[dropcap]M[/dropcap]amai kotez ou sortir? Nous sortir Anse la Raye! The line is from a once popular kweyol song by a vocal group known as The Cecilian Rays. Translation: “Children, where are you from? We are from Anse La Raye!” The song suggests the community pride shared by residents of Anse la Raye and Canaries, once especially appreciated by visitors for their Friday night fish fry.
As I walked around Anse la Raye on Thursday afternoon, I could not help but notice the sidewalks were clean, no boney dogs strayed. Even the drunk and disorderly, that in times past too often mistook the roadside for beds, had disappeared. The only noise came from a group of individuals I had engaged on life in their village, each one determined to have his say as loudly as possible.
They shared a common view, however; and yes, it was that theirs had for too long been Saint Lucia’s most neglected community. No matter the party in office, one man assured me, nothing changed for the better.
His line was countered by several other voices that sang the praises of the current parliamentary representative, Mr. Dominic Fedee, but most insisted there still remains “much to be done”.
Dr. Desmond Long, Fedee’s predecessor, said: “Well, I wouldn’t say it has totally been neglected. There have been some works that have gone on there. The Vanard road has been constructed. That was something I fought hard to get. We didn’t have the opportunity or the time to get it done but it has been done and that’s what matters. There’ve been issues of flooding that we dealt with. Getting jobs for the people was always the most pressing concern. It still is. We always found it difficult to entice regular business. The village is largely dependent on tourism but village tourism, as such, has been going on at a very slow pace. It still had not developed to expectations by the time my term ended.”
Dr. Long added: “Especially important for us was the training of individuals. We had the programme for young people, preparing them to get into farming. Even with the NICE programme we were able to train a lot of persons— persons who didn’t have a level of education past primary school. I was very pleased, finally, to get several into farming and the hotel industry.” Dr. Long retired after one term in office.
Mr. Dominic Fedee talked about having to address “a lot of infrastructure that was deteriorating” with a community centre and the Jacmel pre-school having been out of commission for years. He said, “The health centre in Anse la Raye is a makeshift one and has been in a state of disrepair. With $10 million approved, construction on the health centre will begin later this year.
“Thanks to Taiwanese funding, a lot of anti-flooding initiatives have been completed.”
Fedee also acknowledged that getting jobs for his constituents was almost a mission impossible, for several reasons including lack of skills, education problems and a disinclination to do regular work. “We focused on youth unemployment, because this is a cancer that has been eating away at the very fibre of the constituency. We’ve worked very hard and almost one hundred youth have been placed in jobs. We also did training with national institutions to get the youth to take up jobs that were coming on-stream. Despite this, we still have a very long way to go.”
He added; “The fish fry has been dormant for many years. But recently it has been brought back. The re-launched event is benefitting the fishermen, vendors, labourers and the whole community. We’re also looking forward to the village tourism initiative, so that the constituency can be part of the tourism mix.
“Anse la Raye has now become a hub for a number of national festivals. We’ve held the Rum and Food Festival, the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers twice and this will also be the second consecutive year of West
Coast Jazz.”
