Comeback island: after two devastating hurricane seasons, the Caribbean island of Grenada attempts a spirited recovery.

• Author: Murphy-Larronde, Suzanne

From a shady perch on Market Square in the Grenadian capital of St. George's, Deborah Redhead carefully surveys the milling crowd before calling out to a clutch of sunburned tourists. Her throaty voice with its West Indian lilt is commanding yet unfailingly polite as she lures them to her stall. Before long, the savvy vendor, neatly dressed in a cobalt-blue shift and crocheted cap, has her potential customers marveling at a fragrant array of spices and seasonings meticulously arranged on her red plywood table. By the time they move on, happily laden with gift baskets of nutmeg, turmeric, bay leaves, mace, cinnamon, cloves, curry powder, and ginger, Redhead is wearing an expression of sweet; satisfaction.

St. George's two-hundred-year-old Market Square, where locals and visitors browse side by side for island-grown fruits, vegetables, and spices, is back in business again following two powerful hurricanes that shut it down for more than a year and a half. Redhead recalls the bruising blow the popular open-air emporium received at the hands of Hurricane Ivan. "There were pieces of metal roofing and splintered tables on the ground everywhere you looked; it was a mess." Today, following months of reconstruction, Market Square is back on its feet and busier than ever. During the market's facelift, floors were raised, a new drainage system was installed to prevent future flooding, and washrooms and roofing were refurbished. Vendors, many of whom were left homeless and jobless by the storms, joined forces with government ministries to complete the project and last April, jubilantly celebrated the market's unofficial reopening. "We knew we could do it," declares Redhead with the kind of enthusiasm and resolve that have helped propel the island to its remarkable recovery.

Two years have passed since September 7, 2004, the day Hurricane Ivan slammed into the tiny nation, leaving behind a swath of death and destruction. The category three storm, packing winds of 125 miles per hour, killed thirty-nine people, damaged 90 percent of all buildings and in one fell swoop, obliterated the island's all-important tourism and agricultural industries. Prime Minister Keith Mitchell, who lost his own official residence atop Mt. Royal to Ivan, declared a national disaster, citing losses of more than $815 million, twice the country's gross national product.

Then on July 14 of the following year, just as things were returning to normal, Mother Nature struck another blow with a bludgeon named Hurricane Emily. Her ninety per mile an hour winds and torrential rains pummeled Grenada's northern parishes, St. Patrick's and St. Andrew's, and rampaged through the outer islands of Carriacou and Petit Martinique, which had been largely spared by Ivan. Once the tropical storm had barreled off towards Jamaica, the Caymans, and Mexico's Caribbean coast, Grenadians emerged from their shelters to find the all-too-familiar scenario of flooded streets, decimated crops, and damaged buildings not yet fully repaired from the previous onslaught. The bill for that second round totaled more than $110 million.

In the aftermath of the disasters, Grenadians rolled up their sleeves, and with a big assist from international organizations such as the Red Cross and Oxfam and neighbors like Cuba and the U.S., they set to work clearing away debris, repairing buildings and restoring battered infrastructures. Within two months, with the help of UNICEF and military forces from Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, the country's nearly thirty thousand children had returned to temporary classrooms. Meanwhile...