glitterycloud

Yes, we have finally made the decision to move back to the UK. The decision for us comes after about 8 months of toying with the idea and trying to make it work in SLU.

I don't know about others but we as a family have found it extremely tough to live in St Lucia. Decent paying jobs are very hard to come by, and although the sun does shine almost 365 days of the year it doesn't change how much St Lucia needs to progress to enable it to be somewhere we could call home.

I have found the UK calling too many times over the past year and now a decision has been made I feel excited to be leaving SLU.

St Lucia will always be a beautiful, tropical hideaway but for me its a holiday destination rather than a place to call home.

I now have the task to sell everything that we shipped over - all household items large and small, if anyone knows of a great way to shift it I welcome all ideas!

Orangepants

You must be relieved now that you have made the decision and looking forward to your next new adventure. I just left Cayman after about 12 years - had a wonderful time - but needed new challenges. Living in the sun is fabulous but it still can be tough and isn't always paradise.
Good Luck

pgtips

Well at least you gave it a try. It does not work out for everybody. it generally takes people about 3-4 years to really settle into life on smaller islands, and one cannot under estimate the initial expense and living cost.
I always advise now to maybe rent for a year or so and see if this is what one really wants and not just sell up and go. I hope your transition back into the UK goes smoothly. When will you be back ? Its freezing in UK now !!!

pgtips

Glitterycloud, Initially you said you were going to move to St Lucia and set up a business with your husband and build a house on some family land after renting for a while. Did this not go according to plan ?

You now state decent paying jobs are hard to come by, but you knew that before you moved, hence you said you had researched starting your own business. You also said you were sick of Blighty !! Do you think Blighty has changed much after 8 months ?

There is something called 'Homesickness' which plays all sorts of tricks with our minds. I know a couple who returned to the UK after giving Canada only a few months, and now they yearn to return to Canada. Again they were called by the homesickness bug !!

I also know people who would not dream of swapping their lifestyle in St lucia to return to the UK. Most of them own their properties outright, no rent or mortgage to pay and only earn modest incomes in St Lucia.

So horses for courses, I just hope whatever you do it all works out and this is not remembered as a shattered dream for the wrong reasons.

glitterycloud

Hi Pgtips, we are renting at the moment but the downturn in the economy has hit St Lucia hard. We tried really hard in the beginning to set up a business but the banks didn't want to know and if they did they wanted a huge amount of things in return. We struggled on, had our baby over here, I managed to find a well paying job as an expat but my husband as a returning St Lucian found it incredibly hard to find a good job. My husband started his business off his own back, and was progressing well before the hurricane. It took him almost 18 months to get where he was as you know the caribbean everything takes alot longer to do.

Unfortuantely with the passing of Hurricane Tomas it pushed not only my husband back but the whole of St Lucia back, some say it has pushed it back many many years. We can not afford both financially or emotionally to struggle again for 18 months to be back where we were - hence our decision to go back to the UK.

To be fair - we had no idea on the scale of jobs available or not available but have been left dismayed at the small amount of work available to the average Joe. We are not rich people we are just trying to carve out a living on a small island and every penny (ok cent!) matters.

I know the UK has all the things about it that made me leave but it also has my family there. I have been misunderstood by my husbands family and although they are welcoming they struggle to understand that my culture and upbringing is significantly different to the average St Lucian, this has lead to problems and the feeling of isolation has increased.

My husband is actually looking forward to going back to the UK, he said that he feels more at home in the UK than in St Lucia. Good childcare has been a problem over here, we can not afford to send our son to the private nurserys nor can we find a reliable trustworthy person who respects our decisions on how we bring up our child. We are left to manage childcare on our own.

Many expats do come here with money and buy their homes outright but I am not one of them, so I do not fit into that category nor do i fit into local category as I will always be viewed as a tourist. I am an inbetween and therefore in an unhappy place as I have to earn to live here and right now life is not what I came to St Lucia for.

pgtips

whoa !! Thats a lot to contend with. Well the UK economy has problems of its own, BUT WELCOME BACK I am just glad you gave it a shot.
Good luck with re-establishing yourslf in the UK.

pgtips

Glitterycloud, one last thing, now that you have done it what advice would you give to newcomers looking to move onto the island ?

Pistolpete2

Hi pgtips, not wanting to butt in but I think I have found a soul-mate in Glitterycloud though we have an older child now in secondary school.

1. If you are going to retire in St Lucia and have plenty of readies then fine pick Rodney Bay, or better still Rodney Heights (more community) or even Cap and you should be fine. But make sure your house is secure, alarmed and you have a dog. Break-ins have ruined many peoples' dreams. even if you have an acre of land you should be able to find a contractor who will maintain it for you at reasonable cost. They charge more in the north than elsewhere.

but

2. Find reliable people to work for you as many gardeners and handymen are thieves.

3. Get involved in clubs (yacht even if not a yachty) or golf or swimming or tennis.

Medical services in St Lucia are excellent if you are insured and go private though the costs are "reasonable" anyway:

120EC Doctors visit
100 Hygienist
120 filling

If you have to work it is a problem. There are very few openings but for the self-employed there are opportunities in IT, business consulting and the hospitality industry and particularly food services.

1. You need to build contacts through channels such as Rotary or clubs or through your child's school (if you have one)

2. Be aware that there is corruption everywhere and those who are not corrupt are not working on a level playing field. This could affect you if you are, say, an import business. Need I say more?

3. Finance is VERY expensive here (12%) and income and corporation tax start at very low thresholds. There is corruption here too of course.

4. You MUST be hands on in your business and trust NOBODY. If you delegate responsibilities to somebody not tried and tested at being squeeky clean you could be in real trouble; and there are few such animals.

5. The work ethic, of everybody being out to screw the boss and when the cat's away......, is very much in play, as it is elsewhere in this region, I must add.

6. if you are planning to build check references carefully. There a lot of crooked contractors who will leave your house half-built at the agreed complete price. Lawyers are NO help as due-process does not function here and you could be "tied" up for years.

General:

1. Schools are of a reasonably good standard and depending upon racial considerations it can be better academically to send your child to a state primary school or even secondary school. You would need to consider whether you can re-integrate your child into another system at say seventeen. State schools use corporal punishment (caning). There are several private schools in the north but some are more concerned with children loving their teachers than with academic achievement and this can be a problem for some parents.

2. It is better to rent first and get a feel for the place BEFORE committing to buy. Rents are reasonable in that they are typically a 5% return to the landlord or less. It is now a buyers market whether renting or buying as there is hardly any demand.

3. Traffic is terrible in the north and there is heavy congestion on the Castries to Gros Islet highway at the best of times. This can have a bearing on where you choose to settle.

4. The areas south of Castries have little or no development in recent years and that is where the poverty is (40% poverty 25% unemployment in the south). The Government does not, apparently, devote time to even attempting to develop channels for future employment outside of tourism.

5. The areas around Castries were once the residential areas for the well-to-do. Apart from Vigie, this is no longer the case and The Morne and Coubaril suffer from serious breaking and entering problems.

6. Water is a real issue and Hurricane Tomas caused serious disruption. The water supplier business (WASCO)(govt owned) suffers from severe lack of investment and this has created supply problems in outlying residential areas such as in Beausejour where the cricket ground is.

7. It isn't actually sunny 365 days a year by any stretch of the imagination and at this time of year it is actually rainy in Castries and points south EVERY DAY. There is only a four month period of regular sun and little rain and that is now due. In Rodney Bay and Cap the climate is VERY different and it can be described as fairly arid for much of the year - hence water problems.

8. St Lucians are mostly wonderful beautiful forthcoming people who are often extremely articulate and refreshing in their openness, particularly for us Brits. They are very political/clannish and politicians exploit this. The political scene is just one big disappointment. The St Lucian scene is the best to get into as any expat anywhere would probably advise.

pgtips

Excellent summary Pistolpete2, it is nice to have another point of view and another valuable member to the community.

Thanks

glitterycloud

Well said Pistolpete2 couldn't have said it better myself

I agree with everything you have put, especially corruption and bribery (have been witness to this)

I think I was very naive before coming to St Lucia, I have had my eyes well and truely opened and I am shocked at how little I trust people now.

I must add that there are some hard working, very honest and reliable people and when you find them you must hang on to them.

Pistolpete2

"I must add that there are some hard working, very honest and reliable people and when you find them you must hang on to them."

Nice to hear from you!

Indeed you are absolutely correct. I left the UK 34 years ago and have been used to some pretty awful customer service elsewhere but in St Lucia there are many areas where the quality of service is a breath of fresh air be it medical, retail, utility or whatever. It took a long time, with a great deal of outside help, before we put together a cadre of people to help us run our place but they have come through in spades, some literally and their pricing has been negotiated with great integrity.

As an aside, I am trying to ease my time DOWN in St Lucia so I can spend a bit less of it working the land here; things are hurting now. We had considered moving to the UK in five years when I reach retirement age but feel it too expensive and a bad tax position and best visited as a tourist once you have made the decision to quit once if it was for a good enough reason. The tricky thing is to take care of or secure properties at both ends at a reasonable price. To do this, I think I will try to do international/professional student lets on a property in the UK which they will vacate during the summer months for me and spend the rest of my time here and somewhere completely different, for starters anyway. In addition I'll try to swap the property in St Lucia with somebody for whom the rain forest and its plant and bird life holds a fascination. You have to choose one way or another though location-wise I think.

It seems the most successful expat folks run their UK or offshore St Lucia businesses over the internet. Lucky them!

Pistolpete2

"I also know people who would not dream of swapping their lifestyle in St Lucia to return to the UK. Most of them own their properties outright, no rent or mortgage to pay and only earn modest incomes in St Lucia."

hi Pgtips!

you are right!

BUT

Those folks who were born and raised here and now have family ties in St Lucia or a piece of the rock feel a special yearning to set up shop based upon the somewhat blinded expectation that everything will turn out peachy.

Let's not forget that in the last five years in St Lucia, apart from a few hand-outs and programmes developed by Taiwan since 2007 absolutely nothing has happened to take this country forward*. That is going to dash the dreams of an awful lot of people when it comes to employment.

The confusing thing is that having lived in a country with THE highest per capita income on the planet for many years I come to St Lucia and find many more top of the line CRVs, Audis, Porsches and BMWs HERE than there. I think that that picture tells a few stories best not dwelled upon.

*Apart from the addition of two fine hotels Jade Mountain and Cap Maison
and the BA service ex Gatwick and Jetblue ex JFK

pgtips

Pistolpete2, I know what you mean about the cars !!
I find there is so much scope for development in St Lucia and job creation.
The world is operating on-line, St Lucia has broadband, so whats the problem ? The tourist indusrtry can only employ so much and its not good to put all your eggs in one basket. Now is the time to hit the service sector big time. Open call centres that service all of the English speaking world. this could creat thousands of jobs if the right contracts are one.
Also time to re-invest in agriculture, a nation which is self sufficient in feeding itself will never starve, and the locals will not have to grumble about the prices in the supermarkets. A fully fledged University would also lift spirits and fuel the entrepreneural spirit.
I see so much potential but who is going to take the helm and drive it forward ?

Pistolpete2

Hi pg

I think that St Lucia is already fairly well placed in the call centre market. Sandals reservation system is here and there are several others. The wages are terrible, as you could guess.

Indeed there is scope for further development in agriculture, particularly in ranching of beasts such as, say, ostrich and pedigree cattle and pigs.

The problem is that there is a lot of theft of agricultural product AND the wage rate and climate (and some subsidies elsewhere) means that imports are cheaper than the home-grown in most cases. The terrain doesn't lend itself to intensive farming and so there is a lack of investment in heavy equipment to make farming more productive. As a result, farmers use the same methods that they did thirty years ago and in the meantime there are a whole new "crop" of diseases to contend with which cost money to tackle. As per usual, the government, of course, is not on board with the farmers to help them with new techniques and report after report is produced relating to diversification away from bananas and just sits on a shelf collecting dust.

When St Lucia has developed sufficient skilled employment base to be taken seriously there is an opportunity as a "back-office" to the financial service islands such as Bermuda and Cayman in the areas of IT, Accounting and processing of reinsurance documents. Nobody thinks about these things though* so St Lucia just sits there and churns out students who have nothing to do.

*I have actually sent an email to the Minister of Human Resource Development and Youth about outsourcing opportunities. I didn't even get an acknowledgment, presumably because who ever opened the email thought I was after their job.

Pistolpete2

"and the locals will not have to grumble about the prices in the supermarkets"

There's an irony to this.

The Castries market is actually more expensive than the supermarkets and fishmonger(s). Apparently the Market functions more as a make-work programme
for folks than a true market and most purveyors buy from the same farmers. It also a cartel so everybody then charges the same price. Tomatoes; $10.

It would make far more sense if, UK style, the farmers had a farmer's market, paid somebody to set it up and handle security and movement of cash and then sold to the customer direct. That way the product would be fresher and the prices lower BUT the little old lady would only be able to sell speciality items from her own sources. The prices would then be as in a true market and not a tourist attraction which is one of its reasons for being.

Prices at Mega J, the warehouse store, are far cheaper than the market and it has taken on big-time now for:

Pork
Beef
Fresh Local Chicken*
Cheese
Desserts
Cereal
Coffee
Milk
Yoghurt
Ice Cream
Ace Hardware items
Canned and Bottled Goods
Apples, Grapes, Potatoes, Cucs, Spinach

*excellent low-fat Local chicken (and imported) is much cheaper at Peter & Co. Wet & Cold outlets in Castries as well as Island Meats but then you have to go to Castries.