In the story, A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid paints quite a vivid, and as Gabby said, accurate picture of what life is like in Antigua. Having traveled all over the country in my life, I too was a little upset to read what Kincaid says is the take on tourists by locals in major tourist hotbeds. Having been a tourist so many times in my life, I must say I was little disappointed in myself because I realize that I was probably one of the tourists, like the one in the story, who was criticized and mocked behind closed doors. But the further I read, the more I really began to understand what these people must go through, and why they act this way toward us.
Picturing myself as an Antiguan native, I see myself day in and day facing many hardships on that god forsaken, drought stricken little rock in the middle of the Caribbean. To have to work so hard for what I had on this poor desert like isle, and then to have people who were much better off than I pause to stare at me as I go about my daily life…it makes me sick. I just consider myself fortunate that I never have had to face the hardships that these people have.