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
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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