Bon jounen, tout moun!

2016-07-04

The Opening Ceremony for the Thirty-seventh Regular Meeting of CARICOM Heads of Government will be held on Monday 4 July from 500 p.m. at the National Cultural Centre, Georgetown, Guyana. The Opening Ceremony will be addressed by CARICOM Secretary-General, Ambassador Irwin LaRocque Prime Minister of Jamaica, Andrew Holness Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, Allan Chastanet Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Hon. Ralph Gonsalves President of Suriname, E. Desi Bouterse Prime Minister of…

More St. Lucia

The Moule a Chique Lighthouse shown in the first photo is located on the southern-most tip of St. Lucia. Apparently, this is the world’s second highest lighthouse above sea level.  I drove up an especially steep and narrow road to get to the top of the peninsula so I could take some pictures at sunset.  

The third photo shows the town of Dennery on the East coast.  There is a lively fishing pier in the town.  I drove down and talked with some of the locals.  The fishing pier was funded by the Japanese in return for St. Lucia’s vote to allow the Japanese to continue whaling.  There is one vote per nation so Japan targets many of the smaller Caribbean countries.  

You can see from several of the photos that the homes and boats are all very colorful.  The colors all seem to blend very nicely and provide a beautiful complement to the land.  

Fishing is one of the main industries on the island.  It is not an easy way to make a living.  The wind can really toss the small fishing boats around. The boats usually contain a long branch or pole that can be used as a makeshift mast for a sail in the event that the motor fails when the boat is miles out to sea.  Almost all of the boats (like the one in the nineth photo) have some religious wording on their bow.  

In the eighth photo, you can see fisherman cleaning Mahi-mahi that are as large as 25 lbs.  When these fish jump out of the water, they often change color going though several hues before finally fading to grey shortly after death.  You can tell from the florescent yellow that the fish in this photo are very fresh.  

The national dish of St. Lucia is green fig and saltfish - a stew of dried, salted codfish and boiled green banana.  I didn’t get a chance to try it but was told “it is an acquired taste”.  In the third photo, you can see the fish being hung out to dry.  

The woman in the second photo stopped to talk with me for almost an hour.  She had a lot of stories!  She’s 56 years old.  When she was younger, she was a fisher-woman.  She did most of her fishing by diving with a spear.  She would often hunt large eels.  When she wasn’t eel hunting, she would catch boa constrictors.  She would usually sell the snakes to people from other countries who claimed they wanted them for their zoo.  She showed me how she would prevent the giant snakes from grabbing on to her.  The boas are found in the tropical rainforest on the island.  This is also home to the poisonous yellow snake.  She was bitten only once but had to spend more than a week in the hospital.  I bet that hectic desk job doesn’t sound so bad now.  The 23 year old man also shown in this photo was also very friendly.  He was a deciple of the “One Love” philosophy - a common way of thinking amongst the St. Lucians.  

From the blood and food drives they undertake to the shelter they give, this congregation in Saint Lucia has continuously assisted its community for its betterment. Now they need our assistance to help give them a habitable place to worship, learn, and continue their volunteer efforts. Our impact here will not only build this community a stronger foundation, but help save hundreds of people who are in need, whether they are starving, homeless, or ill.

A lot of people have no clue why Europe is currently in a state of uproar and the only word people seem to be saying is “Brexit” so here’s a not-so-quick and easy-breezy explanation on the past 24 hours of CHAOS that has ensued:

The European Union (EU): an organisation of European countries that follows similar laws, allows for freedom of movement/labour, easy travelling (@people who planned on doing Eurotrips, not sure if you can count the UK in that anymore!) and trade with each other. The EU is important because before it was formed, the European continent was ravaged by 2 world wars, and a division because of the Cold War. This organisation has provided all the stability we’ve seen in the past 40-odd years.

So what the heck is a “Brexit”? Basically, the UK has just voted to leave the EU. 52/48 majority. Now this doesn’t seem like a TERRIBLE thing, but there are some serious political and economic consequences.

Economic implications:

- The British pound crashed from 1.5 to 1.3 in 6 hours, the lowest value in 30 years, which in turn affected the US dollar which affects all other global currencies. I wish I was joking but I’m not: South Africa, Poland, Norway, Mexico. Hungary, Australia, Switzerland all saw their currencies plummet. Countries that don’t rely on exports as their means of production cannot have a devalued currency. IT’s not good. The Japanese Yen which has been strengthening reached an all-time high which is terrible because Japan is trying to reverse its deflationary state. The Bank of Japan is now out of options and Japan literally STOPPED TRADING IN BRITISH STOCKS/INVESTMENTS.

- A devalued GBP means that the Bank of England is going to have to hike interest rates to prevent inflation (domestic prices going up even further) whicH WILL CAUSE A RECESSION. SOUND FAMILIAR ANYONE? YEAH. FINANCIAL CRISES.

- The UK leaving the EU means its market has gone down a LOT in size making them a less attractive destination for trade partners/investors. They’re going to have to draw up new trade agreements with basically the whole world since all their trade was previously tied to the EU. This will be tricky because countries liked having a market with a population of ~500 million compared to the UK’s size of ~50 million.

- GDP will go down. Retirement income will go down. The British economy is in a state of panic. The global economy is basically, fucked. For now at least.

The thing is, given the precarious nature of the economy right now with markets out of control and stagnant growth practically everywhere, it was a really really bad time to have this referendum - a lot of countries have been banking on a “Bremain” before making their next move when it comes to monetary/fiscal policy. The IMF has predicted that 2016/2017 will see the worst years for growth, but we might see upward growth trends from 2018 onwards.

So how does it still get worse?

- Scotland showed an overwhelming majority of votes to remain in the EU. It’s likely that they’re going to call for a referendum (again) to leave the UK.

- Northern Ireland also wanted to stay in the EU.

- Wales voted Leave but with a slim majority. 

- David Cameron has just announced that he will be resigning in 3 months which means that extreme conservatives who managed to sway the vote in favour of Leave could come to power. That’s right. We’ll be stuck to suffer with the likes of Farage and Johnson. 

- Brexit triggered a lot of nationalist/extreme right-wing movements in the rest of Europe. Some leaders already calling for “Frexit” (France), “Itexit” (Italy) and..”Dexit” (Netherlands)? We may see more in the next few days.. A disintegration of Europe is risky business because Europe has not been able to remain stable until the EU was formed. This could give way for an aggressive Russia too, who would want to take advantage of weak/vulnerable European states. An aggressive Russia will trigger US skepticism and we all know how that goes. 

SO HOW DID THE GOVERNMENT LET THIS HAPPEN?

Basically David Cameron came up with the idea for the referendum because he was desperate to gain support from anti-EU parties like UKIP during the general elections last year. Except now he’s resigning. So. 

During the campaign, Michael Gove, Boris Johnson (conservatives) and Nigel Farage (UKIP) stressed on immigration laws if the UK leaves the EU because immigration/refugees have been a big problem for the UK as its reducing jobs being given to UK locals/residents and they think the UK is becoming “overcrowded” so the Leave campaign was like WE WILL TIGHTEN OUR BORDERS! YEAH! Except now they’ve displaced millions of UK citizens living/working in the rest of the EU. Let’s see how they figure that one out.

Additionally, they talked about the economic benefits because if the UK were to leave, they would be able to allot the money that goes to the EU to other things like the NHS (national healthcare) etc. The Leave campaign went on about how the UK spends 350 million pounds a week on the EU but actually it spends less than half of that, so really, their campaign was built on scaremongering and lies. EDIT: Farage has announced the 350mil will NOT be spent on the NHS.

EDIT: People have mentioned the fact that unstable EU economies were relying on capital inflow the “Big 3″ (UK, France, Germany). This is true and this was being used as an argument - however, leaving is a Pyrrhic Victory! the UK will most likely have to spend MORE rebuilding its independent economy. However, once markets stabilise, we will see.

Article 50, aka the means of exiting will be triggered in 3 months when the new Prime Minister is announced (most likely one of the extreme conservatives/Farage who are riding high on their “Independence Day” fuckery which is even more proof of xenophobic, colonialist bullshit) after which the UK will have 2 years to complete its official withdrawal so hopefully that will provide short-term stability.

But the world is in a dark place right now and everything is terrible. 

This means that we, and other commonwealth countries, will be dealing closely with residual fallout. Nigel Farage has said that BREXIT will give [the UK] a chance to ‘reconnect with the commonwealth and our friends abroad’, meaning special tariffs and undoubtedly some hastily imagined residual ‘friendly contributions’ for being in the commonwealth to patch up this incredible wound left in the economy, millions of dollars siphoned which would suck our developing nations dry.

From the blood and food drives they undertake to the shelter they give, this congregation in Saint Lucia has continuously assisted its community for its betterment. Now they need our assistance to help give them a habitable place to worship, learn, and continue their volunteer efforts. Our impact here will not only build this community a stronger foundation, but help save hundreds of people who are in need, whether they are starving, homeless, or ill.