Mount Trashmore

Mount Trashmore on Fire Photo by Chris Court

Teachers and students alike look forward to them. Even pray for them at times. Never did I count on having an unforeseen day off from school in the Cayman Islands.

Unexpected days off from school present themselves in different manners around the world. A half day off from school in Canada is after twelve feet of snow overnight. A paro (strike) in Perú could easily get you a couple of days off. Any day of the week in France when goat farmers are angry from working three days a week, that’s automatically no school for a week.

Up to this point, I personally have only experienced American snow days and Peruvian paros. Peruvian paros consisted of strikers blockading major thoroughfares with burning tires and throwing rocks at any crass individuals that were bold enough to ignore the plight of the people and attempted to pass. What we experienced on Grand Cayman required a few more tires than that.

Cayman Islands Tires Filling Up Mount Trashmore

Wednesday morning during school, students noticed smoke rising from our next door neighbor’s place. Our neighbor just happens to be the island landfill.

The island dump is recognized by an accurate moniker, Mount Trashmore.

Mount Trashmore also happens to be the highest point on the very flat Grand Cayman. This is the first prominent geographical feature that welcomes passengers from the deck of their cruise ships. It’s also quite pungent. You smell it long before you see it driving to school. One could easily liken it to the state of New Mexico.

Mount Trashmore is like that crazy, stinky girlfriend you had in college, you just never know when she is going to explode.

Firefighters Battling Mount Trashmore

Mount Trashmore spontaneously combusted for a second time in as many months in December 2014 sending grayish blue smoke billowing into the sky and past CIS. My classroom just happens to be on the side closest to the dump. Fortunately, Wednesday’s blew west, away from the school and towards the five cruise ships anchored in the turquoise blue waters of Seven Mile Beach.

Thursday morning, I headed up to school early to play basketball before school. Riding my bike to school, it was obvious that the smoke was thicker and the wind had changed direction and directly over campus. A night of sporadic rainfall did not halt the waves of smoke. The sunrise made me imagine what it would be like to live in China. The oval of sunlight shone meekly through the burnt orange sky.

Just as we finished basketball, Joseph, the ever friendly school security guard, poked his head into the gym and muttered a few words that I thought I would never hear on island, “No school today! It’s a smoke day.”

“Did I hear that correctly? I thought to myself. No school today, because of the smoke? Really?”

Upon confirmation, school had been cancelled. It was time to make grandiose plans, and not live up to them.

Mount Trashmore Welcomes You to the Cayman Islands Cruise Ships –

Friday morning, the kids, Nadine, and myself were as ready as kids can be for school, grabbing the keys, and literally heading out the door, when we received a text stating that school had been cancelled once again because of another morning of thick smoke cresting over the school from Mount Trashmore. What were the chances?

Honestly, the dump is a point of contention on island. The landfill has consistently been mismanaged and the equipment either doesn’t work properly most of the time if at all. Recycling hardly exists, but it is emerging. Dart Enterprises had offered to clean the landfill and build a new one at no cost to the government in exchange for the land that it currently sits on. The government did not accept it as a new landfill would have been relocated to Bodden Town. Bodden Town residents weren’t too kin on having it in their own backyard. There are many factors at work and a committee of twenty stakeholders will attempt to resolve this problem. Yet while the government tries to come to a solution, the dump apparently is leaking into the very profitable North Sound where Stingray City is located. The Cayman Islands depend mainly on tourism, so for the island’s sake, a manageable solution to Mount Trashmore would be beneficial to all parties involved.

Mount Trashmore on Fire – View from the Water