Two islands, both alike in dignity
Saint Lucia and Ireland are the only two countries in the world named after women. Saint Lucia is even named after a historical figure, (perhaps unsurprisingly) Saint Lucia, although this name was given by Frenchmen who were shipwrecked here on her feast day.
It’s impossible for me not to draw parallels between this island and the island of my own ancestors, although I can hear Matthias telling me now that it’s not always about me. But here on my blog it is a bit, so it can be.
They’re both so many shades of green. And that’s on account of the rain. Here the wet season or hurricane season runs from June through November; in Ireland it’s just sort of always wet season. In Ireland there are more shades of green, although here it is greener perhaps. I wonder how the names of colours evolved in Irish Gaelic, in Arawak and Carib. I struggle as an anthropologist to remind myself that just because you know an etymology or a language doesn’t mean that you know a people, although the words we use tell us so much about our collective experience.
There are cousins. There are cousins everywhere. On this island of ~180 thousand people it’s impossible not to be related. This country is roughly the population of Worcester, MA, but the population density of the elbow of the Cape. By contrast Ireland has a population of nearly 5 million people, but is more spread out—only one quarter as dense, and if it were in Massachusetts it would be the sixth least dense place, barely more dense than Huntington, Madaket, or Siasconset. (Is one of those places made up? Would you even know?) A big island. Although strangely, because there aren’t really main roads here in Saint Lucia per se—no highways—it takes about as long to drive across Saint Lucia as it does Ireland. Anyway, in Ireland conversations always steer the way of familiar relations, as they do here. Every Irish American has a cousin in Ireland, and every Irish person I sat down with had a cousin in Boston, in Worcester, in New York. Here your cousins walk into the bar, though—or run it.
Our week here ends up as I expect, which is to say lovely and low-stress. We never really have plans; even yesterday when we were going to meet up with some cousins, Jacqui tells us her cousin Alban is going to come around and take us out to dinner. We finally meet the famous Alban, whom we had seen only from the side of the road the day before yesterday—his birthday—because someone had hit his car—but whose reputation precedes him. He takes us up into the countryside to visit his mother—Aunty Delicia—and then to a pub that has some great food. We stay until the cops show up to enforce curfew, which ends up being around 8:20 PM.
Before that we had met up with cousin Reeves to head into Castries for some shopping. The capital, Castries is more of a city-centre than elsewhere we’ve been. The central market is a bit sleepy on a Thursday, and we walk past some local food stalls towards a mall and a fast food place for lunch. I have the oddest combination: a cheese float, where a float is a large bake (the local johnnycake), filled with what I think is rather mac & cheese than cheese itself. But I asked for pepper and it is spicy and filling and fine.
The day before the day we went to Castries, we drove up the way towards Anse La Raye to visit Jacqui’s grandmother Nana Tato’s land. Jacqui and Reeves spend a long conversation in Creole talking about this tough woman who was so soft on her grandchildren—especially Jacqui, the oldest—in too much detail to recount here right now. The road we turn up is tidy, and Reeves gestures up the hill to the right, slowing to show us how much land their grandmother had: reduced to only 45 acres now, after selling some. She had rented a lot of it apparently, and despite being so tough, let people live on it rent-free when they fell on hard times, it seems somewhat because as she got on later in life she found it harder to walk around collecting the rents.
We walk down a path between two houses out to some farmland. There is construction going on at the house to the right, all cinderblocks and steel sheeting, and goats tied up as goats always are, to some random fastening or other. Matthias tries to pet one and is surprised when it tries to nibble his hand in return. Goats will eat anything. There are kids running around trying to suckle whichever doe they can get to hold still long enough.
This is a working farm, and Reeves calls for some help collecting a couple coconuts for us to eat. On the way in, we had stopped at a stand on the side of the road selling coconuts, and Matthias is amazed that he can sip coconut water right out of a coconut. These on the farm are even fresher than the ones at the stand—right from the tree, my favourite, fresh and warm how I like them, even though the chilled ones at the stands seem to be more popular with other people. One of the men working on the farm breaks one open for us, deftly sweeping his machete partway through a piece to create a scoop to get the gel from the insides. He hands the machete to Matthias to crack another one open. Matthias is decidedly less practiced but still enjoys wielding a machete, which miraculously hits only coconut. We check out more of the farm before heading back to the car.
My prize is a soursop, my new favourite tropical fruit.
We drive to Castries, stopping along the way at a beachfront pavilion that has food stalls for some lunch. We sit under trees with strange fruit before Jacqui informs us they are almond trees, which I’ve never seen before. Along the drive, we navigate hairpin turns and stop at overlooks outside government buildings, and I am reminded of similar drives and stops in Ireland. Island living, if you will (which I know some of you won’t).
The next day, on the walk back from the local clinic where we had to get COVID tested before flying back to the States, we even stopped on the side of the road to give the horse that’s customarily tied up there some love. She reminds me bit of Mossy, the ridiculous steed Daddy rode at Muckross when we were in Ireland. I wonder what Mary Beth will say about the state of this horse.
Typically when I’m travelling, I’m drawing parallels between places and home, usually Boston. Here, though, I can’t help but compare and contrast these two islands: their names, their history, how it shaped their people, their cuisine, their colonisers, their verdancy. How disappointing that there are so few countries named after women that I’ve visited them all in a mere two trips.
Months later, at a family celebration when we’re recounting our trip, Matthias’s Auntie Connie will put it better than I ever could:
You walk into that water and you can feel your ancestors.
Auntie Connie
Maybe this is why I am so in love with the Atlantic, why Laura and I have eyes the colour of the sea, whatever the sea is doing that day. Why I still stand and look east, wondering what it was like for my ancestors to look west—waving their loved ones goodbye, never to be seen again—and reflecting upon the Galway Famine Ship Memorial in Salthill, so hauntingly eerie I can feel it in my bones still. You walk into that water and you can feel your ancestors, whether they were they who go down to the sea in ships, or a little girl nearly drowned by her brother in shallow water off Plum Island who never liked going over water ever again but was turned to live in Newburyport. You walk into that water and you can feel your ancestors.