Hurricane Tomas - St Lucia and Haiti Fight On...

It’s the time of year when the Caribbean islands breathe a collective sigh of relief as the hurricane season draws to a close. But this year, it has come back to bite them with devastating results.

Tomas emerged with little warning on the cusp of Halloween to rampage through the Caribbean, causing death and destruction just as islanders started to relax. However, what few outsiders will appreciate is that most islands will have been left unscathed as Tomas concentrated its force on those in its path – namely St Lucia and Haiti. Islands on the periphery of the storm course – notably Barbados, Jamaica and Cuba - also felt its affects, but thankfully to a lesser extent.

Even on St Lucia, it was a trail of two halves with the northern part of the island taking less of a battering while the southern section – around Soufriere – took the full force of the hurricane winds and lashing rain, with roads and houses swept away in the ensuing landslides. Tomas has been declared the worst storm in the island’s history, destroying its lucrative banana crop, and putting the country’s main dam, which supplies the population with fresh water, out of action. Properties such as Ladera have temporarily closed and the race is on to mop up and get back to normal in time for the peak Christmas/New Year holiday season.

As for Haiti – how much more can this poverty-stricken nation take? Earthquakes, cholera and now Tomas but, and you have to take comfort from this glimmer of hope, it could have been so much worse. Tomas is the sort of natural disaster that spares no-one in its path and West Indians are resigned to the fact that such devastation is the price they pay for living in one of the most beautiful corners of the world.

Yet few communities are more adept at recovering from such setbacks. The clear-up operation begins instantly, swinging into action and often resulting in the destinations emerging phoenix-like with a new lease of life.

You only have to look at Grenada, Jamaica and Antigua and others which have emerged refreshed and reinvigorated after such tumultuous events. In these circumstances, many in the tourism industry turn adversity to their advantage by taking the opportunity to upgrade and renew. And it’s with this in mind that those worst affected by Tomas can look ahead and realise that no matter how tough things seem, the strength of the Caribbean islands and their people will shine through.

*Anyone wishing to donate to the ongoing relief effort in Haiti should go to www.redcross.org.uk

Poor Haiti? The Influence of John James Audubon

There’s been plenty in the news at the moment about Haiti - the country seems to have more bad luck than anywhere in the Caribbean. Around 150,000 people are now thought to have died as a result of the earthquake on 7th January this year, and the figure is thought to finish close to double that. So here’s a bit of inconsequential, but interesting information.

Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon, “the artist of birds”, was born in Les Cayes, Haiti in 1785. He moved to the United States as a young man in 1803 to avoid conscription in the Napoleonic War and made his fame there recording many of North Americas species by drawing them. His name has spawned birding societies throughout the world. He is most famous of course for his collected Birds of America, published between 1827 and 1838, which includes 435 hand-coloured engravings.

Even now after 150 years they hold their own as superb examples of a craftsmen and artist at work. Charles Darwin quotes Audubon three times in Origin of the Species and many of his later works, and a copy of Birds of America in excellent condition sold at Christie’s in March, 2000 for $8,802,500!

Haiti Island Guide

My Top 6 Plants From The Caribbean, by James Henderson

Botanical gardens in the Caribbean are always a pleasure to visit. Tropical plants – particularly if you do not know them - are endlessly exotic. They are often incredibly brightly-coloured. Their flowers are weird and wonderful - some look more like sculptures than anything natural. Orchids are extraordinary. And who would ever design a flower like the lobster claw or the torch ginger? They might almost bite you.

There is a botanical garden in nearly every island, and in them nearly every plant has a story. I’d always recommend taking a guide when visiting them and when hiking (while elsewhere I am not necessarily convinced about guides). But here they bring the place alive with all the stories. These can be to do with the origins of the plants, where they came from and how they got to the Caribbean (see our recent newsletter article about Captain Bligh and the Plant Hunters), or how they grow. Also, what the plants are used for – many are used for medicinal purposes as well as for decoration and for food.

As you walk the around the garden a guide will crush leaves to reveal the smell (this is particularly good on citrus trees, but also on others such as clove and camphor) or they will point out oddities – you can guess what the red film of the lipstick palm looks as though it might be used for, but what about the sandbox tree – in fact it takes its name from its pods, which were once used for containing blotting sand (to dry ink on the page).

Here are few of my favourite Caribbean oddities, discovered in various botanical gardens over the years -

Quinine, used in the treatment of malaria, comes from the bark of the cinchona tree, which grows best in cloudforest - at high elevations.

The periwinkle, a pretty pink flower on an unassuming green bush, has been used in the treatment of cancer.

Pimento, a spice that grows particularly well in Jamaica, is also called allspice (because it tastes like so many other spices combined – cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg for instance). The spice comes from the berries and the wood is used to flavor jerk food when cooking. Allspice can even be used to cure and dye leather.

What fruit would a cannonball tree give up? You’ve guessed it, a massive, woody ball. Interestingly this huge tree has very delicate flowers, which open at night and fall to the ground with the light of dawn.

Mahogany tree pods explode, releasing a spray of whirligig seeds (a bit like a sycamore).

In Haiti, one type of hibiscus is known as Choublac (literally ‘shoe-black’). In years past in this extremely poor country it was used to provide an inky black juice that could be used as a replacement shoe polish.

For more information see the Definitive Guide to Caribbean Gardens and Flowers.

On the Bus - Caribbean Style! Part 2

You see names on buses all over the Caribbean. Some islands go in for it more than others, but they offer a good insight into Caribbean life.

In fact in Haiti they go far further than just naming their buses, They dress them up like circus lorries. But there is usually a religious slogan written on the front and side in Kweyol (Haitain Creole). Hey, it’s comforting to know, as you walk carelessly across a road that was empty a nano-second before, and look up to discover you are about to be run over by a super-charged gypsy caravan, that the last thing you read will be a blessing -

Béni Soit l’Eternel (Blessed is the Eternal Lord).

On one bus I saw the word Nissan written right underneath. Translated it would mean -

Blessed is the Eternal Nissan - not such a comforting thought to die with, unless you’re a Japanese salaryman possibly.

In most islands buses have a simple name, sometimes the driver’s nickname (most West Indians have them). In St Vincent recently you had the pleasure of nearly being run over by – or to be fair, getting a ride in -

Captain Sess, Rasta Ride, Freddy or Zion.

Or it might be Diplomat. Who knows how that got its name - a foreign ministry official turned taximan? His other car is a Diplomat? And Squeala? Does that come from the agonised screeching of his tyres, as he takes off to his next destination. Or was he involved in a B-movie and spilled the beans under torture. And what about the delightfully named Random?

Other names speak of the drivers’ (sometimes inestimable) self esteem - not to forget their driving prowess, no doubt -

No Fear! Shy Guy (yeah, likely), Xtreme and Rush.

And others are just plain surreal, but have a certain catchiness – no doubt they are the coolest bus in town –and therefore the one you definitely want to ride. What would it mean to ride in -

Code Red?

But my favourite name for a bus was always Not Guilty, Your Honour!, a bus that would ply its trade – or is that roar off in a cloud of grey exhaust? - along the west coast main road in Barbados. Perhaps it was a form of rebellion. You can just imagine the driver, in trouble again, standing in the dock,

"Are you, Mr John Smith, the driver of bus named Not Guilty, Your Honour? And did you drive Not Guilty, Your Honour at speeds without the specifications of the law? And have you anything to say in your defence…?"

The whole court would be in hysterics!