Monday, July 29, 2013

And so it begins


As most of you know, for this coming year I’ve taken a sabbatical leave from my university teaching job to write the long-awaited book on traditional potters in the Caribbean. And of course, there are trips involved – to reconnect with people, places, and pots; to update research that stretches across the last twenty years; to take more pictures and listen to more wonderful stories. But this trip, like all trips, started with the endless details of The Exit…

Thursday July 25
Pick up the rental car. Drop off the cat with Mom. Print the boarding pass. Charge endless batteries for too many devices. Pack. Repack. Overthink everything. Set two alarms. Sleep badly. Take out the trash. Leave almost on time. Two miles out, remember that you forgot your driver’s license and health insurance card; go back and get them. Drive to Miami 9.5 miles faster than the speed limit because now you’ve blown your margin. Arrive on time anyway. Drop off the rental car. Go up three floors, take the tram, find the self-serve ticket counter, swipe your passport, stick the printed label on your bag, and experience that small moment of pleasure when it’s not overweight. Get through security, reassemble yourself, fill the empty water bottle, look for the gate. Find the gate but no edible food, hike a few miles to get the swiss cheese and tomato Cuban sandwich you always get in the Miami Airport. Buy an expensive, escapist book so you can put off reading research material for a few more hours. Board the plane, juggle the book and the sandwich while getting Cuban breadcrumbs all over self and plane. Completely dismantle your carryon luggage to find the pen that you know is in there somewhere so you can fill out the immigration form. Entertain stupid, self-defeating thoughts regarding the validity of this trip and the illusion of stress-free living back home. Begin to wonder if one is too old for all of this. Spend five dollars to add yet another set of airline earphones to the collection you left at home, watch a Matt Damon movie, and then watch the descent into the impossibly beautiful volcanic scenery of southern St. Lucia. Wait to leave the plane. Wait in the immigration lines. Retrieve your bag, roll through customs with nothing to declare, say no thank you to at least five taxi drivers, meet up with Ronald from DriveAmatic Cars who remembers you from last year, examine every single scratch on your Suzuki Swift, hand over the American Express card (best international rental car insurance), fill out lots of paperwork, and suddenly, as you get behind the wheel on the right side of the car, you are there. You have arrived. As you drive out of the airport parking lot, begin the chant: stay to the left, stay to the left, watch out for potholes, stay to the left, watch out for goats, stay to the left.

The next four hours is a long hop from the southern tip to the northern point of St. Lucia, stopping off to see old friends all along the way. The roads are narrow, winding and curling along the southern coast, through the towns of Vieux Fort and Laborie, and on into the countryside of Choiseul. And while the landscape truly takes your breath away it’s the people I’ve come to see, starting immediately and unexpectedly at the airport when I literally run straight into Jolien Harmsen, a terrific writer and local historian. After the traditional kiss-on-each-cheek Lucian greeting I dig into my suitcase for the books I had brought down for her; didn’t know if she was on the island or if I’d see her so I was delighted. We’ll catch up later in the trip. Next stop was the Balenbouche Estate, my home away from home in southern St. Lucia, to see the lovely Uta and her daughters Verena and Anitanja, who is soon to have a baby boy. I’ve known Tanja since she was a blond, leggy, wild child of ten. We make plans for my stay there later in this trip, and I have another serendipitous meetup with Annu Ratta, an artist and craft development expert who visits St. Lucia often. I saw her a few years back at Balenbouche, and we talk art and pottery and get as caught up as may be in a short time. Then its off to LaFargue across from the Choiseul Craft Center to hug my friend Ulrica’s daughters; she’s in England just now visiting her son Desley – he’s in the British army and has two kids but I remember him as another ten year old wild child. Back in the car, drive down to the sea, through Choiseul village and up into the high ridges of land behind the Pitons to find my pottery ladies – Irena Alphonse, Catty Osman, and their sons and daughters and families. For twenty years they have welcomed me into their lives, and we’ve talked and laughed and made pots and built kilns and visiting with them is always a great joy. I’ll be back down next week after I go to Barbados, but we all check up on each other and I field the usual comments about how fat I am with less grace than I should since its sort of a compliment. I do so love it here – when I drive over the hill at Mongouge between Irena’s house in Martin and Catty’s house in Morne Sion the view of the land racing down to the sea just fills me up and brings me back. These are extraordinary people with extraordinary histories in an astonishing landscape, and it is, as ever, a privilege to be a part of it.
Catty Osman                             Irena Alphonse

The long drive north winds further up the coast, from Soufriere to Canaries to Anse La Ray, then finally past the big gas transshipment tanks at Hess Oil and through the capital city of Castries and on up to Rodney Bay. The hotels come thicker and faster the further north you go until the sequence of hotel, shopping mall, hotel, restaurant, hotel becomes constant. Traffic jams up here are epic, despite attempts to expand the ‘highway’ by squashing three or four lanes and a concrete center barricade into what was once a two lane road. Driving here is a bit of an adventure (stay to the left). I find my hotel with its peach, yellow, and green walls and breathe a sigh of relief for not having scratched or crashed the car.

James and Urmie

The last three days have been a joyful blur of dear friends, necessary logistics, wedding parties, beach swims, and the inevitable packing and repacking. Urmie Persaud married James Shingleton-Smith with a lovely Baha’i ceremony made up of readings, prayers and chants by family and friends as the bride and groom stood under a fantastic arch of tropical flowers followed by lots of toasts, speeches, Creole food, and dancing (Gangnam Style is just as popular here as anywhere on the planet).
Dorothy Beausoleil

I ventured in to the Castries Marketplace to bring last year’s picture to Dorothy Beausoleil, a wonderfully warm market vendor who has been selling local crafts and spices in the same location for 36 years, every day except Sunday from 5:30am. She told me the sad story of her son’s death last fall, but was delighted with the picture and planned to send one home with her daughter who was visiting from America. Dorothy sent her to the US for a holiday after she finished school at 19, and she has lived there ever since.
John and Lee

Up in their wooden house in La Toc on the far side of Castries I had tea with John and Lee Kessell, the amazing Caribbean Australian couple who took care of me when I first arrived in St. Lucia in 1994. Despite various medical annoyances they are unstoppable, and their two dogs bark as loud as ever (dogs in St. Lucia are essential alarm systems). Last night I had the great good fortune to finally join Finola Prescott’s Sunday afternoon ladies beach gathering – cocktails, brownies, tea, swimming and truly great company as the sun set in splendor over Rodney Bay. Did I mention that I love coming to St. Lucia ? And now its off to Barbados for a major update of pottery research that must be 17 or 18 years old; there’s a great ceramic tradition there that was inherited directly from British indentured laborers, passed along to African slaves, continued in the Chalky Mount area after emancipation, and grew into the most established functional pottery community in the region. So – more from there !

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