After 5 years I returned to Barbuda to check-in. Here is a poetic report on what my camera man Matt Wier and I found.
Barbuda. One of the last islands in the Caribbean chain that hasn’t fallen to mass tourism. Yes, you will have to pop your head into an open door or window of someone’s house to find some lunch, and you may have encountered that lunch in person somewhere else in town the day before, but that is the price you pay for authenticity. And if you really just can’t deal with that there are a few restaurants to be found along the long beaches. As we discovered, hitch hiking there is more reliable (and much cheaper) than the local cabs while also not much different of an experience.
But Barbuda’s issue at hand is not authenticity. Barbuda got wiped-out to a significant degree by a Hurricane about five years ago and has been facing an existential crisis since. To use the words of John Mussington, a local teacher, biologist and activist: “The Hurricane itself was a disaster but what came afterwards, in terms of the governments actions and the actions of these “developers”, that is an even bigger disaster for us.”.
Barbudans have a birthright to the land which is governed jointly with Antigua. The land can’t be sold and needs to be accessible to everyone. This has kept developments of outside investors at bay for years. Shortly after Hurricane Irma another Hurricane was forming and a mandatory evacuation of Barbuda was ordered. All Barbudans left the island, mostly to Antigua, the storm never materialized but now Barbuda was free of spying eyes. Development of questionable projects began while no one was able to look. Aid money wasn’t distributed to Barbudans and instead used for projects on Antigua. The economy was intentionally stalled to make developments of resorts and the resulting possibility of jobs through those developments more interesting, and necessary to Barbudans. When Barbudans were finally let back onto their land they found signs of construction, just not in their damaged village.
While an economic boost resulting from opening the island up to tourism seems like a plausible idea on the surface, there are many layers of highly questionable circumstances at play. Like a landing strip for international jets. Built on ground above a cave system that can’t support, guess what, the weight of international jets! Why was it built then? Well, you can’t pre-sell residences without pictures of a brand new runway, a golf course and cabanas on the beach. The construction of the two main developments in question on Coco Point and Palmetto Point is not executed by Barbudans either. These jobs are actually done by Mexicans flown in by the construction companies. We did talk to a local who was in support of development and who blamed the loss of construction jobs to foreigners to a simply fact plaguing the Barbudan work force: Laziness.
I traveled to Barbuda in 2017 a few months after Hurricane Irma happened. The island was in bad shape back then. The only “village”, as the locals refer to Codrington, a town of about 1200-1500 people currently, was still largely uninhabitable. There was no power or possibility to spend time on the island unless you were a local.
During our recent visit life was back, the schools were open, people were out and about and communication systems were working. But walking the streets of Codrington I was surprised to find every other house still in ruins and/or abandoned. Mackenzie Frank, who is the chairman of the Barbuda Council, and who we interviewed while on Barbuda, put it this way: “We are in the fifth year after Irma and people are still living in tents.”
So what we have here is a case of capitalist exploitation. A little island of 1500 people are being robbed of their birthright of ownership of the land so that a few super wealthy can invest in a luxury vacation home. Is it that simple? Of course not...
First of all few of the people we talked to that had done research on the topic believe that the developments will ever be finished in the way they are being advertised. There are international law suits being fought over environmental impact, especially at Palmetto Point. The topography of that location should also be a red flag to anyone thinking about investing into a home there. Let’s just say Hurricane’s aren’t going away, unprotected buildings in their path do. The term Ponzi-scheme kept coming up, partly in reference to previous developments across Antigua and Barbuda and partly in reference to the current ones. As mentioned earlier an unusable runway may look great in a photo but will eventually cause a headache that may spread. At that point it may be better to just take the money and run.
We ventured out to Palmetto Point one morning. It was a long walk up the beach, the wind was blowing and for a few minutes the sky got dark and we were ready to get drenched in a Caribbean rainstorm. Not far from the actual point we encountered two look- out towers. They were brand new and about 25 feet high. I climbed up and got a good view over the land stretching towards Palmetto Point. It was covered in Golf greens. I spotted some construction and a small cabana at the very Point. I was wondering if this tower was built for tourists to enjoy the view but they were so far off the, at this point limited, access to the beach I concluded they were simple surveying towers.
We kept walking and made it to Palmetto Point. A landmark not just striking for its natural beauty but also known to a tight group within the surfing world for producing a perfect wave. This wave does not break often but when it does it is the thing that all surfers salivate over. As a matter of fact this wave was the reason for us standing there at that moment. I was made aware of the developments on Barbuda through an up-cry in the surfing community. The construction on Palmetto Point was not only going to likely result in the permanent destruction of this perfect wave, it was also cutting off access to it. And on Barbuda, by law, cutting off access is illegal. There wasn’t much of a wave forming this day but it was enough for videographer and my partner in crime, Matt, to hop in and body-surf a few little ones. I took over the video camera and got a few shots of him in the water. The moment he came running out a security man started approaching us from the cabana behind us. An old man, frail. He asked what we were doing. A rather odd question given that we were on a public beach. What he didn’t know was that we knew exactly why he was approaching us. I engaged him in conversation and told him about the beauty of the place, asked him if he was Barbudan. When he confirmed I dug deeper and asked him if he was on the island when Irma happened. I then went into telling him that I had visited right after the hurricane and we conversed for a moment. I could tell he was pleased that I had some local knowledge but he was not deterred to bring it back to telling us that we had to leave. And then four more men in security uniforms started approaching, younger, taller, wider than the first. We got the message and left before they got to us. A fact that when narrated to John Mussington later that day resulted in angry head shaking. “See, those are the issues that we basically need to tidy up. Because of what that is doing is breaking the law, first of all, and when you have a situation where you’re creating these enclaves that are shutting us out of our own resources, the beach, the sea, what we use it for, basically these people are just coming in and just fencing us out and that is something we will not tolerate.” Barbudans have a barely bare-bones economy. Trade of any kind with outsiders is sought by many of the younger Barbudans.
As Lenox, a chef at Uncle Roddy’s (one of the more upscale restaurants referenced earlier) remarked: “Change it goes on. If you want it or not, it goes on. The only problem is that sometime when you wake up change is already gone by and leave you behind.” He used to cook for Lady Di and her sons just down the beach, I figured he knew a thing or two about change.
Then there are people like Keisha, a young woman we met walking on the streets with her two kids, who would like to have less imports and more re-adoption of the old ways of self support through agriculture and fishing. This of course is directly threatened by developments that not only take over large areas of what little land there is to begin with but also pollute the other areas crucial for agriculture or wildlife, like the lagoon. Mussington again: “...you start messing with one (ecosystems), for example Palmetto Point, with those wetlands. The lagoon get its freshwater supply through those sands that percolate in. Once you start contaminating that freshwater supply with golf course fertilizer, pesticides and sewage you’re going to kill the reefs, not only offshore, but in the lagoon itself...When you start that cycle we’re gonna be losing resources, we’re gonna be losing ecosystems, we’re going to be losing the frigate bird, we’re going to be loosing our livelihoods.” Many Barbudans are worried about the lack of forward motion on their island and so they are welcoming the proposed developments. The crux is that these developments don’t have their interest in mind. Some see it, some don’t, some don’t care, few seem to have any power to do anything about it.