One of the
most beautiful places we visit while cruising is the town of Soufriere on St.
Lucia. The town itself is very vibrant
and busy, with lots of older, traditionally-built buildings. The area around town is just gorgeous, with
the two Piton mountains dominating the view.
For some
years we have used the services of a young man named Jarvin when we come to
Soufriere. Jarvin helps us with
moorings, arranges taxi tours and hikes, and is very dependable and personable.
This year,
he offered us a treat: tasting local
foods as prepared by his mother, and meeting some of his extended family. We were happy to agree!
The day
started at 7:30am, when Jarvin brought us some of his mother’s soup for
breakfast. Based on fish and chicken,
but with lots of vegetables and starches, it was delicious. He brought us too much, so we put some in the
freezer.
Later that
morning, he took us to his mother’s house.
There is quite a group of small houses partway up the mountain, and a
bunch of them are occupied by his extended family. Siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles. It’s a large family.
Jarvin’s
mother, who’s name is Lucilia, served us a wonderful lunch. The main course was fish with a delicious
creole sauce, accompanied by beans and other veggies, local starches (breadfruit
and root crops like dasheen), and salad.
Each part was seasoned to perfection with local spices. Truly delicious! Our only complaint was there was way too much
– though we did manage to eat nearly all of it.
The house was small, but very well kept with recent paint, lots of
knick-knacks on display, artwork on the walls.
While we
ate, we got to chat with some of Jarvin’s family, sisters (we think) and
cousins. Very fun. After thanking Lucilia profusely, we paid a
brief visit to Jarvin’s small house nearby.
He was working on carving a calabash for Gretchen. Jarvin took a break from that effort to take
us to his Grandmother.
We never did
learn her name, everyone just called her “Grannie.” She is 92 years old, has lived on St. Lucia
all of her life. She told us that she
wasn’t used to speaking English, since her family used the local Patois at
home, but she spoke very well. We asked her
how many grandchildren she had. She
laughed, “Too many to count!” While we
were there, one of her granddaughters stopped by for a visit. It is clear that
the whole family pitches in to make sure she has what she needs. As we took our leave, Grannie asked us to be
sure and visit again. We will!
We walked
down to the harbor with another of our Soufriere friends, Niall (also known as
Ras Afrika). It’s been a really rainy
period in the southern Caribbean, and we had to duck into shelter twice on the
way down to wait out a squall. In the
second shelter (under the roof overhang of a local bar) we encountered four
little girls, sisters. They were just
coming out of a public shower building, all clean and dusted with talcum
powder, and carrying small buckets containing toothbrushes and combs. The oldest was maybe 10 or 11, and the
youngest perhaps 5 or 6.
As we waited
for the rain to stop, the girls had lots of questions for us. Where were we from? How did we get to St. Lucia? (Callisto was
just a short distance away, so we could show them) Where would we go next, and
when? They were very interested in our
answers, and clearly trying to imagine what our cruising life was like.
We returned
to Callisto and spent the rest of the afternoon trying to digest our very large
lunch. All in all, a very interesting
and rewarding day.
