Monday, November 07, 2005
"The strange thing is, if you ever have a chance to go back to the country of your parents or your ancestors, you'll find out, not how Chinese or Korean, or Indian you are, you'll find out how American you are." - Amy Tan, American author of Chinese descent.
When I started writing this weblog my aim was to record the things I found curious and interesting about St. Helena. By doing so, I built into the task its own automatic termination. The longer you stay anywhere, the less strange it becomes.
In the last nine months I have adapted to life here and no longer find unusual the fact that there are only three TV channels, all of them useless; that there are times when both radio stations are playing Country & Western so you just drive along listening to neither; the latest onions shortage was, I think, the 3rd since I got here, and we coped, just like the other times; you still can’t get keys cut in any sane way, so you just don’t bother locking things; and the car in front may be travelling at 10 mph in the middle of the road, but everyone else is always late for the meeting anyway, so why worry?
So this is a sort of valedictory posting. You can always find out about the bank of St. Helena from the website (www.sainthelenabank.com) and there is plenty of news about St. Helena generally on the Saint FM website – www.saint.fm – so you won’t miss out.
If you are ever on St. Helena, do drop into the bank and say hello. Nobody else ever bothers to make an appointment, so you don’t need to either.
Adios.
When I started writing this weblog my aim was to record the things I found curious and interesting about St. Helena. By doing so, I built into the task its own automatic termination. The longer you stay anywhere, the less strange it becomes.
In the last nine months I have adapted to life here and no longer find unusual the fact that there are only three TV channels, all of them useless; that there are times when both radio stations are playing Country & Western so you just drive along listening to neither; the latest onions shortage was, I think, the 3rd since I got here, and we coped, just like the other times; you still can’t get keys cut in any sane way, so you just don’t bother locking things; and the car in front may be travelling at 10 mph in the middle of the road, but everyone else is always late for the meeting anyway, so why worry?
So this is a sort of valedictory posting. You can always find out about the bank of St. Helena from the website (www.sainthelenabank.com) and there is plenty of news about St. Helena generally on the Saint FM website – www.saint.fm – so you won’t miss out.
If you are ever on St. Helena, do drop into the bank and say hello. Nobody else ever bothers to make an appointment, so you don’t need to either.
Adios.
