Waiting for the plane

Elyse and her fiance Daniel have come to visit this week. It was a stressful time for them leading up to the trip. They weren’t able to confirm their flights until Thursday night. This when they were hoping to fly out on Westjet on Sunday. But they got their flights and arrived on time Sunday afternoon. They flew into the Hewanorra airport in Vieux Fort at the southern end of the Island. It’s not far but it still takes up to an hour and a half to get there. We left early in case there were traffic problems and went to the beach next to the airport to wait for them. What a beautiful wait.



Many people at this end of the Island have horses. And it’s not unusual to see people on horseback on the beach. They ride without a saddle. In this case the rider took his horse in the water to cool him off.







You can’t go anywhere in St. Lucia without seeing animals. There are always dogs of course as well as goats and chickens. But we got a chuckle seeing this cow walking along the airport fence. She was tethered at one point and must have broken free. After we picked up Elyse and Daniel there were six cows walking along the fence, one behind the other. They must have been looking for the first one.



There are many beautiful trees between the road and the beach area. They grow fairly flat and close to the ground. It's a perfect spot to sit an watch the planes come in.


















We took Elyse and Daniel to the beach to show them the paradise they’re visiting. They didn’t swim but they got their feet wet. I’ll add a picture of them when I get access to Elyse’s camera.





One of the new vegetables we’ve discovered that we really enjoy is christophena.
We cook it the same way we cook potatoes, peeled and boiled. But it’s quite runny. So sometimes after we boil it, we drain it, add cheese and bake it in the oven. You can also boil it in the peel, take the inside out, mash it and add it back to the peel to broil in the oven. It’s yummy.


And here’s that recipe for Coconut Squares that I mentioned in an earlier post. Everyone in the house really likes them. But be warned...they're rich.










Heat in a saucepan or microwave
½ cup butter
2 cup brown sugar

Remove from heat to cool and then add
2 eggs
1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 ½ cup desiccated coconut
2 tsp vanilla
Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until firm

The Road to Dauphin

One day this week when Norm was teaching and Wanda was busy entertaining her company (two couples are visiting Dale & Wanda) Carl and I went off on one of our fieldtrips. We use these little trips to discover a new part of the Island and more often than not, to try out the beer at a new bar. Our destination this time was Dauphin…a small village and beach on the northeast corner of the Island.


Going on one of these adventures may seem simple to the uninitiated. Just follow the map and go, right? Not so easy. We haven’t been able to find a good map. There are no road signs, nor in many cases, are there signs announcing which town or village we’re driving through. So if we don’t stop to ask, (and we haven’t yet) we just head in the direction of the ocean or the mountain peak and hope for the best.


We went through several little villages on fairly decent roads before the pavement gave way to a dirt road. It’s where we decided to turn back last week when we were driving with Gisele and Allen. But Carl has a four wheel drive and his vehicle is able to make it in places where our car can’t. We drove along for a few kilometres, dodging rocks and potholes, until we reached the village of Dauphin. The houses were small and in some cases primitive. On the left the houses were built into the hillside above our heads and on the right the houses were below us. A woman washed her clothes in a bucket in front of a huge water tank in the center of town. Each house had a black water tank either in front of or behind the house. It turns out that they are unable to pump water up to the town so that a tanker truck regularly delivers water to fill up the water tanks. The area seemed quite impoverished but the people smiled and waved as we drove by. The dirt track became narrower as we drove and we saw many piles of horse manure. We concluded that the road is used more often by horses than cars. After about 5 kilometres of driving through a beautiful valley, we finally reached Dauphin Beach. The sand was almost black. There was a tall cliff on one side covered with cactus and aloe vera plants. The beach was littered with debris brought in by the waves. It’s not a beach used for swimming so it doesn’t get a regular beach clean up. But all in all, a beautiful spot.




On our way back through town, we were stopped by a woman walking down the road carrying her son. Her name is Nadia. Her two year old son is named Austin. She asked if she could get a ride into Castries. She had to go the pharmacy to pick up nose drops for Austin who was sick with a bad head cold. As we drove the 20 minutes or so into Castries, she named every town and village we drove through. She rolled the window down and yelled hello to at least 20 people along the way, including two guys riding in the back of a pickup truck on the roundabout. They were all her cousins she said. She has a heck of a lot of cousins. She answered her cell phone and told the caller “I’m in a car with some white people, showing them around”. She gave us her number and said she was available any time to be a tour guide or to do hair braiding.





We had an interesting time at the market last week. A good part of the market is outdoors with vendors selling their produce under big umbrellas. The umbrellas did little to protect them on Saturday when there was a huge downpour. Usually the rain lasts only 5 minutes or so but this storm went on for at least twenty minutes. All of the customers who were outside ran into the covered part of the market and hovered in the crowded stalls waiting out the rain. The selling stopped. People just chatted with each other and waited for the rain to pass. It’s the way of the Caribbean. Relax. Wait it out. It will pass. It was interesting to listen in on the discussions, although we don’t understand most of the patois that is spoken.


We won’t be buying any peppers at the market over the next few weeks. Our balcony garden is starting to bear fruit. We’ve got beautiful orange & red peppers, eggplant, parsley and basil. Our cucumber plants didn’t make it and while the tomato plants are producing, the tomatoes have a disease that is very common in St. Lucia. It’s apparently impossible to avoid if you grow tomatoes here. So we’ll be sticking to peppers, eggplant and fresh herbs.


Next entry I’ll tell you about a new vegetable we’ve been enjoying and I’ll share a new recipe for Coconut Squares that I got from one of the parents at the school. It’s absolutely yummy!

Blooms & citrus

It's supposed to be the dry season in St. Lucia but so far we’ve been getting a fair amount of rain every day. It doesn’t last long but it is helping to keep all of the beautiful flowers in bloom and the plants lush. We’ve been seeing a lot of poinsettia, both red and white. They are more like a tree than the plants we are used to back home. Often they are in a hedge in a yard or hanging over a fence. The make a stunning show.

We did a bit more exploring with Gisele and Allen over the past couple of weeks. We spent one Sunday on the Eastern side of the Island where there are stunning views of the Atlantic Ocean. It’s much rougher than the Caribbean Sea on the Western Side. The huge waves and beautiful sandy beaches are tempting but it’s very dangerous to swim there. The undertow is vicious and many people have drowned. This view of the Atlantic was taken from the site of an old sugar plantation we visited.

The plantation ruins have been developed as Fond D’Or Nature Reserve and Historical Park. It’s one of several old sugar plantations on the Island. Sugar cane used to be a big crop here before it was replaced by bananas. St. Lucia still produces a lot of rum but the molasses from the sugar cane is now imported from Antigua. The photo you see is one of the old buildings on the sugar plantation. It was impressive to see the massive tree growing through it.

Travelling further south on the Eastern side of the Island we passed places with the interesting names of Malgretoute (despite all) Patience and Mon Repos (my rest). We toured Mamiku Gardens, a newer tropical garden. It’s set on 12 acres of land surrounding an old estate house. The garden specializes in orchids. They were growing in gardens but they were also growing in the crooks of trees. There was also an herb garden with plants that could cure anything from headaches to menstrual cramps and gall bladder problems, etc etc.

We’ve talked about how much we enjoy the fruit on the Island. Sometimes it’s hard to identify the fruit, even if it’s one we’re quite familiar with. In this case, Norm is holding a lemon. It’s the size of a regular grapefruit at home. It’s no surprise though considering the grapefruit we get is the size of a cantelope. We’ve had more than our share of grapefruit lately. Our cleaning lady offered Carl some grapefruit as log as he could pick them up. She comes by bus and didn’t want to carry them all the way here. Carl didn’t tell anyone about this because there’s a bit of competition going on between him and Norm over who can get the most grapefruit for the best price. Norm had been winning the competition up until now because his grapefruit lady at the market continues to give him good prices and some freebies every week. We went to the market and bought our regular five or six grapefruit only to discover when we returned that Carl had a bag with sixty grapefruits to share with the household. Needless to say, we’re getting our share of citrus these days.

And I’ve taken a fair share of ribbing over my new retired status. I officially retired from the CBC on December 31st. Allen and Carl insisted I join them at this spot in the market in Castries for a photo. It’s where the retired folks meet up to drink beer and play dominos.

Let it Snow & Sailing along

It’s been a long time. Much snow has fallen at home and the weather in St. Lucia has cooled slightly to a more comfortable level. We returned to Moncton on December 13 to spend Christmas with the kids and the dogs. But we had an unexpected delay when our flight from Newark to Moncton was cancelled because of bad weather. After a two and a half hour wait in line to talk to a customer service agent, we found out we couldn’t leave until the next direct flight 24 hours later. So we were stuck in New York without winter clothes. Norm had a short sleeved cotton shirt. I at least had a cotton jacket with long sleeves and a warm hoody that I was able to lend him. The airline refused to put us up in a hotel but “generously?” gave us two blankets and a pillow to help us sleep in the airport. We booked a hotel instead and used the blankets the next day as scarves to help us keep warm. Norm likes to say we made lemonaide with lemons. We took a shuttle into New York and then bought tickets for the double decker tour buses. They were great. We could get on and off whenever we wanted. We would sit up top to see the sights but when it got too cold we’d go downbelow to warm up. It’s amazing how much we were able to see that way. It was a lovely day but a rude introduction to colder weather.

The weather in Moncton was another shocker. We had four storms within one week…each of them between 20 to 40 centimetres. It was the week Deny and Catherine had chosen to go to the Dominican Republic with their friends so Norm had to do a lot of shovelling on his own. I helped with the walkway but at the end I could barely get the snow over the snow bank. Fortunately we had a big melt afterwards so that the snowbanks shrunk considerably.
We had a nice Christmas, spending time both at home and the cottage.

The driveway to the cottage had to be blown out twice. Norm and I had planned to meet there for supper and to spend the night after one of the storms, but the guy hadn’t had a chance to clean out the driveway. I got there first and had to hike at least 800 feet into the cottage, stomping the snow with my cross country skis. There was no question of gliding. The snow was too deep. The worst thing is that I had to carry the prime rib roast I was making for supper, along with other groceries, in a plastic bag in my hand. The dogs were very interested in that grocery bag. But I made it, despite the minus 25 degree weather, and the cottage was toasty warm by the time Norm arrived. What a lucky guy!

So we’re back in St. Lucia. Norm’s sister Gisele and her husband Allen are visiting, and enjoying everything the island has to offer. Last week we sat in on a time share presentation at the Windjammer, a resort down the road. As a thank you, they gave us a nice discount on a cruise to Soufriere, at the south of the Island.

The cruise was on a catamaran. We left at 8:30 and docked again at 5:00 pm. We cruised from the Windjammer past our house. We sailed by Castries and throughout the West Coast of the Island. We could drink all of the rum punch or beer that we wanted. The rum punch was so strong that we preferred a mix of half punch, half passion fruit juice.

Once we landed in Soufriere we were taken by mini-bus to Toraille Falls. It’s a 15 metre waterfall that we get to after walking through yet another tropical garden. It was a great place to take a quick dip. The water hits you pretty hard but it’s very refreshing.

From there, we were taken to the world’s only drive-in volcano. By drive in, they mean that the parking lot and road are actually built on top of the volcano. The Canadian government helped develop the tourist site. It is quite amazing. There is steam rising from the craters and the mud continually bubbles up. In the past, they used to let tourists walk closer to the craters. They would cook eggs in the boiling mud to prove just how hot it was. But that ended after a tour guide fell through one of the cracks. The ground can move and create new fissures. The guide was jumping up and down and a hole opened up and he fell in. He survived but was seriously injured. The volcano is active and scientists say it will erupt again, maybe as soon as 100 years from now. But they say there won’t be lava. There will be a big blast as strong as an atomic bomb and people will be killed by the poisonous gas that will be released.

Our next stop was at a working coco plantation where we were treated to a lovely buffet lunch. We had a short tour of the site and an explanation of how they process coco beans. After drying the beans in the sun on large trays for a few weeks, they pour them into a big cast iron pot where a worker polishes them by doing a coco dance. He washes his feet, adds water to the pot, hangs on to each side, and then swings his legs from side to side as the beans swish up and around him. I will never eat chocolate again without thinking of the coco dance.

There was a scheduled stop on the way home at a popular snorkelling beach. Gisele and Allen convinced me to give it a try and I am now a convert. I will never go far or go deep but in 15 minutes I saw at least a dozen different species of fish, all I water up to my neck. I felt like I was swimming in an aquarium. It was very cool.

The only unfortunately thing about a wonderful day of sailing is that Norm couldn’t be there because he was working. But it was so much fun that we’ll do it again when he can come along.
Sorry you had to wait so long for this latest blog entry. I’ll try to keep writing weekly but it’s going to be more difficult as we get more company over the next couple of months.

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.