Caribbean American Passport News Magazine - Oct 2019

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Oct/Nov 2019

10 Miami Carnival 2019

"Celebrating 35 years with The largest Carnival in Years"

Diwali is the festival of cultural, religious and spiritual significance (means the awareness and celebration of the inner light) for Hindus.

According to the Hindu mythology it is believed that there is something which is pure, never-ending, unchanging and eternal beyond our physical body as well as mind called Atman. People celebrate Diwali to enjoy the triumph of truth over sin.

Diwali is celebrated by the people to welcome the homecoming of Lord Rama to Ayodhya after 14 years of exile, after defeating the Ravana. People welcome Lord Rama by lighting lots of ghee diyas in rows.

It is celebrated by the Jain religion as the achievement of moksha or nirvana

by Mahavira in 527 BCE and by the Arya Samajists as the Death Anniversary of the Swami Dayanand Saraswati or day as Shardiya Nav-Shasyeshti.

It is also celebrated as the Naraka Chaturdashi (one day before Diwali) which means the day to commemorate the victory over the evil demon Narakasura.

Cont'd on pg 8

Photo by Weldon Ryan

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L I F E S T Y L E

Guenet Gittens-Roberts, Publisher/Editor

Connecting with your Community Thank you for reading Caribbean Samuel Roberts, American Passport News Magazine.

Publisher/Editor Nine years ago we felt that there was a need for a better, deeper connection with our community. We wanted to share the events that were happening within the Caribbean Community. We wanted to instill a sense of pride in who we are as Caribbean Americans living here.

Nine years of keeping this community connected through information, events and simply printing the newspaper at times has been hard.

Through the support of the businessmen and women who have steadfastly chosen to put their advertising dollars into supporting this newspaper, we have never folded. It takes support in real dollars and cents to keep the festivals, the stores and the companies that you value in business. So we urge you - not only on our behalf but on behalf of all of the small and large things you value in your community - support things that connect your community.

Support the things that bring value to your community.

Every month we are challenged with creating content, getting advertisers, preparing the newspaper for print, distributing it and starting the process all over again. We love doing it. It allows us to connect with our community, but if you weren't aware...it is hard. There are people who come out to support every single event we put on. Thank you!

You help to keep us in business.

arsenal. We will be adding more monthly events to our calendars.

We will be creating more events throughout more neighborhoods in Florida.

We want to increase our database, our subscriptions and our advertising. Overall, we are shifting into a higher gear. We need your help to do that.

If you are reading this editorial and you pick up this newspaper every month, then ask yourself how you can get more connected with your community. You are exactly the person we want to work with as an advertiser, a marketing client or as a dedicated subscriber. Reach out to us. We would love to work to get you more connected with your community.

You may think that you're plugged in, but we have seen time and time again that once we generate a list of Caribbean events for companies to participate in, they are stunned. Stunned by the extensive list, the massive turnout at events and the tangible impact that it has on their business.

Caribbean people connect at Festivals and Fairs, we hope to see you at one of the events listed in the paper in this issue.

1969 Alafaya Trail • Orlando, FL 32828 Office: 407-427-1800 Fax: 407-386-7925

Every month, there are advertisers that choose to spend their precious marketing dollars with us. Please visit those businesses when you have a choice. Their support of us has to make a difference for their bottom line. If you need a realtor, a shipper, a supermarket, an attorney - please choose one from who advertises with us. You help to keep us in business when you tell them that you chose them because of their ad in this paper.

Toll Free: 877-220-8315 For Media Information email: Publisher: sroberts@caribbeanamericanpassport.com Info: .Info@caribbeanamericanpassport.com

Should you desire to review past copies of the publicationgo to http://caribbeanamericanpassport.com and click on the 'Print Archive'.

Editor & Publisher................................................................................... Sam Roberts Publisher ............................................................................. Guenet Gittens-Roberts Graphic Design & Layout .....................................................................Aleia Roberts Contributing Writers: ................................................................................ Tony Dyal .......................................................................................................................Ryan Davis ...................................................................................................................Sandra Fatmi .......................................................................................................................Gail Seeram .................................................................................................................Sasha Watson ..................................................................................................................Aleia Roberts

Every month, we have subscribers that are mailed the newspaper. Their support is valuable in keeping us in business. It's $25.00 per year for an annual subscription.

Seniors love to read us. Think of us during the holidays. We are a great gift for family members and we are offering a Contributing Photographers ............ .......................................................Ted Hollins .....................................................................................................................Dilia Castillo personalized card for the holidays to your subscriber if you .............................................. .............................................................Nancy-Joe Brown choose to send this as a gift to your friend or family member. Central Florida Distribution........................................................Kadeem Roberts South Florida Distribution .............................................................Norman Williams Our subscribers keep us in business. Thank you.

Then there are those of you who are our biggest cheerleaders, you talk about us, you distribute the newspaper for us. You do it because you love our newspaper and want to share it with the community. Thank you so much for that.

NorthFlorida Distribution .....................................................................Theo Jack Jr. Tampa Distribution ..................................................................................Julian Pina Copyright (C) 2016 GGR Marketing & Public Relations. All rights reserved.

As we embark on our 10th year, we will be adding more to our www.caribbeanamericanpassport.com

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MIAMI CARNIVAL 2019 – COMPETITION RESULTS JUNIOR CARNIVAL

BAND OF THE YEAR, 2019 1.

2.

Freaks Mas Ramajay International

3.

Big & Strong/One Island

JUNIOR BAND OF THE YEAR

FEMALE INDIVIDUAL OF THE YEAR, 2019 1. Rennie Wilkinson - ‘Sun on Ice” from Natural Disasters Mas.

MALE INDIVIDUAL OF THE YEAR, 2019 1. Andalcio “Andy” Lewis -“The Ice Man Cometh” from Natural Disasters Mas.

QUEEN OF CARNIVAL, 2019

1. Thesha “Trini” Lashley - “Freedom – World Peace” from Party Room Squad.

KING OF CARNIVAL, 2019

1. Percy Maynard - “Juda.Ra: The Last Pharoah” from Ramajay Mas International

1.

Fun Generation Too portraying “Fruits and Flowers” 2.

Natural Disaster portraying “In De Festival” 3.

Party Room Squad portraying “Fantasy Garden” TODDLER FEMALE Angeline Lawrence portraying “Curious Alice” from La Familia TODDLER MALE Atom Cumberbatch portraying “De Man with De Hammer” from La Familia JUNIOR FEMALE INDIVIDUAL 1.

Amiley Irish portraying “Tropical Fruit Princess” from Fun Generation Too JUNIOR QUEEN OF CARNIVAL Shani Butler portraying “Flora and 1.

Fauna” from Fun Generation Too JUNIOR KING OF CARNIVAL 1.

Brendon Simmons portraying “Fireman in De Festival” from Natural Disaster

PANORAMA RESULTS

1st Place - New Generation Branches, playing “Savannah Grass”

JUNIOR BAND OF THE YEAR 1.

Fun Generation Too portraying “Fruits and Flowers”

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6 Important Repairs to Make Before Selling a House

By Jaime Weibe There are some important repairs to make before selling a house, so don't be in too much of a hurry to get your home listed. Selling your home might feel like a rush to the finish line. The market is hot right now, you think—so you should hurry up while you can still get a good price. Or perhaps your dream home was just listed, but you can't move in until your current place sells ... so you should expedite this, right?

The problem is, if you move too fast, buyers see right through the fact that you skipped important home renovations. And this, my friends, might end up costing you time and money. Lots of both, in fact.

So take the time to sell your home right. These six important repairs to make before selling a house will make your home sell faster and for more cash. And some of them aren't even very much work 1. Spruce up the grounds This is one of the easiest—and cheapest—tricks in the book: Good landscaping can add up to 28% to overall home value.

“When it comes to houses, they are often read by their cover,” says Helaine Newman, a Realtor® in Fairfax, VA. “Homeowners should make sure their home is nicely landscaped so buyers want to come in.”

Hire a landscaper to give your front yard the once-over, or just clean up the details yourself (e.g., edge the lawn, plant flowers), and update the outdoor furniture on the front porch to give the space a fresh, “buy me now” appeal. But if you don't have time for a full overhaul of your front yard, small changes can still have big impact. “At least replace your welcome mat with a new one and paint or restain your front door,” says Kary J. Bartmasser, a Realtor and broker in Beverly Hills, CA. 2. Love the hardwood Still rocking that old-school carpeting? Get rid of it, like, yesterday. “One of the biggest turnoffs for buyers is dirty old carpet,” says Newman. “To get the best price possible, it is worthwhile to invest in wood floors.” Right now, carpeting isn't just an aesthetic choice—it's a choice that can actively turn away buyers who can't see beyond it. Instead of noticing what a wonderful, light-filled living room you have, they can think only about just how much money it will cost to get rid of that nasty old carpet. Do it yourself and save them the trouble. Decided to keep your carpet? At the very least, make sure to clean it thoroughly before buyers come trekking through your home.

3. Fixing windows and doors is one of the most important repairs to make before selling a house So you're selling an older home, complete with creaking windows and doors that don't open and close easily after years of use. Maybe you're hoping buyers will overlook the problems in favor of “charm.” Think again.

“You'd be surprised how many people list their property thinking no one will notice that the windows and doors are not opening and closing because they look pretty,” says Lori Aronsohn, a Realtor in Los Angeles. “When the showings

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start, believe me, potential buyers are going to open and close windows and doors and learn that something is awry.”

You're not just irritating buyers by refusing to fix broken windows and doors. “Buyers will suspect that other hidden items in the house haven't been kept up either,” Aronsohn says.

4. Paint (and wash!) walls If any of your rooms are doused in a dark shade, such as eggplant or emerald, cover it up with a coat of light or neutral paint. Buyers find it easier to picture themselves living in a home with neutral walls—plus, they'll make your home seem larger, cleaner, and far more appealing.

If you still can't bring yourself to paint over the hues you've so carefully selected, consider this: After living in a home for a few years you may become a bit blind to how your walls are showing to newcomers. “Peeling paint, fingerprints, and dings seem to go unnoticed in a lived-in home,” Bartmasser says. “Fresh paint on the walls in a neutral color is always best, but if your budget does not permit that, washing the walls and doors goes a long way.”

5. Clean the cabinets If you've never sold a house before, you might be surprised by how bold buyers are. Digging through your drawers? Peeking inside your cabinets? How dare they! But buyers are expected to be little investigators—so be prepared before they start sleuthing. Buyers “should be able to see how much storage is available rather than the clutter you might have there,” says Will Johnson, a Realtor with the Sell and Stage Team in Hendersonville, TN. Also, check for any loose drawers, hardware, or shelving so buyers don't wonder what else might be amiss. And hide those strange or semi-incriminating items that aren't at all meant for public display.

6. Update the lighting Before putting your home on the market, bring in a second set of eyes (your Realtor or stager is perfect for this) to look over your lighting. Is it dated? Does it serve the space poorly?

“Lighting is similar to clothing or hairstyles,” says Karen Gray Plaisted, stager and owner of Design Solutions KGP in Warwick, NY. “They can go out of fashion and make a beautiful home look dated. Finding relatively inexpensive light fixtures can make a big impact and be well worth the investment.” Lighting that can make your home go from old news to new and stylish in no time. The ROI can be pretty darn impressive.

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How summer festivals boost town economies and foster community pride Molly Wood and Maria Hollenhorst

Tourists and partiers are pouring into Las Vegas this weekend for the annual music festival known as EDC. Last year, EDC drew an estimated 400,000 people in attendance and generated millions for Las Vegas’ economy. But big cities like Vegas aren’t the only places cashing in on summer festivals. From big events like EDC to small ones like the Washboard Music Festival in Logan, Ohio, or the Northwest Garlic Festival in Ocean Park, Washington, festivals are opportunities to bring communities together and drum up revenue for local businesses.

Molly Wood talked with Rachael Carter, an economist with Mississippi State University’s Extension service who studies the economic impact of Mississippi town festivals. The following is an edited transcript of their conversation.

Wood: So, you are based in Mississippi, and I understand that festivals are a big deal there, right? Is it a bigger deal than other states?

Rachael Carter: Well, there are hundreds of festivals in Mississippi. They’re a part of our culture, and they’re just a way for people to bring in tourists and showcase what their towns are all about. For example, Vardaman, Mississippi, they’re the sweet potato capital of the world, and so they have a sweet potato festival. That’s how they generate their livelihood in that community, and so they celebrate that.

Wood: And why are there so many festivals, not just in Mississippi, but in little local communities? I mean, I grew up in Montana. We travel for Railroad Day, which is in a town of like 300 people. Do festivals bring in money for towns?

Carter: Absolutely. You see varying economic impacts from different types of festivals. For example, the Peter Anderson Arts and Crafts Festival, we just finished a study for that and this year their economic impact is just a little over 24 million in two days.

Wood: Whoa.

Carter: So, that’s huge. People always say “Whoa, oh my goodness, I can’t believe that small Ocean Springs can generate that!” But they can because they have the local businesses to support it. I always caution towns, though, if you have a very small town, you have to have very good relationships with the local merchants, because if the local

merchants are aware that there’s a festival going on or some type of an event, then they can prepare their businesses to be able to benefit from that. For example, if they know that there are going to be a lot of people at an event in Mississippi in August, you need to make sure that you’re able to sell cold beverages, that you have sunscreen available, things that tourists would want to make an impulse purchase from.

Wood: But what are some of the costs associated if you’re town a and you’re thinking about putting on a festival? I imagine you could get yourself into trouble if you didn’t plan carefully, right?

Carter: Yes. You have to definitely have a budget and know exactly who you’re trying to reach. But the cost associated are also things that might not go into the budget, such as increased police force, you’re probably going to have to close some streets, you’re going to have to make sure that there are public facilities available for people, things like that.

Wood: Rachel, let’s talk about the social and community benefit of a festival. Obviously, there can be an economic benefit, but does the community element build over time and provide other positive impacts for community?

Carter: Absolutely. What it can do, is it can create something that the community can identify with and say, “I’m from X-Y-Z Town,” and people say, “Oh, that’s where you have this type of festival,” and that builds a sense of community pride. And we really see the festivals that are more successful rally around that and offer something for the local community and a reason for them to become engaged and participate. And so, a community will start an event wanting it to be just a tourism event, but they end up sometimes, in order for it to be successful, it has to have that local connectivity.

Wood: When I was growing up, I used to go to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta because my grandparents lived there. And I will tell you that to this day, I still tell people if they say they’re going to New Mexico, I say, “You have to go in October and go to the Balloon Fiesta!”

Carter: There you go.

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Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer Celebrates Downtown Orlando as the 360-Degree Center of Florida Dyer Announces Major Headquarter Relocation that will put the Creative in Creative Village Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer delivered his annual State of the Downtown address to hundreds of Downtown residents, business owners and community leaders. Hosted on the 11th floor of the Seaside Plaza building, Mayor Dyer’s speech drew inspiration from the potential new business that will soon invest and fill that space with creativity and prosperity.

Comparing the space to Downtown, Dyer reflected on the Orlando community’s shared vision to dream big and work together to make Downtown what it is today – a place where people want to live, want to learn and want to play.

“We saw a blank space with unlimited potential. We saw our future. So we committed to investing, together, in our Downtown,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “Everywhere we look today, we see powerful results of that.”

The speech location also showcased a 360-degree view, highlighting Downtown’s importance at the center. Dyer shared the city’s vision to further this effort and ensure Downtown leads the state as the 360-center and hub for transportation, innovation, education, culture, quality of life and more.

“We’ve accomplished so much, but the reality is that Downtown Orlando hasn’t even begun to realize its full potential,” said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. “When we say our vision is to be the 360-degree center of Florida, we must be a downtown that adds value to people’s lives in every way, shape and form. We must be a downtown that generates economic or social benefit for every single person that lives, works, learns, plays or visits here.”

Dyer declared that one key strategy must be a continued effort to build a great downtown, with a focus on becoming Florida’s center for the new economy and careers of tomorrow announcing that Creative Village will be the preeminent home to the innovation economy in the southeast.

- “Being a 360-degree center for education means being a central point for all manner of learning, to unlock opportunity for every single person who wants it.”

- The City of Orlando’s Blueprint 2.0 has evolved to connect residents to more than 100 short-term training programs to prepare them for long-term careers in highdemand, high-wage industries.

- Through Valencia College’s new Center for Accelerated Training adults can potentially go from not having a high school diploma to getting the skills to get some of the most in-demand jobs in industries like construction and advanced manufacturing. The first two 10-week programs will graduate their first classes at the end of this month.

Lockheed Martin is just one of the many employers linedup and ready to hire these newly-skilled workers.

“Right here, right now, we are excited to announce that Electronic Arts is going to put the Creative in our Creative Village. We are partnering with Electronic Arts to relocate their state headquarters to Downtown Orlando,” said Dyer.

More information on highlights and focuses Dyer shared to make Downtown Orlando the 360-degree center of the state include:: Center for Urban Living & Quality of Life “If Downtown is to realize its full potential, then it must be a place where anyone who wants to live, can afford to do so.”

Later this month, Parramore Oaks, a 211-unit mixed income community, will welcome its first residents, and the next five single-family homes for residents looking to pursue the American dream of home ownership will soon be completed.

In order to ensure that everyone who wants to live downtown can do so, in total in downtown, the city has helped create nearly 500 multifamily housing units, rehabilitated more than 100 residential units and we are building 64 single-family homes while providing down payment assistance.

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A rendering shows the plans for Electronic Arts to move to downtown Orlando into the Creative Village

Dyer highlighted the proposed move of Redwood City, California-based video game giant Electronic Arts Inc. from Maitland to the $1.5 billion Creative Village mixed use development, which includes UCF Downtown, the shared campus between the University of Central Florida and Valencia College. Orlando-based EA Tiburon Inc. is the largest video game studio in Florida. EA, the would bring roughly 700 high-wage jobs to Creative Village, with a potential for 1,000 jobs or more by 2025.

Daryl Holt, vice president and head of operations for EA Sports Worldwide Studios, said he expects EA, which makes Madden Sports, to expand after the move, which is why the company needs the space in Orlando.

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Happy Diwali...what does it mean?

Cont'd from pg 1

It is also celebrated as the homecoming of the Pandavas after 12 years of exile as well as one year of agyatavas (means living secretly).

According to the Hindu calendar, the Marwari New Year is also celebrated on Diwali (last day of Krishna Paksha of Ashvin).

Gujarati also celebrated their new year a day after the festival of Diwali according to the Lunar calendar (1st day of Shukla paksha of the month of Kartik). the use of firecrackers and lights by the people at the festival of Diwali has another significance and story.

People use firecrackers in the myth attaining good health, wealth, wisdom, peace, prosperity for the whole year.

Another ritual of using firecrackers is, the high range sound of the firecrackers indicate the real joy of people on the earth. The smoke from the crackers can kill a lot of insects after the rainy season as well.

The custom of gambling at Diwali has an interesting backstory as well. People believe that at this day Goddess Parvati and Lord Shiva had played dice. People play this game on the night of Diwali in hopes of bringing prosperity throughout the year.

Significance of Diwali Festival in India Diwali is the most celebrated festival in India. The festival of Diwali has a plays many important roles according to the Indian regions and religions. Indian people who live in different regions celebrate Diwali according to their own culture, rituals, and values.

Diwali is of great significance as a festival in India as all the stories of Hindu God and legends related to this festival are only associated with India. All the legends of Diwali festival, such as the story of Rama and Sita, story of Mahavira, story of Swami Dayanand Saraswati, story of demon Narakasura, story of Lord Krishna, story of Pandavas, story of Goddess Lakshmi and Ganesh, story of Lord Vishnu, story of Vikramaditya, story of Sikh Guru Hargobind Ji and many more, are tied to India. This is a main reason why the festival of Diwali is significantly celebrated in India and throughout the Indian diaspora.

Lighting lamps at all places on Diwali is believed to remove bad energy and attract good energy. They make great sounds by firing crackers in order to remove away the evil from the society. They make rangolis, use door hangings, worship Goddess Lakshmi and Ganesh to welcome the blessings, wisdom and wealth to their home and mind. They clean up and whitewash their homes, offices and other working places to welcome the pure spirit, prosperity and blessings of Goddess for the whole year.

Diwali commemorates the victory of good over evil. It is the Hindu ritual that lighting clay diyas with mustard oil on Diwali. Sweets and gifts are distributed at this day in order to remove the enmity and increase the love and friendliness among people. It is celebrated all over India as well as outside India by the people of different religions such as Sikhs, Hindus, Jains and Buddhists.

Lord Rama had defeated the demon king Ravana, and that’s why Hindus celebrate it as the celebration of victory of good over bad.

Five days are spent celebrating Diwali.

The first day of Diwali, Dhanteras indicates the beginning of new financial year for Hindus.

The second day of Diwali is known as Chhoti Diwali or Naraka Chaturdashi. On this day, celebrations are dedicated to the triumph of the Lord Krishna over the devil king Naraka.

The third day of Diwali is known as the main Diwali which is celebrated by the Hindus by worshiping Goddess Lakshmi to commemorate the birthday of Goddess Lakshmi from the churning of ocean by the demons and Gods many years ago.

They consider the worship of Goddess Lakshmi on this day to bring showers of wealth, wisdom and prosperity.

The fourth day of Diwali is known as Bali Pratipada or Govardhan Puja, and it is celebrated

by Hindus to commemorate the triumph of Lord Vishnu over the demon king Bali as well as the triumph of Lord Krishna over the arrogant God Indra.

The fifth and last day of Diwali is known as the Yama Dvitiya or Bhai Dooj which is celebrated in Hindus by brothers and sisters to strengthen the relationship and responsibilities to each other.

Lighting lamps and burning firecrackers at the festival of Diwali signifies attaining wisdom, health, wealth, peace, prosperity as well as eliminating the evil from their houses and pathways. It also indicates the real joy and happiness of the people on earth. Remember to share this happy holiday with friends and family.

Significance of Diwali for Hindus The celebration of the festival of Diwali by the Hindus every year is associated with the home-coming of Rama, Sita and Lakshman to their kingdom, Ayodhya after the 14 years of exile. People of Ayodhya welcomed their King by lighting the clay diyas and firing crackers.

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Get ready for Black Friday Shopping or go online and do your Shopping and Shipping with Cyber Monday Deals and Laparkan.

When is Cyber Monday 2019?

Officially Cyber Monday 2019 begins on December 2, as always, the Monday following Thanksgiving. As with Black Friday, Prime Day, Labor Day, and pretty much any major sales event, however, you can expect to see ads, promotions, and pre-sale deals before the sale begins. Many merchants will continue the party for the rest of the week in what’s now known as Cyber Week.

Cyber Monday’s emphasis on online sales bears out historically, at least so far. In 2018, Amazon topped the Cyber Monday overall sales volume charts, according to Numerator, followed by Walmart and Best Buy. Brick and mortar stores don’t close their doors on Cyber Monday, for sure, but tradition holds Cyber Monday is for online deals. You may still enjoy heading out in the cold, dark, early hours to be the first in line and deal with crowds at stores for Black Friday.

For Cyber Monday shopping, however, all you have to do is to tell Alexa or Google Assistant to set an alarm to wake you up so you can go online to find the best deals. You can be sure Cyber Monday will bring great deals on computers, TVs, smart home devices, games and gaming machines, and other tech products. For many, Black Friday is the time to shop for everything, but Cyber Monday is the day to focus on electronics.

For friends and family in the Caribbean looking to get in on the shopping deals tell them about Laparkan's convenient Shop and Ship to Overseas program through their Private Mailbox service. It takes out that time consuming step of you packing and shipping a barrel.

They shop and ship...it's easy.

Laparkan provides multiple agents throughout the Caribbean, Guyana and Suriname where you can collect your online purchases. Simply select the most conveniently located agent in your country when signing up for our Personal Mailbox Service. Already have an account and would like to change pick-up locations?

Contact any Laparkan office for assistance. Visit www.laparkan.com/courier-services/ to sign up for free today!

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Miami Broward One Carnival 2019

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Photos by Weldon Ryan

Counting down to Fusion Fest

The Fusion Fest Planning Committee FusionFest.org has issued a call for performers, artists, vendors and volunteers to register their “Intent to Participate” in the second annual festival that celebrates diversity and inclusion in the Central Florida community. Thanksgiving weekend.

Terry Olson, Orange County Arts & Cultural Affairs, is the festival's architect who has been dubbed “Chief Instigator.”

He sums up the festival’s growing appeal, “By showing up to share a smile and your personal heritage, you may discover just how different other people really aren't!”

Visit FusionFest.org for more information.

FusionFest is a two-day celebration of Central Florida's many diverse global cultures. The second annual event takes place Saturday and Sunday, November 30 and December 1, 2019 in downtown Orlando at the Seneff Arts Plaza of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, including Orange Avenue and City Hall.

Admission is free.

Performers, artists, vendors and volunteers representing all cultures and heritages are invited to sign up online at FusionFest.org/Join-Us. There also are FusionFest contests with cash prizes, encouraging creative “fusion” projects that meld traditions from multiple regions of the world.

The inaugural FusionFest last year drew approximately 8,000 attendees to downtown Orlando to sample and celebrate music, dance, food, fashion, film, poetry and handcrafted goods from more than 100 heritages represented in Central Florida.

Cultural performers from all over the region were at last year’s FusionFest

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Florida International Trade & Cultural Expo 2019

Doing Business with the World - Part II: The Caribbean. Our panelist, Mr. Oliver Mair, Consul General of Jamaica in Miami, The Honorable Bernard Wagner, Mayor of Belize City, The Honorable Earl Trapp, Mayor of San Ignacio, Belize and Ava Rodland , Project Manager, Minister of Financial Services, Trade & Industry and Immigration

“....Jamaica has the top performing stock market in the world.... We have 10 companies that will go public soon...

We have had 19 consecutive quarters of growth and we have a stable dollar..” Mr. Oliver Mair “Belize City is experiencing rapid expansion and we hope investors will meet us here and look forward to building private public partnerships...” The Honorable Bernard Wagner “...In Belize, many of our residents are becoming aware of their health and so we have embarked on a wellness program and we have been working to create more green spaces in our parks and playgrounds. We are embarking on a project to preserve our natural resources...” The Honorable Earl Trapp “..The most important source of revenue for The Bahamas is tourism. The Bahamas is open for business; please come and visit us. This is the greatest source of assistance for us and we are truly humbled by the amount of support we have been receiving on the global level and we want to thank you....” Ava Rodland

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Attorney Wayne Golding to receive Order of Distinction Commander Class

Wayne Golding Sr., a prominent attorney based in Orlando, Florida, has been appointed to receive the Jamaican Order of Distinction in the rank of Commander (CD). This award is for significant contributions to the Jamaican Diaspora Community in the United States of America and to National Development.

The year 2019 has proven to be a banner year of recognition for Wayne’s accomplishments. In June 2019, he was recognized in the United Stated Congressional records for his contribution to the Caribbean Diaspora This was followed by his selection for the Governor General Diaspora Achievement Award which he received in June.

This October he is now being nationally honored by the Government of Jamaica with the Order of Distinction. The Order of Distinction is a national order in the Jamaican honours system.

The motto of the Order is "Distinction Through Service".

The Order of Distinction is conferred upon citizens of Jamaica who have rendered outstanding and important services to Jamaica, or to distinguished citizens of a country other than Jamaica

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Listen to the Storm: Songs of the Caribbean By Joshua Jelly-Schapiro Mr. Jelly-Schapiro is the author of “Island People: The Caribbean and the World.”

When hurricanes are a part of life, people cope and quell their anxiety through their music.

Every island in the Caribbean has one, if not many: Popular songs inspired by the awful storms that have always been at once facts of life and shapers of history. In this region, from whose indigenous people we got our word — “huracan” — for the fierce tempests that swirl off the Atlantic in late summer and early fall, hurricanes have long been key to culture.

And hurricane songs — mournful, brave, witty or sad — are everywhere. Even before 1953, when the United States National Hurricane Center’s move to give storms human names provided clever lyricists with new ways to decry those storms’ capriciousness, iconic songs and singers in the Caribbean were hymning the power of hurricanes — to make or break leaders, to wreck industries, to force the vulnerable or devastated, at a weekend’s notice, to flee their homes and hunt new ones.

When Hurricane Dorian brought this fate to the poor people of the Bahamas, many across that sandy archipelago were no doubt reminded of a famous Bahamian folk song, “Run, Come See Jerusalem,” that a Bahamian calypso singer known as Blind Blake Higgs wrote to recall a harsh storm there in 1929.

In the ’50s, the Weavers and other American folkies covered Blake Higgs’s tune. But here on the mainland, hurricanes haven’t historically featured as strongly in our cultural memory. Yes, they’ve marked our past and our cities. But in the American songbook, even our best-known songs about climactic disasters — from Woody Guthrie’s Dust Bowl ballads to the blues songs about rivers rising and levees breaking — have tended to be less about storms, per se, than about water.

This may soon change: Ever since 2005, when the levees did break in New Orleans and the city was drowned not by one of the Mississippi’s periodic floods but by Hurricane Katrina, Americans have begun learning to scan the horizon and the forecasts for whatever atmospheric doom approaches next.

With what feels like ever-worsening storms being fed by warming seas, and every hurricane season seeming worse than the last, the names of hurricanes — Katrina, Harvey, Maria, Matthew — have come to function here much as they have in the Caribbean: as markers in time, and moments of collective trauma, that both occasion and demand a response that’s as much cultural as it is economic or social.

Unfortunately, there will be plenty of “extreme weather events” to write and sing about in coming years. As we look to the Caribbean to see what these storms may bring, and what they may leave behind, we can also catch glimpse of one powerful way people deal with these storms — by writing great songs about them. Here are a few.

“Temporal” (Puerto Rico, c. 1920s) When two years ago Maria devastated Puerto Rico, Lin Manuel Miranda and friends recorded a “West Side Story”themed ode to his island that was also, in the manner of modern benefit records, a cry for help. But an older classic was at least as much in evidence on the social media pages and in the memories of Puerto Ricans who call their island by the same name, Borinquen, its native Taíno did. “Que sera,” it asks, “de mi Borinquen cuando llegue el temporal?” What will become, when the storm lands, of my dear Boriniquen?

The best-known version of “Temporal” was recorded by the singer Tony Croatto in the 1970s. The tune may date from the turn of the last century, when Puerto Rico was becoming a de facto colony of the United States and its folk music — called “plena” — was taking shape in the southern city of Ponce. But the hurricane with which it’s most identified occurred in 1928.

Known as San Felipe Segundo in Puerto Rico (and in the United States as the Okeechobee Hurricane), the hurricane was named for the feast day of the Catholic saint on whose week it blew ashore; it remains the only hurricane on record to make landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 5. Its sustained 160 mile-per-hour winds scythed across the island and left half a million homeless.

It also ruined the livelihoods of thousands of Puerto Rican coffee farmers, cementing the grip of United States sugar companies on the island’s economy and pushing a sizable early wave of what would become a sea of migrants north.

“El Trio y el Ciclon,” Trio Matamoros (Cuba, 1930) Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean with 3,500 miles of coastline, offers a big target for hurricanes. Not a few of these have acted as fulcrums in its history — among them Hurricane Flora in 1963, whose deft handling by a young Fidel Castro helped secure his grip on power. But this most musical of islands won its best-known song about the weather from a storm that didn’t touch it at all.

Trio Matamoros was a seminal group in the rise of “son,” the lilting style born in an eastern province, Oriente (and later made famous by the Buena Vista Social Club). It became a musical lingua franca not merely for Cuba but across the Americas in the 20th century. The members of Trio Matamoros were experiencing their first blush of fame when they traveled to the Dominican Republic, where their music was hugely popular, in the summer of 1930. It was a fateful time to visit Santo Domingo. An army colonel named Rafael Trujillo had just seized power by coup d’état — and a historic cyclone was soon to strike.

The San Zenon Hurricane was small but powerful; it scored a direct hit on the Dominican capital. The stone buildings of Santo Domingo’s colonial center survived its fierce winds, but the city’s outskirts and flimsier dwellings didn’t. Estimates vary, but at least 2,000 people died. Many more were injured. And Trujillo, mobilizing the army to clean up the wreckage, used the storm to unleash a vile dictatorship that would last 30 years.

None of this, though, is what’s recalled in Cuba about the San Zenon storm. There it matters because of the song it inspired Miguel Matamoros to write about surviving its winds. “Every time I remember the ‘ciclon,’ my heart gets sick,” it goes. “The most ‘sabroso’ thing” about the experience, it goes on, was getting on an airplane to return to Cuban soil. “That’s how the story ends,” it concludes. “The dead go to glory / and the living dance the ‘son.’”

“Janet,” Lord Melody (Trinidad, 1955) Trinidad is tucked away in the southern Caribbean, just a few miles from South America’s coast. It hasn’t dealt with nearly as many hurricanes, lying below their usual path, as its peers. But as the source for two of the English Caribbean’s essential musical forms — calypso and steel bands — Trinidad’s cultural sway in the region has been outsized. So it’s hardly surprising that a calypso from Trinidad became perhaps the first great song to make use, in 1955, of the still-novel practice of naming hurricanes for women. (Men’s names joined the parade in 1978.)

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Taking It Light I Tony Deyal Normally, in the cut and thrust of Caribbean politics, any proposal by a government, especially in its annual budget, tends to generate more heat than light. However, this week in Trinidad, the light overtook the heat not by joules, not by amps, but by meters.

The minister of finance, Colm Imbert, while not perceived by many as the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, introduced among his many other financial measures before the next elections (local and national) a proposal to replace all incandescent bulbs with those that use lightemitting diodes, and not just LED the way but showed that his was truly the party in power. In other words, according to one of his detractors, he came up with the first really bright idea he ever had and made a switch.

The scheme (as some people call it), especially the statement that the government will provide the bulbs free, sparked a lot of debate not just in Parliament, but in social media, bars, and buses. Some citizens were quite shocked, including the leader of the Opposition, Kamla PersadBissessar, who commented, “People want JOBS, not bulbs!

And that was probably their brightest idea in the budget!”

Others lit up the social landscape by pointing out that the word ‘free’ was not appropriate because the money came from the public purse. One of my friends was concerned about the disposal of the old bulbs and the overall cost of the total project, which he estimated at TT$100 million.

“The man was mis-LED,” he quipped. There is still some hot LED to come since during Mrs Persad-Bissessar’s tenure as prime minister, the Ministry of Energy had done exactly what the present ­government plans to do and had gone around the country exchanging LED for incandescent bulbs.

To shed some light on what Trinis call ‘Old Talk’ and other Caribbean people know as ‘Chat’, The Illuminati were, and are, secret groups that are supposedly conspiring to control world affairs by masterminding events, and The Illuminator is an Art Collective that writes a couple of lines about any event and casts them in light on prominent buildings in cities around the world. One of their biggies that came up Trumps was “There’s a rapist in the White House.” I suppose if they were to post anything on walls in Trinidad and Tobago, it would be the question, “How many Trinidad politicians does it take to change a light bulb?” and provide the answers.

In wondering what The Illuminator would put on the walls, perhaps of the Parliament building, the Ministry of Finance, or even Whitehall, the office of the prime minister, I came up with a few that could be considered. However, what I regretted most was that all my research and ideas about politicians and light bulbs would have been unnecessary in a previous time when parliamentarians did not need outside assistance to verbally destroy their opponents.

Lacking that ability, some members of the present Parliament resort to childishness (“Shut your stink mouth!”) or accusations about impropriety that they cannot make outside the protection of the House.

One episode from the present Parliament typifies the lack of finesse. The prime minister, misunderstanding what a member of the Opposition said, angrily challenged him to meet “outside on the pavement” which, uncharacteristically, was not flooded at the time. Clearly, they need some illumination.

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Fortunately, having lived and worked in other Caribbean countries, I know watts watt. The LED project in Trinidad and Tobago is not new. The United Nations Development Project (UNDP), in conjunction with CARICOM, the UWI, privatesector groups, including the Trinidad company, HADCO, and the governments of the Eastern Caribbean, started the Energy Efficient Caribbean Lighting Project (CEELP) in 2014 “to catalyse the transition to low-carbon economies and sustainable energy sectors through the provision of energy-efficient lighting to communities” in that region. I was living in Antigua at the time and was happy that the street lights would be changed to LED. Even before the lights came and driving on the highway became easier, my eyes lit up.

As did many other Trinidad eyes that gleefully welcomed the announcement by the Illuminati, as the Government was now known, and the Illuminator, a nickname for the finance minister to add to his many others. One particularly bad comment, based on the commonly held view that the minister is vertically challenged, was that his proposal came up short.

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Taking It Light I Tony Deyal Cont'd from pg 16

So how many Trinidad politicians does it take to change a light bulb? Here are some of the answers I have got from many different sources, including social media. How many? “None. They’ve already screwed up everything.”

“None. They only screw up the poor.” “None. They will never allow change, even if it makes Trinidad and Tobago a brighter place.” “None. All they ever do is talk about it instead of actually changing it.” In fact, one person said, “They won’t change the light bulb because if people saw the light, they wouldn’t give politicians so much power.”

The best one was, “None. They will just sit back and do nothing for long enough and they will convince the bulb to screw itself.”

Then the numbers increased. How many? “Two. One to promise a brighter future and the other to screw it up.” In terms of Caribbean politics and what happens when one party replaces the other, the answer to ‘How many ...’ is ‘Two’ – one to change it and another to change it back again.”

Another is ‘Four’ – one to change it and the other three to deny it. The best answer I got was it would take three Trinidad ­politicians to screw in the LED bulb. Colm Imbert would stand on a ladder, holding the bulb under a socket. Another would call the nearby fire brigade to rotate the ladder with Imbert on it until the bulb was firmly attached. The third would summon the media, urging them to hurry so they could take pictures of the minister screwing in a light bulb to signal a brighter future for all.

Tony Deyal was last seen answering the question, “How many Trinidad politicians does it take to screw in a light bulb.” He replied, “Two. But don’t ask me how they got in there.”

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Listen to the Storm: Songs of the Caribbean

By Joshua Jelly-Schapiro Mr. Jelly-Schapiro is the author of “Island People: The Caribbean and the World.”

In September 1955, Hurricane Janet ripped through the Lesser Antilles before becoming, when it slammed into Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the first Atlantic hurricane to strike a continental mainland as a Category 5.

Wrecking Grenada’s nutmeg crop, Janet visited havoc on Barbados, the Grenadines and St. Vincent, too. Then it inspired the great calypsonian Lord Melody (né Fitzroy Alexander) to cut a tune in which he described Janet’s attributes (“silky hair / about six foot”) and capacities (“Janet lick down a million buildings”) before imploring her, having seen the suffering she’d caused on other islands, to spare his own. By the time he did so (“Janet, I beg you hard!

Janet, not Trinidad!), she’d dissipated into air. Two years later, Lord Melody’s peer Christo recorded a lovely version.

“David,” Ti Manno (Haiti, 1979) Haiti, as the first Caribbean nation to win its freedom from colonial rule and a country whose modern poverty has made it especially vulnerable to disasters, has long been seen as a source — as countless songs from across the Caribbean and beyond show — of both inspiration and pity for its neighbors. Which is one reason it feels like poetic justice that the most enduring song to come from the worst hurricane to strike the region in the 1970s — a hurricane that did more damage to several of Haiti’s neighbors, for a change, than it did to Haiti — was Haitian.

In August 1979, David formed in the Atlantic off Cape Verde and rumbled west toward Barbados before taking a sharp turn to catch Dominica, in the Windward Antilles, flush in the face. The island’s people were caught almost completely unaware by David, which rendered 80 percent of them homeless. The world learned of the devastation’s extent, the following day, from a local ham radio operator whose reports amplified a sense in the Dominican Republic — situated on the eastern half of Hispaniola, the island it shares with Haiti, and so next in line — that this was a horrific storm. So it proved, killing 2,000 people. By the time it traversed Hispaniola’s central mountains to hit Haiti, David had weakened. But not so much that it didn’t cause sufficient mudslides and suffering to inspire one of Haiti’s most beloved musicians, then a New York resident, to record a song about watching from afar as “a great water flooded the sun” over his homeland and about worrying, after it did so and with phone lines knocked out, whether everyone there was dead.

storm-force winds measured 500 feet in diameter — and it remains the most intense storm in the history of Mexico, where it drowned Cancun and the larger Yucatán Peninsula under 23-foot waves and a storm surge that extended three miles inland.

Before that, though, it ransacked Jamaica. There, Prime Minister Edward Seaga compared the storm’s effects — where amid flash floods, mudslides and destruction of property, 49 people died — to “Hiroshima after the atom bomb.”

But none of this kept Lovindeer from laughing in Gilbert’s face. Older Jamaican storm songs, like the folk tune “Dry Weather Houses,” sang of mortal danger in a similarly playful tone. And Lovindeer, rap-singing in local dialect over a bouncy backing track that sounded as if it was made with a simple synthesizer in his bedroom, mourned the bits of domestic equipment, like his satellite dish, the storm had claimed. He lamented the now high cost of beer and food spoiled in his freezer. And he expressed sympathy for those affected in more dire ways.

But the song’s overall tone mimicked its nursery rhyme chorus (“Water come inna mi room / Mi sweep out some with mi broom / Di likkle dog laugh to see such fun / And di dish run away with the spoon!”). After this storm, many Jamaicans sought to gain visas that would allow them to leave the island for the United States or England. Some got them, some didn’t. And some, no doubt, wished they could follow the model of a key part of the singer’s house: “Mi roof migrate without a visa.”

Ti Manno was a sublime singer of “Kompa,” the dominant pop style in Haiti since the ’60s. He recorded “David” with his Brooklyn-based band, DP Express, to describe how, after finally learning that his family was O.K., he realized he needed to to return to Haiti (which he did, staying for a few years before returning to New York to die, before his time, in 1985).

“Wild Gilbert,” Lovindeer (Jamaica, 1988) Lovindeer isn’t the best-known reggae singer outside Jamaica.

But he became one of its best-loved in the 1980s when he released this classic track about the most destructive hurricane to ever strike the island. Gilbert ranks among the largest hurricanes ever recorded — its tropical

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