|
For about twenty years successive governments of Dominica and successive Carib Councils have been working towards the realisation of a project to create 'A Carib Cultural Village' on four acres of land in the centre of the Carib Territory. As early as 1976, the then Carib Chief, Faustilus Frederick, submitted to the government of Dominica, a proposal for a 'Carib Village'. This proposal included the construction of a group of thatched houses for handicraft workshops, "sales building, small restaurant serving local dishes, cassava meal making hut and canoe building sheds surrounded by plots of various crops".
This plan was conceived by the chief of the time as an employment creation project. When it was originally submitted to government it included ideas for the future inclusion of huts for overnight visitors and cost estimates for these. The project was then handed to a professional team of consultants from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in 1982. It produced an ambitious proposal of a village which "will consist of traditional Carib structures [for] craft production and sales, Carib Museum, food production and service, a cultural/art/drama festival centre and a plot for traditional plants/activities". (ILO Report 5.1).
For the last nineteen years I have sat in a voluntary capacity on various planning committees which have been talking about this village. I have seen Carib Chiefs, government tourism ministers, civil servants, NDC personnel and foreign experts come and go and I am still here, amazed at how slow the wheels of administrative action turn. Something that should have taken a couple years to accomplish has taken two decades to bear fruit and the end is not yet in sight.
The structures that are being completed at the Crayfish or Isulukati Falls, in the area known as Tumaka in Carib, are as yet without any management plan or administrative system. Yes, there are reports (Cowater 1998, financed by the CDB is the latest), decisions have been taken somewhere, but the buildings will be completed at the end of this month with the systems not in place. This has been financed by a CDB loan to the tune of EC$721,000 for the road and EC$860,000 for the village. But how entrance fees will be collected and managed, how the loan will be paid back through government or council, is still to be sorted out.
Already the grumbling and grousing has started. "We were not consulted. We were not informed" say some. "The buildings are wrong" say others. "The road is too steep. The car park is sloping. The site is too hilly. The thatch was too green. The space is not enough, etc. etc". The usual Dominican litany of woe is chanted at the project. It will take diplomacy and careful guidance to see this in working order. But it is an opportunity not to be missed. Whatever the shortcomings, in these increasingly harsh economic times, one must take advantage of the situation. Creative and imaginative use can be made of this village for the economic and social benefit of the Carib community.
Cultural Villages of this type now increasingly dot indigenous areas in the Pacific, North America and elsewhere. The closest of its type to Dominica is at Camp Canaima on the Carrao River in Venezuela along the tourist route to Angel Falls. Early on the project organisers envisage 'a short attachment by at least two Caribs, to a location abroad (Canada or the USA) where a similar project is being successfully implemented will be arranged' (NDC Report 10.2). The probable cultural impact of the entire venture has also been noted: "Neither the Chief, nor his Council are unaware that even in a modest form of tourism development some changes in locals are inevitable. These they were more than willing to accept in order to obtain increased income". (International Labour Organisation, ILO, Carib Village Report 1982:3).
The Carib Territory is now hyped as some great tourism experience in all the publicity material produced for Dominica. But increasingly visitors are disappointed. In most cases it is the same as driving along any road in the rest of the island. The visitor wonders what it is that she has been driven all that way to see? Most of the charming old shingled houses on stilts are gone. It is not like walking along the old road as in the past. A focal point is therefore needed to make the visit interesting and to inject some business into the district.
The opening lines of the proposal for funding the 'tourism project development in the Carib Territory' states: "The main objective of the project is to develop a tourism product around indigenous resources that will ensure job creation as well as a viable tourist attraction that is in keeping with Dominica's tourism strategy... The project involves development of a Carib Cultural Village as a tourist attraction." (National Development Corporation, NDC, Report 1987: 1.1).
This development marks a period when the accumulated history of contact and culture exchange among the Caribs can be put to commercial use. This is a commodity that can be negotiated to the Carib's advantage in the marketplace of tourist 'experiences'. The tactic, whatever the pros and cons may be, is employed elsewhere: "In Tahiti, the very thing that functions to attract tourists is also used to foster Tahitian solidarity and to stimulate resistance to French colonial domination. Pareus, outrigger canoe races, native dance competitions, tattoos and pagan ceremonies at rebuilt maraes (stone temple platforms) are all primitivisms designed to appeal to popa?s [whites] sensibilities; they are at the same time, however, expressions of Mahohi pride and anti-colonial commitment." (Eisenman 1997:202-203). If it can be done in Tahiti, or Venezuela, or in Mexico, or in Hawaii, one should hope that it can be done in Dominica. It is an opportunity not to be missed. |
