DEREK WALCOTT’S RAT ISLAND

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ea spray, sunshine, silence.

Not silence. The restful hush of waves on the beach and wind in the trees. Rat Island. A hundred or so years ago it was used as a quarantine and isolation station to protect the vulnerable population of Saint Lucia from the threat of epidemics. Later it was made available for rent to Saint Lucian families. Many people who are grandparents now spent summers on the island when they were children. One of them told me today: “I have such good memories of that place.”

Rat Island held a special place in the heart of the late Derek Walcott and continues to mean much to many, some of whom recently participated in a clean-up.

After he won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, Derek Walcott entered into an agreement with the Government of Saint Lucia to establish Rat Island as a retreat for writers and artists, to provide a sanctuary of quiet space for creation. In 2006, thanks to an initiative supported by the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, Rat Island was stripped of the rats that had invaded it and became a sanctuary for the rare and precious Saint Lucia whiptail (Cnemidophorus vanzoi) when several breeding pairs were re-settled from the Maria Islands in the south.

In January 2018 members of the Rat Island Foundation, together with friends and supporters and a contingent from the Forestry Department (which is legally responsible for wildlife), held a koudmen. The purpose was for the collection of the litter brought in by the sea and by visitors, and to assist Forestry to set up a notice about the presence of the lizard, and how to keep it safe.

The peace of the island captures you almost immediately. Yes there are rustles among the dead leaves that carpet the ground, hermit crabs (sòlda) of all sizes carrying their houses—later we discovered that they also climbed trees. And the sanctuary seekers from the Maria Islands, now quite at home, females and juveniles in their many shades of brown, and the gorgeous males wearing the colours of the Saint Lucian flag and basking in the sun.

The island’s buildings lost their roofs in Hurricane Allen in 1980, and have never been repaired. There are nasty rusty pieces of corrugated iron (galvanise) lying on the ground. If you are a lizard these offer places to bask in the sun or to hide.

The overwhelming impression left by the place is of peace, of sanctuary, of the possibility for creation. Walcott’s vision was very true: A place for writers, artists, economists—and lizards—to create together their contributions to the future.

— By Deirdre Williams