Sunday, April 29, 2007

All you need is love......

“Wan Lovv” is the exact way that people from Antigua would pronounce “one love” and it is a concept and belief that many religions and or philosophies hold as a core belief. In Antigua when I was a kid there was a unique tribe of Rastafarians called “The Wan Lovv” tribe and these particular Rastafarians believed extremely strongly in the one love principal and practiced a religion which held on to many of the hippie sort of beliefs. I did a wiki search on the Rastafarian faith and didn’t think that the One Love tribe came close to that. After I did a search for hippie on wiki and realized that the tribe here more closely resembled hippies than strict Rasta beliefs. Remember that old hippie band from England that sang “all you need is love”? Anyway, one of the tribe members changed his name to “wan Lovv” I guess in an effort to spread his faith. I guess it would be like a Christian preacher changing his name to “Love Jesus” or something like that. I dunno for sure but to this day I think that he is the most interesting Rastafarian I have ever met. Wan Lovv started working for the Ross family nearly 30 years ago first at their service station and eventually onto the first of the Wadadli Catamarans. He spent 18 years on Wadadli Cats and recently retired. I remember when Inigo and Xabier Ross first started Wadadli Cats how Wan Lovv would help them with the tour cleaning and cooking. One of the reasons I would love to windsurf up to Bird Island from Dutchmans Bay was to get a bit of his delicious chicken. Also, it was so interesting to me to be in the company of someone who really was a “wan Lovv” tribe member. He is full of compassion for people and is extremely gentle and goon natured and unfortunately you don’t come across many people like that in this world. I mean you know immediately when you meet him that his calm loving manner is strangely genuine. When I started my company Wan Lovv told me that he could come and help me out on his days off from Wadadli Cats, and he did work with me quite a few times during the early eco tour days until my tour got busier and I employed full time crew. After leaving Wadadli Cats he decided one day that he wanted to still be involved in the excursion business, and he thankfully made the decision to try something different. After making sure that Xabier was ok with me employing Wan Lovv I took him on last Monday. So far everyone at Adventure Antigua is delighted that he has chosen to be part of the family and I can only hope that he puts off full retirement for as long as possible. If you come out on the tour be sure to say hi if he’s on board.