Remnants of ashfall are still everywhere, however, and if there's a gust of wind, it gets carried into houses and driveways. The marine critters are having to deal with it too (although, June 2021 update: Kaelin has since been diving and noticed that the sponges were actually filtering the ash from the water -- very neat). Quite the way to start the year 2021! Great timing for my lectures though, as I was just covering volcanoes and volcanic hazards when it erupted.

So that has been our time so far here since August.

One of the things we're looking forward to living in Barbados, is the chance to island hop. Visit other Caribbean islands, especially the Lesser Antilles. But that's just not possible right now. Hopefully things (like COVID and travel ability) get better soon.

All that to say, we're not planning on going anywhere at least until Christmastime, depending on the world situation. And Barbados is certainly not a bad place to be during the pandemic crisis. We have employment, a (nice) roof over our heads, food on the table...and if we have to deal with an occasional volcanic eruption or other hazard, it's a tropical island for crying out loud! :-)

Also, we gave ourselves a brand new car for Christmas 2020.