Year 9 Day 160 Faith Restored
08 July 2016
While we were both resting today, a one man kayak stroked his way up to our boat. A friendly voice yelled out. I went from lying on the trampoline to the side of the boat where I saw and met Michael. He is a local vendor who was selling mangos, king conch shells that you could blow like a horn and bird feeders hand cut from coconut husks. He was on his way to the next bay, where the tourist dive boats go to dive on a wreck that is there. He saw us and wanted to stop by to see if we wanted to buy anything.
I really liked the bird feeders as the husks were carved in the shape of humming birds lighting on the little bowl on the bottom, getting ready to feed. I called for Mary Margaret to come take a look. We asked how much the feeders were and he said $60 EC (about $22 US) but he would sell then to us for just $40 EC. By the time we were done haggling, we had bought 3 for $100 EC and Michael gave us a fourth one for free. Thus, we started out at $22 US for one and ended up with 4 for $100 EC or about $9.25 US each. That was a very good price.
Along the way of haggling for a fair price, we also talked about a number of things. It turns out he is from the fishing village of Canaries which is just about a mile to the south of us. He suggested we should come and anchor in front of his village. That led us to talk about our recent rubbery and Michael got very upset to hear about it. He confirmed that Soufriere is a very bad place as it has a history of drugs, robberies and various other problems. He said he would go there and put his ear to the ground to discover who robbed us and then provide us with that information so we could inform the police. However, he agreed with us when we said we had the impression the police there were corrupt also.
He swore that his village is very safe since they are just a small village and everyone looks out for each other. He also said that going north would be safe as most of the crime on the island is in Soufriere and south. We are not sure that is true since we know that there is a history of problems near Gros Islet, a village along the north side of the lagoon at Rodney Bay. Nevertheless, if was refreshing to talk to Michael who told us he would take personal responsibility for our safety.
We talked about values and racism and the problems St Lucia has faced. He assured us that the various fishermen that motored by as well as the other vendors who have kayaks would never cause any problems. He shared with us he has a little boy and he and his wife work hard to instill good values with him and that crime many time results in jail time and it just was not worth it. This was all rather refreshing for us to hear so soon after the robbery we had. From our lengthy discussion, it was obvious to us that Michael was very sincere and meant every word he said.
He left with us telling him that we would be coming back in a couple of weeks with some friends who would be visiting us. He offered to show us the waterfalls and sulfur springs and assured us our boat would be safe in front of his village. It is a tempting offer.