Heading back

For those of you wondering if we're back yet... Norm returned to St. Lucia in time to go back to school on January 7th. Gisele and Allen (Norm's sister and brother in law) arrived on Wednesday night. I return on Sunday the 13th and hope to post in the next week. Hope you all had a great Christmas.

Sunset cruisin'

Life has been busy in our Caribbean paradise as we prepare for the Christmas break.

We enjoyed a special treat last Friday night. Our British friend Judith and her husband Paul invited us, along with all of their friends, on a sunset cruise to celebrate her 50th birthday.

We all boarded a catamaran and sailed along the shoreline from the Castries Harbour to almost Rodney Bay and back for about two and a half hours.

We got to see, from the water, all of the places we've been discovering on foot. There was lots of food, drink and music. It was a great time. Near the end, the Unicorn, AKA the "Pearl" in Pirates of the Caribbean sailed by with its sails lit up. What a beautiful sight.

Later that night, back at home, Dale took out his guitar and we sang some songs together. We googled the lyrics on the laptop so that everyone could follow along and when that was over, went for a late night dip in the pool. Ah life is rough down here.

Saturday was market day. It was a tough time for Norm because we couldn't buy as much produce as we have been since we're leaving at the end of the week. But he did get to visit his favourite grapefruit lady and picked up a backpack full to bring home. For weeks this grapefruit lady wouldn't say a word. She would just hold up four fingers to indicate 4 EC dollars for 5 grapefruit. But now she smiles and her face lights up whenever she sees Norm. And she always gives him an extra grapefruit. She even wished us a Merry Christmas.

After the market we visited our favourite cheese and yogurt place. They import different kinds of cheese and it's the cheapest place we've found for yogurt. Their yogurt is processed so it can stay on the shelf for months without refrigeration so it's really convenient. The only problem is they haven't had any for about three weeks. Knowing we've got company coming over the next couple of months, we stocked up and bought 7 cases. The coconut yogurt is absolutely yummy! For lunch we went to Josephine's, an interesting restaurant we found in an old section of Castries. It's not much to look at from the outside but they barbecue fresh chicken and pork on Saturdays and the food is good and very, very reasonably priced.

In the afternoon, the three women (Sue, Wanda and I) went to a book launch at a local park. It was a book by popular artist, Llewelyn Xavier. At first we felt out of place because we were under the impression there would also be an art exhibit. But the champagne and shrimp they served put us at ease.

Sunday Norm and I took a long walk along the beach. The waves were too high to swim but it was a beautiful day. At night we went to a concert at Kalalu, the St. Lucia World Music Festival. The four groups were from Zaire, South Africa, Trinidad and Tobago and Haiti. There was quite a diverse mix of colour and sound. The group from Zaire had three African dancers. And man, were there were ever a lot of pelvic thrusts and shaking booties when they felt the beat of the music.

And if all of the above wasn’t enough excitement between Catamaran rides, market, book launching and all the other, Tuesday was a school outing to the rain forest for some zip lining. I went along to help chaperone Sue's grade 7 class and got to see the forest from the top of the trees.

Tonight, our last night here, we're doing a ham supper at the house to have a Christmas meal together and then it's off to the airport tomorrow to fly home. We're looking forward to seeing the kids, the dogs and to spend time in our house and the cottage. We'll definitely miss the weather, the early morning and late evening swims and the walks along the beach. Norm will be back in three weeks. I'll return in four. I've got a couple of weeks of work at the CBC before my official retirement on December 31st. I guess I will have to take a break from my life of leisure.

Shake, Rattle & One Leg or Two?

The big event in St. Lucia last week was an earthquake that struck onThursday at about 3:00 pm. The epicenter was in the ocean near Martinique but we felt it here. It was 7.4 on the richter scale. It was enough to make the walls shake. (as well as my knees) I was glad we were at home when it happened. The scene was quite chaotic in Castries where we often go to the market. People were running out of buildings and screaming. There was a bit of structural damage in St. Lucia and people were left pretty rattled.
The rest of this week’s blog will be a collection of thoughts and stories. I'll add pictures from the Island that won't necessarily correspond with the story but they'll give you an idea of the beauty of St. Lucia.
I was reading some of the reviews from visitors at various St. Lucia resorts recently. One tourist, while praising the natural beauty of the Island and the generous and kind nature of the people, commented that the weather was "boring, always sunny and 30 degrees". I can't really say that it's boring but it's certainly something we expect every day. Nice sunny weather, a few clouds. We were quite annoyed and dismayed a couple of weeks ago when we awoke one Saturday morning and had to cancel our plans to travel that day. The sky was overcast, threatening rain...just not a good day to do the exploring we had planned. It struck us how spoiled we had become, expecting perfect weather every day. It seems the rainy season has ended. Whereas we had short but heavy rainfall sometimes two to three times a day in October, we now haven't had a shower in at least three days. I expect it will get quite dry in the coming months.

Most of this week has been spent going to the immigration office to straighten out our documents. It turns out that the Customs people at the airport and the Immigration people in town don't always agree on what needs to be done in order for the teachers to have permission to work in the country and for the spouses to be able to stay longer than six weeks. We have been hobbling through the process with one of the supervisors at the Immigration office. We were stunned to see yesterday that all of the information she is gathering from our passports and work exemptions etc, has to be hand written into a large ledger. None of it is computerized. It's no wonder the poor woman looks frazzled. She promised our documents would be in order by this Friday. We need to get everything sorted out in order to leave the country next week and then return in January.

We had a lovely evening last Sunday at one of the three Sandal’s resorts. It was a Japanese dinner that was organized as a fundraiser for the school. There were four different rooms in the restaurant, each with a different Japanese specialty. There was the Sushi room where all the sushi was already prepared, the raw fish room where you could prepare your own Sushi, the teriyaki room which had a lot more than teriyaki and the stir fry room. The food was excellent as was the wine. There was also a silent auction where Sue, one of the other teachers, purchased a four serving set of dishes as well as two large vases. We're still not sure how/if she will bring these things back home to Moncton. If not, we'll enjoy them while we're here.

Since we are staying until May/June of next year it's important to find people to provide the regular services we have at home, ie. hair cuts, leg waxing, etc. For any of you who have any experience with waxing, you know that once you've gone through the pain of leg waxing and you're at the point where you only need to do your legs every six weeks, you will do anything you can to avoid picking up the razor again. Hence my quest to find a place where I could get my legs waxed. One of our roommates, Wanda, and I walked to many beauty salons and spas in our neighborhood to check out prices. (It's awkward to phone because we don't always understand the accents.) The prices, when they did offer the service, were quite high until I found a little beauty salon that offered leg waxing at 40 EC dollars...that's about 16 dollars Cnd, close to what I pay at home. I quickly made an appointment. I showed up a few days later and was escorted into a back room. I knew it wouldn't be the same as in Canada but I was still surprised to see that in order to wax my legs, I had to sit on a chair across from the girl, with one leg propped on her lap. It was fine to do the front of my leg, but then I had to twist and contort my body so that she could do the back. I couldn't help thinking how fortunate it was that I hadn't asked for a bikini wax. The girl was pleasant. She told me how she was planning on joining the British Army as a way to get a college education. She wanted to become a nurse. My affection for her dwindled however when I handed over 50 ec's and told her to keep the change. I thought a 10 dollar tip was quite generous. She looked at me all confused. "But Mam", she said, "the price is 40 ec's per leg". Per leg! Who gets one leg waxed? Who gives the price of waxing per leg? I told the story to one of the other teachers at the school. She had also been quoted a price for eyebrow waxing that ended up being for one eyebrow. Once again, who gets only one eyebrow waxed?

I’ll do my best to do another blog before we leave at the end of next week. We're both anxious to get home although we're not sure how we'll react to the freezing temperatures and all of the snow Moncton has received this week. For those of who who read this from Moncton or the Maritimes, we hope to see you over the holidays and if you're available, we’re planning our goulash party at the cottage in Cap Pele on Saturday, December 29th. We are even bringing back some St. Lucian paprika just for this event. Hope to see you there.

Gardens, Critters & Compost

We knew St. Lucia was beautiful, but the more we see of the Island the more we appreciate it’s exotic treasures. We did a bit of touring over the past week. Some of it was close to home, some at the other end of the Island. Even though St. Lucia is only 27 miles long, and 14 miles wide, because of all the twisty turns through the mountains, it takes at least an hour and a half to get to the southern end of the Island. Some of the roads are in great shape but on some sections you have to be prepared for missing pavement and pot holes. Luckily, at 35 to 45 miles per hour, it isn’t too bad. I got my first view of the Pitons this week. A photo of the Pitons, in this case towering over the city of Soufriere, is the image most often used to promote the Island. It’s also the image Norm chose for our blog. And because of the Pitons, there are a lot of high end resorts and other tourist sites in the area.

One of the places we visited was a tropical garden near Soufriere, one of several throughout St. Lucia. This one features the Diamond Falls which you may recall seeing in a scene from the movie “Romancing the Stone”. The water is heated by the volcano higher up the mountain. The volcano also accounts for the copper colour in the water. There are mineral baths on the property in which Josephine, Napolean’s wife, apparently bathed as a young girl.

But it’s not just the beautiful flowers and trees that got Norm’s attention. He got to check out a Tropical Garden compost. It is comprised of several three sided bins with an opening at the front, very similar to what he built at home with pallets. The big difference here is that they compost things like cocoa beans and coconut shells. We don’t see much of that in Dieppe. Good thing they didn’t have a shovel nearby. Norm wouldn’t have been able to control himself.

Last week, I went on a field trip with the grade 7 and 8 students from Norm’s school. In exchange for a bit of chaperoning I got to see some of the local sites. We visited yet another Tropical Garden. This one is about 5 minutes from home. It’s a 4 acre property that was purchased a few years ago by an English couple. Not only do they tend to all of the gardens, they also take in dogs that have been abandoned or abused. (Sorry Mom and Dad…more dogs). They have 15 of them and they let several of them roam free during tours, as long as the visitors are comfortable with dogs. You’ll notice the one lying on the ground while the owner, Nick, talks to the students.

We got to see a lot of the trees that bear the fruits Norm has been discovering, including guava, star fruit and soursop. I learned that the coconut tree is called the Tree of Life, because you can live off coconuts for a long time. And check out this incredible caterpillar. It was munching off a vine that was growing on an arbour. I didn’t catch the name but at 4 inches long, it was quite impressive.

The main house on the property is at least 200 years old. It’s a stone house with tall ceilings lined with large wooden beams. The dining room has no less than five doors which open onto a little yard. I thought it made a neat photo. The committee that set up the private school where Norm is teaching apparently investigated the possibility of buying the property when they were creating the school but it was too expensive. Too bad! It would have been a great location. Norm could have gardened during his breaks.

I’m also glad to report that our pool is finally done. We started swimming in it as it was filling with water. It took about 15 hours to fill. And our cucumber plants are in bloom. Life is good.

Friday Fish Fry

This week’s adventure took us to the tiny fishing village of Anse La Raye for the popular Seafood Friday or Friday night fish fry. It’s a quaint fishing village with fishing nets hanging to dry and brightly coloured boats bobbing in the harbour. It’s a 45 minute drive to get there from home through a twisty mountain road. We usually drive between 40 to 45 miles an hour (less around the hair pin curves) but we went a lot slower for part of the trip because we were following someone who was learning to drive. It’s got to be a painful experience learning to drive on some of these narrow roads and passing isn’t usually a good idea. We weren’t in a hurry so we took our time crawling at 20 mph or less for at least 15 minutes before the new driver finally pulled off to the side to let us by.



The houses in Anse La Raye are tiny and built close together along very narrow streets. Many of them are more than 100 years old. There are some great examples of French and English colonial architecture. Some of the houses look like nothing more than little shacks and it seems a little surprising to us that people actually live in some of them.

The local residents started doing a Friday night fish fry as a way to entice tourists to their area. People start showing up at about 7:00 and even though we only stayed until 10:00, the festivities go on until 3 in the morning. It’s quite the street party with loud music, lots of fish and beer and people dancing.

There are booths lining both sides of the street for several blocks. The locals cook up the fish that was caught during the week. They boil, fry, grill, bake it or add it to a sauce. There’s coconut or Creole shrimp, sea food pizza, etc. This vendor was grilling red snapper wrapped in foil. There’s also a small fish they call a boxfish. It’s about six inches long and was stuffed with some kind of bread stuffing and baked directly on the grill. It can be much bigger but they were only offering up the smaller box fish on the night we were there.

There's also a big selection of local lobster. We didn’t try one but we’ve been told they’re similar in taste to the ones at home although they don’t have claws. We’re not convinced. It’s pretty hard to beat Bay of Fundy lobster.

And it wouldn’t be a regular St. Lucian experience if I didn’t tell you about the dogs. My previous post talked about all the dogs we run across when we walk from our house to the road. The Friday night fish fry was no exception. There were a lot of dogs roaming the streets but they were quite timid and well behaved. The vendors must have trained them to stay away from the picnic tables because they stayed clear of where the food was.

We ran across several locals who were really friendly and wanted to give us information about the fish fry, the kinds of fish, the best cooks, etc. Most of these types end their friendly chatter with a request for some cash. One of these jovial sorts this evening was an elderly gentleman on crutches. We prefer to give food over cash so we bought him a snack. He was a little disappointed because he said he needed the money to buy a “coffee”. Once he got his food, he hobbled off to this shack, his home. Shortly after that we hobbled to ours.

The weather is still hot, always around 30 degrees during the day. The coolest we’ve been able to get our bedroom at night is 28. We’re anxiously waiting for the cooler nights in December that we’ve been promised but the picture of our backyard at home after the first snowfall on November 11th helps keep things in perspective for us. Yes it could be cooler, but at least we’re not shovelling any snow

A Road Well Travelled

We’ve spent part of the past couple of weeks getting things up and running in the house. We’re fortunate to have two kitchens but we didn’t have an operating oven in either one. The stove upstairs is a new stainless steel, ceramic surface stove. It looks great but it doesn’t heat well. To make his point to the landlord, Norm timed how long it look for a litre of water to boil on the stove upstairs and the stove downstairs. It took 27 minutes on the electric stove and 7 minutes on the gas stove. There was definitely a problem. And while the gas elements worked downstairs, the oven did not.

The landlord agreed to get the two ovens fixed and we got the call from the worker who was on his way to fix the “cooker”. Answering the phone can be a little disconcerting because there are many different accents and dialects on the island and it’s not always easy to understand what people say. In this case, the “cooker repair man” wanted instructions on how to get to our place.

There is no street name and no address. I asked the cleaning lady to help him out but listening to her conversation I realized she wasn’t used to giving directions. So it was agreed that I would walk up the road to meet him, and show him the way in. I thought it would be a good opportunity to highlight on the blog this week, the road that leads to our place. I walk it just about every day to either go for a stroll, go to the store, or to meet Norm on his way home from school.

I start each walk by grabbing a walking stick. I bring it along just in case I run across a nasty dog. The house across the street has three dogs, one tiny white one whose collar looks as heavy as he is, a medium sized white one and a big brown one. They bark like crazy whenever I walk by the house. They usually stay in their yard but one day they came into the road and nipped at my heels. I yelled at them and that’s been enough to convince them to bark from the safety of their yard.

The first part of the walk is a narrow laneway, flanked by flowering shrubs and flowers, including bird of paradise. The road is often wet & slippery because of the heavy tropical rains we get for a few minutes, several times a day, during the rainy season.

From there, the road is full of huge pot holes. Drivers have to weave from one side to the other at a very slow speed to avoid falling into a hole or scraping the bottom of the car on a rock. There’s a long fenced in property along the road with three dogs. They used to follow along the fence barking, as I walked by. They’ve since become used to seeing me and sometimes don’t bark at all.

The rest of the road, although narrow, is in pretty good shape the rest of the way. A lot of the houses are landscaped with beautiful shrubs. There are often mango, coconut or palm trees in the yard. Just about every house has between one and three dogs, but we’ll often see hens, roosters and baby chicks walking along the road.

The brown dog here is my favourite. He sleeps all day, sometimes in the middle of the road. I worry that one day a car will come by and he won’t bother getting up.

There’s a steep downhill climb on the way to meet Norm when

he comes home on the maxi (the local taxi/bus service) and

there’s a nice view of the surrounding hills. At the bottom of the hill there is often a guy sitting on a stool near the side of the road drinking a beer. We’ve gone by and seen him there at 10 o’clock at night and again at 8 the next morning. We don’t know whether he spends the night there or is just an early riser.

And finally, we couldn't last 10 months without a garden so check out our new mini garden. We’ve just transplanted the tomatoes, cukes & peppers. It will be interesting to see how things grow. We keep them out of the bright sun because they would just cook. We've been told we'll have to put netting on the plants to keep the birds and animals away. We'll move the garden to the balcony upstairs if it becomes a problem.

Lazin' around & Soursop

Norm and I have never wanted to go on a resort trip. You know the kind. The all inclusive where you eat, drink and play for a week. We prefer to explore the areas we are visiting rather than sitting around a pool relaxing. But we had the opportunity this week to spend a day at an all inclusive Sandals resort. Norm was hesitant at first but I jumped at the chance to see what it would be like to be pampered for day. The price was right too. For $45. U.S. we were able to see what it’s like to vacation at an upscale resort. Visiting friends from Moncton had contacts with Sandals and were able to get the special rate for the six of us. We figure that Sandals started loosing money on us at about noon.

There are three Sandals resorts on the Island…all within 20 minutes of each other. I’m not sure how this one compares with the other two but it’s quite nice with beautiful landscaping, lots of flowers, several restaurants, friendly staff, a couple of pools and a beautiful beach. We arrived at about 10:30, reserved deck chairs for our group and immediately went to the Devil’s Hut, a little café that specializes in deserts. We feasted on chocolate covered strawberries and chocolate fudge that was to die for. Others had waffles and crepes.

Lunch was an all you can eat buffet and of course, we did. Fish, chicken, beef, salads and more deserts. The restaurant is pretty much open with mesh netting covering the windows to keep the birds out. But it’s doing a better job keeping the birds in. They somehow manage to get into the restaurant and either don’t want to leave, or can’t find their way out. As soon as people leave their table, the birds are there, picking away at their plate.

We spent the afternoon lounging in and out of the pool, ordering drinks from the pool bar (something I’ve always wanted to do) swimming in the ocean and playing ping pong. We didn’t water ski or sail, though I was tempted. Norm didn’t want to try any of the fancy rum drinks they were serving but agreed that I could order him a rusty nail. When the waiter asked which of five kinds of scotch he wanted for his drink, I called him over so he could decide himself. But the waiter poured both the Drambuie and the scotch in the glass at the same time so apparently, it just wasn’t as good a rusty nail as it could have been.

Saturday was a special day at the resort. There were some 30 couples renewing their vows. They were of all ages and from different areas. It was impressive to see them all dressed up for the group photo at the end. I wanted to join in just so that I could get a beautiful bouquet of white roses. As the sun started to set, many of them gravitated toward the beach to take pictures with the sunset as their backdrop.

The 8 of us headed up to the room to get ready for dinner. Our reservation was at a fancy Italian restaurant where shorts and sandals were definitely not allowed. Men had to wear closed toed shows and a dress shirt. As you can see in the picture three of the four men in our group either decided not to wear socks or had forgotten to bring them. (Norm had given me the socks to pack in the bag and I left them on the bed. Our new friend Dan forgot all his socks in Moncton. Carl doesn’t want to wear socks while he’s in the Caribbean)

Supper was excellent. A wonderful antipasto followed by a four course meal. We haven’t been able to get good beef in St. Lucia so most of the men ordered the beef tenderloin, rare. I had the lamb but wish I’d ordered the beef. We were wiped by the end of the day and spent a lazy day on Sunday recovering from eating and drinking the day before. But all in all, a fun experience. I don’t think I’d want to do it for a week but I’d be willing to try. And there’s a chance we may get to do it again next week. This time I’ll skip the fruity drinks and just have the wine, more chocolate and definitely the roast beef, very rare.

We’ve written in past entries about the juice Norm has been making. His favourite fruit merchant introduced him to something new last week. Soursop. It’s a strange looking green fruit with little prickles all over it. You let it ripen at room temperature for a day, peel the skin, remove the seeds, mix the pulp with some water, blend it and then put it through a sieve to make juice. It can be added to milk. You can use it to make ice cream and it’s supposed to be good with rum. (But here they think everything is good with rum.) You have to be careful to remove the seeds because they are, according to a web site, somewhat toxic. The ground-up seeds are apparently good to kill head lice and tent caterpillars, should the need arise. Norm combined the soursop with some passion fruit and mango to make this week’s concoction. It made a couple of litres of tasty juice so if we find soursop again, we’ll probably buy some more. And who knows what new fruit we’ll discover next week.