Feeding yourself in Dominica

Picking your own grapefruit, seeing that cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree and that ginger grows on the surface of the soil: these are some elements of the everyday life here. We see things growing here that we’re familiar with from the produce section of the supermarket but we’ve never seen it grow. Cacao pods hang from trees, birds of paradise grow wild in the forest. Iridescent green Imperial parrots glide over the forest canopy looking for food. Some things we see are familiar and some are specific to this island.

Bananas grow on hillsides steeper than you can comfortably travel. Orange, grapefruit and lime trees appear seemingly in the middle of nowhere and suddenly there’s a farmers’ shack, then a small house and then nothing again for miles. Mangoes, avocado, and papaya trees provide public snacks.

Yesterday we stopped the car as we saw a man pushing a wheelbarrow laden with coconuts. Called “jellies,” these coconuts are cut open and handed over to drink from. We happened to have an extra water bottle in the car, which we asked him to fill up with coconut water. As he wielded his 2 foot long machete with precision, he extolled the virtues of coconut milk. A very happy man, he was proud to serve coconuts through town because he said he knew how healthy they are for people. He talked about the electrolytes, various vitamins and bush doctor remedies from coconuts. I was amazed by his knowledge and apparent lack of longing for more than he had. This is a constant reminder here. Many people have so little in the way of physical things and yet they are happy, grateful and welcoming. It’s a great lesson to bring with us back home.

After pouring the water from each coconut, he split them coconuts in half and cut a small portion of the outside shell off, handing us both halves and instructing us to use the small piece of shell as a spoon to scoop out the inner meat. Seven coconuts later we have 2 liters of coconut water, a foundation of coconut meat in our belly and we’ve only spent $7EC (about $3US). I was so taken by this guy that I took several pictures of him.