Memoir of a cocoa farmer's daughter

Regina Dumas

Description

HONEST, COMPELLING AND ORIGINAL, this work describes the journey of Regina Dumas, a Caribbean woman whose life pilgrimage takes her to places and situations she never would have imagined. Desiring only to lead an independent if humdrum existence in her native Trinidad and Tobago, Regina, instead, finds herself at the age of 24, travelling to Jamaica, where she will spend three years while her husband pursues his academic career. She, meanwhile, immerses herself in a culture she finds delightfully bewitching while she struggles with the challenge of teaching the Spanish language to rural students whose Jamaican accent she can barely grasp. At the end of three years, she is presented with yet another challenge her husband wishes to pursue further studies in Geneva, Switzerland and refuses to go except accompanied by his wife and the baby they now have. Switzerland changes her entire perspective on life and when she returns to the Caribbean four years later, she is anxious to put into practice the rural development theory she has acquired in Geneva. And she does. With the unfortunate dissolution of her marriage in 1980 comes the opportunity to work in revolutionary Grenada for 4 years until the implosion occurs. Sadly, she returns with her children to Trinidad where her dreams of pulling together the strands of her experiences are finally realized in rural Tobago on the cocoa estate owned by her family.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Memoir

Informations

• Publié par: Arawak publications
• Date de parution: 06 décembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789768282088
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

EARLIER PUBLICATIONS BY THE AUTHOR
Journal Article
(1990) with P. I. Gomes, “The CNIRD Initiative: Mobilising the NGO Sector for Rural Transformation.” Caribbean Affairs 3:2(April–June)
Conference Papers
(1990) “Rural Development Re-defined in the Context of a National Land Reform Programme: The Case of Grenada 1980-83.” Presented at the 15 th Annual Conference of the Caribbean Studies Association on The Caribbean in the Year 2000
(1999) “Poverty Reduction and the Engineer – A Rural Community Development Perspective.” Presented at the 13 th Annual Technical Conference of the Association of Professional Engineers of Trinidad and Tobago (APETT) on The Engineer in Caribbean Society
Contribution
(2000) “NGO Networking: Ring around the Roses.” In Spitting in the Wind: Lessons in Empowerment from the Caribbean, ed. Suzanne Francis Brown. Kingston: Ian Randle Publishers in association with the Commonwealth Foundation

©2018 by Regina Dumas All rights reserved. Published 2018
Arawak publications Kingston • Jamaica
22  21  20  19  18          5  4  3  2  1
Credits   Chapters 1–7 & p.161: photos/images reproduced by courtesy of:    Regina Dumas (author)
 pp.162-164: “Glimpses of Cuffie River Nature Retreat” – Photos/imagesreproduced by courtesy of copyright owners
   Faraaz Abdool (photo ID#s 5,11,16,17)    Gerry Flemming (photo ID#s 3,7,9,10,12)    Roger Neckles (Cover images & ID#20)    Brigitte Noel (photo ID#s 6,8,18)    Steve Wooler (photo ID#s 1,2,4,13,14,15,19,21)
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF JAMAICA CATALOGUING–IN–PUBLICATION DATA
Dumas, Regina Memoir of a cocoa farmer’s daughter : from Caribbean rural development activist to rural entrepreneur / Regina Dumas
p.; cm ISBN 978-976-95836-9-6 (print) ISBN 978-976-8282-08-8 (ebook)
1. Dumas, Regina – 1945- 2. Trinidad and Tobago – Biography 3. Entrepreneurship I. Title
920 - dc 23
Set in Iowan Old Style Bk BT 10.5/13pt with Gabriola and Type Embellishments One LET
Printed in the United Kingdom
Dedication
For my parents, with love
And to rural dwellers – everywhere
Contents
Foreword
Professor Emerita Maureen Warner-Lewis
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1. The Early Years
2. Studies, Love and Marriage
3. Jamaica 1969–1972
4. Geneva, Switzerland 1972–1976
5. Barbados 1976–1980: I Meet “Little England”
6. Grenada and my Experience of the Grenada Revolution 1980–1984
7. Trinidad 1984–1996
8. Tobago 1997 to the Present
Epilogue
Foreword
T HIS MEMOIR IS A testament of our time! “Our time” refers to the experiences of those born in the Anglophone Caribbean in the 1940s and benefitting from the socio-economic and educational opening up of society enabled by political independence from colonial rule in the 1960s. Indeed, it is important to have testaments of various generations, to enable the voiceless to see their life trajectories in the light of the paths of others of their own vintage. Regina Dumas throws a refreshing light on her unfolding of social, intellectual, and spiritual consciousness, from a girlhood in Chaguanas and Tunapuna in Trinidad, to a travelled professional and mother of two, to a risk-taking entrepreneur in eco-tourism. The geographic range of her travels in her career with non-governmental organizations spans almost all the islands of the Caribbean, Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Malaysia, and Central America. Meanwhile, her residence in Trinidad, Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, and Tobago makes for telling insights into the subtle but also glaring differences among these island cultures. Her personal testimony of the socio-economic and structural innovations in revolutionary Grenada and the regime’s fateful dissolution is both gripping and harrowing.
Dumas’ story carries the reader along by a strong narrative style, with its command of a clear but sophisticated and concise turn of expression. Apart from the public figures whose thought and actions have impacted her life, Dumas also pays homage to her husbands and personal friends who shaped important facets of her self-understanding, especially with regard to the significance of communication and teamwork in the sustenance of personal relationships. But no one is more significant than her mother, the nurse Adeline MacNeill Dumas, whose early feminist resolve so markedly stamped Regina’s dogged pursuit of personal happiness. So, the title, Memoir of a Cocoa Farmer’s Daughter, is remarkable since it is a paean, instead, to Regina’s father whom she hardly knew personally, but whose vision of economic independence she consciously mirrors in her reformation of his cocoa estate in Tobago into her present home, agri-business, and nature retreat. Her life’s journey is therefore a tribute to both parents whose heritage she lovingly acknowledges.
— Professor Emerita Maureen Warner-Lewis
Acknowledgements
T HOUGH FEW IN number, the persons to whom I owe a great debt of gratitude in the production of this memoir are so valuable to me that I hardly know where my acknowledgements should begin. For many years, I had been toying with the idea of writing a memoir, especially when challenges such as no one else seemed to be experiencing in their lives loomed large in mine. But I was never emboldened to actually put the thought into action, that is, until Frank, my first husband, laid it out to me very convincingly one evening during a visit to Boston to spend some time with my daughter and her family. He invited me out to dinner (he has lived in Boston for a number of years) and in the course of the evening made what I can only describe as a persuasive argument. Having written and published material himself, he offered to proofread whatever I wrote once I emailed it to him. But Frank went beyond the promise of proofreading. More than simply taking responsibility for this aspect, he went further, reminding me of titbits of information I had forgotten, thereby enhancing what I had chronicled. He went beyond simply proofreading as his suggestions improved my writing style overall and when the going got tough for him by way of my recording of memories that were not exactly complimentary to him, he took it all in stride.
Additionally, two persons, now both deceased, played wonderfully supportive roles in the writing of this memoir. Lloyd King, whose vast and intimate knowledge not only of the institution of the University of the West Indies but also of the regional political events and responses of the intelligentsia to the said events, came into the picture at an early stage. Further, Lloyd, whose academic, socio-economic and political interests and experiences spanned several decades (he was actually my lecturer in Spanish at UWI from 1965–68), was able to advance comments which contributed to both content value and the courage I required to continue writing chapter after chapter. He made suggestions for additions which he thought might be useful or omission of some elements which in his view were superfluous. As a result, his input helped with the tightening of the narrative in no uncertain way.
The contribution of the other friend who is also deceased – Roderick Sanatan – was completely unexpected and unsolicited. Roderick, who had sat as a member of my management committee at the Caribbean Network for Integrated Rural Development (CNIRD), had for years been listening to me plan my dream of establishing a retreat deep within the forests of Tobago, the tiny sister isle of Trinidad. When, finally, he arrived to spend some time here at the Retreat and we got to talking about the memoir project, Roderick, who had always worked with governments in the region but whose heart belonged to community-based and non-governmental organizations, agreed that I should send him a copy to read. Roderick did not simply make useful comments on presentation of the material, but went further, rattling off a string of possibilities for distributing and disseminating what he viewed as an important rural and community development tool. Having read the draft, his positive words, coming as they did from someone whom I knew to be a stickler for getting things right, gave me a great deal of encouragement and confidence.
Both Lloyd and Roderick died suddenly and although their deaths were some five years apart, both left me with a sense of utter and complete loss and wondering why? They did not know each other but from my privileged perch they reminded me of each other; both so brilliant, each in his own way, so private, each in his own way, so ready to help and support my project – just because I asked!
As picky as I was about those to whom I sent copies for comment, I knew I wanted the input of Khafra Kambon whose dedication to the cause of political advancement of the Caribbean region in general and the country of Trinidad and Tobago in particular has been unquestionable since the decade of the sixties. Indeed, my specific request to him was to help me beef up the section related to events in 1970. I thought it would be of key importance to the reader of the memoir to have a feel of what was developing with respect to the social consciousness of the society during the latter part of the 1960s and culminating in the events of 1970. For the sake of what Kambon referred to as historical accuracy, the request to him was that he assist with strengthening the perspective, the facts and their sequencing with regard to that period. This he focused on despite his busy schedule.
Apart from the fun I had with my niece Danielle Toppin when it came to choosing image combinations for the book covers, I was also deeply impressed by her artistic judgement and expertise – skillfully displayed in the eyecatching imagery and design of the book covers.
Frank was to enter the picture yet again when I considered whom I should ask to write the Foreword. Frank, much to my surprise, suggested someone with whom he had related many years earlier and whom he considered would be of value, mainly because he was aware that she was from my