DOMINICA | Saturday, 6 July 2013 | Views [382] | View Smaller Image
Pronounced “VEK-tee-veh” this grass is used for the roof thatching of traditional Kalinago homes. When Coy, the half-black half-Kalinago man we stayed with, started planting it, his intention was only to use it to hold the soil together; his wife had recently been sponsored to go on a workshop abroad about soil preservation. It was not until the model village initiated by the government was built that he realized this would be one of his most valuable crops going for $2 a bundle. Here you see what may not look like much but which has a traditional and monetary significance stashed away safely behind a padlocked door.
