Guava Cheesecake on Demand

Islands are amazing seemingly self contained orbs. Equally amazing is my lack of sensitivity to humble continents being islands themselves. Here on San Salvador, the Bahamas eastern-most island representation in the north Atlantic, population (1,000 +/-) I am critically aware of how islands, especially small, resource strapped ones, make their privileged inhabitants exquisitely planful.

Guava: one of probably max 3 food types grown on San Salvador.

Cheesecake: one of man’s most amazing food type inventions. Neither endemic nor, naturally occurring to San Salvador.

John Rollino, our marine enthusiast (and PI) extraordinaire, places an order 2 weeks ago, for a guava cheesecake from a San Salvadorian woman who makes exceptional ones so that we may celebrate Jan, one volunteer’s birthday, in style. Two weeks are necessary not thanks to a crushing New York magazine-inspired demand, nor due to seasonal limitations (an otherwise likely culprit). Two weeks are needed, so that all of the cheesecake ingredients can be ordered through the appropriate channels, packaged on once-a-week shipments, and arrive in San Salvador for our tasting delight.

On my Friday night stay in Nassau during my trip to San Sal, I had the unique pleasure of finding myself on a barstool, imbibing a fish sandwich and Kalik, a Bahamian beer of choice. My extra-unique pleasure was being seated next to a senior Bahamian customs agent, who gave me the skinny on the most the biggest smuggling problem in the country: food. Bahamas revenue is derived from import tax, and food items, which constitute the vast majority of imports, are often smuggled so as to avoid it.

As I wandered through a supermarket provisioning breakfast prior to the Earthwatch team’s rendezvous, I gazed upon Gala apples from Washington State and realized that the import necessities of living in the Bahamas are a microcosm of the import needs, both literal and conceptual, of my globalized life in Massachusetts, USA. Although unlike in “cheesecake-on-demand-Massachusetts”, a two week delay between order and consumption on San Sal forces me and others here, to think through what we are inviting into this island, the fragility of our lifelines, and the dependence on the outside we are seldom forced to reflect on at home.