Urban Thought Collective

I’m not going to bore you with the particulars of what I knew (or what you know) about Turks and Caicos before I arrived. The truth is, most people haven’t heard of it, save for a cursory mention by Jay-Z or Diddy. The further truth is that had its Premier managed to stay out of the news for his indiscretions and for marrying a first lady of “Player’s Club” fame (Lisa Raye), the words Turks and Caicos would never roll off the tongue of average folks like you or I. But let’s not waste any further time talking about this stuff and let me attempt to put you up on the real Turks and Caicos. As you may have gathered from reading me thus far, I’m all about the food and culture. Providenciales, or Provo as the locals call the capital, proved to be quite the formidable opponent on the culture side but was indeed a cut above on the culinary side.

I started each day at the Seaside Cafe, which was my hotel’s (Ocean Club West) seaside/poolside restaurant. The very friendly staff was always ready to whip up some eggs, French toast, or pancakes on the double. Since daylight was scarce given my work schedule, I was usually coming from my morning jog on the beach when I placed my order here.

I made like Rocky and Apollo, running down the beach barefooted. It was a spirited little jaunt through the pristine white sand. Running on the beach is always interesting because you feel like you’re running with one leg shorter than the other. The good thing is that if you’re running up-and-back, it all balances out. I made sure to apply some sun screen (yeah, i know…crazy, huh? I never got a sunburn until I was about 30, and so I use the stuff now) and get properly hydrated before I got caught out there in this bright sunshine and humidity.

Although, as humidity is so apt to do sometimes, it started to rain shortly after I took off down toward Club Med. It was a warm and comforting rain. It wasn’t that Keith Sweat, go outside and cry in the rain kinda rain, it was more like that “Soul For Real”, candy-coated, Carl Thomas video type raindrops that just made you wanna smile and be out there. When it stopped, the air was still fresh and clean.

I ran for about 45 minutes and then enjoyed a proper cool down, out in the elements style. You can’t really beat this kind of cool down, although the water is incredibly warm. It’s almost bath tub warm! Your muscles cease to ache. Your mind ceases to ache, and you feel no pain. The ocean elixir that is the Caribbean Sea at Grace Bay soothes in a way that no man-made salve could ever hope to do. I actually ended up taking a nice little swim, drifting, dreaming, in the azure blue while gazing up at the sky, floating on my back. Life is good.

I found it very difficult to put finger on what exactly Turk Islander culture is. I heard no signature music or ate any really unique signature dish. I was unable to detect a particular accent that is consistent amongst the locals. But who are the locals? There are only about 30,000 people in this country and many of them are expatriates. Usually, I can step outside the hotel and be right up in whatever the locals are into. Not so in this place. Everything is very tidy here where I stayed. It’s all very well manicured. The grounds of my hotel are absolutely immaculate. There aren’t a lot of people around anywhere. I don’t think I waited in line anywhere. Well, I didn’t, but I did see some folks waiting in a long line as I peered in through the glass door of the bank while using the ATM.

I didn’t have much contact with any natives. Sure, I chit-chatted with some of the locals that work at the restaurants and hotels in my surrounding area, but nothing of any depth. No one has seemed too eager to talk about their island. This seems almost absurd to me. In point of fact, nowhere but the United States of America do I ever hear less fervor when a citizen is talking about their birthplace. Sure, you might get a guy from French Lick, Indiana that may have some interesting facts to share about the town from which Larry Bird hailed, but very rarely will you talk to somebody that wells up with pride and plays up all of the finer points of the United States as a whole (New Yorkers notwithstanding). I had my most interesting conversations with the expats that I was working with and they offered their often very educated analysis on why things are the way that they are here, and shared their experiences about not being made to feel that they belong here.

Almost overwhelmingly, the people that I have come across on this island are from somewhere else, and I’m not just talking about the white expats from Canada and the UK (this is a British Territory). I thought it would be a fair assumption that the majority of the black people on the island would be from Turks and Caicos. I’m not sure of any actual numbers, but I can tell you that I asked waiters and waitresses if they had lived here their whole life (I couldn’t fix my mouth to ask them what I considered to be a silly question: where are you from?) and most of the time they said something other than Turks and Caicos. In point of fact, they were most often Jamaican. Second on the list were Filipinos. Yes, from the Philippines, you know, since that’s so close to here. What’s up with that?

One story I got was that the actual natives don’t have a track record for being the greatest employees on the planet. So much so, that the Margaritaville chain allegedly flies in the majority of its employees from Jamaica for the 3 days a week that the cruise ships dock in the islands, and then flies them home to Jamaica. Why would they do that? Word has it that it runs even deeper than work ethic. The big companies that put most of the money into the island (hotels, resorts, and big chains like Margaritaville) want to sell an image. Sadly, since most people’s image of the Caribbean is for people to wear dreadlocks and speak like Jamaicans, that’s what these companies want them to get. Since, as I mentioned above, the locals’ accent is not a universal thing (apparently there were 4 different dialects going back hundreds of years) they can’t package that up in a manner that they deem suitable for tourist consumption.

It seems crazy, until you really take a look at the resort side of town. It is ridiculously expensive. There are neither chain restaurants nor fast food options to choose from. Everything is pretty much a five star establishment. Stay tuned for part two of this to hear about the more than memorable dining.

Destah Owens is a single father of two from Northern California and proud UCLA Bruin who travels the world for his job as a computer engineer. His blog, “Soufflés in Saigon,” is exclusive to Urban Thought Collective.