Originally published July 24, 2019, on Mid-Life Meet Medici. For more travel posts about Saint Lucia, visit: https://midlifemeetmedici.wordpress.com.

You certainly do get extremes here,” I thought to myself as I stood naked in my kitchen eating my banana.

That’s not supposed to sound dirty. It’s just a fact of life here in Soufriere, when you wake up with your teeth chattering because the A/C unit in your bedroom window is so powerful, but then you open the door to the rest of the AirBNB, and a wall of unmoving, sweltering humidity hits you like a tidal wave. 

Soufriere is small, only about 5,000 people. Except for perhaps the gas station, there is not a single chain franchise here. Go to Starbucks for free wifi? I don’t think I’ve even seen a coffee shop. But there are plenty of tiny, hole-in-the-wall bars with a token black male or two inside. A few restaurants, more closed than open. 

It is low tourist season, and perhaps that is why it is totally dead here. My first morning I got groceries and wandered the town. In those two hours, I saw a group of 4 Caucasians in the grocery store getting provisions, and a couple coming out of a restaurant. Yep, 6 white people and little old me – who has turned out to be quite a popular addition to town.

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 Before I left home, a friend connected me with her friend, and I was able to have a chat with him. He is Caucasian. His mother was raised in Barbados. He now owns a place there, and has been spending 4-6 months in the Caribbean for years. He gave me a few tips and a lot of tales. The one that stuck in my brain most, (paraphrased of course), was the following:

My brother thought he would be a beach bum, living off the tourist ladies. The first one he approached, who turned out to be Canadian, looked him up and down and said, “you’re not the kind we’re here for”. 

(Pause)

That was thirty years ago. And there are still plenty of white women heading down there for just that thing. Many of the men have one girlfriend leave on one flight, while the next girlfriend is coming in on the next. Sometimes they get into trouble when the flights overlap. 

So be careful of the Rastitutes. Yes, Rasititutes, that’s what we call them. The big and tall Rastafarians that live off their tourist women. 

He looked at me pointedly, and I’m sure I went beet red. 

Fast forward to Saint Lucia. It would not be difficult to find a Rastitute. I cannot walk a block without some tall and lanky male welcoming me to paradise, asking me if I need help, or asking me to go to the beach, the waterfall, the springs, etc. If I sit in a public spot, they come up and yammer about something, and at my “no thanks” and then complete ignorance of their existence, they sit down just behind me! The fact they sit just behind me is totally unnerving, but if they seem harmless I refuse to give in. For example, I had a nice, happy, shady spot on the beach the other day, and after the guy sat down, I thought, “damn”. Then I thought, “what the hell, I have just as much right to be here as he does!”, so I did not move. I drank my water and laid in the sun and looked at my pictures and didn’t say a word. Finally I got hot, at which point I stood up and said, “I’m headed back into the water,” and thankfully, he stood up, said “take your time, take your time, chill, girl”, and walked away. But man, I went to the same beach this morning and he was there!!! I lost my nerve and left. But I will be back to that beach again, its so convenient, and I guess if he’s there I will, once more,  just have to ignore him. Hopefully he does not again raise the topic of whether I have “ever had black”. Yup. You read that right. 

Perhaps I will become less of a novelty here as time goes on, and they will start to leave me alone. 

So where is the contrast? 

Everyone other than the Rastitutes, male and female, is exceedingly polite. Very formally, you get, “good morning”, “good afternoon”, and a shy “you are welcome” when you say thank you and smile. It’s as if there are two different cultures in town. 

More serious is the contrast of the pristine beauty of wealth and the garbage piles of poverty. 

The inhabitants of Soufriere congregate around the lip of Soufriere Bay. At the west end are the Hummingbird and Still Beach Resorts, probably around 3-star places. At the Hummingbird, rooms over $200US a night do not come with air conditioning. Both, however, do have access to Soufriere Beach. You walk out of either and in a minute you are in the smooth, black sand. 

If you walk from the resorts along the road that follows the bay, in less than 7 minutes, you are in abject poverty. The eastern side of the bay is not blanketed in sand, but in rocks. Garbage lays amongst them. So do pigs. Yes, pigs with ropes tied around their bellies, with the other end anchored somewhere in the rocks. I have no idea what they survive on, but there is no question they are the food source for the folks right above them. 

Above their pigs, people sit on the concrete barrier, or on decrepit chairs they have pulled out from somewhere. They do each other’s hair, watch each other’s children, or just sit. Amazing, they do not face the incredible sunset, but to the east, across the street. And what is there? Dilapidated homes. Closed shops and restaurants. Burnt out cars. Spaced out men who have done far too many drugs and wrecked their brains. 

I walked along this road for a bit as the last of the beautiful sunset faded from view. I ignored the catcalls from the men, smiled politely at the women, and never spoke a word. Part of the reason for that was I was trying not to gag on the smell of pigs and garbage that rose from the water just below me. 

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As the last of the sun dipped below the horizon, I stopped dead in my tracks and turned back. It already did not feel safe. Being there in darkness seemed like absolutely folly. 

I walked back along the same path. People made no comment. They continued facing east, chatting and looking where they had been, oblivious to the beauty that Mother Nature had just completed painting behind them. In the meantime, the tourists, who clamour to Saint Lucia for the beautiful sunsets and the glorious beaches – oddly enough, the things that are free – scurried back to their fortresses.

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