No Particular Plans

It’s Saturday. I have no particular plans. I might have gone to church. I may have taken a walk through the village. I definitely would have slept in. It was to be a casual and somewhat lazy day today. That was my agenda. In Torrance, I know what I will be doing and when I will be doing it. I keep a calendar. People call before they come over. We make plans in advance. Not here.

I found a good book that kept me up late last night. It was 5:30 this morning when I answered the phone. I heard a voice say, “Come Karen, get up.” I had no idea who it was or why someone would be calling me at such a strange time. After a minute or so I realized it was Neena. Again she said “Come Karen”. They call people the way I call my dog, Barkley. It’s the culture here. I accept it. I started to protest, but decided to comply. I can sleep later. I said, “Neena, where are we going?” and she responded, “to the sulfur springs – bring a towel”.

I got up and dressed in my swimsuit and a half an hour later she was here. I ran down the stairs with my towel and house keys in hand. I climbed into the black pick-up truck and recognized Gerardo, Neena’s fiancé in the driver’s seat. There are two other men in the back seat. They moved over to make room for me. I look over and introduce myself. One of them says, “my name is Bob, I’m Obama’s cousin”. Then he laughed because the look on my face said I wasn’t buying it.

I asked him about the election and the entire truck came alive with conversation. I was riding with three well-informed men. I asked them why they supported Obama. They feel he is better equipped to handle domestic issues, including the economy. They think McCain is too focused on war. They call him a “war monger.” Although that may be unfair, it is their perception. They said when the United States is prosperous, so goes the world. We talked about the war, the economy, health care and the importance of race in the campaign. So my previous post is misleading. I said “most don’t know much about the issues”. After having this conversation, I question that statement. I need more data points.

We are heading to the west side of the island – the side I haven’t seen yet. We pass Choisuel and other small villages. This side of the island faces the Caribbean Sea. It is a different world. It houses the Pitons and they are amazing – two large peaks emerge high into the sky, one larger than the other. The Gros Piton is 2,640 feet above sea level. The Petit Piton is 2,461 feet above sea level. They are located just south of Soufriere. We see many people by the roadside setting up structures to sell food and crafts tomorrow. It’s a big day tomorrow – Jounen Kweyol. It will be party time throughout the island. They are celebrating their heritage and their culture.

Gerardo turns off the road and Neena announces, “We are driving into the crater of a volcano.” The sulphur smell is strong. The volcano is eight miles in diameter and includes all of Soufriere. It’s been three hundred years since the last eruption. Gerardo parked the car, we grabbed our towels, pass the fee collection window (local’s don’t pay and I’m with them, so neither do I), and head to the sulfur springs. It’s now about seven in the morning. People go early because they say the water is too hot in the middle of the day. Some even visit the springs at night. Steam is coming from the soaking pool at the top of a small incline. I walked past two round picnic tables with grass umbrellas and into the pool and watched the water falling from the high above. It was comfortably hot. As I relaxed in the pool, I noticed the overflow water was streaming into the river bed below. There were a couple of men who were lathering copious amounts of black mud onto their skin. That looked too good to pass up so I navigated the rocks and tree branches to reach the river. I asked them for instructions on what they were doing. The told me to reach way under a rock and when I felt a soft muddy substance, I should grab a handful. One man said, “Don’t worry; nothing is down there that will hurt you”. I reached down and felt the soft mud. I picked up a handful of the black substance. I squeezed the water from it to make a paste. I put the black mud on my arms and legs and face. They laughed at me and said, “Now you are a local”. It felt nice that these two strangers could feel this comfortable with me.

My friends came down to join me. They found white mud and spread it on their bodies. Now they looked more like me. They painted their faces to look like war paint, and then performed their silly versions of African dance. They were laughing at themselves. It was really very funny. The mud dried on our bodies as we sat on the rocks and talked. We jumped back in the water and washed it off. We moved back up the rocks to our towels, dried off, and headed towards the truck. This mud bath would have cost a couple of hundred dollars at my spa – here it was the real thing, and free. And the company I was with was rich and rewarding. My skin has never felt better. More, the experience was good for my soul.

We headed further up the island and stopped at a lookout point overlooking Soufriere, the former capitol of Saint Lucia. This is a place where many pictures are taken. The view is amazing. No one takes the island for granted. We stood silent for several minutes, taking in the beauty of the scenery. Nina went to the car to retrieve Geraldo’s cell phone for a photo opportunity. I did not bring my camera. It was early and I hadn’t even thought about bringing it. Neena said she regretted that she didn’t “advise me” to bring it. (Sometimes language is more formal – other times it is short and abrupt.) It would have been nice to have my camera, but it was also nice that I wasn’t concerned with preserving the scene – I only had to be focused on the moment.

We got back in the truck and headed to Soufriere. Gerardo stopped at a small outdoor restaurant and we ordered bakes. It was going to take ten minutes to make them so we headed to the pier. The sea is amazing. It’s like Catalina Island was so many years ago. I sat on the ramp and watched schools of fish swimming. The water was probably 10 feet deep at that point and the floor of the sea was visible. Bob pulled out a brown sack. It had warm traditional Kweyol bread inside. I asked him what made it traditional Kweyol bread and everyone chimed in to answer – it’s the oil, it’s the water, it’s the process, it’s the oven. It was good.

We went back and picked up our bakes, drove back up to the look out point and ate them in silence as we looked at the beauty of the Caribbean Sea. On our way home we stopped in Vieux Fort to “bath” in the sea – we swim in the ocean – they bath in the sea. I found an incredible tree with branches a foot wide. I climbed the tree and found a branch that was perfect for a short nap.

I usually don’t allow myself the luxury of this kind of day unless it’s on the calendar. There was no pre-planning. No understanding of what I would be doing from one minute to the next. All I had to do was say, “Yes, I’ll come” when I was called.