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Sent Wednesday evening 2/10/10:
Yesterday I walked into Vieux Fort again along the beach, about a half an hours walk in hot sun. Then got a bus up to Augier, one has to wait for the bus to fill before the driver leaves so it can take from a minute to two hours to catch a bus! I visited with friends in Augier and tried to find a cool breeze to sit in under the mango tree for shade with chickens pecking around my feet on scraps and a little boy, Daniel playing with two dogs and a kitten. I was so hot when I got off the bus when I arrived there the first thing I did was got into my friend Ilene's shower and took off my clothes then stood under the spout to cool my head and what a relief that was. The shower's a little corrugated 'box' outside in her 'garden' between her house and her outdoor kitchen, open at the top with a hose coming in and the water is hot/warm from the sun at first then cools off. It felt good to be fresh. Ilene cooked a delicious lunch of chrystophine (?sp.), breadfruit, white yam, chicken and green beans and made fresh local juice called golden apple with ice. The Lucian people have so little but would literally give you the shirt off their backs and I try to help them out in any way I can. I sorted through the house and brought some carved thing from Africa and children's/folk tales from Africa with me also, nice bags that I had at home and looked in my jewellery box before I came and brought lots of things I thought they'd like. Not any gold but silver and beads and a copper bracelet and such and have tried to give them all something. Then when I leave I'll give them whatever they'd like of my books, toiletries, clothes etc. and Emelda already asked for my flashlight which I brought in case there was a powercut here. It has new batteries so will come in handy for her. All little things but I also would like to help her find a better place to live. It will be probably on my next visit and I'll try and stay longer. My friend Christina in Toronto is trying to help Leona, Emelda's cousin find some work as she's been laid off from the factory with the recession.
Anyway I got a bus down from there at 2pm and was to meet Emelda when she got off work at 4pm to go and try and find other friends. At this stage I'd a blister on my foot and a heavy bag with fruit I bought from the market so wanted to bring it back to my room before I met Emelda. I saw a peace corps van by the beach and asked for a lift. The young guy/volunteer driver is working on financial stuff here, is from Bolivia and was filling in time until he met someone from the airport so was happy to drive me to the end of my road which was great and saved my blister! I know I had a cheek to ask him but there you are it was good for him and for me as he enjoyed having something to do and someone to talk with about his work.
Then I showered again, changed clothes, put the fruit in the fridge in my room and went up to Micoud with Emelda and met my friends there for the first time in over 20yrs. I'd nursed their mother/grandmother in the hospital and got to know them through her. She only died last year. You've no idea what it's like over and over again as I go to visit ex patients and people here in remote and not so remote villages where very few white people ever go. I call out as I approach a house/shack and ask for the person I'm trying to find. A head appears out a door or window or else they're sitting outside in the shade under the mango /almond tree and look up to see who is this white stranger as their dogs bark, then they scream when they realise who I am 'Eileen, you've come home, you haven't forgotten us we didn't know if you were still alive, we think about you a lot'. It's truly humbling and two of them even had photos on the walls faded over time of me with their families. Now they are all vying for each other to have me to stay with them but whereas I used to yrs. ago I could no longer sleep in the heat and humidity, noise and mosquitos I think. Air conditioning makes such a difference! They give me lunch of 'ground provisions' and fruit from their trees, like paw paw (papaya), mangoes, grapefruit, etc. jelly coconuts and veggies which they have in abundance and freshly baked crispy local bread cooked in outside ovens heated by coconut fibres being burnt in them, then cleaned out and trays of the formed dough being put in the hot ovens and cooked 'til golden brown and crispy. Not many breads I've had ever tasted so good. As they usually don't have butter my friend Emelda carries little packets of mayonnaise from the airport restruant and we use some of that or I use a sweet banana.
We left Micoud eventually about 7-8pm with handful of little pieces of paper of email addresses and tel. nos. it's so strange to me how they have laptops with internet access, cell phones and all the latest technology sent by family from Canada and the US yet many of them live in such basic conditions.
Tomorrow is the last day before I leave and I'm heading to Castries the capital for lunch with a lawyer believe it or not. She was only a schoolgirl when I last knew her and yesterday I visited her mother up in the country. I was friendly with her and her brothers when I was a volunteer. Her mother is a real matriarch and is a lovely woman who really rules the roost and has a shop/pub and used to have a big farm too but says there's no money in that now and she's too old. It'll be interesting to see L. tomorrow and I'll try not to feel intimidated as she's a really sharp dresser, always was even as a young girl and has now studied all over the world. She's a Commercial lawyer and is married to another lawyer and is interested in getting into island politics too. A contrast to the other people I've been visiting. I'm bringing my friend Ilene's 15yr. old daughter Joella with me as she wants to be a lawyer and it'll be good for her to meet Leon and maybe Leon can help her.
Til next time
Eileen
wetherall@hotmail.com