Whoops ! Wrong island

On the January day an earthquake struck Haiti in 2010, the first jolt was followed by at least 52 aftershocks, killed an estimated 300,000 persons, injured another 300,000, and left 1 million homeless. Not exactly a twister in Kansas.

The quake sent newspaper and TV editors in the United States scrambling to atlases and Wikipedia. They needed a quick fix on Haiti's vital statistics and location. This was to brief journalists assigned to the scene.

First, transportation was arranged. Then, in the case of TV, interns got sent to purchase Columbia Sportswear field jackets for reporters to wear while doing on-camera stand-ups.

The background information gathered by these TV news producers also would be used to assemble fancy, color-coded charts for the next news cycle. Editors love graphics; anything to make the story simpler and reduce the need for written words.

In the news business, Rand McNally moments like this cause everyone to wet their pants.

More than a few geography-challenged editors were startled to discover Haiti shared an island named Hispaniola with the more familiar Dominican Republic. Many knew of the Dominican Republic, or D.R., but that was only because it produced many Major League Baseball players and was a trendy winter resort destination.

Hispaniola is about 700 miles southeast of Miami in the Caribbean Ocean. If anyone traced their finger another 200 miles or so southeast, they can find a country called Dominica, a tiny island nation of less than 100,000 residents and seemingly had no connection to Haiti's earthquake.

Dominica, Dominican Republic. They are not related.

Though it gets confused for the Dominican Republic, and Major League Baseball scouts occasionally mistakenly fly there, Dominica never produced an athlete of note anywhere or anytime. As a vacation spot, it is known mostly as a one-day stop for cruise ships.

In at least two U.S. newsrooms, MSNBC and the Baltimore Sun, assignment editors in their rush to get reporters to the scene confused the two nations. Thinking the best way to Haiti was through Hispaniola Island's backdoor neighbor, the Dominican Republic, flights mistakenly got booked to Dominica.

This came as a great surprise to reporters and film crews, who got off trunk flights from Miami and San Juan and found themselves on the wrong island.

Since they were on generous expense accounts, this normally would not have bothered them. However, because they had no hotel reservations---and Dominica's important tourist season was in full swing, they had to sleep on hastily-provided cots in the airport before catching the daily flight off the island the next day.

There was more Haiti-related mistaken identity.

A week later, an airplane full of relief supplies from the United Nations headed for Haiti via the Dominican Republic erroneously landed in Dominica's airport to the confusion of both the flight's navigator, a Swede who'd never before plotted a course in the Caribbean, and the night manager of the airport, who---for the life of him---could not figure why the U.N. was sending great quantities of plasma, bandages, and aspirin to his tiny country.

Had one of Dominica's long, silent volcanoes erupted without anyone telling him?

This was followed two days later by another flight intended for the Dominican Republic. This second off-course airplane was chartered by Evangelical Christians from North Dakota. They wanted to help beleaguered Haitians and save souls.

When clearance was finally gained to proceed to Port-au-Prince following a 48-hour stay, two members of this group were having such a good time in the casinos of Roseau, the capitol city, they missed the flight.

In the end, the Haitian earthquake simply added a fresh chapter in an ongoing saga of mistaken identities perpetrated on Dominica by the geography-challenged. The two nations are not exactly twins, but the locals are pretty much resigned to this confusion.

Dominica is tiny, about 290 square miles compared to the Dominican Republic's 18,800 square miles. Dominica has a population of 70,000, with the Dominican Republic at 9.7 million.

The largest city in Dominica is Roseau at 15,000 residents while Santo Domingo, at 3.1 million, is the largest in the Dominican Republic.

We're talking Vermont and California here.

A Dominica government economist once computed that being mistaken for the Dominican Republic actually was a plus for the local economy when income from airport taxes for mistaken landings, unscheduled overnight stays, and meals consumed by confused visitors---the Evangelicals from North Dakota, say---got factored into the equation.

The economist estimated that this contributed approximately 3% to Dominica's GNP, which, on his pie chart, he labeled under "other."

As a bona fide, ex-pat resident in Dominica, over time I became less embarrassed by my fellow Americans. Mostly, I am amused and keep a journal that someday I'll turn into a book.

Aside from the occasional hurricane and rainy season, I found the island nation a very agreeable place to live when I moved to Roseau two years before the earthquake. For starters, the tax structure is friendly for non-residents and there are some very congenial banks for storing money.

Certainly it is not crowded. The tiny island nation has great tropical forests and mountains. The water is clear and blue. The second-largest city is Portsmouth with 2,700 residents. And, English is the primary language.

The country is said to have more centenarians per capita than any nation tracked by the United Nations. Nearly 80 per cent of the mostly African-rooted population belongs to the Catholic Church, which basically runs the schools. The island nation is divided into 10 parishes.

Dominica could use help, of course.

Though the government is stable, the economy is weak.

It depends on tourism, which mostly comes from luxury liners docking in Roseau. For years it got rich off its banana crops, but that took a hit in recent years and is a struggling industry controlled mercilessly by bloodless, outside hedge funds.

You can thank American and European market manipulation for that one. There is much resentment among residents.

The population is shrinking by about one per cent annually because of emigration.

I knew none of the above before I moved to Roseau. Now, I think I could be elected president of Dominica after my big adventure.

Career adjustment

Everyone recalls receiving career advice at some point in their life, whether they took it or not. When I, Beck Martin, left my last steady job nearly 10 years or so ago in Chicago, everyone gave me the benefit of their wisdom.

"So what's your next trick, Beck?" asked Carl Stokes, my best pal and fellow sportswriter at the last newspaper where I worked. "You're too old to join the Navy and see the world. Well, maybe you're not too old to see the world. ... but you better hurry."

My farewell party at a neighborhood tavern, or what I recall of it, was a modest event to celebrate my buyout. The modesty matched my severance package that I hoped could sustain me for a year. I travel light.

On the other hand, my departure pre-dated the wholesale layoffs a year later at my Chicago newspaper. There were so many people walking out the door by then, farewell parties were being held every Friday, sometimes twice a day.

"I'm getting a sugar-high...