The old rickety green and rust van blew through Nassau’s back streets, church parking lots, the “Sesame Street Daycare Center”. A police siren wailed in front of us and a pickup truck full of convicts wearing brown shirts that read “PRISONER” on the back held on for dear life as it raced through the traffic that we were stuck in.
“HEY MON!” yellowed our Bahamian cabbie yelled at them, “Take us too!”
Turning to look at Sarah and me sitting in the back seat, he said, “Don’t worry Mon, I smoke week with them guys.”
“Jah,” I replied.
A bright white grin launched across his dark black face.
“Rasitifari,” he said holding up a clinched fist.
“Rastifari,” I replied repeating the gesture.
Rastifarism is a religion that grew out of Jamica’s belief that the Kind of Zion was alive and well in Africa. There was no reason to wait on the Messiah, he was already here, alive and well. Soon he would come collect his twelve tribes and bring them home. He the meantime he blessed his waiting disciples with the gift of … marijuana. Smoke it until I come get you pretty much sums up his promise of deliverance from slavery, oppression and the evils of the world.
Only a handful of followers knew of this until Bob Marley became famous. The major evangelist of reggae music took the message worldwide.
Sarah was wearing her bathing suit, a black cover dress, large sunglasses and a smirk on her face. I think she was rolling her eyes. I hate on my old ripped University of Georgia baseball cap, a Shady in St. Martin tee shirt and running shorts. My bare feet were propped on the back of the cabbie’s seat.
“You American Rasitfari eat chicken,” he said with the smile fading from his face. “Real Rastifari don’t eat no chicken Mon. We laugh at such foolishness.”
I shrug my shoulders.
Inching along in the major traffic cluster of this day, with five cruise ships all in port on a Friday afternoon, he is frustrated. Trying to cram as many people into his van as possible to take to Paradise Island he’s been rushing back and forth making lots of money. Our drive over took five minutes. We were already at twenty on the return ride.
It was easy to find him leaving Paradise Island. We’d stayed for about ten minutes. I’ve been to the Mall before.
He rolls the rusty green van to a beautiful black woman decked in red and asks where she’s going. She tells him the airport for a 2:00 flight somewhere. It’s 1:35.
“Promise to take off your clothes for me sometime and I will take you. Get in.”
She does eying Sarah and me with suspicion.
“Don’t worry about dem. They be real tourists.”
Looking at me again, “You want some weed Mon?”
Laughing and shaking my head from side to side, I tell him no.
“I got to make money Mon,” he says.
I figure he’s more Republican than Rastifari.
Pulling up to another taxi, he barters passing off the woman in red so that he can hurry and make the return ride to Paradise Island.
We just laugh as he does a U-turn in front of a bunch of tourists waiting to be carried away to Paradise with air-conditioning.
“How much,” I ask. It had cost us $8 for the trip over.
“You look like a rich man,” he says in response, “Fifteen!”
Sarah burst out laughing.
We strode the streets of Nassau to Juckaroo Beach and had beer, coke and conch fritters. We swam in the aqua turquoise water of the Bahamas. Local children were diving off of a jetty into the sea and we watched smiling. Some kids from the cruise ships joined them which made it nicer.
As the sun began to set, we made our way back to the ship to hook up with our friends.
It had been a perfect day in paradise on an island in paradise.
Which is not to be confused with Paradise Island.
