Submitted by Rachel King on the 2019 winter session program in Dominica sponsored by the Department of Geography…
Sunday January 13th, 2019
Dr. Seraphin scared us today. He told us we were hiking two hours to his cousin’s house and none of us were really prepared for what that entailed. But as we started walking, it wasn’t too bad, small inclines, but we never left the road. As we walked, it started to rain and almost every person we passed said hello and asked how we were doing. We also had a fair amount of people ask if we wanted a taxi, which we all wanted to say yes to. The walk wasn’t two hours long though, more like 45 minutes and we could have taken a shorter way to get there, but I think Dr. Seraphin was trying to get us ready for the longer hikes. At his cousin’s house we got a beautiful view of the city and he and his wife had food prepared for us which was amazing. There was fried chicken, cheese straws, quiche, meat pockets, some type of fruit cake, soren (juice), and mints. To say the least, we feasted on the food. After eating, we all sat around and talked and then went to the front yard and tried to catch a lizard. I had almost got one when my hand was on the tail, but I didn’t want to rip it off so it got away, and then another time the lizard was on my hand and Andrew’s and it slithered away through the small opening we had in between our hands. Later on, Dr. Seraphin’s cousin walked us to his neighbor’s house were we got another view of the stadium and Roseau. While there, a few of us tried cayenne peppers; they were a tad spicy. We walked a different way back to the hotel, it was all downhill and no one was complaining about that. Tonight was also the Eagles-Saints playoff game so we ate an early dinner of spaghetti and salad at 5:00 pm, watched a little of the game at the hotel and then walked over to Fort Young to watch the rest of the game. We had mostly Eagles fans in the group so they were all heart broken when the Saints won.
Monday January 14th, 2019
We had class and in the afternoon we went to the northwest portion of the island to the Indian River. This was where Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. It was very pretty and it seemed as if we were in the jungle. While there, we saw a bunch of wildlife ranging from multiple species of fish to water chicken, herons, crabs, and we even got to see an iguana. Our tour guide must of had the eyes of a hawk because he was pointing out things to us that seemed almost invisible. It seems that there are various types of “chickens” on the island; mountain chickens (frogs), water chicken (type of water fowl), beach chickens, chickens that cross the road…. When we finished the boat tour, a few people walked over to a small eatery and ordered food while the rest of us walked along the beach and found sea glass and tried to capture miniature crabs. There were children on the beach, too and they helped us find really cool rocks and sea glass as well as being fearless when catching the crabs. The friendliness of everyone is shocking, yet also a welcome change from some places back home. Everywhere we go, someone takes the time out of their day to ask us how we’re doing or welcome us to the island. It seems to be rubbing off on us though, because now whenever I go out, I try to ask how everyone is and if they’re doing okay. So I am spreading kindness a little bit at a time. Today was also Ben’s birthday so to celebrate we let him choose a restaurant of his preference and we ended back up at Alex’s; the shawarma place. They forgot or misplaced Emily’s order so we ended up waiting for an extra 40 minutes trying to get her veggie pizza. We got our food to go and ate in the hotel and around 7:00 pm a cake was brought out for Ben, we sang Happy Birthday and ate vanilla cake with chocolate icing (his favorite). It was a long day so most of us headed upstairs after cake and went to bed.
Tuesday January 15th, 2019
We had a guest speaker today. Katie Julien, a professor at the community college for tourism, came in and spoke of the main tourism aspect of the island and how the recent Hurricane Maria has affected the island. She spoke of how the damage affected tourism in the beginning, but it started to pick up again with some people coming to the island to volunteer with rebuilding. We even learned about how some of the hiking trail segments are still out of commission, only 4 out of 14 are open to the public. Throughout the lecture, she had before and after pictures from Hurricane Maria, and they really illustrated how much destruction was caused. We thanked Mrs. Julien for coming in and speaking to us and gave her a small present as she left. By that time ,it was getting closer to lunchtime so we all split to prepare for the beach and get lunches ready. Sam and I decided to have snacks for lunch and went to the fresh market to grab some apples and then put trail mix, granola bars, and pretzels in our bags. Today, people wanted to try to snorkel so we headed south to Bubble Beach in Soufriere, with a wonderful view of Scott’s Head, a beach we went to last week. Here, we all got goggles and dove in, we swam around for an hour or so looking at the fish swimming in and around the rocks and coral. Back on the beach, we got to sit in a natural spring pool, bubbles come from the ground and heat up the water due to volcanic activity. Volleyball was also attempted, but the beach was a little small and rocky so we kept having to restart. A local joined in, too and we taught him how to bump and set the ball to keep it in the air. Colombo came back to collect us around 5:00 pm and he drove us back to Roseau with some of us singing karaoke in the back. We ended up all taking cold showers in the hotel, but it was fine after sitting in the sun all day. For dinner, we tried another Chinese place, and it took almost two hours for all of us to get our food. I think I speak for everyone when I say that we are done trying Chinese on this island.
Wednesday January 16th, 2019
Another guest speaker today, Mr. Charles, the Dominica Ambassador for Foreign Affairs came in and spoke about globalization and the role of Dominica in itself and the world. I was surprised to learn that in the agriculture sector of the island it just transitions from one type of mono-cropping to another. In the United States that’s frowned upon, especially after the Dust Bowl happened. Here they started out with sugarcane, coffee, limes, and now they’re on bananas. I’m not sure how it affects the soil quality here, but it seems they change depending on what the world is demanding. It’s a quiet day after class so I took the time to write these blog posts and observation for class and plan on meeting with my group later on to work on our project. We went to a small buffet style place for lunch and I got mac and cheese, rice, and honey BBQ chicken. In the afternoon, Sam and I played some cards, Sara and Emily also joined us and we played for an hour or so together. We made plans to go watch the sunset at 5:40 pm and invited everyone else to go. It ended up being Sam, Sara, Emily, Mike and me. The sunset was beautiful, although there was a cruise ship in port that blocked it a little and it was a tad cloudy, but we got to see the cruise ship leave. As we were laying on the rock wall gazing at the lavender sky above us, we noticed that there was a restaurant behind us that was still open even though it was almost past 6:00 pm. It happened to only be two buildings away from Alex’s and I guess the last time we checked it out it was closed. We went into the place to check out the hours. It was closing, but they had some leftover food, so Samantha and I purchased spinach quiches for 7ec each and Sara bought a chocolate mousse cake slice that was to die for. While we were there, we took pictures of the menu and the hours board and chatted with the worker/cook. We learned that the place was French and the lady, Fredrik, was also from France. As we were leaving and saying thanks, Fredrik stopped us and ended up giving us the leftover food they were about to throw away for free! We ended up receiving an egg salad sandwich, a brie sandwich, three pineapple pastries, and an apple pastry. We sat on the balcony and we all passed around the food to one another so we each got to try a little bit of everything. All the food was amazing and we definitely are all in love with Fredrik’s cooking. We had so much leftover that we went downstairs and knocked on Dr. Seraphin’s door and gave him the egg salad sandwich and a pineapple tart pastry. A little while later, we all met on the balcony and talked about our respective days and a few headed over to JR’s for karaoke, but no one ended up staying long.
Thursday January 17th, 2019
Today, we went to the botanical gardens and got a tour of the grounds. It was open and airy and we made friends with three dogs while there. We named them Ham, Cheese, and Potato. Our tour guide even had pictures of what the botanical gardens looked like after Hurricane Maria and it has come a long way from there, but there is still a lot to be improved upon. My favorite part was the bamboo house, where the bamboo grew together so thick and tall that it blocked out a lot of the sun from above and created enclosed walls of layers of bamboo. As we listened to the guide, he spoke of most of the island vegetation being a surface reliant, so I asked if the bamboo was spreading too much because they are known to be an invasive species, but they use rhizomes (underground shooters to spread) which wouldn’t be conducive in this rocky volcanic soil. He told me no, they are a problem and most plants they do have issues with have stolon (above ground shooters). After getting a tour of the botanical gardens, we hiked “35 steps Jack’s Walk”. It was definitely more than 35 steps up, but the view at the top allowed us to see the entire city of Roseau spread out beneath us. On the hike up, the dogs Cheese and Potato also accompanied us so we all had hiking buddies on the way up. We walked a different way back down that took us through the eastern side of the city. For lunch a few decided to go to the smoothie place across the street while the others (Sam, Ben, Justin, & me) walked around and found a new place, we went to Orchard and grabbed burgers. When we were there, we actually ran into a local (JD) who knew us and struck up a conversation with him while waiting for our food to be done. We decided to walk down to the port and eat our burgers looking out toward the sea. Since Justin hadn’t been to Le Petit Paris (French place) we headed there so he could have a look around. Ben ended up ordering garlic bread and French fries, Sam got a cake slice, and Justin ordered espresso. Everything was just as good as the food we had before. Once we had stuffed ourselves, we decided to walk around the city a little to find new places to try and to get our bearings some more. We explored the northern side of Roseau and walked so far we ended up at the Roseau River.
Friday January 18th, 2019
Today, we visited the emeralds pools and it was an adventure to get there. We were originally dropped off at the Waitukubuli National Trail and it was about a mile hike from there to the emerald pool. As we start hiking, we found out quickly that it’s extremely muddy from the almost daily rain here, and we’re all laughing at one another as our shoes get soaked with water and our legs covered in mud. About 20 minutes into the hike, the vegetation starts to become very dense and it was hard to stay on a path even though there are blue and yellow markings every couple of yards. Elephant grass becomes everyone’s worse enemy as it scratches at arms and legs viciously. It gets to the point of such overgrowth that Dr. Seraphin makes the decision to turn around and have Colombo drive us to the pool. Once at the pool, we all stare at a waterfall pulsating over the edge of the cliff dropping below to a small clear pool. After the hike, we’re all excited to jump in, first contact with the water proves to be a little chilly. That doesn’t stop any of us though, as some of us just jump right in and swim over to the little alcove under the cliff or straight to the waterfall to feel the massive amounts of water pound onto your shoulders. We stayed in the pool for a while and I even got the UD flag from Dr. Seraphin and swam it over so we could all take a picture. We all got out and started to dry off on a little porch that overlooks the waterfall and ate snacks and tried to sunbathe to warm up. Later in the day, back in the city we all split to grab lunches, the majority of us ended up at Orchard for burgers while a few others went to Sukie’s. While eating lunch, my group got together and worked on our homework that was due that night. Around 7:00 pm we all headed over to Fort Young for dinner.
Saturday January 19th, 2019
Carnival is today. Dr. Seraphin gave us the day off so we could experience this festival, the parade started at 3:00 pm and is passing by our hotel so we’re able to watch it from the balcony. A few of us at noon decided to explore the south side of Roseau and find a new place for lunch. We don’t want to tire ourselves too much because we have an all day excursion tomorrow for our ocean experience. At three, the parade started and from the hotel balcony we gazed down as people walked, danced, and drove by in vibrant dresses and costumes. Music blared from floats that could be felt even on the balcony. It was really interesting to see how the locals here celebrate and decorate. After the parade was finished, we walked over to the stadium where carnival was being held, there was music, vendors, and hundreds of people milling around having a good day. I was really surprised at how many people participate in this event. It seemed like the whole city and surrounding villages came out in full force.
