In Search of Paradise VI

In all honesty, my opinion of Nassau is skewed by what I had to do while we were there.  We were in the marina for two nights and one full day.  Rather than being able to leisurely explore what the city had to offer, John and I were both engrossed in “projects.”  His was finding out what was wrong with his C-Map computer program.  Mine was finding out whether or not we could activate the dormant line in our cell phone with BaTelCo, the Bahamian phone company. 

For some reason, on our first night in Nassau, the C-Map program quit working.  It’s very important to our cruising because John uses it to plot our course and mark waypoints.  Once he gets that done, he copies it all to a chip to insert in the chart plotter at the helm.  Although we could certainly live without it, it’s a navigational tool that makes cruising a lot more predictable and relaxing. 

Since we no longer had any cell phone service, the only way he could communicate with the C-Map technicians was through the internet.  This proved to be a frustrating exercise because our slip had a very persnickety relationship with the marina’s WiFi.  We were apparently on the outer edge of the service.  As long as Up Jinks was EXACTLY in the right position, John would have a connection.  But, if she moved even an inch to the port or starboard, he would lose it.       

He spent a long time composing his email to C-Map, carefully describing what the problem was, when it occurred and the strategies he had already tried.  But, every time he would log on and begin to upload the message, Up Jinks would yield to a puff of wind or a wave from the wake of a passing boat.  The connection would break, John would cuss, and the sequence would start all over again.

Around 10:00 in the morning, I left him hunched over the computer, totally focused, occasionally running his hands through his hair as if to pull it out.  I met Victoria (from Victory) on the dock.  She was going to BaTelCo as well for the same reason.  We walked up the spiral staircase into the lobby to inquire about where the BaTelCo office was and how we might get there.  Victoria and I stood at the reception desk waiting for the woman behind the counter to notice that we were there.  It took her almost five minutes to look up.  She was eating an egg sandwich - either a late breakfast or mid-morning snack.  Either way, it was all consuming.  She had completely tuned out anything going on around her.  I amused myself watching her eating routine.  Bring the sandwich to the mouth with two hands, shift it to the left hand and take a bight, shake the right hand before picking up the napkin in your lap, wipe the mouth, chew, swallow, run across the teeth with the tongue, smack the lips, start again. 

She knew we were there.  We knew that she knew.  Her deliberate ignoring of our presence would be my introduction into what I call “Bahamian blasé” – a conscious yet subtle attitude that conveys one’s unimportance to a Bahamian.   Once she had wiped the last crumb from her mouth, she turned around and feigned shock at seeing us standing at the counter.  We inquired about getting to BaTelCo.  She instructed us to go outside, walk up the street a half block and catch bus number 10 to the Marathon Mall.  It would cost $1.00 each way.

 We stepped out under the portico.  It appeared that the race from the day before was still on.  Cars whipped furiously both ways, interspersed with jitney buses and other commercial vehicles.  Since there was no sidewalk, Victoria and I walked cautiously up the road, pressing ourselves as much as possible to the buildings that lined the street.  It took a few minutes to get to the bus stop.  Before long, we spotted #10 careening down the road.  How it stopped, I don’t know.  But, it did and we handed the driver our dollar bills to board the bus. 

I must admit that riding on a jitney bus through Nassau for $1.00 was about as cheap a thrill as you can get.  It’s certainly right up there with the Tilt-a-Whirl or Space Mountain.  Watching the race from the front of the hotel was one thing.  Being in the race on a bus was an entirely different animal.  The driver weaved in and around the traffic.  He obviously thought he was in a Mazaratti.  You could almost hear him say to himself, “Let’s see how this baby corners.”  Even worse, “Let’s see how this baby corners and then stops at this bus stop!”       

There was a cross on a chain hanging from the rearview mirror like some religious good luck charm.  With every bob and weave of the bus, it swung wildly in an opposite pendulum motion.  A boom box, secured by bungee chords, blasted a Reggae rap song from the dashboard. “Ghetto Girl……the Lord is all you need.” We were momentary congregants in a subliminal sanctuary on wheels.

The other passengers seemed to be regulars.  When they stepped into the jitney, they called the driver by name.  He automatically knew their destinations.  They all chit chatted familiarly around us.  This particular morning, the conversation revolved around the top news story for the day in the Bahamas – how all the referees failed to show up for the finals of the national high school basketball championship thus sending the teams, their fans and the media into a frantic tailspin.   

The bus system in Nassau appeared to be a little harem-scarem.  Even though the buses were numbered, you wouldn’t find any color-coded routes posted around town like the subways of New York.  For my uneducated eye, it was hard to figure out exactly where the bus stops were.  Periodically, our driver would pull into the parking lot of a convenience store and just sit there.  Then, as if on cue from some invisible dispatcher, he would pull back out into the traffic to move on. 

Even with my white knuckles clutching the seat in front of me, it was an interesting way to see the real Nassau, the one tucked behind the tourist façade.  Concrete houses in various stages of completion lined each street.  Some were painted colorful pastels of pink, green or yellow.  Some weren’t painted at all.  Clothes lines permeated the neighborhoods.  Fences weren’t quite so consistent.  Maybe every third or fourth yard managed a semblance of order.  The rest served as staging areas for discarded appliances, trucks and other projects to be worked on another day.  Elderly men masqueraded as sentinels sitting on front porches, some of them engaged in an intense game of dominoes.

After some twenty-five minutes, the bus began to slow down for the stop at Marathon Mall.  Victoria and I disembarked and made our way to one of the entrances.  The mall itself had an air of familiarity.  Its layout replicated many malls in the states with retail shops lining four spokes leading out from a food court in the center.  There were even some familiar brand names – Tommy Hilfiger and Old Navy.  But, I sensed the mall hadn’t made up its mind whether it wanted to be modern or third world.  Our visit to the BaTelCo office convinced me. 

We had a hard time actually finding the office.  Its door was very nondescript and looked more like a maintenance access than anything else.  There was no glass to see through, just people going in and coming out of the door.  We hesitated just a minute, not sure whether we really wanted to go inside, but since we’d made the trip all the way out there, it would be stupid not to go through with the mission.

I’ve always said that the two most depressing places in the world are the emergency room in a hospital and the DMV.  Make that three.  The BaTelCo office carried the same aura.  First of all, it was packed.  Packed with the types of humanity who frequent the ER and DMV.  They lined the walls, sitting in folding chairs, some dozing, some munching on a snack, some huddled together talking.  Most had an air of resignation like they knew where they were, but didn’t really know why.

A small window offered a starting point with a sign that read “Sign In.”  No “Please,” just “Sign In.”  We walked up to it and signed our names to a sheet fastened to a clipboard.  Behind the window were rows of desks, each littered with piles of paper and folders.  Two people sat at each desk – one customer, one employee.  From the expressions on all faces, we were immersed in Bahamian Blasé.

Victoria and I found a couple of seats.  At one point, I thought I heard my name called, which really surprised me because we had just gotten there.  Wanting to get done as quickly as possible, I didn’t question it.  The receptionist quickly straightened me out, however.  

“No, we didn’t call your name.  Take your seat and we’ll get to you in turn.” 

I slunk back to my seat like I’d committed a felony.  We continued to wait.  The whole situation did have one benefit – I had the opportunity to get to know Victoria better. 

Finally, we heard our names called decisively.  We popped up out of our seats, converging on the receptionist’s window before she might change her mind.  I explained that Victoria and I had the same request and could be seen together.  We thought that might speed things up.

“Go to Desk 24.” 

She unlocked the door and we went through to the office.  Surely enough, each desk had a number.  There were six rows, four desks deep.  As luck would have it, our desk was in the very back, far corner of the office.  We waded through the sea of paper and people to find it.  The lady assigned to Desk 24 was relatively attractive and professionally dressed.  Victoria and I sat down in the chairs at the desk. 

“How can I help you?” she asked.

“We’d like to inquire about the possibility of buying phone service through BaTelCo but installing it on the second line of our Verizon phones,” I said as if my request were as simple as asking for a Kleenex from the box on her desk.  My cell phone was in my hand. 

“Let me see the phone.”  I handed it to her.  Without so much as flipping it open, she said, “We can’t do that. It’s not the right kind of phone.”

“Oh, okay.  Well, may I ask how much it would cost to get phone service while we’re in the Bahamas?”

“$150 for the phone, plus the monthly fee for whatever program you choose.”

I looked at Victoria.  She shrugged her shoulders.  Neither one of us was going to commit to that kind of expense without first checking with our husbands. 

The whole conversation had taken maybe two minutes.  Apparently, that was our quota because the lady started acting like we were two pesky gnats keeping her from whatever else it was she wanted to do.  I was determined not to go away empty handed. 

“Well, I can’t make that decision right now, but can we maybe get the phones at another BaTelCo office later on?” I inquired.

“Yes.”

Then, I made the fatal mistake of asking one question too many.

“Do you happen to have anything that tells us where the offices are?”

“Of course.  Let me get you one of our brochures.”

The search for a brochure started on the top of her desk.  She began picking files up from one place and setting them down in another.  She rifled through everything in her In/Out boxes.  She opened the top drawer of the desk, slid her chair back and craned her neck downward to see what was in the very back.  To her right was a drawer holding hanging folders.  She marched her fingers along each hanger.  All of this was to no avail.

“Excuse me just a second.” 

“Uh….. it’s okay…….”  But, before I could finish, she hopped up, left us and disappeared behind a door in the back of the office.

There was no way to know what all she did while she was back there.  Whatever it was took her more than twenty minutes.  It had really boiled down to the principle of the thing.  Maybe she had forgotten about us or maybe she was looking through a peephole to see if we’d get up and leave.  Victoria and I held our ground.  We tried our best not to laugh out loud.

Finally, she popped back out through the door rather triumphantly, waving something in her hand.  Clutched in her hand was what must have been the sole promotional brochure for BaTelCo in the entire place. 

“Here you go.  This will tell you where our offices are.”

I gave a cursory glance to the brochure to see that there were offices on several of the Exuma Cays we planned to visit.  We’d just deal with purchasing a phone later, if that’s what John and Oliver wanted us to do.  Of course, I had never been to an Exuma Cay, but I assumed if they were cosmopolitan enough to have a BaTelCo office listed in the brochure, we wouldn’t have any problem buying phones later.  Little did I know how ignorant I was of the Exumas.

We thanked the lady for her help and made our way back through the tangle of desks into the lobby.  I pushed the bar on the door to get us out into the mall.  Once through the door, we both burst out laughing.

“Don’t you dare lose that brochure!” Victoria guffawed. 

“Oh, don’t you worry.  But, I am thinking of selling it on Ebay.  Maybe that would pay for this trip.” 

We retraced our way through the mall back out to the bus stop.  Before long, another #10 jitney bus pulled up.  We hopped onboard, paid our dollar and grabbed a couple of seats towards the front.  The atmosphere on this bus proved livelier than the trip out.  School had let out.  Students in brightly colored uniforms boarded the bus for a ride home.  They lined both sides of the road walking, as well.  Each school sported a different uniform.  The girls were bedecked in red or blue plaids, the boys wore white shirts with ether khaki or navy pants.  I enjoyed watching their happy chatter as we rode by.  I also thought how nice they looked.

Before long, we were back where we started.  Victoria and I hopped off the bus and made our way to the hotel over the marina.  We descended the staircase out to the docks.  For all practical purposes, it had been a wasted trip.  I didn’t arrange for phone service on my extra phone line, nor did I secure a BaTelCo phone.  All I had to show for the three hours and $2.00 I’d spent was the brochure. 

I felt pretty bad about it until I stepped onto the boat.  John had obviously not even moved the whole time I was gone.  He was still hunched over the computer, intensely focused, running his fingers through his hair.  Poor thing, he’d made no progress on his project with the C-Maps.  Not even one lousy brochure.