Sapelo Island: Part 4

We were on Sapelo when Michael Jackson died. In fact, we were in the cemetery when we heard the news. Cryptic, maybe. Sad, definitely.

My mom was big on Michael Jackson when I was a kid. She always listened to MJ in the car and I happened to be at the age when music starts to affect you. The Jackson 5 kind of shaped me, as did The Beatles, their White Album and a dark-haired boy named Rocky Raccoon. I listened from the backseat of my parent's Honda and didn't let a seatbelt stop my groove. Chubby kids get down.

On Sapelo, we belted out lyrics to "ABC" while riding in the old school bus from the cemetery to the beach. The volume was up and the moment brought me back to my childhood. We were kids again, singing "Easy as 1-2-3!" while the real children on the bus looked at us dubiously. They didn't know the Michael Jackson that we did, and they didn't know that adults could sing and dance like we do, which is awfully scary at best, but nonetheless feels damn good when you get into it.

I didn't mean to eulogize MJ in this entry, it just sort of happened that way. I looked back at my photos from the cemetery and, well, it happened. That morning, we took up rakes, sickles and pitchforks and did our best to clear some brush from the hallowed grounds. High school students in Georgia are required to complete so many hours of community service in order to graduate, and their time and efforts in the cemetery would gain them a few of those hours. Plus, the manual labor would be a kind gesture to pay to our gracious hosts, the Saltwater Geechee of Hog Hammock.

Learning from my unfortunate voice recording incident the night before, I asked Mr. Reginald for permission before taking pictures in the cemetery. He asked that I not focus my camera on the names on the headstones out of respect for the families whose loved ones had passed.

As I walked up and down the winding path past hand-made headstones and under the shade of Spanish moss, I felt the haunt of the deceased and the hurt of the families who, at one time, returned their loved ones to the earth.

Hand-chiseled names on the headstones dated all the way back to the 1700's.

All headstones face east. The deceased were buried in this direction so their spirits could wake to the rising sun.

We cleared a fair amount of brush and fallen limbs from the fence line that day.

Uyinda and Raven.

The Gorem brothers, Glendarius and Marquez.

Chase.

I had to take this picture. Look closely and you can see that Mr. Sam Grovner was born on Independence Day, July 4th, 1852. That's 76 years after the Continental Congress declared the 13 colonies free from the tyrannical rule of Great Britain. Mr. Grovner, however, was not a free citizen of this newly formed country; he was most certainly born into slavery.

And this is the shot that made me think of MJ. It's the only one from the bus ride to the beach that isn't too blurry. Pictured is Hakeem, singing or laughing or both.

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Sapelo Island: Part 3

Let's pick up where we left off--camping on Sapelo Island with 17 literate (LITERATE!) high schoolers from Atlanta. Have I mentioned that most of these children had never traveled out of their city or state or zip code? Ever, in entire their lives? Do you know what it means, then, when you take kids to a scarcely populated island off the Southeastern coast of Georgia and plop them onto a beach? I will do my best to explain.

Large patches of blue on a globe are just large patches of blue until you walk into an ocean with bare feet and trust that it will let you walk back out. Large bodies of water can be scary in that way, especially the cloudy, sandy part of the Atlantic that we were swimming in. Our kids did not have a whole lot of experience with the ocean, like none at all, but I have to admit that once they got used to saltwater, they cared less about us adults and more about underwater headstands. Who can blame them? I cannot wax poetic and even begin to do Sapelo's beaches justice with mere words. Imagine expanses of flat sand with almost seven miles of unobstructed beachfront. No volleyballs, no lifeguards, and no popsicle stands. The isolation is intoxicating.

Over the course of the weekend, we would spend time in the marshes and on the beaches, once simply for a leisurely swim and the other to catch our dinner. At dayclean, we set out fishing but not in boats and not with poles, hooks and worms. Instead, we dragged a 50-foot net into the ocean as far out as we could, standing on our tiptoes to keep our heads barely above water, then turned 90 degrees and walked parallel to the beach for 20 yards, and then, just when our thighs and calves were burning like mad from a steady fight against current and we'd swallowed enough saltwater to make us hallucinate, we made another 90 degree turn towards land and dragged that heavy, soaking net back to shore step by slippery step, trying to find traction in unforgiving sand and mud and stepping barefoot on slimy flounder and pinching crabs and god knows what else, all the time praying that our bounty would be plentiful, enough to feed every man, woman and child on Sapelo.

"Dayclean... My tale begins just before the rising of the sun, in that brief instant of time when the night clouds are being cleared away and the rays of light are streaking across the sky. Dayclean, we call this, when the day is new and the world is made fresh again." — Cornelia Walker Bailey

Justin, Hakeem, Tony, Marquez and Jake (Mr. Hackett) keep their heads above water. What you don't see is the loop of rope around Justin's waist. The other guys have wrapped their hands around the rope and are pulling like crazy.

Jake tries to keep the pole straight up and down so that the net scrapes along the bottom of the ocean and doesn't let the fish escape.

This might just be the hardest part. Legs are burning, you can't find a foothold, and you're pulling a 50 ft. net and whatever living things you've caught up onto shore while the undertow taking it back out to sea.

Jake looks over at the kids on the other end of the fishing net. After the towers have made a giant "U" with the net, the folks on the other end must keep their pole steady and then drag it to shore.

Mr. Pete lives on Sapelo Island. He's a Saltwater Geechee, an artist and a fisherman. He led us into the water in the early hours of Saturday morning and then ate fish and grits with us that night.

The kids shake horseshoe crabs, blue crabs and mullet free from the net.

Dinner.

Will, Jamie, Glendarius, and Chase sprint from the water to where I'm standing.

Glendarius takes a spill. Mr. Hackett (hands raised in the water) appears to be celebrating.

This was our private beach--miles of coastline and no people with inflated things.

Behind our campsite was a marsh. We explored it almost every day and night, mostly at low tide.

Mud.

Nadia and Raven freaked but eventually liked the marsh.

Justin was afraid to get dirty. Then he took his shoes off.

When Justin stepped barefoot in the mud and his toes sunk in, he was so happy standing there, screaming to the sky. One of my favorite moments.

The marsh went on and on.

Crab.

I think Jamie brought one home.

Glendarius tiptoes.

In the south end of the marsh was a river, which swelled in high tide and led out to the ocean.

Mecca (Ms. Handy) casts a net into the river. We fished all afternoon and didn't catch a thing. Later that same day, Mr. Hackett went out with Jamie and netted a dozen fish. So they say.

Chase takes a breather. The heat was merciless. We stood in near boiling water up to our shins.

Jamie casts his net.

Addendum:

Popsicles are delicious and should most definitely be sold on Sapelo beaches.

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Sapelo Island: Part 2

My very first night on Sapelo came very close to being my last.

This story begins once we reached land via the Sapelo Island ferry, with each adult and child pitching in to unload our luggage and camping gear onto an old school bus. Now, it would be an understatement for me to say that this trip is complicated. There are so many variables which factor into the equation that results in landing 16 teenagers and a handful of adults onto an island that is accessible only by boat. These kids are adverse to carrying their own backpacks, would rather sit than stand, would rather walk than run. I'm not saying they're lazy, it's just that they are teenagers and teenagers tend to be knuckleheads. In a lot of ways, I remain a knucklehead, but this is not about me, it is about them. So, when you're trying to let the group govern itself and see if they will pick up on the fact that their luggage isn't going to walk from point A to point B on its own, the event can be a time consuming affair.

The bus ride was a short one to Hog Hammock, the last intact Geechee/Gullah community in the Sea Islands of Georgia. There are no traffic lights and very few paved roads on the island, and you could tell that the kids were in awe of these subtleties and maybe even a little bit nervous, like what the hell did I get myself into. We twisted and turned through town passed the Sapelo Island Cultural and Revitalization Society (SICARS), the Public Library, and Mr. and Mrs. Bailey's grocery, The Trough, which touts itself as "Sapelo's Only Bar." Mrs. Bailey and moonshine are entirely different stories, ones that I will certainly get to in the days to come. But that's about all there is in town, these three establishments and a few homes and farms, and this fact is beautiful to me but maybe a little alarming to kids who know nothing more than row homes on Boulevard and fast food joints. We finally pulled up to our campsite and, like every other unloading event we had experienced that day, this one involved walking and carrying bags and coolers down a winding dirt road. Have I mentioned the heat, humidity and bugs? The heat was suffocating, perhaps another understatement, the bugs were hungry and so were we, since we were unable to stop for lunch thanks to our good friend from my first story about Sapelo.

Our campsite was charming and quaint, to say the least. Pine needles covered the grounds, an old oak tree with twisting limbs stood in the far corner with Spanish moss draped from its branches, and a marsh alive with crabs lay just over the hill. There were two fire pits, two picnic tables and plenty of room for tents. We asked that the kids arrange themselves in groups of five or six and then handed each group a tent. There went that look of concern, again, like we were cruel and unusual for asking them to pitch their own tents. "How are we supposed to know how to do that?," they asked. "Read the directions," we replied. I'd say that it took the better part of the afternoon to set up the 8-person tents, with tent poles poking out from every which direction and nylon walls rising, crashing back to the ground, and then finally back up again and standing tall. The next order of business: dinner.

I have to hand it to the kids, because at this point in our day we had not eaten but yet we had traveled, walked, sweated and set up tents. Tempers were flaring, some were officially over this whole situation. And now, we asked them to decide amongst themselves who would cook dinner for the group and who would wash the plates, cups and silverware. We gave them hot dogs, hamburgers, a bag of charcoal, and pointed at the grill. We adults took a seat at the picnic table and started a fire. It didn't seem fair to me for these kids to prepare the meal because, after all, they are kids. In my world, adults provide for children. We ask kids to respect us and to chip in where they can, but ultimately we put the food on their table. This, however, was not my world. We were teaching teenagers to be self-sufficient and cooking for themselves was yet another lesson in a long line of lessons they were to learn over the course of a weekend on Sapelo. Two hours later, we were all eating cheeseburgers and dogs, and they were, at the time, the finest I'd ever tasted.

Later that night, we were invited to SICARS to view a movie called SANKOFA, an Akon word which means, "one must return to the past in order to move forward." The movie revisits the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana and depicts the physical and psychic horrors of slavery, and also the redemptive powers of community and rebellion as former slaves ban together to escape their oppressors. It's a powerful film to watch on an island that was one of the first North American stops for slave ships that carried men and women from their homes in West Africa to be bought and sold to plantation owners. We walk into the building, which is an open space with bookshelves lining the walls and several computer stations set on desktops. The kids take seats in front of a projection screen and the adults remain standing in the back because there were no more chairs. It was then that we first encountered Mr. Reginald Hall. Mr. Reginald is an 11th generation descendant and a proud Saltwater Geechee. His demeanor is quiet and soft, but his eyes are intense and his voice, his words, even more so. Mr. Reginald paced back and forth in front of an unlit projector screen while he welcomed us all to Sapelo Island.

My job, as many of you already know, was to document our trip by capturing moments, such as this one at SICARS, on video. Because it was nighttime and I was unsure what the lighting situation would be at the center, I left my cameras back at the campsite. I did, however, bring along my audio recorder, thinking that maybe I'd have an opportunity to capture an important conversation or, at the very least, record the night sounds of crickets, locusts and bull frogs. As I stood at the back of the room with Mr. Hackett and listened to Mr. Reginald speak, his voice struck me as one that I'd never heard before. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the voice recorder, which is black, about the size of an iphone, and has two foam-covered microphones that jet out off the top like Mickey Mouse ears. I crossed my arms, hit the orange glowing record button, and tried to conceal the device as much as possible. It's not that I wanted to hide my action because I thought it to be wrong, I simply did not want to interrupt the moment by saying something like, "Excuse me, Mr. Reginald, but would you mind if I stand back here and record your address to the group?" There was no time for that conversation. Besides, my eyes were glued on Mr. Reginald's and my heart was beating so hard and my hands sweating so profusely that I could barely hold onto the recorder. This clip is part of my recording from that night.

(I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how to embed an audio player into my blog. So, click this link and it will take you to a site where you can download the mp3. Then, play it in itunes or whatever. If you know how to embed audio players into blogs, please let me know.)

Click here and download Mr. Reginald

The room remained silent after Mr. Reginald finished speaking. The movie rolled, African drums kicked in, and the man who had mesmerized us with his presence stormed past Mr. Hackett and I into an office and firmly shut the door behind him. At that very moment, I thought two things to be possible: the first being that this man was intense most of the time and this occasion was another example of his normal, intense behavior; and two, that he hated my guts. He resented the fact that I had walked into his home and recorded his voice without asking for permission before hand or explaining my intention. I could not blame him for being angry with me, but I could not stop myself from capturing that moment. Something burned inside me and I knew that it was the right thing to do. Now, I would have to face the consequences which, to be honest, scared the hell of out me. Here I was, a white man on an island and in a community where descendants of former slaves live very proudly. On the surface, they had every reason to be suspect of me, and now that I had blatantly offended them with my actions, they had every reason to ask me to leave the island.

Mr. Hackett and I were still standing up against that back wall, watching SANKOFA and trying to process images of white slave owners whipping, beating and raping African farmers. The white slave owner has a beard. I have a beard. Oh god. In his office, behind closed doors, I could hear an angry black man talking loudly with his black counterparts. As far as I was concerned, they were going to kill me.

Throughout the course of the film, Mr. Reginald walked in and out of his office and shared whispered conversations with several of his friends, who were also standing amongst us. They were talking about my ignorance and the stupidity of my actions, I was sure of it, and also plotting where to dispose of my body. Bravely, Mr. Hackett approached Mr. Reginald and explained the situation, that I was here to document the trip and to ultimately make a movie that would help to raise literacy awareness. This conversation, however, took place out of my line of site, so when Mr. Hackett returned to standing next to me in that dark room, I found his reassurance to be unconvincing.

Being one of two white folks in a room of 30 black people, combined with doing what I had done, made me feel like the whitest man in the room. This sort of paranoia would soak my t-shirt with sweat for the next hour and a half. I stood there, half paying attention to the movie and half considering ways to approach Mr. Reginald. What exactly was I going to say to this man? I needed to apologize, of course, but I also needed for him to know that I meant him no harm, that my recording was not done to profit from him or the island, but to educate those who are unaware of Sapelo Island and the Geechee who fight for their community's existence. The movie ended, the lights went up, and Mr. Reginald walked towards my general location. My eyes met his, my heart exploded, and I reached out my hand. He shook it. "Mr. Reginald," I said. "Earlier this evening, I recorded your voice so that these kids might remember your words. If I have offended you, in any way, then I am sorry." Before I could even finish my apology, Mr. Reginald was apologizing to me. He had been upset when he saw that I was taping him, there was no denying that, but he explained how he had some time to sit with his emotions and think, and that he understood why I had done what I had done. All that he asked was that the next time I wished to take pictures or record voices, I first ask for permission to do so.

I would think about that night, that moment, for the rest of my time on Sapelo, about how standing up for myself and apologizing for my actions earned me the respect that I had lost and then some, and about how integrity transcends race and the color of our skin.

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