Splash in the sea water

Freedom Monument, Soufrière

Sweetie and I travelled by airplane for the first time since we went to France in October 2019, way back in the Before Time. We took our chances, wore masks, and endured flights to Toronto and Saint Lucia and back. I sweated getting the ArriveCAN app right for the way home, and hoped that we wouldn't be selected for random testing (we weren't). Our two checked suitcases decided to spend some extra time in Toronto, but that's a whole 'nother story. We have them back, so all is well.

Every holiday changes you in some way. Every time you spend time somewhere that's not your home, it changes you. You're living with a different set of challenges than when you're at home, and often encounter one or more novel situations. And you're surrounded by a culture that's different than your own, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot.

On Saint Lucia, we stayed in a villa, not at a resort, outside the town of Soufrière in the less touristy southwest. We are not resort people, all-inclusive least of all. But we weren't entirely on our own in our short-term rental. The property manager also acted as kind of a concierge, assisted by her daughter. One and usually both of them came by every morning but one, to make sure things were ok with us, to arrange something if we wanted something arranged, and to answer any questions we had. It was never an intrusion. It was more like a morning chat with friends (over coffee in my case). On their day off, we felt like something was missing!

Gros Piton and Petit Piton

Regular roads in Saint Lucia are fine, if often narrow, but the steep mountain roads, like the one that leads to the villa, are a crumbled, washed-out mix of concrete, rocks, and gravel. Apparently, everyone is fine with this. The most broken sections function like speed bumps. Vehicles crawl along at about 10 km/h. The roads are also basically one lane with occasional wider spots, and you need to beep your horn at every sharp curve. Add in that Saint Lucians drive on the left, and we decided to use the services of the villa drivers, a husband and wife team. Not only did they save me from having to negotiate the roads on my own; they were also two more interesting people whose company we briefly got to enjoy.

Because we were not at a resort, we had to provide for ourselves. At our request, our host started us off with some basic groceries and had made us a delicious home-cooked creole fish dinner that lasted us for two dinners. After that, we would pay for a lift into Soufrière and do our own grocery shopping.

On a typical day, we would have breakfast at home, lunch at a restaurant while we were out and about, and then I would make supper at home to eat on the deck while the sun set. Breakfast always included one or more tropical fruits, gifts of our hosts. Lunch became our main meal, so that I would make something fairly small for supper. For all but one lunch, we went to places where at least some local people go.

A lunch meal would consist of fish, chicken, or pork, plus "ground provisions," meaning all the accompaniments, which might include any of rice, "peas" (lentils or black-eyed peas), mixed vegetables such as carrot and broccoli, sweet potato, dasheen (taro), fried ripe plantain, green fig (banana), squash, and mac and cheese. I called it Saint Lucian plate lunch because of the similarity to plate lunch in Hawaii. We ate some really good examples of it.

We did our share of vacation stuff. We saw an amazing abundance of sea life including healthy coral on a snorkeling boat trip to the Anse Piton Marine Reserve near Sugar Beach. We walked through a beautiful and informative botanical garden that includes a majestic waterfall. We hired a guide/driver (Smith from Exciting Tours Saint Lucia—he'd want me to mention that) to take us on a bird watching hike in a rain forest at 1900 feet of elevation. We walked all over Soufrière on our own. We swam in beautiful water. We plunged in our plunge pool. We sat on our deck, surrounded by trees, and just enjoyed our surroundings.

Soufrière

We did everyday stuff too, like grocery shopping and food preparation. I like that this was part of the mix. An important task was getting cash. In and around Soufrière, there are businesses that take credit cards. We found, however, that we needed more cash than we had anticipated. Saint Lucians accept US dollars as well as their own currency, the Eastern Caribbean dollar, and we used both (ATMs give EC$). We reimbursed our host for groceries and dinner in cash. We paid our drivers in cash. The snorkel tour took our Visa, but not the bird watching excursion. We paid for groceries and one restaurant meal with Visa. The rest we paid with cash.

On the morning of our first full day, we waited in a bank lineup. Banks don't keep long hours, and people seem to need tellers often, so lineups at the Bank of Saint Lucia in Soufrière happen during much of the day. We wanted US$, which we could obtain only inside the bank. Waiting in that lineup with lots of regular folks, chatting with each other, talking to people going by, was as enjoyable as anything else on the trip. While Sweetie was inside, I stood aside and got an even bigger dose of local culture and street life. I felt privileged to be ignored and to see everyday Saint Lucia around me.

There were some stressful times. I think it was Friday that I had a bad morning. I get those sometimes. Anxieties about this or that. We needed yet more cash and to do a final grocery run, so instead of booking a lift, I decided to walk to town. The road features a 100 metre elevation change over less than 2 km, so I needed to be careful of my footing in some spots on the way down, but I made it fine. I loved walking around Soufrière doing my business like everyone else there. I also walked around a bit more to take some pictures like a tourist. The town won my heart!

The climb back up was difficult. I'm 68 years old, in decent shape but no athlete. I took my time, sipped water, and stopped when I had to. I got lots of friendly waves. I made it, and I felt great about having done it. The rest of the day went much better than it started.

Grey trembler eating mango

Saint Lucia was originally a land of Arawak and later Carib people. Several European countries tried to colonize it. The Carib repelled them. It was interesting to learn that the French settled there by treaty with and payment to the Carib. Unfortunately, they settled there to farm sugar cane and used enslaved West Africans to work the fields. The English ruled the island from 1814 until 1967, and it was 1979 before Saint Lucia achieved full independence as a parliamentary constitutional monarchy, with membership in the Commonwealth of Nations (much like Canada). Their culture is a mix, and their language a creole, but the people are predominantely the descendents of enslaved West Africans. Saint Lucia is their country.

Toward the end of our stay, I learned that the term for the side orders I mentioned earlier, ground provisions, comes from "provision ground." Provision ground was a plot of land that slaveowners reluctantly gave to their slaves so the enslaved people could grow their own food, thus alleviating the slaveowner's responsibility to feed them. That pierced me through the heart. The idea of eating ground provisions took on a new layer of meaning.

I'm under no illusion that we weren't in most ways like all the other white tourists who holiday on Saint Lucia. But I never felt that the people we paid to help us were working for us, like at a resort, and I don't think we treated them as such. We depended on them and on the expertise they shared with us. I had nothing but respect for our hosts and drivers, as well as for the kindly gardener who showed us the plants he was tending around the house. I was always a tourist, an outsider, but I felt that they allowed us to immerse ourselves in their culture at least a little.

I feel privileged to have visited the beautiful country of Saint Lucia. I am a descendent of predominantly French colonists far to the north of Saint Lucia, some of whom might have owned enslaved people. Certainly I am a member of the culture that benefited greatly from the labour of enslaved people. I have now visited a country created by the descendents of people who had been brought there against their will. They made their enforced home into their beloved home and then graciously shared it with us.

During our rain forest drive, Smith introduced us to Saint Lucian singer Jany, who died too young in a car crash. I think every Saint Lucian knows this song: