Not your momma's Bahamas

I've finally made it to paradise! It's been a whirlwind these last couple of days trying to get oriented to my new surroundings. I'm still getting used to the heat and the fact that most of the places around here don't have air conditioning, our house included (though we have a small unit that we use at night). Needless to say I'm sweating a lot and between the sunscreen and the bugspray (which I wonder is even working as I still find myself covered in bug bites) I've just resigned myself to being one big disgusting grease ball these next 6 weeks.

our home for the next 6 weeks. 

I'm definitely experiencing a bit of culture shock here. First off, I'm an obvious minority (the few white residents definitely look a little backwoodsy, complete with leathery skin), and although English is the language spoken here, I sometimes wonder if people are speaking in a foreign language because I have such a hard time understanding. Think a mixture of Jamaican and native Hawaiian and you'll get a sense of what I'm talking about.

view from our porch

Second, the poverty here is striking. As I've said, this is not your momma's Bahamas. I should've realized this, as the institute giving out the research grants is giving them for projects being down in low resource countries but somehow it didn't even register. I'm living in Tarpum Bay, a settlement in the southern part of the island of Eleuthera; this is a poor area, with a 75% unemployment rate. Stray dogs roam the streets (called pot cakes), joined by the occasional goat or chicken owned by one of the residents. There's trash, the houses are run down, and abandoned buildings are common. But despite all this, the people are friendly. Everyone waves and the kids, though shy, are excited to talk to us (and recommend Miss Mary's as the best place to get ice cream).

our local pot cake (stray) dubbed Blackie taking a swim

someone's pet goats

The beach is obviously beautiful, and conch salads and grouper burgers are common. We've experienced sticker shock in the grocery store though because everything is so damn expensive. I don't know how people manage when the median income is $15,000 a year. We definitely have our work investigating the barriers to getting mammograms cut out for us. The Bahamas, and Eleuthera especially, has the highest rate of breast cancer in the world (around 20% of women get it); 1,300 women need to be getting mammograms, but only around 45 a year end up utilizing the Cancer Society's assistance program (patients have to be flown to Nassau to actually get screened as there's no machine on the island, a whole separate issue). So there you have it, a nice contrast of poverty and paradise.