Meet a typical

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Meet a typical
St. Lucian family...
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Mrs Namata.
The Namata family live in the small village of
Gros Islet which is just outside Castries. Mrs
Namata has worked very hard in bringing up her
family, supporting her husband and running the
family home.
Now the children are at school she feels it is
now time to go out to work. Many of the women in
St Lucia have found work in factories. She has
found a job which involves making sewing
machines, which are then sent to other countries,
the United Kingdom included. Mrs Namatas day is
very long, and she works these long hours for
less than 1 a day. This is much less than the
minimum wage. Mrs Namata and her family enjoy
going scuba diving in the sea. They never tire
of admiring the amazing coral reef, this is one
of the attractions to the island. Unfortunately,
due to the increased demand for bananas in other
countries they are having to clear the hillsides
to grow more banana trees. The bananas are
treated with chemicals throughout their growing
time, to ensure that they are not damaged by
insects. When the heavy rain arrives it washes
the soil down the hillsides into the sea, the
chemicals are then killing the coral.
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Mr Namata Mr Namata also lives in the small
village of Gros Islet. Mr Namata wakes up at 7am
every morning. He works very hard for his family
because they do not earn much money. Mr Namata
works in the banana fields as a banana farmer. He
depends on his career to make money for his
family. In his free time he likes to play cricket
with his friends. His childhood dream was to
become a professional cricket player. He and his
family always pray before they eat as part of
their Roman Catholic religion. Mr Namata is very
concerned about the future of St. Lucia. He is
worried that people are forgetting about the real
beauty of the island, much of the luscious rain
forest is being destroyed to cater for the ever
increasing tourists that visit the island.
Although the tourists do help to create jobs for
the local people, he is concerned that it will
soon lose the beautiful landscapes. Already all
the flat land is full, they are now having to
build in to the sides of the mountains.
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Simpson Namata Simpson is an 12 year old school
boy. His school is called Borda Secondary school.
He likes to play cricket as well as his dad,
sometimes he goes to play with his dads friends.
He gets good grades in school. His favourite
subject in school is science, when he grows up
would like to go to university at Oxford in
England to become a scientist. He wants to join
the basketball team but his sister thinks he is
not cool enough. Simpsons school day starts at
8.00am. He starts with three lessons and then
has a break, after another two lessons it is time
for lunch. After lunch he finishes with another
two lessons. Is this different to your school
day?
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Imogen Namata Imogen is 14 years old. She goes
to Gros Islet School for girls. Her favourite
past time is going shopping with her mum. They
use to go to the open market but now they go to
the supermarket because there is a wider range of
food, the only problem is everything has to be
packaged. They are now trying foods from other
countries, especially those that they have seem
on the television, as many of the programmes we
watch are from America.
Imogen has two pet dogs Heinze and Pickles. They
are King Charles Spaniels. She hates to leave
them when she goes to school. She takes them to
basketball training and they do join in! Imogen
enjoys going to school, she loves to meet up with
her friends. Her favourite lesson is Spanish,
all children in St. Lucia have to learn a
language in school. Do you? Living on the island
can be a lot of fun!