The time to learn essential survival skills is now—because it’ll be too late when you find yourself in an extreme situation. That was the message from instructors at the Bush Skills Caribbean Rendezvous held this week at the V.I. Sustainable Farm Institute, where nearly 100 attendees learned everything thing from starting fires without matches to foraging for food.
“You don’t want to wait until the situation arrives,” said bush teacher Russell Cutts, who also has a master’s in archeology. He continued that a little bit of knowledge about surviving in the wild could go a long way to building a person’s confidence in an extreme situation. It could even save their lives.
About 80 students from St. Croix Educational Complex took part during the first two days of the event on Thursday and Friday. The students were from a 10th- to 12th -grade science class taught by Ann Marie Gibbs. Gibbs said the students enjoyed it so much she brought three students back with her Saturday to hone in on their bush skills.
“I can say they overwhelmingly enjoyed the classes and appreciate the farm experience,” Gibbs said, adding that the final test for the year is a camping trip where the students will apply the skills they learned.
“This is like a part of life the majority of people don’t know,” said Complex 12th-grader Celeste Morales. “If something comes down, we will know how to survive.”
Thursday had been dubbed Primitive Survival Skills Day with instructors going over the basics of tropical living, including starting fires, finding shelter, water and fiber.
Friday’s events were focused on herbs and trees and their use as medicines … and food.
On Saturday there were around 20 adults who were taking part in the classes, which ranged from making stone tools and baskets to fashioning spears for fishing. The day’s theme, hunting and gathering, also included a session by Cutts on flint knapping to make tools and arrows.
Nate Olive, the institute’s director, led a sensory hike along the Caledonia gut with participants seeing, touching, feeling and smelling their way along. During the hike, they collected almonds and stinking toe seedpods from West Indian locust trees to be used in Sunday’s meal.
Sunday was Food Day with a focus on how to grow and prepare an all-natural island feast and all-day bush cook out.
That final cookout day gives more meaning to the word sustainable. The farm has had problems with mongoose eating chicken eggs. Farm residents have turned the tables on the mongoose, which was the featured meat dish on Sunday.
Wren Shoumat, who instructed the class on starting a fire, said she has eaten mongoose on the farm before. “They put a lot of seasoning on it, and it tastes just like any good meat,” she added.
