Bermudez's breadfruit book offers hope to emerge from poverty

YOU might know Raul Bermudez as the man who sometimes gives out free breadfruit trees across TT, but he is also an author.

Last year he published a children’s book that has deep personal meaning to him called The Breadfruit Three.

Set in Tobago, the place where he honeymooned with the love of his life decades ago, the story echoes his early life in TT. It begins with a poor widowed woman with two children who sends her son to the market to buy a breadfruit to make oil down, a local delicacy. Thanks to the kindness of a nearby farmer, he returns with one as well as a breadfruit tree, which changes the family’s fortune when it begins to bear.

Bermudez told Newsday his mother was widowed at age 35 and she had seven children under the age of 18. He said because it would take a year or more before his father’s will was probated, they were left penniless. So she took them to Venezuela, where her family lived and helped care for them.

It was 17 years before he would return to the land of his birth and even more than before he developed a passion for breadfruit.

“My name is a big handicap. People see the name and assume you’re born with a golden spoon in your mouth. I do not have the money to go with the name. It’s because I know what it is not to have. I know what hunger is. That I am doing what I am doing today.”

And what he is doing is trying to help people feed themselves and care for their families.

The story of The Breadfruit Three is one of kindness, resilience, community, creativity and entrepreneurship, with the hopes of planting those values in the hearts of children.

Asked how his love for breadfruit and the subsequent storybook came about, Bermudez explained that in 2015, then prime minister Dr Keith Rowley did a radio interview and spoke on many different issues.

One of those things was the country’s high food import bill. Rowley said TT needed to re-educate the tastebuds of its children, starting with the school feeding programme.

He went on to say he had recently been invited to lunch and was excited that the menu was breadfruit and peas.

Bermudez said, “At home, we buy breadfruit, cook it and eat it, and that is that. Because I was at my computer when the radio was on, I googled breadfruit for the first time to discover what a wondrous superfood it is.”

Breadfruit is rich in vitamins and minerals, is an excellent source of proteins and fibre, and has been linked to improved heart, skin and bone health, brain function and digestion. It is also said to help regulate weight, diabetes, cholesterol, arthritis, asthma and more.

The following day Bermudez bought a breadfruit tree and planted it in his backyard. He also wrote Rowley and all the MPs letters suggesting the government plant breadfruit trees in the common areas of Housing Development Corporation developments and distribute breadfruit trees to the population. Only Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh replied saying it was a good idea.

“I told myself, ‘Let me start this ball rolling.’ So I went to the place where I bought the tree and asked for ten, but they said the policy was one per person.

“I thought that the government would have stepped in to say, ‘Let us feed our people.’ But they are not interested in that.”

It took over a year for him to convince another provider he was not going to sell the trees and he was able to get 200. He said hundreds of trees were propagated each year and, when they got too big, they were destroyed and turned into fertiliser. So each year, he purchases the larger trees to distribute on both islands, now with the help of volunteers.

Bermudez, 71, said he saw the effect having the trees had on the lives of some of the people he had given the trees to in Tobago, which he visited often.

“That was the trigger for this thing (The Breadfruit Three). Granted, none of those I spoke to had gone into enterprise and so on, but I said, ‘Let me write a story that would give the people a blueprint of what they could do.’ In a subtle way, I’m telling people who have one, or who can go get one, ‘This is what can happen to you and improve your family’s situation.”

Initially, writing the story was just a mental exercise. But one day he saw an advertisement by Self Publish Easily on Facebook encouraging inspiring writers to contact them. He contacted them and they were excited about the book.

The owners encouraged him to break it into three parts as they believed, it was too long for a children’s book. He agreed, and they edited it and found an illustrator.

He said in the later books, the mother finds love and the business continues to expand. They will include breadfruit recipes, steps to set up a similar business, and highlight the concept of gayap (friends and neighbours getting together to complete a big task), and some Tobago traditions.

He added that he intended to publish the other books no matter the reception of the first.

“I collected the books the week my mother died. She died at 95 so I might have it in my genes to live that long. But if not, I can’t wait.”

Bermudez said he would like to see a breadfruit tree in every yard and in every schoolyard. In this quest, over the years, he has donated over 8,000 breadfruit trees.

The Breadfruit Three story and colouring books are available on Amazon and at Charran's Bookstores in Trincity Mall, Paper Based Bookshop in Port of Spain, Scribbles and Quills in Chaguanas.

All proceeds go towards the purchase of breadfruit trees for needy families on the islands of Trinidad and Tobago.