Dominica Day 1

Our last stop on our Atlantic journey was the tiny Caribbean island, Dominica.  It is north of Venezuela and east and south of Puerto Rico, between Martinique and Guadeloupe.  Does that help?

Christopher Columbus named the island after the day of the week on which he spotted it, a Sunday (Dominica in Latin), November 3, 1493. Its pre-Columbian name was “Wai‘tu kubuli”, which means, “Tall is her body”; describing the long, narrow island shape.

When he returned to Europe, Columbus was asked to describe Dominica; he took a piece of paper and balled it up, then dropped it to the table.  He said the island looked just like the paper – not a smooth spot on it! According to a popular West Indian belief, Dominica is the only New World territory that Columbus would still recognize.  There has been very little development on the island.

The island is lush and green, no wonder, this island is one of the wettest places on earth – average rainfalls ranges from 200 to more than 300 inches per year!  There are so many native plants here that can be eaten, we tasted many and saw many more.

Long before we left for Semester at Sea, our friends Jim and Johanna Perry had put us in contact with a childhood friend of Johanna’s from Malaysia named Leng Sorhaindo.  Leng has lived on Dominica for forty years with her husband Rupert, who is a native of the Island.   She is an acclaimed music educator and he was former head of the educational system and Dominica’s Olympic committee.

A funny story about their prominence on the island:  The ship had organized a clothing drive.  People on the ship donated clothing they didn’t want to take home. Jayne had arranged places to donate the clothing through Leng.  Because of her roll, Jayne had to meet with customs officials who had boarded the ship when we arrived in Roseau, the capital.  They seemed not terribly cooperative until Jayne mentioned Leng.  “Oh, Leng, made the arrangements!  That’s okay then.”  Everything after that went smoothly.  Where ever they took us around the island everyone seemed to know them.  (If doesn’t hurt that his brother Crispen Sorhaindo was President of Dominica from 1993-1998.  Interestingly, the population is mostly people of African descent, but the Sorhaindo’s came to the Island from France from which they were exiled because of their Huguenot faith)


 

Jayne waiting for Rupert to pick up the clothes.

After Rupert took the donated clothing back to their house, Leng took us to the local market.   There we meet a woman whose husband wrote the Dominica guidebook we had been told on the ship was the very best.    

 

We also meet the man who is heading up the Dominican artisans organization.  (We were warned that most of the tourist stuff being sold near the ship was made in China!  Made me wonder about things we bought in Manaus and Tema! 

 

After our visit to the market, we spent some time visiting with Leng and Rupert at their home on the mountainside overlooking Roseau before heading out to a sulfur spa. It had five pools of water ranging from very hot to cool- the hot pools are heated by geothermal heat, from the Earth's mantle.  (Dominica has several active volcanoes.) The cooler pools are created by mixing the cool streams with the hot water.  This one had at least 14 different minerals in it, mainly sulfur as the name indicates.  Many people think the water and minerals help with aches and pains.

 

 Rupert, Leng, and Jayne.

 

After enjoying the spa we went to a lovely restaurant.  Its quite well known and even Oprah Winfree and Martina Navratilova have eaten there.  Barry had a local dish featuring the flying fish we’ve been seeing so many of from the MV Explorer.

 

 In the afternoon we drive way up into the mountains to a fresh water lake.  Rupert identified every edible plant and the poisonous ones as well.  We actually ate some sprigs of watercress from a stream running near the road. 

 

The views up and down the mountains were gorgeous.

 

After a wonderful day with Leng and Rupert we returned to the ship.  We noticed a group of very tired students with back-packs getting off a bus and we rushed to get across the pier to the ship to get through security without getting caught up in that large group.  We noticed when we got on that there were several very troubled looking students.  Soon we learned that a student had been killed in a boating accident and before long we were all called to the Union where the tragedy was announced to the entire shipboard community.