A number of people and even my friends who live abroad ask me about my home island, Dominica – What it’s like, why do I say, how a blogger like me emerged from a tiny island, stuff like that. So today I thought I had share a little about Dominica, just to give you some background on me and my home, and share some resource where you can learning all about Dominica.
My Home
While I was born in Guadeloupe, I spent most of my life here on Dominica. It’s a fairly small tropical island in the middle of the Caribbean Sea, gained it’s independence since in 1978 from England, a very catholic but highly politically motivated island.
I spent most of my childhood here, and have lived here my entire adult life. Both my mom and dad are 100% Dominicans. My mom lived most of her childhood years in Antigua, and then returned. My dad grew up in a small village called Newtown, which is just on the outskirts of the Capital city Roseau. Dominica is home, the only home I’ve known.
I will probably live in other places – I’m contemplating a move to Canada or New Zealand in the near future – but Dominica will be my final resting place, I imagine. While not all of the 70,000 people here know each other, we are fairly close-knit community, and you can’t go anywhere without meeting several people you know. If you meet someone you don’t know, most of the times it only takes a few minutes to find a connection – you are related to them somehow, or you used to work with their relative or your neighbor is their good friend or something like that.
I love Dominica and its people, although I don’t love everything about the island. We have our problems like anywhere else — we have government corruption sometimes, but have mostly honest government workers. We have problems with potholes and trash sometimes, but usually things run fine. There is a lot of trash and things that can be cleaned up and stray dogs in some areas, but above all the natural beauty of the island shines through. It can be very hot and humid here at times, but mostly it’s just stunningly beautiful weather in the 70s and 80s and sometimes 90s.
Nature Island of the Caribbean
Think of Dominica as a little slice of Heaven 
, but Island-style. Dominica is not like most the other islands, with huge malls and fast food restaurants (we have few of them, but not all), and Internet access practically everywhere. We have roads and power and British-style schools and everyone speaks English (though you will find some people speaking in a Creole dialect). And while we don’t vote for president, we are democratic and as patriotic as any other Caribbean island.
We are much very Caribbean in many ways, we’re also not in others. We have a lot French and Catholic traditions, for example. We celebrate Catholic holidays, and village feasts all the time, and many people speak Kwèyòl, a blend of our native language and French. We are very family oriented, but in a much extended family way, including not only second and third cousins and more, but a very extensive system of godparents and godmother.
More than just being French influenced, we are native islanders. We have a long tradition of being connected to the sea, of being connected to the land, of being very tribal in many ways through the Carib Indians who still live on the island to this date.
And so we are none of these things completely — French, Spanish,Carib, islander — but all of them at once. We are a changing community, from the more traditional elders to the more modern youngsters, with their Nintendo DS and MySpace and texting cell phones and Wiis and XBoxes.
I could actually write about Dominica for days, but I’ll stop here and answer any questions you have in the comments. In the meantime, if you to want learn more about Dominica, you can visit dominica.dm – not too long along the Discover Dominica Authority which is apart ministry of Tourism launched a new marketing campaign and website for the island. Anyway, go over there and take a look, if you’re interested in more about Dominica. It’s a great resource that will continue to grow in the years to come.
. What do you think? Lets hear your opinions in the comments.
