Jan. 18, 2009 – If you had to distill the spirit of the island in one half-acre spot, it would have to be the tennis courts at the Bordeaux Farmers Rastafari Agricultural and Cultural Food Fair..
The area was alive this weekend with a shared joy, a recognition of the wealth of produce the farmers had cultivated.
It was all there at the 12th annual event, the heady aromas wafting from the cookpots, the familiar scents just as intoxicating as ever, the basil, mint, fragrant lettuces, garlic and tiny onions, thyme, tarragon all working their magic, drawing throngs to the annual celebration of healthy living.
On Saturday, honors went to Farmer of the Year James "Kyie" Hodge and Gardner of the Year Malcom Meyers, while Mario Francis was recognized for his tireless work in teaching youngsters about the environment.
Sunday Anna Francis of the Environmental Rangers was honored for passion in teaching children about the wonders of the earth; Laura N'Ziba Rabsatt for her encouragement expressed within the love of the Rastafari culture; and Ras Bobby was honored for his support of the Rastafari Healthful livity.
Francis was bounding around the fair like it's part of her Camp Umoja hillside, greeting one and all and gathering information on solar energy. The Environmental Rangers has a small display this year.
"We're not trying to sell plants so much as to make folks aware of our environmental issues, such as the Mandahl Bay development," Francis said. A video, made by Carl Callwood, on the natural beauty of Mandahl Bay plays in the tent.
Farmer of the Year Hodge, with his wife Kenyetta and children, Temir, 5, and Amara, 3, manned his booth stocked with papaya. bananas, round green avacadoes, pots of thyme.. He looked like a happy man.
"I was living in New York with my mother, who's from here" he said. "When I first visited and saw how corn could grow from a seed. I never forgot that. You could make a living out of growing."
Hodge said he returned to St. Thomas as a young man, and after several years in construction, is now growing his own corn.
"I became one with the Rastafarian culture and it changed my life," he said, indicating his family whom he can now support with farming. "It's a lesson learned; you can make the change in yourself."
The fair, which continues to grow each year, is hosted by the Bordeaux farmers' collective We Grow Food. Benita Martin-Samuel, one of the founders of the collective, said the fair has about the same attendance this year, 1,000 a day, "but that's not the most important aspect of the weekend," she said.
"What we're seeing is more farmers producing more, a larger variety," Samuel said. Indeed, Samuel's counter was bursting with plant life – counter burgeoning with tiny heritage tomatoes, running through the color gamut from pale yellow to a deep purple, giant heads of kale, four types of eggplant, celery, parsley, chervil, and "any kind of tea bush you can imagine."
Richard Pluke, senior agronomist and entomologist of Fintrac, an international agricultural-development firm that made St. Thomas its headquarters in 2005,was smiling ear to ear.at the increased bounty..
He has worked closely with the Bordeaux farmers over the past three years and is now a familiar face. Pluke said St. Thomas is the "most difficult land to farm" he has ever seen.
"The soil, the lack of water, the hills — all of these things work against the farmers.
The fair was not all produce. Booths abounded with everything from homemade brooms to calabash yoyos, bead jewelry, handmade clothing, clay pots, oils, art, the V.I. Energy Office solar displays, Ras Bobby's herbal remedies, and food, food, food – Jambie's pumpkin soup and Teresa David and Mary Payne's pumpkin johnny cakes.
Youngsters were busy with Sister Iria, who had them enhancing recyclable grocery bags with their own designs. Along with the tots, members of the newly formed Police Cadets tried their hand, too, as a respite from their presence directing traffic. They were out in full force in what Sherrika Industrious, a University of the Virgn Islands freshman proudly called "our first project."
Veronica Gordon showed her calabash bowls, jewelry, bird feeders and musical instruments.
"There are 86 things I have made from calabash. They come to me in my sleep," says Gordon, who is known as "the bush lady" on her native St. Croix. "I'm a seventh generation bush doctor. I must know every tree on the island.".
Justin Todman, a native St. Thomian, held up a patriotic broom he made for the inauguration. It's wound with red, white and blue ribbons and bears an Obama flag.
"Brooms are part of our culture," Todman says. "The broom was used in marriage ceremonies." Todman works to ensure the culture of broom making.
Picking up one of the intricately woven small patriotic brooms, he says, "This takes me about three and a half minutes to make." He grins, "That's if I'm doing it to the rythym of a Bob Marley tune."
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