Joyce Chichester-Smith

My name is Joyce Chichester-Smith, and I have lived over 50 years on Saba.

I'm an outdoor person with nature. I can stand for a long time and look up to the hills and just be rejuvenated. You know, just the atmosphere here that I like. Go all around. You can get in your car, you can go down the steps of Mount Scenery, go towards Fort Bay. Now we are blessed with Well's Bay, Cove Bay. I don't like to stay in one spot. So I just continue moving, and enjoy. You can find quietness. I enjoy fresh air, sunlight, moonlight. You can see the stars, you can walk around free.

I worked in health as a nurse, which I enjoyed immensely. Even though we are small, by working here, you come in contact with situations that, in a larger hospital, you will never see. But here with us, we are able to touch people in different levels in the medical field. That's my heartstring, being a nurse — there's so many things we have to just push aside and do what we have to do for the patients, to make them comfortable. To see people sick then see them walking out through the door, that's a great pleasure within. When they expire, you feel sad. When babies are born, you feel good about it, you know?

We have traditions, or feast days, like Saba Day. That's a fun day. It's a good day. We have our Saba song, "Saba you rise from the ocean with mountains,” so you have that. The morning is official, so the governor will speak, children will gather, the flag will be hoisted. The Saba flag consists of red, white, blue, and at the center, there is a star. And when that is over, we walk down to Juliana Sport Field and a lot of people in the community gather there. That's a fun time. We will have different organizations with culture and the children also doing culturalistic things, which is a lot of fun. After that, eat and be merry. Have a lot of meals.

And the carnival in June, July, that's a big hot summertime event that people do enjoy here. When it comes to celebration, everybody celebrates. We have everybody’s celebrations of the different islands, those from Aruba, Santo Domingo, and the Caribbean islands who are living here with us — they have their day of celebration, and it is celebrated here also.

Saba is small, yes, but it's a little bit of everything. And we have experienced a lot of changes — changes in how you get your mail, changes in how the shops receive their goods from away, because formerly that was not so easy. Now we have a boat come and anchor at our harbor, and we just take over the things. Sabans have put in a lot of work, labor. Going to the Fort Bay, coming back. Coming, walking up, with all the things that is brought. Now, we are fortunate, we have light. We'd never always have electricity. At home, a lamp with kerosene to read and to do work, until gradually it came that we were able to have electricity right through. And we have the biggest airport — the biggest, the biggest, the biggest airport! [Laughs.] Did you find that we have the biggest airport to land on? An experience, eh?

It means a lot for me to be living on the island. It is a lot. To compare a big island to Saba, yes a big island has a lot to offer. But as I said, Saba is unique, and for me, it means a lot. A lot that I easily can't express, but I know I'm happy to be living on Saba. If you want to go off, you buy your ticket, get in a plane, enjoy what's over there and come back here. That's how I feel about it. But Saba is dear to our hearts.