Miracle Cure

Freshly harvested mango, papaya and soursop

Seed studded, ripe Soursop

You would think at some point I'd stop posting about fruit!  Being constantly surrounded by natural bounty and beauty, I'm struck with wonder as each day unfolds and new experiences spark sleeping synapses.  Food becomes transformative.

Jhumpa Lahiri is an Indian writer, born in London, raised in America who moved to Rome and wrote a book in Italian... which was translated back to English!  She postulates that when one changes languages, one experiences life differently.  Being  in a new country eating foods I never knew existed has a similar benefit.

For instance, who knew the unsightly soursop would open to reveal a funhouse, pineapple-like core?  Completely asymmetrical and difficult to gauge maturity, the soursop is another cure-all food with added hype for cancer prevention. I can reach the tree from my balcony and harvest by hand.  Or head to the hardware store for a padded basket on a stick called a Caillie.

Bringing pleasure in beauty, taste, form and nutrition Caribbean fruit is nothing short of miraculous.

Champions

The end of June brings concert season! Little violinists from the southern campus of the Saint Lucia School of Music gather to perform perennial concert pieces:  Twinkle, Lightly Row, and a new rap favorite, Champion.   Teaching assistant, Al, shepherds his colorful flock through this right of passage, celebrating afterwards with bright cakes and sea-moss drink.

Although the 27 miles to the south of the island are less than the distance I drove to work everyday in Boston, traveling to see this end of year performance isn't easy. The roads that wind between volcanic ridges are narrow and littered with hairpin turns.  Cattle and young children appear suddenly at corners, and getting stuck behind slow moving construction vehicles can easily add 20 minutes to the hour long trip.

On the slow return trip north, unlit streetlights conceal the lurching of the town drunk weaving across a rural yellow line. Napping dogs startle awake to oncoming headlights, and cars crowd passage at a village roadside bread oven.  All miles are not created equal.

A Day at the Beach

Planning a party in a new country is full of surprises. The location, the weather, and customs are unknown and distinctively emergent.  Fortunately,  good guidance came from the Parents Committee for the Orchestra Beach Social.

Note to Self:  Don't plan an outdoor party during the rainy season.

Picnic foods include: green banana salad, macaroni and cheese, breadfruit pie, fried rice and glazed chicken parts.  Anything that absorbs moisture is left at home, and be sure to keep the mayo separate!

Two Timing

 Ever wish you could split yourself in two?  At the Montessori School in Gros Islet Friday night I was pulled in many directions, but somehow managed to keep it all together.

Each year in Boston, Symphony Hall hosts a petting zoo for local school children to give students a chance to actually touch and hold symphony instruments.  On a Friday night before Father's Day,  Saint Lucia School of Music created an opportunity for small people to hold big instruments.   Some of the children were
a good bit tinier than their wooden counterparts, but it didn't make a bit of difference.  Students were entranced by the vibrations of long strings and pretty woodwork.  Parents cast sideways glances from the corners of the room while the little ones obliviously sawed, stroked, and smiled.

Sometimes it's o.k. to be in two places at the same time.  Especially when no one, including instruments, gets hurt!

Hair's the Thing

On a June night, after school exams, the girls from the orchestra arrive with new hair-doos. Each young woman sports a unique arrangement and texture, as individual and creative as their personalities. Braids, cornrows, twists, dreads, straight, natural... A hand written sign at a salon in Castries offers a menu of some of the options available.

Orange you Glad

 My first few months in St. Lucia,  I avoided the unsightly tubers that looked to me like large insect larvae.  Heaps on market tables didn't invite my curiosity. Then one day, by mistake, I purchased a heap mistaking it for fresh ginger root.  Turmeric!  What do you do with that? You don't even pronounce the first "R".  The word sounds: Tumor-Ick.

Well, the locals grate the root into almost every dish that is seasoned.  The color is beautiful bright orange and will stain everything in the kitchen from metal to linoleum.  Turmeric is another cure-all, anti-inflammatory and would be on Dr. Weill's top-ten list, if it were more widely available in its fresh form. Curcumin is the secret ingredient that will cure every ailment from Alzheimer's to Tuberculosis.


Well, the ugly tuber sure brightens up a morning smoothie.  
My latest recipe follows:

• I thumb peeled turmeric
• 1 thumb peeled ginger
• I peeled mango
• 2 piece of pineapple
• 1 peeled cucumber
• a handful ice

Put everything in the blender. 
......of course!

Good Vibrations

The rainy season is upon us, and red and yellow come together in a display of unity.  Rain showers in the dry season are called "blessings" and often last only a few moments.  Lately however, the tropical waves coming across the Atlantic from Africa include thunder, lightning and relentless winds. Anytime the air is cooler that the ocean, we are in for a wet ride!

When the torrent subsides, birds and peepers report the news excitedly while waterfalls, ripples and puddles proliferate.  If I'm lucky, mother nature goes all out and constructs a rainbow, or even a double.  

In St. Lucia, we get to see the ROYGBIV colors connect with the Caribbean Sea and continue on as reflection.  No pot of gold at the end,  just more rainbow.

Who do Voodoo?

Ready for Reds

The battle of Red vs. Yellow continues to intensify as election Monday draws near.  In the U.S. the much anticipated candidate debates and resulting polls educate the public and influence popular opinion.  In St. Lucia, campaign events include pageantry and voodoo.

Yellow on Parade

I wasn't able to get a picture of the coffin the red party created to illustrate the demise of the opposition.  When I asked where the yellow casket adorned with flowers and flag had gone, I was told it had been buried. So, instead I went to the red district to seek out an effigy in a red T-shirt of the current prime minister. The cloth and foam dummy had  hung by its neck from a telephone pole, but I was told it had been cut down in the night.

Hand painted signs announcing the corruption and low moral ground of a candidate sprout at traffic rotaries each morning, followed by fresh signage on plywood  disparaging the political antagonism. "Enough is Enough" reads one small, scrawled board.  I credit the peace-loving Rasta Nation for the quiet plea.  When I asked a Rastafarian his choice for the new prime minister, I was told he would be voting for God.

And then there is the publication of the election manifestos.  Released last week, both yellow and red parties released a 10-point list of campaign promises, the locals refer to as a "List of Lies".   School has already been canceled for Monday and officials are suggesting people stay off the street after dark.  Perhaps school will be canceled on Tuesday, too, if the opposition wins.   That's campaign promise number 11.

666

Monday is 6/6/16. The digits almost spell the "number of the beast" from the New Testament. This date is spelled the same in the U.S. and the Caribbean.  Here, the numbers are arranged Day/Month/Year, from small to large which makes more sense to me than Month/Date/Year, we use in the U.S.   St. Lucia is extremely superstitious, and the children still pray each day in the government owned schools.  So, the fact that this date is also the day Lucians elect a Prime Minister has raised more than routine election cycle concerns.


While Americans are fighting thru their four year campaign season, featuring a regular November deadline, Lucians don't maintain a set election date.  Instead, a month before a term is to end, officials choose a date to vote, and then the  race begins.  Here, however, campaigning is more like a game of Capture the Flag.  The current prime minister is the red team. The opposition is yellow.  The flags go up, and then at night teams circulate to remove the opponents flags.


Drums and megaphones thump and whine into the night. Heated debates on buses and park benches are underway, and the evening news is bright with primary colors. Although 70% of the population is under 30, most youth, in my informal poll, are not voting.  Current sentiment is that both red and yellow parties promise a future of continued government corruption and stagnation.  Even so, everyone is careful to choose their wardrobe colors carefully!