WINDSOR FOREST, Grenada -- For the past year, Walton Joseph, a septuagenarian nutmeg farmer, has lived in a shack made of plastic sheeting. He has no electricity, and his running water is the rain that trickles uninvited through his metal roof. The shack sits on a cement foundation that is the only remains of Joseph's home, which was swept away with his tiny nutmeg grove when Hurricane Ivan struck last Sept. 7, pummeling Grenada the way Katrina devastated New Orleans. Joseph scrounged enough money to plant a small plot of corn, bananas and pigeon peas in his ruined nutmeg grove. But in July, another hurricane ripped through his land again. "I own nothing but this tarpaulin," said Joseph, who has no food crops, no insurance and no savings. "All gone, all gone. And no one is helping us." Joseph's lament is echoed across Grenada, which is still reeling one year after Ivan killed 39 of its 100,000 people, destroyed or damaged more than 90 percent of its homes, and uprooted nearly all the fragrant nutmeg trees that had earned it the nickname "The Spice Island." The daunting reconstruction challenges facing this minuscule Caribbean island, where half the homes and nearly all schools and churches still need repair, provide a grim glimpse at the gargantuan task ahead of gulf states bailing out from Katrina. But there is a key difference: While New Orleans has captured world attention and is sure to receive billions in aid dollars, Grenada's plight has been largely ignored. "It's as if most of the world has forgotten Grenada," said Christopher Williams, president of the Grenada Red Cross. "People are giving up hope." Grenada suffered $1 billion in damage - 250 times its gross domestic product - when Ivan turned this lush island into a virtual wasteland, ripping off roofs, ramming boats ashore, pushing cars to sea and blowing open the penitentiary. With little food or water, looting and desperation were rampant. Foreign donors led by the United States have pledged only $290 million so far in aid, and one year later, two-thirds of that sum still hasn't arrived. Much of the rest probably never will because it's been diverted to tsunami victims in Asia, where devastation was far more dramatic but per-capita needs are in some cases less acute. A former British colony, Grenada's ties to London have weakened since the island gained independence three decades ago. The United States became Grenada's protectorate after invading it in 1983 to quash a Marxist coup, but its attention has drifted since the war on terror. Bereft of its traditional support, the nation is flirting with Washington's economic rival China and its political nemesis Venezuela. Beijing pledged to replace its sports stadium, and leftist Venezuela has dispatched troops to rebuild schools and homes while vowing to to trade oil for bananas once Grenada can grow them. "These countries are using disaster aid as a political tool by paying a level of attention . . . that the United States and Europe are not," said Dan Erikson, a Caribbean expert at the Inter-American Dialogue think tank in Washington, D.C. During an interview in the capital of St. George's, Prime Minister Keith Mitchell insisted the cash-strapped government was fulfilling its slogan to "Build Back Better." "We have made substantial progress and the country will come back," he said. "But still, there will be painful dislocation." To be sure, a recent visit showed a far less ravaged Grenada than witnessed a few weeks after Ivan turned the island into a virtual garbage dump. Vivid, lush greenery has returned to the rugged hills. The prison has a roof again and nearly all the inmates have been returned. With more than two-thirds of hotel rooms reopened, tourists are trickling back to the island's translucent waters and fine-sand beaches. Donors led by the U.S. Agency for International Development have launched job-training programs ranging from construction to basket-weaving and distributed mountains of aid, including roofing, chain saws and fishing boats. But dislocation was equally apparent. Despite a temporary construction boom, unemployment and poverty have soared. Many reconstruction projects are plagued by allegations of mismanagement and corruption. Desperation deepened in mid-July, when Hurricane Emily ripped through the northeastern third of the island, which Ivan had largely spared, ravaging more homes and crops. Some communities, like the fishing village of Soubise, got socked by both tempests. Though they've twice rebuilt their rickety shacks from salvaged wood and tin and have nightmares about future hurricanes, Soubise residents were close to tears as they spoke of the government's plans to move them to safer ground inland. "I hate to leave the shore, but it's too dangerous here," said Adrian George, 55, a fisherman whose boat and home were destroyed in the tempests. Perhaps most devastating of all, less than 5 percent of nutmeg trees have been replanted, though nearly one-third of the population lived at least partly off the spice industry. The planting delay makes it likely the country could lose its foothold as the world's second-largest nutmeg producer. "The government has failed miserably" in resuscitating the nutmeg industry, said Byron Campbell, president of the country's nutmeg association. Because nutmeg trees take seven to 10 years to fully gestate, farmers also desperately need help planting interim crops, Campbell said. Agriculture Minister Gregory Bowen said the government is developing plans to plant nutmeg strains that have deeper, hurricane-resistant roots and reach full gestation in half the time, but lacked funds to forge ahead. Those who've decided they won't wait include Joseph, who inherited his nutmeg grove from his father and grandfather. "I have no money to plant new trees, and anyway I'd be dead before the trees grow back," he said. Mitchell's administration spent $6 million on temporary wages for 14,000 farmers who lost crops to Ivan, but halted the program after some workers listed as recipients turned out to be dead. Mitchell denied any intentional graft but acknowledged supervision "weaknesses." That is far from the only problem. Seeking to avoid waste of funds, donors are scrutinizing aid distribution, but that process slows the flow or sometimes halts it. For example, because most Grenadians lack land titles, they can't get materials to rebuild homes from USAID. Almost every piece of bad news here has a ripple effect. Jude Henry, a dreadlocked resident of the hamlet of Thebaide, had his roof blown off by Ivan and Emily. But he has no money to fix it because his plantain-chip business collapsed after the storms killed Grenada's banana crops, forcing the country to import the staple. Henry, 52, is now trying to earn a living as a reggae and calypso singer, performing such tunes as "Ivan Gives Ivan Takes." But with tourism still down by one-third, gigs are hard to find. Now he wonders whether he should work abroad, joining more than 150,000 Grenadians who live overseas, many in New York City. "I've got two daughters here so it would be hard, man," he said. Some aid workers hope that Katrina's destruction will help shine a light on Grenada's plight. "Developed countries may not have understood just how desperate people are after this kind of disaster," said Kriss Davies, director of the nonprofit Gren Saves. "Maybe Katrina will change that." Reprinted from caribupdate.com