Tourists visit islands all the time; travel brochures show them as wonderful places that manufacture drinks served with umbrellas. Beaches with views. A place to escape to. For a slice of time, they plan to come and relax - indulge themselves.

The last time I shared that perspective, I was 9 years old in Dayton, Ohio with my father asking me about moving to Trinidad and Tobago. That was very exciting at the time. An Adventure. Little did I know that it would be a few years before I swore to get off the island. I did. Then I came back after traveling more than most people do in their lives - but this isn't about my traveling. It's about an island.

Take the Caribbean, an island chain made up of many islands. On these islands there are people that do not exist in tourist brochures; the vast majority may never see the inside of a tourist resort. The vast majority see the world through the looking glass of television - and if they can afford it, cable television piped in with all manner of advertising that is almost always designed to get people to buy things that are not available on the island. Newspapers echo Associated Press articles about the rest of the world; on an island the circulation of a newspaper does not support international reporting. Magazines cater to the people who can afford them and show what the demographic wants, thus catering for the upper class of the Caribbean - or blissfully showing off what the tourist demographic wants to see.

But on an island, one is hostage to the isolation. When I was stationed on Oahu (Hawaii), we called it 'island fever'. The escape velocity is a valid passport, appropriate visas, and enough money to buy a ticket. Most of my life has been lived at escape velocity, and I have no regrets about that. When a man in Trinidad says he is an expert on living abroad because he spent a few years in New York City, I say nothing but within myself I smirk. I lived in New York. I stayed in many places. I've tasted the cold of the blizzards when fixing a CV joint on my car, I've been denied gas in the Panhandle because my tan was a little too dark and I've slept in a sleeping bag in an apartment. People always know more than me. I used to try to explain myself, but now I just smirk inside.

Where the middle class once was there is now the traveling class. I had a person who doesn't even own the land that they are living on - on an island - tell me that they had made their first trip abroad, to Canada, and that he loved it. In his sixties, he loved it. But what separates my travels from those of others is really simple: most people have a home to go back to when they travel. My baggage has always been my home, so wherever I laid my head has been home. Until recently, I'd managed to avoid the tendrils that tie one in place - tendrils that make excursions to other places just that: excursions. And in that, I am fortunate because everything I saw was seen through someone who lived there instead of someone visiting. Granted, it doesn't give one the 'lived here forever' perspective, but it's still a large shift in perspective from tourists. The traveling class has a different perspective. And the traveling class doesn't represent the people on the island, either. Sustaining escape velocity is a difficult thing - that I know.

Aside from the traveling class, there's the rest of the population who are hostage to what is brought into the island. Bookshops? Not a wide selection since there's not much to support a diverse readership. Music? The same problem, though MP3s and other things that make the RIAA huff and puff allow diversity. Along came the Internet - to those who can afford it - and while it allows communication there is a question as to what is being communicated and to whom.

Living on an island is a lot like sucking the world through a cocktail straw.

There are up sides. The isolation also buffers one from the problems of the outside world, and there is a tendency to get things that you cannot get abroad. Mangoes and coconuts off the tree, for example. And if one disregards the marketing masturbation and the self-congratulation of politicians, things are pretty nice. In Trinidad and Tobago, if one forgets the criminally obvious problem with crime it can be bliss - or it could just make you the next target.

So before the Summit of the Americas in 2009, where the people of Trinidad and Tobago were forced at politician point to spend lots of their money on it, there's a large question as to whether anything discussed will actually put some of that money back. When Barack Obama calls Patrick Manning and thanks him for his efforts on making the Summit possible, the mockery of living on an island is complete.

The people who are ill and cannot afford care should be thanked. Those families that have had victims of crime come from their fold should be thanked. There are a lot of people who should be thanked for their sacrifices - not the man who refuses to take a cut in pay because 'since there is less money I have more work to do'. Does Obama actually see the parallel between Patrick Manning and the AIG folk who took bonuses despite receiving the bailout?

That's the real trouble with living on an island. The cocktail straw works both ways.

Enjoy the Summit - but know that it came at a great cost - a cost that will be borne for years to come.