Dominica, the Nature Island

I went to customs for a change, and tied up to the crumbling commercial port dock finding customs in a tin roofed shed with scrap building materials piled about. I was greeted with a smile and professionalism while cleared in AND out in 10 minutes! Nice.

Our days here were fantastic. The people were wonderful. Only 70,000 live people here. They are extremely poor; the poorest we have seen in the islands. As one of the community leaders shared with me, “Yes we lack money to buy material things, but we have everything else in life to keep a person happy. If we had more money, we could have some nice things but those things bring different problems. So overall, we are happy.” I assured him that he was absolutely right and what they have is very special. Having seen the other more developed (ie. exploited) islands the local people were not nearly as happy.

Martin took us on the “infamous” river tour and nature hike, and mountain stream swim. With great pride and knowledge he explained the uses and provided samples of a multitude of native plants. “Have you noticed how we don’t have pharmacies on the island”, he commented. “In addition to all the fruit bearing plants, the edible leafy greens, we are surrounded by natural remedies for any illness we may have.” He also proudly stated that Dominicans have one of the highest centinal rate (% that live to be 100) in the world. Shocking when you consider they have minimal health care. But perhaps not so shocking considering they have minimal industry or electrical devices and no manufactured building products, no pesticides, no preservatives or anything else that keeps us “safe”!

At 6:00 A.M. we went to the local market because by 8:00 it’s “all done”. We passed guys wielding machetes and whacking off chunks of fish, people selling beat up pails of coals for cooking and the best produce we’ve seen yet. Some men in a seasoned ’71 Chevy pickup piled high with coconuts were decapitating them to provide refreshments to the shoppers for a quarter. Sabrinas favorite was the bakery people selling “coconut breads”. Looking around the market, it’s true, the people were very healthy, fit and quite “buff” as Angie noted. I noticed they had a low incidence of periodontal disease and cavities, though the rest of the family didn’t seem to notice. No one begs and no one goes hungry thanks to the sustainable agricultural lifestyle they have. Hhhmmm.