EVERYTHING, FOR EVERYONE

I’d earned the right to hate everything about the Grenadines. Having paid $1,000 for PCR tests for Covid-19 and endured a two-week quarantine to get into the country, we’d just cleared in when a volcanic eruption covered the islands in a thick layer of toxic ash. Things were just starting to normalize when a tree branch fell with the accuracy of a well-aimed lance and pierced my foot, fracturing my bone. As I was starting to regain mobility, a series of minor medical issues sent me to the local clinic, where a life-threatening condition was misdiagnosed.

And yet, neither natural catastrophe nor medial calamity was enough to send me barreling for home. That says something about the country.

The 32 islands that make up St. Vincent and the Grenadines, part of the southern Caribbean’s Windward Islands, are spread across 60 miles. They are geographically close, yet geologically distinct. There are black volcanic shores and white sand