By Simon Lee
The Express Jet Kat II slides from its berth at the Inter-Iles terminal in Fort-de France, Martinique, bound for Dominica and Guadeloupe. I board with a gaggle of Gaudaloupeans returning from their Christmas shopping and a clutch of bleached European tourists.
Clearing Fort St Louis and the harbour mouth, the 385 seater catamaran swings north past the sealine clutter of Texaco, the 'bidonville' (shanty town) immortalised in Patrick Chamoiseau's Prix Goncourt winning novel. Passing Pte des Negres and heading for Case-Pilote, the Kat stretches to her impressive 40 knots top speed, smoothly skimming the waves.
Ahead lies St Pierre, Paris of the West Indies until Mt Pelee blew it away in 1901. This Advent afternoon a rainbow arcs across the seas, descending on the northern end of the town. Pelee is wreathed in cloud; volcanic mist mingling with the irridescent spectrum on the waterline.
In the air conditioned saloon below, an American kick-up movie plays on four large screens. The cafeteria sells bagette sandwiches which are fresh and reasonably priced.
Within an hour we've crossed the Dominica Channel, passed the pink cliffs at Cashacrou ('the place the sea eats') and are running up the Caribbean coast of Waitukubuli - 'Tall is her body' -the Kalinago, or Island Carib name for Dominica. Behind the shoreline settlements of Scotts Head, Soufriere, Loubiere, and Newtown rise the rugged and most densely forested mountains of the Caribbean. This is unspoilt territory, the 'Nature Isle', which largely remains as it was when the Kalinagos ruled.
The 90 minute voyage through the rainbow has taken us from the hustling, metropolitan ambience of a French 'departement' to the unhurried nineteenth century charm of Roseau.
I check into the Cherry Lodge guest house, on Kennedy Avenue which does not have air conditioning but whose worn jalousies and wooden galleries suits my mood. Round the corner on Cork Street is Jean Rhys' birthplace, now another guest house, indistinguishable from the other board houses on their heavy stone foundations.
As dusk slips into the sea, I watch a young couple midstream in the Roseau River, pounding their washing on a rock. Here in the island's capital, only a couple of hundred yards from where river meets sea, the water is clean enough to wash and bathe in. I imagine the other 364 rivers are just as unpolluted. On the beach a lone fisherman is silhouetted against the mauve sea, pastel banks of clouds rise to the bruised sky where a lone star shines.
Later, while sharing my al fresco supper with a young fisherman,
the tall figure of Ras Mo, Dominica's leading performance poet
lopes past, toting an African drum. He says there's a session just
down the road, we'll be able to hear it.
Intrigued we make our way down Cork Street to 'Caribana' where
the Dominica Writers Guild is in the middle of a performance evening.
Caribana is the brainchild of Carla Hutchinson, a whirlwind
young Dominican who has transformed her late grandmother's craft shop
into a cafe cum crafts outlet cum art gallery.
Caribana has become a meeting place for young writers and artists and Carla who is a poet and artist in her own right besides being an island enterpreneur, is committed to nurturing and promoting new talents. What better venue then for the recently revamped Dominica Writers Guild, founded 15 years ago.
In between performances and readings from Ras Mo, Harold Sealy, Ian Jackson, Gerald La Touche, Albert 'Panman' (who confesses he can't play) a young Canadian educator Tim 'Speaks' and Phyllis Shand Allfrey's firebrand granddaughter, the diminutive Christobel La Ronde. I meet the writers and am also introduced to the youngest Caribbean beer, Kubuli, which has recently been launched. An excellent combination!
Ras Mo's Rapso social commentary style ("Dis balance o' payments ting killin we") is shot through with the distinctive Dominican patois and backed by energising drums ("All o' de drums roll into one"). He's a striking performer with Carib (or are they Chinese) features.
I'm impressed not only by the energy and enthusiasm of the evening but also the fact that most of the participating poets have small books to hand, printing being another of the strategies to promote the arts.
The most enthusiastic of all the welcoming throng wedged in the small cafe area is the calypsonian Lily who extemporaneously concludes the proceedings with an extended and extensive vote of thanks to Carla.
Next morning I'm wonderfully revived by a cup of the best coffee I've ever tasted in the Caribbean or the Old World. I ask if spices have been added, but no, it's straight Dominica coffee and I know I can't leave Waitukubuli without some.
The morning streets are filling with schoolchildren, the girls in thick knee high socks. I dawdle my way down to Bay Street to the Dominica Museum to meet Lennox Honychurch, author, actor, artist, poet, broadcaster, historian and ethnologist (to name but a few of his feathers). Lennox has recently returned from two years ethnology research at Oxford University and is now busy establishing the museum in the renovated colonial post office. The smell of fresh paint overcomes the ozone blowing in off the sea across the road.
We discuss the filming of Phyllis Shand Allfrey's The Orchid
House by Trinidadian director Horace Ove, a few years
back. "Dominica is the star," admits Lennox "the actors were
given hot competition by the landscape itself."
Lennox ("I had a little part as a priest") and "nearly all of
Dominica" were involved in the shooting of the four part mini series
which chronicles Dominica life between the wars. He mentions houses
nearby in Roseau which featured in the movie: the family house on
Church Street, and Maycourt on Cork Street, two houses down from Jean
Rhys' one time home.
Reluctantly I tear myself away from the museum but I have a minibus to catch and an appointment to keep with Hilary Frederick the Carib chief on the other side of the island, up in the Carib Territory. Waitukubuli, here I come!
 |
 |
|
|
|