Daniel Thwaites | Travelling with COVID-19

It turns out that I had the opportunity to test, at first hand, the experience of entering Jamaica in this new COVID-19 environment. Mostly what I have to report is positive.

Back in late January when the virus wasn’t any longer a minor news item on page 16, but was beginning to scare the world’s governments, I was meandering through Vietnam.

Over there in the Far East, even before this COVID-19 outbreak, it isn’t uncommon to see tons of people walking around with masks on. They certainly put them on when they’re travelling. It seemed strange and exotic. Little did I know.

The Vietnamese were wasting no time in enacting a lockdown, and they have a history of swift and effective government intervention when various viruses waft downriver from China. Never mind it was the Tet holidays, their traditional New Year, and at that time everyone makes their way back to their ancestral village to honour and pay respects to their forefathers and tend to their shrines. That, by the way, is quite something to observe: the massive movement of people, each like a bird returning to its original tree, or a salmon finding his first river.

This veneration of the dead, and specifically of the ancestors, I’ve read, is a basic religious impulse for many people. I’m tempted to say “all”, but truthfully, I search my own heart for it without finding anything and the thought of worshipping my ancestors seems as laughable as the idea that some day a descendant should worship me.

But the Vietnamese, we were told, dread moving too far away from their home-village, because then meeting their annual religious and family obligations becomes a serious chore. It is one of those lovely and slightly peculiar practices that keeps them tied to the land and close to their homes and families.

DIFFERENT FROM THE WEST

This is all so different from the West, I thought, where pretty much every family around is a relatively recent migrant of one sort or another. It certainly put into some perspective the unmendable rupture so many Africans faced when they were captured by their fellows, sold to European traders, and carted over here like cargo. But then, I also thought, for better or worse, we’ve also been freed from tending the shrines and hearths in our ancestral villages.

Anyhow, it was a pretty dicey affair to make my way to the United States from Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City). The routes through China were now closed and in any event, the original plan to come through Beijing held less appeal each hour as news of the deadly virus moved from trickle to unending avalanche. It wasn’t exactly the scene of the last helicopters abandoning the US Embassy during the Fall of Saigon, but in the mad rush to the exits, we managed to catch one of the few remaining flights heading further east to reach west, through Tokyo.

So while the world has been in lockdown these past many months I had been eyeing the chances of returning home, and by imperceptible degrees, let’s say my smirking dismissal of the Vietnamese “evolved”. At some point, one way or another, yuh waan come ah yuh yaad.

Well, the protocols given on the website for travelling to the island generally were clear and easy to understand. Since I was travelling to a resort, I was required to take a COVID-19 test no more than 10 days prior, and then submit it to the Ministry of Health within two days of my intended travel. All that went down pretty well. No complaints.

At the resort though, I learned that there were tourists who, having submitted their negative COVID-19 test, had undergone a fair deal of stress about whether they would get back permission to travel in time. As you can imagine, people fear that they will lose the money they have spent to book their holidays, and they worry that they may have to make an abrupt change to their plans if the governmental permission doesn’t come back within that tight little window.

I’m not sure that there’s a perfect way to solve that problem, and overall the sentiment was that the Government was doing a good job.

It makes no sense whatsoever, though, to require testing from tourists, but none from returning Jamaicans. I was strongly of the view that as a right of citizenship Jamaicans overseas should be allowed to return home. However, it is perfectly reasonable to require that we all abide by a process and undergo testing.

I suppose the horse is long gone through the gate, but requiring people who haven’t tested to ‘self-quarantine’, as if someone who just landed for their granny’s elaborate funeral has any intention whatsoever to quarantine, is just pointless. Perhaps it’s not quite the veneration of the dead as in Vietnam, but we surely have our rituals which include lots of drinking, carousing, worshipping, and rubbing up one against the other.

Now that rapid testing is becoming widely available and accessible there’s no good reason to not require it.

NO MONKEYING AROUND WITH MONKEY ISLAND

Monkey Island, whose rightful name is ‘Pellew Island’, is a delightful little spot in Portland that many Jamaicans and visitors to Jamaica like to visit. If you’re one of the natives you grab a boat from San San Beach and the boatswain will give you some time there before ferrying you over to the Blue Lagoon. If you’re a money-man you rent a villa on the Blue Lagoon or one of the posh nearby hotels and operate from there.

But who owns Monkey Island? The tax rolls tell me that its owners aren’t the people of Jamaica, as I had assumed, but private persons. The annual tax for the island is J$1,000 (US$7.15), which isn’t surprising since the listed value is J$110,000 (US$785). That might surprise you, since we’re talking about a piece of Jamaica I consider a priceless national treasure.

The last time I offered to buy the prime minister’s and leader of the Opposition’s homes for the stated value in government documents it caused no end of grief. So I’m not even tempted to make a public offer to buy Monkey Island for the listed value. The important point is that it turns out we’ve all been trespassers and squatters when we go there.

Anyhow, the public information tab of the National Environment and Planning Agency website, which is meant to give current news, has listed plans to develop a couple of high-end luxury villas on Pellew Island.

Is this something about to take place? Has it been approved? Can we have some more information about it? It seems to me that the Government of Jamaica ought to buy this precious asset for the people of Jamaica. Who knows? A few generations hence there may even be a shrine to Anju and Julett Holiness, the great ancestors, overlooking the beach.

- Daniel Thwaites is an attorney-at-law. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com