Sunday

Today I woke up very early. When the sunlight comes streaming into my room, I instantly wake up. Back home my bedroom has very deep dark red walls. It’s very conducive to being in bed. Here on the other hand, everything is white and cream and mint green. My curtains are made of lace, so the light just streams in. And of course, when you step outside the door the sand is a brilliant white. I had a nice quite breakfast reading the second book I brought. The first was Chele’s book Raymond’s Daughters. It was so good, I couldn’t put it down. I read it in about 3 days. I’ll have to write more on that later. Now it’s To be Black, White and Jewish by Rebecca Walker. It’s an autobiography about her life. She is the daughter of Alice “Color Purple” Walker and a white civil rights lawyer whose name I can’t think of right now. Well, as I broke out my laptop to do a bit of work before getting the call to go to Scilly Cay (pronounced Silly key), I got another phone call. It was the front desk saying I had visitors. Remember the woman and her mother that took me around St. Martin yesterday? Well, they stopped by. I had mentioned to the woman how I had recently lost my sunglasses while we were taking the tour. She and her mother came and brought me a pair of sunglasses. Isn’t that sweet? These are the nicest people in the world! They have driven me around all day. Yesterday they tried to give me one of those huge papayas, but I convinced them I couldn’t take it. They gave me a bottle of wine (did I mention that the other day?) and kept trying to feed me. People on this island are just the friendliest people ever. And it seems to rub off on the visitors as well. You couldn’t imagine how many people say hi when you pass them and are always smiling. Some woman stopped to talk to me today while I was lying by the pool. The wind was blowing up the sand on the beach so I sat by the pool. She just smiled, then asked me if I was here by myself and started telling me all about how she and her hubby always come here. I’m telling you, if you want a relaxing vacation, this is the place to be. There are not really any nightclubs or activities. There is no gambling, and no really big tourist attraction. All there is are absolutely beautiful white sand beaches, five star restaurants, and the nicest people you will ever meet.

Back to my day. Essie, the New Jersey woman that has a house here, came to pick me up around noon. Along with some of her friends, we drove to the north side of the island to get to Scilly Cay. We walked out on to this long dock and waited for this boat to come get us. It was just a fishing boat. We could see the island and could have walked there easily if it weren’t for the ocean. Once on the island, we see one building and a bunch of little thatched roof shelters set up as dining areas. There was a band playing, Happy Hits and you could smell the food on the grill from the water. The island has no electricity, so the food was Chicken, Lobster, and Crayfish on the grill, cold pasta salad, and fresh fruit. It was so nice. I met the owners. The man is from here, but his wife is from Atlanta. They were both very nice. The crew from FN was there filming so we hung out with them on breaks and it was interesting to see them working. AF, one of the producers, was explaining what was going on while they were shooting. They did get a shot of our table eating, but I doubt they will use. Of courses AF made me sign a release anyway. She’s so funny. She was telling me how she constantly changes her hair because they always make her sit in different shots when they need background or something. Her husband told me that he saw her once blowing a bubble when they did some show that had something about gum in it. You couldn’t see her face, but she was the only sister working there so you knew it was here. She said she also has to be the hand putting a plate or glass down a lot. I was telling her that I’m going to look for her now. Anyway, we spent the day out there and then came back to the hotel exhausted. Everyone showed and we met up at the hotel bar later. We had some drinks and hung out a bit before deciding just to have dinner there. It was nice. It was only AF, her hubby, Essie, her friend and me. Essie’s friend is a trip. When you think of gold digger, that’s her! When someone else is paying, she can only have the champagne and lobster, but when she knows she has to pay, its water and the local fish. When she found out that the Manager, who was chatting with us at the bar, was actually the owner’s son, she kept telling me how I needed to go over and talk to him, that I should be nicer, and all kinds of other stuff. She was also dropping names constantly like “my brother-in-law’s sister works with Maria Carey.” Well, good for her. No one at the table cared very much who she new or how many names she could spout off. Even Essie was sick of her and can’t wait for her to go. She’s been in her house eating all of her food, hitting on her male family members and hasn’t bothered to pull out her wallet, or even say thanks. Essie won’t be bringing her to Anguilla again. We had a nice dinner and afterwards, the host from the show came over to join us. He is such a nice guy. He was leaving in the morning, so it was nice to hang out with him before he left. The manager also came over to join us. He’s a sweetheart as well. They kept trying to get me to drink more wine, but I couldn’t. After sitting in the sun all day and drinking Rum Punch, then having wine at dinner, I knew I would be no good at the conference the next day. So, off to bed I went. Not a bad day, huh?