A ST. THOMAS CABBIE'S THOUGHTS ON THE WORLD OF DRUGS AND CRIME

We climbed into the back of the taxi and began an air-conditioned
45-minute drive through the back roads of St. Thomas, en route to our
hotel. The town of Charlotte Amalie was our point of departure, the
hub of the island -- a home port for cruise ships and folks like
ourselves, travellers by ferry from the British Virgin Islands.

I knew a little bit about St. Thomas and the U.S. Virgin Islands --
the region has a murder rate of more than 40 killings annually for
every 100,000 residents, a rate that is about 20 times as high as
Canada's and seven times as high as the American average.

We were soon driving through a more rural part of the island, with
chickens and goats by the side of the roads, here and there a few
groups of men sitting around tables, drinking beer. It was hot, almost
30 degrees, and there were occasional splatters of late afternoon
rain. The driver stopped his taxi frequently, letting other cars into
the flow, letting young and old cross the road.

He was well into his 70s, born in nearby Tortola, but a resident of
St. Thomas for the past 30 years. His two daughters had taken
advantage of the U.S. citizenship that their father had secured for
them; one had moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and the other to
Portland, Oregon; one worked with IBM and the other with the U.S. government.

He told us that his two sons still lived in St. Thomas; they worked
full-time, but they were also involved in the drug trade; he laughed
and shook his head. That was my entree. So, you have quite a lot of
crime in St. Thomas, I said.

"Yes", he agreed. "But it's a safe place for me to be", he added, "I
can go anywhere on the island and I feel safe; no one is going to hurt
me. There's theft, people taking things, and there's some of the young
men . . . "

His voice trailed off. I asked about the murder rate. "Young guys with
guns, killing each other over drugs" he said, and sometimes it's not
even drugs, just the stupidest of things they kill each other for, but
they don't care about me. It's guns and drugs, and they kill each
other, not the tourists. " He laughed again.

So, here we were, 5,000 kilometres from home, with the same drama
playing itself out on the streets of St. Thomas, as in Vancouver,
albeit on a proportionately larger scale.

But in the midst of all this craziness, an old taxi driver, with a
sense of humour and an understanding that we live in a world which
often doesn't make a lot of sense. For him, no fingers pointed in
recrimination, blame or anger, always stopping to let other cars in,
always smiling.