Things with Cords - and the insignificance of Microwave Ovens

My friend Barbara was being helpful. As she reads my blog she knows I probably will never rise to the level of “Chef”. Maybe “cook” someday, although I don’t think so. We both know I’m capable. The problem is this; it takes desire to want to do something and cooking is just never high on my priority list. She lovingly wrote directions for me to make an easy, fast and wonderful microwaved apple. And then, I chidingly and with the sarcastic humor I knew she would understand, wrote back, “and just what makes you think I have a microwave? Oh, how we take things for granted!” I began a reply to her about electronics and the relationship it plays in Saint Lucia. Then, a few sentences into my response, I wrote, “never mind, I am going to respond to this on my blog”.

First, let’s establish that things with cords aren't cheap - and sometimes they may be models from a previous decade. For example, I saw a projection TV in the store the other day - it's just like the one I have at home, purchased nine years ago. It had a price in the neighborhood of almost $3K.

Another example is cell phones. People with flip or slide phones are considered very cool. Internet on the phone? You can purchase a Blackberry - they aren't the norm as they are in the US. IPhones are not available. It’s the expense of using them that is prohibitive. I have a cell phone. The phone is part of the deal Peace Corps made for us. They struck a deal with the company that includes the phone and unlimited calls to other Peace Corps Volunteers for a very small sum each month. The phone I received is exactly like one of the first smaller phones I had in the United States in the 1990s. It’s a Motorola. I think I’m the only one on the island with this kind of phone as I was the last volunteer to pick up their phone. I’m amazed this old phone is still around. Nothing is discarded. Although these Motorola’s aren’t on EBay yet, I’m sure it’s a collector’s item and someday will be worth tens of thousands of dollars! You may detect some sarcasm, but I want to assure you I am grateful to have this phone.

If anything comes through the mail with a cord - it's taxed. The post office opens packages to ensure this. Those of you who have been kind enough to send my favorite breakfast bars, coffee, and nuts; all of those packages were opened and inspected.

There are many things that are either expensive or just not available. People with relatives in the United States have items shipped to them. For instance, Bea is having a big birthday party in December. Birthdays are a big deal to many Saint Lucian’s. It’s customary for the person having the birthday to pay for all the food and alcohol. Bea has asked her relatives in the United States to send a barrel. They send these large barrel’s full of goods by ship. She will have aluminum foil,. plastic garbage bags, paper goods, bags of candy and other snack items sent in this barrel.

Another person on the island has barrels sent a few times a year. She has a small child and disposable diapers are one of the main items in her barrel. Although the officials open these barrels, there is so much in them that sometimes they miss the occasional microwave or toaster oven carefully placed at the bottom of the barrel.

This is a nation that imports everything it doesn’t make or grow or do – which is a lot. Bananas have been the main export industry for the past few decades. This industry is waning and now the government is looking for something to replace it. The cost of living is soaring and many who depended on the banana industry will need to transition into a new economy.

This is a small slice of where Saint Lucia is, but how they got here is a story in itself. So let me try to explain why having Cable TV with only forty channels and an old Motorola Cell Phone is so amazing and why not having a microwave oven is so insignificant.

Beginning in 1763, Saint Lucia was a sugar producing nation. Plantation labor was supplied by slaves. The nation was passed between the British and French several times. The British ruled during the later years. Saint Lucia did not obtain its full independence until February 22, 1979. Because of its close proximity and other political reasons, Western Europe and the United States have maintained an active interest in Saint Lucia.

Emancipation was enacted in 1838. Sugar maintained the economics on the island. Although there were other businesses, most were there to support sugar. Plantation owners imported people from India to replace emancipated slaves. They were confined to the restraints of indentured servitude. Many emancipated slaves chose to stay and work on the plantations because it was familiar and also because they felt powerless to do anything else. Plantation owners exploited them, charging them for housing and for the use of small plots of land they used to grow their food while providing them with very little wages.

They endured Yellow Fever and Cholera, a labor revolt in 1849, they survived slavery and they developed their own culture and language in spite of the obstacles they faced in everyday life. In essence, the sugar industry maintained control of Saint Lucian people for the next thirty years. A new industry, coal, provided a vehicle that loosened their shackles.

In 1866, Saint Lucia became the refueling stop for ships with coal burning engines. People went into the forest, cleared trees, chopping them and burning the pieces of wood for several days to make coal. Making coal had an impact on the rainforest as well as the air quality. However, coal created the economic boom people needed. Workers were being treated poorly which resulted in a 1907 worker revolt. The coal industry survived until 1921 when alternative fuels began to be used. In addition to losing their coal industry, their small banana industry was wiped out by a hurricane three years later.

Saint Lucia suffered for the next twenty-seven years. To make matters worse the world was experiencing an economic depression. The United States and Western European countries provided a small amount of aid. In 1948, another tragedy, this time a fire, would assist the people of Saint Lucia in a positive way.

This was the picture I have formed of the mid 20^th Century. When I was a young child, sitting in my living room, enjoying my first experience with black and white television, they were living in homes with no electricity. While I took a hot bath in our bathroom, they were using public bathhouses taking cold showers. (If anyone reading this is thinking about parts of the United States with extreme poverty, I know, I know. I’m writing this from a middle-class perspective for which Saint Lucia was sorely lacking at the time). They have come from struggling for hope in the midst of oppression, to an economic boom, to redefining their economic identity in the midst of natural disasters. Sir John Compton, considered the Father of Saint Lucia, is largely credited with Saint Lucia’s progress during the last fifty years of the 20^th Century.

In 1948 the next economic boom arose from the ashes of the Castries Fire that devastated seventy-five percent of the city and forced almost 2,300 people into homelessness. When the ashes settled, property damages were estimated to be nine million dollars. However devastating this fire was, it created a new construction industry, one which would be further sustained by the Tourism Industry in the next decade.

In the 1950s the banana industry rose from the rainforest soil and created jobs for anyone on the island who had access to a small plot of land.

(This plot is right next to my house). The fruit united farmers. In 1953, a sugar strike created a vehicle for banana farmer, John Compton. He rose as a leader, standing up to the powerful plantation owners. Through his leadership many began envisioning a new hope for prosperity.

During this time living conditions of people changed. Many homes added indoor plumbing, tiles covered the previous dirt on their floors, and electricity was more common. John Compton earned his place in Saint Lucian leadership. Bananas were the salvation for Saint Lucia, however, the environment was silently impacted by the pesticides that reached the water supply and the forest clearing needed to sustain the golden fruit.

In the 1960s sugar left the island. A hurricane destroyed the banana industry and the Tourism Industry was established. There were more hurricanes in the 1970s and 1980s. The manufacturing industry was established.

Manufacturing had more impact on women than men. Women came out of their homes to work and for the first time and developed a network of friends. Networking was empowering. For men, the ravages of the past are still in the values of today. According to some Saint Lucian authors men thought the manufacturing industry paid “slave” wages. Some preferred to stay unemployed rather than work for low wages.

In the end, weather became the driving force to look for other economic options. The banana industry was struggling and in 1993 a banana strike ended in the deaths of two farmers. They were shot by the police. In some ways, it was the end of an age of innocence. The country is in its next stage of struggle. The banana industry is waning and manufacturing is not providing a wage that enables people to provide the basics for their families. Tourism hasn’t integrated into the island, but instead large hotels have encroached on some of the islands finest beaches, leaving some Saint Lucian’s with the feeling they aren’t welcome. The large hotels and ships that port are contained into inclusive packages – food, drink, entertainment – making it difficult for the average Saint Lucian to profit from this industry.

At the end of the 1990s, 27% of Saint Lucian’s were illiterate. In 2006, one third of the population was under fifteen years old. More people were leaving the island to either get an education or find work. If they weren’t leaving the island, they were leaving small villages in search of more opportunities in bigger cities. Many who leave the island, come back after their careers end to live out their retirement years. The northern end of the island provide professional jobs, whereas, the south end house more manufacturing jobs. This leaves many villages in between searching for a new identity.

It’s easy to understand why technology here can seem basic. However, when I look at it with the Saint Lucian eye, it’s easy to see technology as advanced. They have run at lightening speed in the last fifty years.

Here's what I really want you to know: I’m extremely grateful for what I have here. If it wasn’t for the struggle of so many, I would not have indoor plumbing, tiles on my floor, a cell phone, cable television, the internet, and a host of other modern things. As I listen to the crowing roosters and watch the goats move casually down my street, I think of this small history lesson, understanding the bigger picture of why I’m here. The conclusion boils down to this: I think I will buy a toaster oven when I get my stipend next month. I don’t need a microwave oven.