13 Apr Jay Haigler
I arrived on Ilha de Moçambique (the island of Mozambique) twelve days ago.
Today, as I sit in the Nampula airport on the way to the next port on my journey, I travel backwards in time … remembering a whirlwind of passionate and thoughtful conversations—on roofs with the sunset and gentle sea in the background, with roommates under twin mosquito nets late at night, on strolls through the cobblestone streets of Stone Town and the dirt paths of Macuti Town … remembering enchanting sights, smells, tastes—of good food like matapa de siri siri, a stewlike version of sautéed green beans that reminds you of home, of fishermen hawking their catches on the beach to an eager crowd, of bright smiles on friendly faces that wish you “tudo bem” as you pass.
If you bear with me, over the next few posts I will take you back over those days and introduce you in more detail to the island, the people and the work of the Slave Wrecks Project (SWP; see the background post below for more context). I’ll start with a quick snippet about Jay Haigler. . ……………………………………………….
Jay reminds me of a bit of Popeye the Sailor Man, the 1930s US cartoon hero with the burly arms and a hankering for spinach. “I’m strong to the finish ’cause I eats me spinach.”
It’s the laugh, mainly, that does it for me—they both have a distinctive caw that somehow lives in the throat but can travel across rooms in a single bound. (In the Jo’Burg airport, for example, I could hear Jay’s laugh while I was upstairs at the food court, an entire floor away, and he was holding court at the gate.)
But it’s also the rakish charm, the good humor and the enthusiasm and commitment to helping those he cares about that connects Jay to Popeye in my mind.
Jay is a lead instructor and the safety dive officer for Diving With a Purpose (DWP), and he’s the dive training coordinator for the Slave Wrecks Project. Jay trains all the new scuba divers with SWP here on Mozambique Island. Under his tutelage, for eight days, eight hours a day, enterprising Mozambicans listen to videos, review lessons, take exams and practice their water skills in a lovely infinity pool overlooking the Indian Ocean. The students graduate from this training as PADI-certified open water scuba divers, which means they can dive anywhere in the world. But most importantly, they are eligible to become official Community Monitors for the island, charged with the awesome responsibility of helping to preserve the maritime archaeological history of this place and sharing this heritage knowledge with their neighbors and with visitors to the island.
You see, Ilha de Moçambique was once the capital of Mozambique. It has a great—and terrible—history as the rich and bustling central hub of international trade, including the trade of enslaved Africans, on the African East Coast. This place was the glistening home of the Portuguese who colonized the island and made it their most favored jewel. It attracted influential and prosperous Europeans, Arabs and Asians, who also settled here and inadvertently left traces of their lives.
SWP looks to the waters to learn about the island’s past, which makes sense because ships reportedly rest in scattered pieces across the harbor, hiding clues to those lives, and to the lives of the enslaved Africans on the ships who had no voice and whose existence has been casually and disdainfully overlooked in the historical records.
These voiceless people are of particular interest to SWP. The project sees Community Monitors as key participants in helping to raise voices from the depths and restore them back into the world’s collective memory.
And Jay sits at the nexus of knowledge, experience and practical application for SWP. He provides the monitors with the tools they need to actively explore their heritage and to protect it from treasure hunters, developers and outsiders who would otherwise steal or destroy it.
Eight monitors graduated on Sunday during a lovely ceremony with music and food and dancing, bringing the total number of Community Monitors trained by Jay to 11. His goal is to get that number to 20 in the next few years.
You hear Jay’s voice—a booming, rich, deep tenor—and the trademark cackle, and you see the twinkle in his eye and the joy emanating from the center of his being … and you believe him when he says quietly, remembering how all the divers completed their tests successfully: “This is what I live for.”
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