Leading the way to Legacy

It’s Saturday. I’m skipping church for a little tourist pleasure. I wake early – no water. Oh well. I look through my things and find the little cloth backpack that I purchased several years ago from an outdoor vendor in London near Big Ben. Perfect. I just need a few things to sustain me for the day: a few EC dollars, sun block, bug spray – lots of bug spray, my camera, a banana and some nuts. I’m off to the bus stop.

I’m the first to arrive. Other Peace Corps volunteers are meeting our tour guide, Lenny, at the Texaco Station in my village. Lenny is part of the host family that Judy is staying with. He is a young tall man who is friendly and easily amused. He likes hugs rather than handshakes and I feel an immediate connection to him. Judy is a fellow Peace Corps Volunteer and an amazing woman. She will be assigned to eco-tourism on another island. She wants to see everything St. Lucia has to offer before she is sworn-in and departs for her assignment. One of the promises Judy made to us is to organize tours for us on her island of assignment. She’s a great organizer with an amazing energy for life. The rest of our Peace Corps friends arrive and we are off.

Our first stop is Litille Falls where we will meet Mr. Sly Joseph. We drive a short distance and turn off the road following a somewhat paved but mostly dirt road that will lead us to Mr. Joseph. He is a Rastafarian who is living off his land. By his own admission he says many people find him a little weird. Later I talk with others in my community and without exception they tell me about his remarkable high level of intelligence. I personally found him incredibly wise, insightful, and amazing. He is a person with a huge heart.

The first thing I noticed was his dog. As we opened the door of the van the dog greeted us with his tail wagging. He was curious and chasing the cats. This is the first happy dog I have seen on the island and it is a testament to Mr. Joseph’s approach to life. Most dogs in Saint Lucia are homeless and give humans a wide birth. Their heads are down and tails are between their legs. People are compassionate and leave leftovers for them, but for most dogs on the island, life is hard. Mr. Joseph is a person with love in his heart who believes he is borrowing a piece of the land while he is here and that he must leave it better than when he found it…a true environmentalist.

He invited us into his home where we met for quite awhile to talk about his life, his attitude, Rasta values, and how these things culminated in his passion for an eco-friendly sustainable lifestyle. We took our shoes off at the entrance and we entered his modest one-room home built of wood. He smiled as he turned on the light and powered up his stereo and announced his energy is carbon-free. There is a stove in a tiny section of the room; a stereo, television sofa and chairs in another section of the room, and finally a four poster bed in the far corner of the room…all the comforts of home in an eco-sustainable carbon-free environment. Mr. Joseph sat on his bed and we sat on his sofa and various chairs. We listened to Reggae while he told his story.

Twenty-five years ago he started coming to this land, planting trees, various herb gardens, and building paths. There are five waterfalls on his six acres of land. He was educated in Trinidad after receiving a full scholarship – books, tuition, room, board, and stipend – the whole thing. He had an important job with the government of Saint Lucia. He had four children, three boys and a girl, drove his car to work and lived a reasonable Saint Lucian life. He explained that as he got older he began to see things more clearly, realizing that the earth is a gift and we must protect it for future generations. He also believed that he was given so much that it was time for him to find a way to give back. He slowly positioned himself to move onto the land full-time. He grows his food, feeds his animals, makes his own electricity, pumps his water and lives a carbon-free lifestyle.

He wrote grants. The European Union gave him money. They University of Vermont supported his project. He went to Canada and learned how to build a hydro-water pump to create electricity. He built a hydro-water pump using the knowledge he gained in Canada, but substituting resources that could be found on Saint Lucia. He points to his head and says “this is what I use”. He is tenacious and received enough PVC pipe as a gift to pump his water up a hill before it is recycled back into the dam. He generates enough free electricity to sustain his house as well as the land around his home. He has lighting throughout the entire path to the falls.

He doesn’t just do this for himself. He wrote proposals and more grants so that school children can come onto his land and take classes to learn the techniques that have taken him a lifetime to learn. He wrote more grants to get funding for teachers to learn and teach his knowledge. He envisions tourist classes and overnight stays . . . . but his next project is to make natural organic carbon-free peanut butter with honey. He feels he could use the proceeds to continue educate others to be responsible guardians of the earth. He struggles with the capitalism. He resists putting up a sign charging a fee for his personalized tour.
We were finished with our conversation and now it was time for a tour of his land. As we headed out the front door of his home we could hear the load groaning he-haw of his burrow (is that what they say? I think so - anyway). He was greeting Mr. Joseph who quietly walked over to the animal and gently rubbed his nose. The donkey quieted. The dog was close behind wagging his tail and not letting Mr. Joseph out of his sight. There is another man on his property. When I pass him our eyes meet and the man points to Mr. Joseph and then pounds his heart with his fist. His gesture is saying, “Mr. Joseph has a big heart”…something we’ve already figured out.

We stopped at a fish pond and fed his small fish some crackers. He explained they are his pets. He adopted them from a local fish hatchery.

As we continued on the path Mr. Joseph spotted a few mangos in a tree and climbed it to ensure we all had a piece of fruit to take with us. Fearless, Judy followed him up the tree while Lenny begged her to go no further and come down immediately. Judy is a risk-taking daring athlete and to her it is second nature to climb a tree.

Further down he climbed another tree to get a cocoa pod from the cocoa tree. It is a pod the size of a gourd. He cracked it open and we picked out handfuls of the beans and ate them.

We walked on a small trail he built, past the trees he planted, and past the waterfall that ensures he has a supply of water to sustain his simple lifestyle of needs. He opened a door and displayed the hydro-pump he built himself. He took a complex technical concept and broke it down to an example we could all understand.

He explained that it operated on the same principle as the human heart. The body needs a self-sustaining pump to move blood throughout the body. Without the pump, all the blood would be at our feet, none would reach our brain, and we would die. Whereas our heart serves as the pump that sustains life, the hydro-water pump acts as a carbon-free pump to sustain the earth’s life. Mr. Joseph laughed and said that when he puts too much stress on himself he comes to the falls where he relaxes. It was a majestically beautiful place.

On the way back we walked through a grove of star fruit trees and we picked several fruits – some we ate there and others we put into our backpacks for a later snack. The burrow saw us coming and began groaning his he-haw sounds again – and again Mr. Joseph walked over to him and rubbed his nose. We walked past cherry and cashew trees.

It was getting late and we had another stop to make so we were headed back toward Lenny’s van just as a rainstorm began. We took quick shelter just outside Mr. Joseph’s house on a covered patio that overlooks the forest. He turned up his stereo and Reggae played as we watched the rain pound down onto the forest floor. After a few minutes the rain eased and we left Mr. Joseph standing at his doorway, waving, and inviting us to come back. As we drove off, we heard the burrow groaning once again – Mr. Joseph must have been back on his trail. This was a perfect Saint Lucia day.