Dust In Nevis: Lady in Red

It's become customary here at MUA to let friends/classmates know when you're going back stateside in case there is something they need that they can't get shipped to Nevis. To make a long story short, one of my landlord's good friends has a daughter that graduated from high school here on the island this past Friday. Her dress (and her friend's dress) couldn't make it to the island on time from the states, so they were shipped to my house in Michigan. I arrived on St. Kitts on Monday -- plenty of time to get the dresses to the girls. Of course, I arrived on the island only to find out that my bags were in Chicago.

After a couple rounds of phone tag, fruitless promises by the St. Kitts American Airline crew, and one frustrated jet-lagged American - my roomate Hunter and I were one a 1 way ferry boat to St. Kitts to personally pick up my luggage that arrived the previous afternoon (which was promised to be sent to me on Nevis). Customs was scheduled to be open until 9pm, and since we didn't have a ferry boat back to Nevis, we arranged our friend to pick us up in his boat from Frigate Bay in St. Kitts. We arrived only to find out that the Custom's office closed early, and nobody could be reached to come get me my luggage. Luckily we caught our taxi driver right as his shift was ending -- and he became our personal chauffeur for the night.

Thankfully, we got ahold of friends who go to school in St. Kitts who kindly offered us their couches for the night -- as we had to return to Customs by 6:15am to get the luggage -- and make the 7am ferry to Nevis, for class at 9am. We arranged for our taxi-driver to pick us up at 6am so we would have plenty of time to get things taken care of. As you might have already guessed, our taxi driver never showed up.

As Hunter and I were walking along the main road at 6:05am, a local "bus" (van) happened to pass by, and we flagged him down for a ride. After going 90mph through narrow island roads, the driver got us to the airport by 6:20am, I got my luggage, and we caught a taxi back to the ferry port by 6:55am -- just in time for the 7am ferry.