JUN-B-10
A MIAMI
LAYOVER ENROUTE FOR RETURN BETWEEN
ONE WORLD OF UNDERNOURISHED KIDS THROUGH
ANOTHER WORLD
OF BULIMIA AND OBESITY AND OTHER CONSUMERISM
June 15, 2003
I am now on board an AirTran flight to BWI after a lazy Father’s Day in Miami, with a two stage re-entry process between one world without enough, and another with far too much---with a lot of people in between from the first environment trying hard to stay up with the second. Every cab we entered was driven by a Haitian, and Bryan would surprise them by telling them about the remote area from which we had just returned—in the Creole that they had not expected to hear from us. There are a half million Haitians in the “Little Haiti” environment of Miami, with over five hundred nurses and doctors on the Miami staff. Everywhere around us are the opulent examples of the over-rich. We were invited to the home of the Morenos, the Cuban-born cardiac surgeon who was with us on this trip along with his son Bert, a freshman Miami medical student. They had just moved into their new home, built in two and a half years on an acre of Coral Gables with 8,000 square feet in Key West style. And here I thought my remodeling project was over-much, but eight isolated zoned A/C systems cover this sprawling household and all its guest houses and pool rooms, etc. The luggage left behind at Green’s house was dropped off by Jeremy who drove over to the Marriott Bay front Hotel where he made a reservation for us, with apologies, since his daughter had invited guests for the weekend of which he was unaware, so we would be staying in two rooms of the Marriott. Jeremy drove over one of the three Lexus from the Green gated home complex, as opposed to the Mercedes we had originally been picked up in our earlier arrival. It was hardly the same as the bouncing around in the unbelievably rough rutted roads of the Haitian Central Plateau in rented diesel SUV’s.
We had very good Paella imported from northern Spain along with deserts as the first guests in the now just completed palatial complex. We talked about the trip and then returned to spend the night in the Marriott, not only with hot water in the shower but also with water that could be drunk from the tap or teeth brushed. Latin American vamps were parading in the lobby in evening dresses or pantsuits that looked like they had been thrown on and nearly completely missed. There was more skin---an d a lot more flesh behind it—than we had seen in all of the poor Haitians who might be assumed to have a more legitimate complaint of nothing to wear.
We walked out in the morning around the marina at the foot of this corridor of condos and up to the Biscayne Bay Bridge. We saw the huge cruise ships at Terminal Island taking on their new supply of water and passengers for this week’s cruise on board the Carnival line’s Paradise and still bigger steel and glass cities that, incredibly, still float. We walked along looking for a place to have breakfast, and before succumbing to a nearby Burger King, caught a cab and rode over the bridges to the South Beach, where we could be among the beautiful people who were roller blading and dog walking, or just strutting their stuff in their bathing suit beach covers of fishnet and see-through muslin, as we had our French toast and they could read the Miami Herald with their latte espresso.
We walked the beach at the point where we saw elaborate sand castles, and large families or isolated individuals lying out in the sun of an overcast sky with a rainstorm brewing. We saw lots of skin, and a lot behind most of it which might have made more reasonable people take up another line of show and tell. Most of the languages I heard were not English. A few European types were topless, and most of them would definitively have looked better in clothes.
When it looked like rain, we ducked into a Mango Bar, where the waitresses appeared dressed or nearly so in outrageous costumes of string bikinis, fishnet and leather chaps. I did not think that this was much of a performance art, until at some point a few of the waitstaff got bored and came out to dance a bit, and a cockatoo and macaw were added as props. Ah, the wonders of decadent consumerism!
I am now headed back through BWI to Derwood, and we will soon make the backcountry trip in the dark to whatever Derwood events will b e forthcoming this week. I have a lot of work to do to unpack, launder up, and prepare to meet with Dale Kramer for the final approval of the Derwood plans. I then have a lecture to give over at REI in the evening, and then will welcome the Griffioens—if not the first house guests I have had since clearing the decks , certainly y the last before the destruction phase of the remodeling project. Virginia comes for one brief visit of around twelve hours, since she will be in the middle of Phantom in transit between the performances in Greenville SC and Dayton OH and just in time to pick out appliances with Megan the kitchen designer. I then must start packing up all of Derwood, since I must have all the stuff I need for such trips as the next three to India and the next one to Alaska and the following year’s trips to Mindanao and to Malawi—all before the stuff I need will be locked away for well over a year if these ministrations to the household go anywhere nearly as planned.
. So, this Air Tran flight ends the first trip and puts a series of these together for return trips to Haiti and soon! You will see and read more, and soon!