A Wonderful Surprise

Last Sunday we had brunch at Ladera with our friends and ex-landlords from Soufriere John and Sophia Dorman. They told us they had a surprise for us and indeed they did, one Miss Camile Dorman their daughter who will be two in January. We had last seen John and Sophia in August 2008 when we stayed at their guest house while in St. Lucia for Leo and Marcy's wedding. Sophia was pregnant at the time but were still keeping little Camile a secret.

She is wonderful, beautiful, smart and charming, a living doll in her pink checked dress, braids, pierced ears, gold bracelet and necklace. The little pink sunglasses askew on her head made us all giggle. It is not a big shock for a couple who have been married only five years to have a child but John will soon be 60 and has another daughter who is in her thirties, so this was definitely a surprise to us.

John is Lucian and retired from the US Army where he enjoyed a career as a paramedic and spent much of his duty stationed in Germany. After the army he moved to Chicago and worked for a Veterans Hospital before moving back to St. Lucia where he met and married Sophia. Sophia has a beauty salon in Fond Cocoa located on the first floor of their large Caribbean style home. John helped her finish the house and divided it into apartments where my sister Cass and I stayed for the first time in 2007. It was great having them upstairs gave us more security and we sometimes went out for meals together or driving around in our rented Yaris.

When I returned to St. Lucia in 2008 I rented again from John and Sophia while I was working at Ladera. They had just finished making another apartment in the house by reducing the size of the salon and eliminating a bit of the ground floor from their apartment. The new apartment was smaller than the first and set up with an efficiency kitchen but was just right for my needs.

It was a pleasure to catch up with them and meet Camile. We enjoyed our brunch, The Shak Shak band and I took them on a tour of Ladera. Next time I am in St. Lucia we will try to spend more time with each other, maybe go down to the pier for fishing. John says he finally has had some luck catching fish and is willing to share his methods.

I saw this grafitti on a church wall in Cannaries, seems a good message for the new year.