[dropcap]T[/dropcap]hey say you can recognize a Saint Lucian anywhere. Never has this been more apparent than on my recent trip to Taiwan. A visit to the National Pingtung University of Science and Technology introduced me to scholarship beneficiaries from the Caribbean and Pacific, including a Saint Lucian student who pointed me out straight away. “I knew immediately you were Saint Lucian,” he laughed. When I asked what had given me away, we both settled on ‘that familiar Lucian vibe’. “You can make out a Saint Lucian anywhere,” he said.
I asked about what had led him to Taiwan, and he walked me through the rapid transition of wanting a scholarship so bad, then finally getting it and being terrified, to settling into a new country, and now being in his final year in an agricultural programme. My full interview with the student, Jelani St. Clair, will be published in a subsequent issue of the STAR.
Meanwhile, words cannot express how much more admiration and appreciation I have for the efforts of the Taiwanese government in Saint Lucia, not to mention its persistence in getting its voice heard on the world stage.
