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Stir and serve hot.
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17/09/2018 15:10
Contents No. 154 • November/December 2018
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70 EMBARK
22 Wish you were here
IMMERSE
52 Backstory
Essential info to help you make the most of November and December across the Caribbean
Dr Jones She’s an instantly recognisable icon of music and fashion, with a fortyyear career in the limelight. And the inimitable Grace Jones is Jamaican to the core, says Nazma Muller
40 Bookshelf and playlist
60 closeup
White River, Jamaica
24 Need to know
Our reading and listening picks
44 screenshots
A Q&A with Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada, directors of Miriam Lies
46 Cookup
A feast among friends After years of enjoying Divali hospitality from her friends, Franka Philip plans her own festival feast — with some expert help The accidental baker Baking wasn’t always a passion for Michelle Sohan — but this “accidental” career has won her international kudos 14
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A writer with a plan His recent win of the Commonwealth Short Story Prize affirms that Kevin Jared Hosein is a rising literary star. But his success didn’t come from nowhere, Shivanee Ramlochan discovers — rather, it’s the achievent of a patient devotion to writing, despite the odds
66 own words
“It Doesn’t matter where you come from’ Jeanine De Bique, Trinidad-born classical singer, on the influence of her upbringing, and why Trinis “could do anything” — as told to Caroline Taylor
52 ARRIVE
70 destination
Foodies’ Barbados The island fondly known as Bim is famous for its fabulous beaches, but now it’s becoming a fixture for Caribbean gourmands as well. ShellyAnn Inniss takes us on a parish-byparish tour of culinary highlights
80 escape
Picture-perfect St Lucia Is there any place in the Caribbean more ready for Instagram? As our photo album shows, St Lucia has photogenicity to spare
CaribbeanBeat CaribbeanBeat An MEP publication
88 in the bag
“A travel bag should be a bit ugly” Photographer Mark Lyndersay explains why practicality trumps style when it comes to professional travel gear ENGAGE
90 be well
Finding the balance Ayurvedic medicine has a millennia-long history in the Indian subcontinent — and in recent decades people around the world have started adopting this ancient medical practice with its emphasis on equilibrium. Cate Young investigates
Editor Nicholas Laughlin General manager Halcyon Salazar Design artists Kevon Webster & Bridget van Dongen Production manager Jacqueline Smith Web editor Caroline Taylor Editorial assistant Shelly-Ann Inniss Business Development Manager, Tobago and International Evelyn Chung T: (868) 684 4409 E: evelyn@meppublishers.com
Business Development Representative, Trinidad Mark-Jason Ramesar T: (868) 775 6110 E: mark@meppublishers.com
Business Development Representative, Trinidad Tracy Farrag T: (868) 318 1996 E: tracy@meppublishers.com
Barbados Sales Representative Shelly-Ann Inniss T: (246) 232 5517 E: shelly@meppublishers.com
92 green
The secret life of sunscreen Tropical beachgoers depend on sunscreen to protect their skin from solar rays — but the very same chemicals are toxic for corals and other marine life. What are the alternatives? Erline Andrews learns more
94 on this day
The war after the war Thousands of men from the West Indies fought for king and empire in the First World War, a century ago. And when the fighting was over, another struggle for respect and recognition began, with historic consequences. James Ferguson recalls the events that set it in motion
96 puzzles
Enjoy our crossword, sudoku, and other brain-teasers!
Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. 6 Prospect Avenue, Maraval, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago T: (868) 622 3821/5813/6138 • F: (868) 628 0639 E: caribbean-beat@meppublishers.com Website: www.meppublishers.com
Read and save issues of Caribbean Beat on your smartphone, tablet, computer, and favourite digital devices!
Printed by Solo Printing Inc., Miami, Florida Caribbean Beat is published six times a year for Caribbean Airlines by Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. It is also available on subscription. Copyright © Caribbean Airlines 2018. All rights reserved. ISSN 1680–6158. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. MEP accepts no responsibility for content supplied by our advertisers. The views of the advertisers are theirs and do not represent MEP in any way. Website: www.caribbean-airlines.com
104 classic
A dip into Caribbean Beat’s archives: our hapless correspondent, playing Santa Claus for a children’s party, finds that a wool suit and hat aren’t ideally suited to a tropical Christmas
The Caribbean Airlines logo shows a hummingbird in flight. Native to the Caribbean, the hummingbird represents flight, travel, vibrancy, and colour. It encompasses the spirit of both the region and Caribbean Airlines.
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Cover The iconic and inimitable Grace Jones Illustration Rohan Mitchell
This issue’s contributors include: Erline Andrews (“The secret life of sunscreen”, page 92) is an award-winning Trinidadian journalist. She is a regular contributor to Caribbean Beat and her work has also appeared in other publications in T&T and the US, including the Chicago Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor. From an initial background in finance, Shelly-Ann Inniss (“Foodies’ Barbados”, page 70) decided to explore her love for writing and media. A Trinidad-based Barbadian writer and editorial assistant at Caribbean Beat, she is an explorer and adventure-seeker at heart. Mark Lyndersay (“A travel bag should be a bit ugly”, page 88) is a Trinidadian photographer and journalist. His BitDepth is the longest running newspaper column reporting on technology in the country. Nazma Muller (“Dr Jones”, page 52) is a Trinidadborn, Jamaica-obsessed writer who has worked in newsrooms in T&T, Jamaica, and the UK. Franka Philip (“A feast among friends”, page 46) loves to find the story behind the story in the food industry. A journalist for more than twenty years, she has worked in print, online, and radio in Trinidad and at the BBC in London. At the start of 2018, she co-founded Trini Good Media, a website hosting the podcast Talk ’Bout Us. Shivanee Ramlochan (“A writer with a plan”, page 60) is a Trinidadian poet — author of Everyone Knows I Am a Haunting — arts reporter, and Bookshelf editor for Caribbean Beat.
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A MESSAGE From OUR CEO
continue, as we roll out more elements of our strategic plan, built on the pillars of:
Dear Customers,
• Our “Hello Caribbean” marketing campaign, highlighting the uniqueness and charm of all the destinations we serve and encouraging travel within the region • The start of service to Havana, Cuba • Additional direct flights between Guyana and JFK, New York • The introduction of non-stop service from St Vincent and the Grenadines to JFK, New York • Caribbean Plus, which offers extra
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• • • • •
sean pavone/shutterstock.com
Compliments of the season to you and your families — we are delighted to welcome you on board at this very special time of year. Caribbean Airlines is thrilled to share that we won two prestigious awards at the 25th Annual World Travel Awards™ 2018, which took place in Jamaica in late September. For the eighth consecutive year, we earned the title “Caribbean’s Leading Airline,” and for the first time we topped the category as the “Caribbean’s Leading Brand 2018.” The World Travel Awards™ brand is known globally as the ultimate hallmark of quality, with winners setting the benchmark to which all others aspire. We have spent much of 2018 improving our range of products and services to enhance your travel experience. These two awards are quite meaningful, as they affirm that our brand is distinguishing itself by delivering the value that you demand. It gives our teams even more motivation to carry out our vision to be the preferred airline serving and connecting the Caribbean and beyond. The airline continues to make positive progress commercially as well as great strides in delivering superior service. Technology has driven many of the developments and will continue to do so as we move forward. The impact of our dedication is evident in the bottom line, and in addition to our improved financial performance, some of the major achievements for 2018 include:
Havana, Caribbean Airlines' newest destination
•
• • •
•
•
•
leg room within the economy cabin of the Boeing 737 jet aircraft Caribbean Explorer, which gives travellers the ability to go to several islands on one affordable fare The launch of Webchat and WhatsApp Chat for business The activation of Caribbean Miles online miles redemption Caribbean Upgrade, where economy class ticket holders can bid for available Business Class seats on all eligible routes Caribbean Café, which has increased the range of items available for sale on board. Our Caribbean Café proudly showcases products from Caribbean-based manufacturers. Please check your seat pocket to view the full catalogue. Our new cargo website, which enables you to track packages in real-time An interline E-ticketing agreement (IET) with Hainan Airlines. This provides greater convenience for customers travelling between China and the Caribbean, where the passenger journey can now be bought on a single ticket, in a single transaction
These successes were only possible through the commitment of our employees and the support of our valued stakeholders. In 2019, the positive changes will
People Process Profitability Customer Community
A key part of our strategy to reach profitability is our transition into an agile enterprise that is more responsive to the market. We are reviewing our network and will reposition our personnel and fleet to provide even better service for the right value, and to deliver greater returns to our stakeholders. In the coming months, we will share more developments as our strategy is executed. On behalf of the entire Caribbean Airlines Team, we say a heartfelt THANK YOU to our customers and valued stakeholders for your unwavering support. Have a safe and peace-filled Christmas, and may 2019 bring you and your families all the good things you desire.
Garvin Medera Chief Executive Officer
Audit and Assurance Creating and protecting value for our clients Changing the way we think about assurance: As auditors we provide assurance over your financial statements. However, assurance can also be provided on all information that is used to manage, govern, transact with and invest in an organization. Changing the way we approach assurance: The market is demanding more accountability and transparency from companies in all aspects of their business. At KPMG, we view providing assurance on all critical financial and non-financial information, including the related frameworks, methodologies, processes and controls, as an opportunity for us to better serve society and deliver on stakeholder expectations that we know exist. Our delivery of assurance services is robust and cross-functional in nature, ensuring we also leverage the skills and subject matter expertise of advisory, tax and industry specialists. By bringing this multi-disciplinary expertise to bear, we can help you sustainable value of your organization. create and protect the sus Contact us to explore how we can drive your business forward together. KPMG Savannah East 11 Queen’s Park East Port-of-Spain Trinidad W.I. T: 1 868 612-KPMG E: kpmg@kpmg.co.tt www.kpmg.com/tt
© 2018 KPMG, a Trinidad and Tobago partnership and a member firm of the KPMG network of independent member firms affiliated with KPMG International Cooperative (“KPMG International”), a Swiss entity. All rights reserved.
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wish you were here
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White River, Jamaica A leisurely drift down the picturesque White River is a standard in the itineraries of most visitors to Ocho Rios on Jamaica’s north coast — and you’ll understand exactly why, after you’ve floated through bamboo groves and perhaps taken a bracing dip, encouraged by your chatty guide.
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NEED TO KNOW
Essential info to help you make the most of November and December: what to do, where to go, what to see!
stephen smith/alamy stock photo
The celebration of Las Parrandas de Remedios nears its dramatic climax
Don’t Miss Las Parrandas de Remedios Across the Caribbean, Christmas is celebrated with lights, music, food, and family. In the Cuban city of Remedios, a hundred miles east of Havana, it’s also celebrated with noise — lots of noise. The seasonal festival of Las 24
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Parrandas de Remedios, running from 16 to 26 December, supposedly began when the local priest asked a bunch of children to make as much noise as possible to wake parishioners for mass. What started then as a clamour of pots, pans, and tins full of pebbles has evolved over the centuries into a massive display of fireworks, accompanied by conga bands and illuminated floats, and ending in a blazing competition between two neighbourhoods.
How to get there? Caribbean Airlines operates two flights each week to Havana’s José Martí International Airport from Trinidad, with connections to other Caribbean destinations
jason rothe/alamy stock photo
need to know
Preparing the garland of firecrackers at Paramaribo’s Owru Yari Below In the heat of Nassau’s Junkanoo rush
Must Try courtesy bahamas ministry of tourism
New Year celebrations In New York City, the iconic ball drop over Times Square welcomes the New Year. Over in Hong Kong, the transition is marked by a dazzling display of fireworks. Popping Champagne, counting down, or reflecting and giving thanks at church services are other popular traditions around the world. As 2018 comes to a close, and the ink on your resolution list begins to dry, here are three exciting ways to see in 2019 across the Caribbean.
Owru Yari
Paramaribo, Suriname 31 December
Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands 31 December
Foxy’s Old Year’s Party
Junkanoo
On the morning of the last day of the year, downtown Paramaribo is closed off to traffic. Bleachers and platforms line the streets, drink and food vendors fit into even the smallest crevice, and live bands and sound systems fill the air with music. In the midst of it all, small red firecrackers woven into a huge garland run for almost a mile through the main streets. As noon approaches, police officers clear the way and people automatically reach for their earplugs. The loudest pyrotechnic display in the Caribbean ignites. Confetti fills the air, music pumps, and the jubilant crowds cheer. The spectacle finally winds down as midnight approaches.
There’s hardly any standing room. Great Harbour is packed with boats and dinghies. The catalyst is one little beach bar on the island known for throwing the Caribbean’s best Old Year’s party. Musicians from around the Caribbean perform while guests dine and dance barefoot in the sand. Foxy himself mingles with the crowd, many of whom are return visitors. He quickly learns and remembers your name, and sometimes weaves you into the lyrics of a song, making you the centre of attention. Libations of Pain Killers, Dread Foxes, and Sly Foxes — his legendary cocktails — are highly recommended as you usher in the New Year with friends and fireworks.
Vibrant handmade costumes and floats prepared with thousands of strips of colourful crêpe paper, cardboard, feathers, and glitter come alive on Bay Street for Nassau’s New Year’s Day Junkanoo parade. The sweet sounds of brass bands invite cheerful onlookers to move to their melodies. Beginning just after midnight, the parade is in full swing for hours. Bells, cow horns, and whistles accompany the masqueraders as they “rush” along the parade route, breaking out in choreographed dances. What better way to start a thrilling 2019?
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Nassau, the Bahamas 1 January
Shelly-Ann Inniss
27
need to know
Top Three Rupununi adventures
Three kilometres outside the Wapishana village of Aishalton, Makatau is one of Guyana’s best archaeological sites for petroglyphs (ancient rock carvings) — or timehri, as they’re locally known. This rock art is estimated to date back to 3,000 to 5,000 BC, with over six hundred representations of humans, animals, geometric arrangements, and plants etched in stone around the site (above right).
Karasabai
The Rupununi is a birders’ paradise: harpy eagles, storks, ibises, herons, and dozens more are eager to show off their beauty in your binocular viewfinder. Almost any location in the savannahs will offer new species for your life list, but the village of Karasabai is special: here is one of the most accessible remaining populations of the endangered and brilliantly plumed Sun Parakeet (at right).
ponsulak/shutterstock.com
Makatau Petroglyph Trail
courtesy esther sam
Guyana’s Rupununi Savannah is a fivethousand-square-mile region of vast rolling vistas, packed with flora, fauna, wetlands, and forest. It’s the Wild West, but the Guyanese version. Here are three places to experience the Rupununi’s remote grandeur.
Dadanawa Ranch
nicholas laughlin
Once the world’s largest cattle ranch, still home to traditional vaqueiros, and now also a base for intrepid eco-tourists, who can join the action in parting the herds, or shepherding the cattle into the corral. On your safari, look out for jaguars, anacondas, and giant anteaters. At night, the clear sky yields to the Milky Way, providing tranquillity and an ideal opportunity for photographers.
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Camping in the open, grappling with rough terrain, and toiling up undulating hills are part of the Guyana savannah experience. From 20 to 25 November, the South Rupununi Safari will take adventurers on a trek through the region and across the border to Boa Vista, the capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima. The safari passes through several indigenous villages, encouraging participants to explore different cultures in new environments. Prepare to explore little-known places within the Rupununi while meeting the indigenous peoples who’ve lived here for generations. SAI
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need to know
How You Say Talk like a local at parang time
Trinidad’s distinctive Christmas music, parang, is derived from the folk music of Venezuela, across the Gulf of Paria — complete with Spanish lyrics. And during parang season, with fiestas and competitions in full swing, you’ll hear many Spanish words and phrases flying fast and furious. Here’s some basic parang terminology to get you started. The singers and musicians who go from house to house, singing in an old Spanish dialect, sometimes with English sprinkled in Parranda The act of spreading musical cheer Cuatro A small four-stringed instrument in the guitar family, a parang staple Maracas (or shak-shak) A pair of rattles, usually made from calabash gourds Güiro (or scratcher) A hollow open-ended instrument with a serrated surface played by rubbing a stick along the notches to produce a rasping sound Guarapo An upbeat song on any topic Estribillo A lively number involving calls and responses from the audience Despedida The final tune, giving thanks for sharing good times with the host
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Parranderos
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need to know
On View NE9 Fifteen years ago, the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas’ first National Exhibition was a landmark for contemporary Bahamian art, launching a biennial series that serves as a sometimes controversial, always vivid cross-section of visual developments in the northern Caribbean’s archipelago nation. The ninth National Exhibition, NE9, opens on 17 December, 2018, and runs through March 2019. Showcasing the work of over thirty Bahamian artists — practising across mediums as diverse as photography, video, performance, painting, installation, digital art, drawing, discursive conversation, and poetry — NE9 takes for its theme “The Fruit and The Seed,” looking for works that answer to social practice and engagement, inviting thought about communities and the larger world. NAGB chief curator Holly Bynoe shares some highlights to look out for. “Heino Schmid has been doing provocative work for years,” she says. “He keeps a rigorous studio practice and continues to have surprises up his sleeve. There are also several emerging artists whose ideas and experimentations give us chills, including Melissa Alcena, Averia Wright, Edrin Symonette, April Bey, and Gabrielle Banks. Tiffany Smith, whose work has been making waves across the US, will be showcased for the first time at the NAGB.” Another new face to Bahamian art-lovers is Jenna Chaplin — “someone who, to my knowledge, hasn’t participated in the field,” says Bynoe.
What We Carry II (2018, charcoal, graphite, pastel, and acrylic on paper, 9 x 5 feet), by Heino Schmid. Image courtesy the artist
Maurice and Barracuda (2018, digital photography), by Melissa Alcena. Image courtesy the artist
Power Girl (Queen Versus Queen) (2018, “African” Chinese wax fabric, hand sewn into laser canvas prints with hanging counterfeit Chinese pearls and Asante/Ashanti handmade beads from Kumasi, Ghana), by April Bey. Image courtesy the artist
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Photo by Mark Nolan —CA/Cricket Australia/Getty Images
need to know
Merissa Aguilleira on the field Opposite page The victorious West Indies team at the 2016 ICC Women’s World Twenty20 tournament
Word of Mouth “When other teams play against the West Indies, they come hard” Laura Dowrich finds out how the West Indies women’s cricket team is preparing for the 2018 ICC Women’s T20 Cricket Championship, running for two weeks across the region in November This isn’t the first time the West Indies have hosted the ICC Women’s T20 Cricket Championship, but in 2018 the tournament is being held as a standalone — that is, not alongside the men’s championship, but as the main event. As expected, the West Indies women are excited, not only to 34
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play before their countrypeople, but also to keep the trophy in the region. Batswoman, wicketkeeper, former team captain, and overall motivator Merissa Aguilleira tells us how the team has been preparing, and why fans’ support is so crucial.
How do you feel about the West Indies hosting the T20 tournament again? I am pretty excited. It’s always a good experience to play in front of your home crowd, it is more motivational. I truly believe the preparation over the past four months will pay off.
You are the reigning champs — what would winning the trophy again mean to you and the other players? It would mean that 2016 was not a fluke. A lot of people were leaning towards Australia, and we came out there with one mission, to bring it home. Winning a second time, in front of our home crowd, history would be
Tell us about the preparations for the tournament so far.
We have been in camps in Antigua, three so far — first one was a month, second one was two weeks, and the third one three weeks, so we have been working hard. We are dealing with our skills, mental preparation, fitness, dealing with the media — it has been an all-round camp, very informative.
Has the camp experience brought you all closer together? Right now, we are in a series against South Africa, and a lot of people are talking about the team looking well on the field, and you can see the comradery. We are like a family now — once you are a family off the field, it is easy to transfer that onto the field.
Do you think that, as reigning champs, the WI women’s team will have an advantage with the game being held here in the region?
Yeah, we will definitely have a home advantage. Some of the countries are trying to come to the West Indies earlier to get used to the climate, the pitches, and the environment. We have lived it, we know how our pitches play, and we have to stay a step ahead of the rest.
Do you think there is much excitement around women’s cricket right now? And what can we do to improve that?
From where I started off to now, it has grown tremendously. We have to be ambassadors for the game — we need to market ourselves, we need to go out there and play exciting cricket, because that is what people want. The popularity of the game has been moving to a different level, but we need it to move faster.
This tournament will see the use of an Umpire Review Decision System. How do you feel about that?
It is pretty exciting, because on many occasions the players have been trying to get that going, and people would say it’s about time the women’s game has this — so we are moving up to the men’s’ level. It’s about time we break this stereotype.
Are there any particular teams you are excited to play against?
I am excited to play against all, even though there are top teams in the competition, such as Australia and England — they really dominate. I know all the teams, when they play against the West Indies, they come hard.
Any last words to Caribbean cricket fans?
Come out and support us. I am talking on behalf of the team, I know we can go out there and produce good cricket. All we can ask for is the support, and we cannot do it without the fans.
photo by indranal mukherjee/afp/getty images
created. Just thinking about everything we have been through as a team — to do it on home soil, in a standalone tournament, we want to be able to accomplish it.
From November 9 to 24, the top women cricketers from around the world will come to the Caribbean for the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2018. The tenteam tournament — featuring three-time champions Australia, reigning ICC Women’s World Cup winners England, plus India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, defending champions the Windies, and two other qualifiers — will be played across three venues in the Caribbean. The November tournament will be the first-ever standalone ICC Women’s World Twenty20 event. All twenty-three matches will be broadcast live for the first time, while the Decision Review System (DRS) will be used for the first time in any ICC World Twenty20 event. Defending champions the West Indies are in Group A, along with England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and and one more qualifier, while Australia, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, and the final qualifier will be in Group B. The tournament will open at the Guyana National Stadium, continuing at the Darren Sammy Cricket Ground in St Lucia. The Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground in Antigua will host both semi-finals on 22 November and the final on 24 November. The Windies team is led by all-rounder Stafanie Taylor of Jamaica, rated as one of the best women’s players of all time. She has alongside her Denadra Dottin, who became the first woman to score a century in a T20 when the West Indies hosted the tournament back in 2010, and Hayley Matthews, who was Playerof-the-Match in the final when the West Indies won back in 2016. The West Indies have an excellent track record in the event. They won in 2016, and reached the semi-finals in 2010 in the Caribbean, 2012 in Sri Lanka, and 2014 in Bangladesh.
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need to know
Great Outdoors Rowing for a cause
has a passion for the water — as does Christal Clashing, who made history in 2004 as the first female swimmer to represent Antigua and Barbuda at the Olympics. Now twenty-eight, and a travel writer, she was excited to join the women’s team after being inspired years ago by the journey of the canoe Gli-Gli through the Caribbean. And the youngest member of the team, Junella King, is only seventeen. A keen sailor, she juggles sports and schoolwork, and her interest in the race was inspired when Team Wadadli, postrace, visited her school. The team are rowing for the charity Cottage of Hope, a home where girls from newborn to age eighteen can find a safe, secure, and stable place to live when their family lives are unsuitable. It’s as good a reason as any for these intrepid young women to undertake the adventure of a lifetime. Bridget van Dongen To support the Team Antigua Island Girls in their journey, visit www.antiguabarbudaislandgirls.com
courtesy team antigua island girls
Since 1997, the annual Talisker Whisky Atlantic Challenge has begun in the Canary Islands and finished in Antigua. Yet until 2015 there had never been a Caribbean team attempting the row, considered one of the toughest races in the world, in which individuals or teams of up to five people row across the Atlantic in a tiny boat. It sounds crazy, but it raises thousands of dollars for charity each year (each team competes for their favourite). In late 2015 and early 2016, the entire country of Antigua and Barbuda watched in amazement as pioneering Team Wadadli made their way across the Atlantic. Inspired by these dauntless men, two years later another Antiguan team came a close second to the fastest finishers in race history, completing the race in only thirty days on 13 January, 2018. The next challenge? An all-female team, currently training for this year’s race (which begins in early December).
Team Antigua Island Girls includes Elvira Bell, Christal Clashing, Samara Emmanuel, Kevinia Francis, and Junella King. Four of them will actually compete. They’ve set their sights on being the top female contenders, and are planning to be among the top five finishers overall. Elvira Bell has been a natural athlete all her life. The thirty-six-year-old is a keen swimmer, martial artist, and certified health coach. By day she’s a flight dispatcher, and at first she wasn’t specially keen on taking up this particular challenge, but no became yes after her best friend Kevinia Francis insisted they join. Francis, for her part, has been imagining an all-female crew since the original Team Wadadli competed. “This challenge epitomises all that I live for in one go: sports, travel, competition, country, charity, new experiences, and creating memories,” says the fortyyear-old. Meanwhile, Samara Emmanuel was the first Antiguan woman to become an RYA-certified yacht captain, and at thirty-two, she has more than a dozen years’ seafaring experience. Emmanuel
From left to right: Kevinia Francis, Samara Emmanuel, Christal Clashing, Junella King, and Elvira Bell — the Team Antigua Island Girls
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need to know
Datebook
Green Screen Film Festival, Trinidad
31 October to 3 November If our islands become uninhabitable because of climate change, where will we go? Green Screen 2018 opens with the “compelling and visually sumptuous” documentary Anote’s Ark, set in Kiribati. The Pacific island nation is one of the most remote places on the planet, confronted with the prospect of imminent obliteration from sea level rise.
amanda richards
More highlights of November and December across the Caribbean
Divali
6 and 7 November Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Suriname Houses are adorned with lanterns and deyas as the festival of light is celebrated by Hindu communities. Divali symbolises light over darkness, and good over evil, as believers venerate Lakshmi, deity of prosperity and good fortune.
courtesy green screen film festivaL
New York City Marathon
4 November Adrenaline pumps through firsttime and seasoned runners aiming to complete the 26.2-mile journey at one of the world’s most celebrated marathon events, making its way through all five boroughs of the Big Apple.
2 to 18 November The party begins in Cayman Brac from 2 to 4 November with a bonfire, heritage displays, parade, and fireworks. The festivities then move to Grand Cayman (8 to 12 November), with fun-filled days of food festivals and a “Pirate Pooch Parade.” On 10 November, pirates will “invade” the islands, “attacking” from the sea at Hog Sty Bay in George Town Harbour. Traditionally, the governor is “captured” and the pirates “run amok” before being cast off again for another year. 38
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courtesy cayman pirates week festival office
Pirates Week Festival, Cayman Islands
St Kitts Sugar Mas
15 November to 5 January St Kitts celebrates Christmas in Carnival style. The lead-up to the Grand Parade includes spectacular parties, infectious calypso music, and performances of all kinds — a season of sweetness.
Cavalcade of Lights, Nathan Phillips Square, Toronto
24 November Over 525,000 glistening LED lights illuminate Toronto’s giant Christmas tree, bringing festive cheer to onlookers. Live musical performances, a spectacular fireworks show, and skating parties mark the start of Toronto’s holiday season.
Nine Mornings Festival, St Vincent and the Grenadines December In the wee hours of the nine mornings leading up to Christmas, fetes, street concerts, and steelband jump-ups bring joy to all around SVG.
SAI
bookshelf Venus as a Bear by Vahni Capildeo (Carcanet Press, 112 pp, ISBN 9781784105549) Do we walk anywhere without language, even if we lack tongues, or speech? Venus as a Bear takes us through Trinidad, Oxfordshire, St Lucia, Puerto Rico, Iceland, and beyond, bearing us in its capacious, labyrinthine witness as we see heirloom roses, the erstwhile hole-homes of lizards, a woman who vanished in 1985 in Arima. Capildeo creates poems like spyglasses, like fully-equipped decks of observation, so that we might be present and entranced, hooked in the startling, surefooted immediacy of the worlds these poems invoke. Dip a toe into this dazzlingly epic collection — epic in its scope, in the subterranean depth of its wide-ranging points of reference — and you will emerge with treasure, whether it gleams or growls. Capildeo’s poems take their frames and habitations from trips to the Ashmolean Museum, from Björk and Captain Beefheart. In “Kiskadee”, the site of an open-air arts space in Woodbrook, Trinidad, is
Voodoo Hypothesis
transformed into an aviary, “every gate, / grid, grille, lock, key, alterable / level, pock-marked wall, concrete / irregularity, soft / and hung over with gauze, full / of uncrushable feathers.” A quartet of poems for Inishbofin in Irseland reveals a contemplative study in positionality: the speaker sees and perceives that “Heaven is most probably underwater. / Sounding with ease, increasing pressure on us. / Too light for many stars. Too soon for most birds.” Venus as a Bear is a collection so multifarious it could plausibly be said to be about “everything,” without diminishing the pleasure and fascination with which you come to its openness. These poems are not the reflection of one world, but the navigation of several, where bulls roam the streets in unselfconscious pride, where children, left alone, befriend living moss. It is through work such as this that we find ourselves revivified to a thousand electric possibilities.
Come Let Us Sing Anyway
by Canisia Lubrin (Buckrider Books/Wolsak and Wynn Publishers, 96 pp, ISBN 9781928088424)
by Leone Ross (Peepal Tree Press, 190 pp, ISBN 9781845233341)
St Lucia–born, Canadabased Canisia Lubrin does the extraordinary with her first fulllength book of poems: not only does Voodoo Hypothesis take no prisoners, it questions the very nature and validity of the prison system. Which punitive hierarchy is Lubrin tackling, you ask? Nothing less than a colonial posture on “blackness” itself. What happens, these poems ask, when you hold the doors of history, language, and science wide open, and reoutfit the black experience in the raiment it deserves and demands? You get verse awash with wonder and speculation, alive to both reclaiming and reframing a wounded narrative. The Commonwealth, Caliban, Crusoe: Lubrin targets them and enflames their old significances, restrings them into bold expressions of anti-conquest, anti-materiality. This makes Voodoo Hypothesis a confident, capable reorigination, unafraid to wreak needful havoc: “This is a hand that intends to do its maker harm.”
Between the borders of the macabre and the masterfully erotic: that’s where you’ll find the true north of Leone Ross’s prose. Come Let Us Sing Anyway is a collection of short fiction as audacious as it is explorative: herein, a British tourist finds she can buy a baby in a foreign land, but not steal it. A family lose their son, and when he returns against all hope or expectation, he is changed in ways that make his father violently ill at night. A woman takes and is taken by her paramour in a series of mountingly shocking assignations; all the while she feels her own gender pulse and shift with suggestion. Ross’s dominion of form is on fine display: she’s equally effective whether her stories serve up spare horror in flash fiction, or in extended post-apocalyptic swathes. The effects are ruinous, riotous, and rhapsodic.
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If I Had the Wings by Helen Klonaris (Peepal Tree Press, 168 pp, ISBN 9781845233464) “You remember how yesterday the protestors sang a song you’d never heard before, and you’d felt the homesick feeling again . . .” The characters in If I Had the Wings are temporal changelings. They reckon with what it means to feel you belong, and to feel yourself outsidered by the very land you love. Peeling back the curtain on a microcosm of a small society, Klonaris shows that no prejudice — and no affection — is itself microscopic. These short stories teem with both tenderness and violence, confronting spectres of the past while facing the future with trepidation and awe. What happens, the most daring of these subversive tales asks, in a world where a young dreamer named Dionysos sprouts wings? The answer, like any good pendulum, swings between love and its chilling opposite.
Making Waves: How the West Indies Shaped the United States by Debbie Jacob (Ian Randle Publishers, 340 pp, ISBN 9789766379544) It’s a well-worn idea: making history come alive. You’d better believe that the figures in Debbie Jacob’s Making Waves do exactly that: they fly from the pages, even those who’ve been dead for centuries. Jacob’s approach to history in this consummately readable guide is both purposeful and promising: she examines the Caribbean’s influence on the United States. We’re used to hearing about US influence on the West Indies: our less lively history texts are full of it. Employing illustrations alongside jaunty prose that moves along at an almost ebullient clip, Jacob gives us sanguine snapshots of the beauty queens, revolutionaries, politicians, musicians and powerful policy-makers (Hamilton, anyone?) who hailed from these very islands, and forever shifted the US landscape: for better, brighter, and forever. Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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playlist The Revolution Millbeatz (Fox Fuse) “Caribbean Wave” is the name given by Trinidadian producer Millbeatz to describe his new sound, a polished fusion of soca and modern R&B. And with this sound, he is “returning the gaze” using our voices, taking back ownership of the idea of tropical pop made so hip internationally by Major Lazer et al. This new album of thirteen tracks delivers the tropes of a crossover soca sound: short bursts of danceable songs that will
Pillar
Jonathan Scales Fourchestra (Ropeadope Records)
The steelpan and its sound have become almost the cliché of Caribbean fantasy and escape, but in the hands of musicians with a determination to move away from that old trope, the music can challenge listeners to reimagine the unique timbre of this creole invention and its canon. North Carolina native Jonathan Scales revels in odd metres and radical time signature changes to produce
People of the Sun Anthony Joseph (Heavenly Sweetness) The last album from UK-based Trinidadian creole griot Anthony Joseph was a survey of Caribbean roots and routes. This new album is grounded in Trinidad, the land of his birth and the source of his poetic exploration of the lives and stories of its people. It is a connection beyond metaphor. Joseph says he is “a poet, which is a small word with a huge meaning and responsibility.” Those People of the Sun — an apt symbol for this Single Spotlight
Sweet Vibes Alone Lyfe Az Rose (CMMG Records) The opening line of this catchy island pop song is “Goodbye sadness, and hello to happy days.” And with that salvo, the listener can just forget about anything else but having fun. This new track by singer Lyfe Az Rose (L.A. Rose/ Rosezanna Winchester) has the potential to grow into an earworm you won’t want to dispel in a hurry. A celebration in song about overcoming pain and disappointment, this anthem may well have the effect of inspiring sing-alongs. The
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have clubs moving to the beat of two becoming one; a kind of libertine attitude in the lyrics that suggests “doing it all night” is cool; sampled drums and percussion sounds that follow the new herd of producers creating soundscapes that signal tropical days and nights. When bossa nova was the “new wave” that brought Brazilian music to the world in the late 1950s, the fusion and the melancholic aesthetic were prime. The Revolution is bolder. Let’s hope it can start our entrée into global music beyond a jam and a wine. music for the instrument that can be complex, intriguing, and ultimately funky enough for listeners to bop their heads. On this new album, the bass guitar serves as a fulcrum for a rhythmic chase as the steelpan matches it on tracks like “This Is the Last Hurrah”, or plays counterpoint, standing in awe of the superb musicianship of the likes of Oteil Burbridge, Victor Wooten, and MonoNeon on “Fake Buddha’s Inner Child” and “The Trap”. Scales’s musical hero, banjoist Béla Fleck, guests, showcasing the adaptability of the steelpan in musical settings born outside the archipelago. polyglot nation of many biographies, histories, and destinies — serve up a wide spectrum of narratives for Joseph’s explication in that throaty voice that balances between the accents of his home and his abode. His poems as lyrics are given life by this music, a blend of rapso, calypso, Afro-Caribbean soul, jazz, and funk that is magic to the ears, with superb production by Jason Yarde. Featuring guest appearances by iconic musical artists 3Canal, Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Ella Andall, Brother Resistance, and John John Francis, this album is Trinidad distilled. “soca lite” feel and the pop phrasing make it an ideal crossover candidate, and a chart climber if positioned correctly to take advantage of the light at the end of the tunnel of the winter blues. The tropics are the antidote for temperate souls, and the “sweet vibes alone” positivitysharing mantra, that feel-good but not oversyrupy vibe, are keys to hearing this song on repeat on your favourite playlist of tropical pop. Survival after defeat should always sound this great. Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
“Half of what we are makes us feel ashamed” Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada are filmmakers based in the Dominican Republic — she’s from there, he’s from Spain. Together they’ve made two acclaimed documentaries. Now comes Miriam Lies, their first fiction feature. Miriam (Dulce Rodríguez) is a mixed-race girl who falls in love online with a boy. When she discovers he’s black, Miriam can’t abide it, and begins spinning falsehoods to him, her family, and best friend. Meanwhile Miriam’s glamorous quinceañera party — the celebration to mark her fifteenth birthday and coming of age — draws closer. Elevating itself above similar dramas through its unique subject matter and understated tone, Miriam Lies is a moving portrait of youth as well as a subtle critique of a society steeped in unexamined prejudice. Jonathan Ali speaks with the directors about bringing Miriam and her world to life. This is your first fiction feature, after two documentaries. Why the switch? Natalia Cabral: Actually, Miriam Lies was our first project. We wrote the script before we made our two previous documentaries, but it took us eight years to gather all the money, so while we were searching for funds we started filming other projects. What was the inspiration? NC: When I was a teenager, I met this boy online. We fell in love, but when we agreed to meet and I realised from a distance that he was black, I ran away and never saw him again. This reaction was a surprise, because until then I thought I was the open-minded one in my group of friends and my family. But as years went by, I realised that I could be like them, or worse. I understood that if I wanted to talk about the problems that concern us as a society, the best way 44
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was to start talking about myself. Oriol Estrada: Natalia shared this anecdote with me, and I identified a possible film, so I encouraged her to write based on that anecdote. She started writing from her memories and I was shaping the story. Reality became fiction with a world of its own. How did you cast Dulce Rodríguez, who plays Miriam? OE: We saw over five hundred girls. Dulce was one of the first girls we saw. She didn’t have any acting experience, but she caught our eye because she seemed so much like Miriam — intelligent, sensitive, and somewhat rebellious. In that first interview, she spoke about the contradictions of her own life, and understood better than us what could go through Miriam’s head. She always told us: “I am Miriam; this script is my life.”
The Latin American tradition of the quinceañera is central to the film’s plot. Can you say something about it? NC: The quinceañera party works as a metaphor for my social class’s behaviour. We try very hard to be something else. What we really are, if we can ever understand it, is something that must be kept hidden. We are not comfortable with our African origins — we prefer our Spanish ancestors and their legacy, so you could say that half of what we are makes us feel ashamed, and we live in denial of it, too. The DR has seen a film boom in recent years, with the majority of productions broad comedies. How difficult is it to get more thoughtful films, like yours, made and seen? NC: Nobody wanted to produce the film. Then when directors like us finally get their films done, there is no money left for advertising. The comedy productions have big advertising campaigns, so that is what most people in the DR believe cinema is: a light comedy that costs millions of dollars. OE: Our previous documentaries were of great interest to critics and other film professionals, but not so much ordinary people. We believe that Miriam Lies is our most emotional film, so we assume that for a less specialised audience, the film will have more interest. At least, that’s what we hope.
courtesy natalia cabral and oriol estrada
courtesy natalia cabral and oriol estrada
screenshots
Miriam Lies Directors: Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada Dominican Republic, 2018 90 minutes
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A feast among friends Illustration by Shalini Seereeram
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always look forward to Divali, especially to enjoying the festivities with my good friend Roger and his family. They always welcome his rag-tag band of friends as if we were also relatives. His mother is an impeccable host, and she spares no effort to make sure we’re comfortable and wellfed. She’s also an awesome cook, and every year I look forward to her Divali menu: the curried vegetables and silky roti followed by a dessert of traditional Indian sweets like barfi, gulab jamun, peera, ladoo, and khurma. With talk of Divali in the air — radio and newspaper adverts, deyas for sale in the markets, and gorgeous newspaper photos of Ramleela being re-enacted at grounds around Trinidad — I’ve been wondering about Divali food. If I had the opportunity to cook for Roger and his mom, for example, what would I prepare? The Indian food we enjoy in the Caribbean is strongly influenced by North Indian traditions, as most of the Indians who came to the Caribbean were from Uttar Pradesh. So essentially we’ve become accustomed to one style of Indian food. The meal I’d cook would take influences from different parts of India — especially the sweets. For a greater appreciation of traditional and modern Indian cooking, my main point of reference is the London-based Indian chef Vivek Singh. I met Singh in 2007, and my first memory is of him giving me many samples from a booth manned by the team from his world-famous restaurant The Cinnamon Club. I’ve eaten at his restaurant several times, and through his many books and articles, he continues to inspire me. In his book Curry: Classic and Contemporary, Singh starts by explaining that although curry is popular worldwide, he hardly came across the word in his old menus from India. In fact, his search for an “authentic definition” led Singh to travel through India to find out what curry meant to people there. In Mumbai, he said, there was a “palpable hesitation” from most people,
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For Hindus across the Caribbean, Divali is a time for celebration, and sharing with family and friends. After years of enjoying Divali hospitality, Franka Philip is imagining her own version of a festival feast — with some help from an acquaintance who’s also a brilliant chef. Here’s her perfect Divali menu
and he saw only one reference to “curry” on the many menus he scoured. When Singh visited Bilaspur in Central India, most people thought his question was “absurd,” because you could “not group such a large variety of wonderful dishes under a single umbrella.”
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nd now for my ideal Divali menu. For starters, I would recreate Singh’s Punjabi chickpea fritters in yogurt curry, to pay homage to North India. His recipe is closest to the ones used in Uttar Pradesh. Pakoras are made from chopped onions, spinach, chillies, fresh coriander, fresh ginger, and other seasonings, with gram (chickpea) flour as the binding agent. The yogurt curry — yes, yogurt is amazing in curry — includes gram flour, turmeric, ghee, red chillies, cumin, fresh curry leaves, and lemon juice. To take advantage of the great seafood found in Caribbean waters, the main course would be a kingfish curry. This particular recipe, nadan meen kootan, is from South India. Kingfish, as a robust fish, would go well with the combination of tamarind and coconut milk called for in the recipe. I’d serve this dish with our customary sides, like curried channa, bodi, pumpkin choka, basmati rice, and roti. Now, what about dessert? While there’s always space for traditional sweetmeats, I want to take it to a different level. I have a chat with Singh via Skype about Indian sweets and their origins, as well as modern twists on the traditional. He explains that at Divali, the goddess Lakshmi is venerated along with the elephant god Ganesh. “Lakshmi brings fortune, while Ganesh brings good luck, prosperity, and wisdom,” he explains. And the sweet attributed to Ganesh is ladoo, made with chickpea flour. “You will find ladoo all over the country. People
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exchange boxes of ladoo. It is considered to be an auspicious dessert — it’s got a lovely warm golden colour from the chickpeas and the saffron.” Another traditional sweet is barfi, a fudge-like confection made from powdered milk. It is common in Trinidad as part of the typical bag of sweets distributed at Divali, and it’s so ubiquitous here that it’s unusual to hear Singh say that in India only families with “some means” actually make barfi. He notes there’s been some evolution to this dessert. “People are now adding pistachios and chocolate, and they’re also doing a kind of marzipan-type barfi to which cashews are added.” Another alternative? “If you were down in the south of India, in Mysore or Bangalore, you’d encounter a sweet called Mysore Pak,” Singh says. “It is made out of chickpeas cooked down with sugar, ghee, and cardamom. Some baking soda is added so it can set like rock sugar.” Singh also does special desserts for Divali in his restaurants. He makes the North Indian specialty halwa, described by food writer Felicity Cloake as “a sweet, buttery pudding made with everything from mung beans to pineapples, but which is often carrot-based,” and adds a twist. “I serve the traditional halwa inside a spring roll pastry, make it like a samosa. It’s deep fried, and we serve it hot with ice cream.”
This sounds like the kind of thing I would try. Halwa is pretty easy to make, and the ingredients are accessible. Singh’s recipe calls for evaporated milk, but some chefs use a mixture of whole milk and cream which gives the texture of a rich pudding. There’s also the option of adding fruit and nuts — almonds, pistachios, desiccated coconut, and raisins can all be used. I want to try some dried fruit, maybe some chopped dates that will soften and lend a great flavour and sweetness to the recipe. If you’re able to use different coloured carrots for the halwa, that would
The meal I’d cook would take influences from different parts of India — especially the sweets be perfect for presentation, and would create a dessert that gives a nice end to a satisfying meal. I hope Roger and his mother would approve of my menu, which would look like this: Punjabi chickpea fritters in yogurt curry Kingfish curry served with pumpkin choka, curried bodi, and channa Basmati rice Paratha roti Mixed green salad Dessert Carrot halwa spring rolls n
Carrot halwa spring rolls Carrot halwa in its traditional form must be India’s most recognisable dessert, as it’s cooked in most Indian homes in winter. It’s a great dessert for Divali, and not very difficult to make. 60 g ghee or clarified butter 500 g regular carrots, peeled and grated 250 g black heritage carrots, peeled and grated 100 g sugar 2 tablespoons raisins 3 green cardamom pods, ground 250 ml evaporated milk 6 sheets of spring roll pastry (or filo pastry sheets) 30 g butter, melted, for brushing vegetable oil, for frying Divide the ghee between two separate pans and heat it up. Add the two different grated carrots to separate pans and sauté for ten minutes over a low heat until the juices from the carrots evaporate. Add half the sugar, raisins, and ground cardamom to each pan, and cook until the sugar melts. Divide
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the evaporated milk between the pans and cook until each mixture takes on the look and texture of fudge. Spread the mixtures on two trays and let them cool. Divide each mixture into six equal parts. Take a spring roll pastry sheet and brush the edges with melted butter. Place on a diagonal on a work surface. Place one heap of orange carrot fudge and one heap of black carrot fudge towards the corner closest to you. Take the same corner of the pastry, fold it over the carrot mixture, and continue rolling it until you reach almost to the middle of the strip. Tuck in from both sides, then continue rolling until you reach the end of the pastry. Seal the edges with a drop of water. Repeat the same process with the remaining sheets. Heat a deep pan of oil to 160° C and deep-fry the spring rolls for four to five minutes until they are golden brown. Drain on kitchen paper. Serve hot with ice cream of your choice. Serves six. Recipe courtesy Vivek Singh, from Indian Festival Feasts
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The accidental baker Dessert lovers, take note: the creator of the “Best Tasting Cake in the World,” as adjudicated at the 2017 World Cake Designers Championship in Italy, comes from the Caribbean. Trinidadian Michelle Sohan, proprietor of Bakery Treatz, is at the slicing edge of the pastry world, but baking wasn’t always her passion. As she tells Shelly-Ann Inniss, a lab accident pushed her in the direction of this sweet career, which recently saw her win the Caribbean Cake and Pastry Designer of the Year title at the Caribbean Wedding Industry Awards in Jamaica Has baking always been a passion of yours?
When did you decide to make a career of this?
I never liked cooking or baking. My home economics teacher used to say, “Ms. Sohan, the kitchen is not for you.” My passion was always quality control and lab work. I love testing things.
One of my food technology classmates requested my fruitcakes for a Christmas promotion. I had just bought a computer, and he emailed the order — ten thousand fruitcakes in two weeks! I had just bought my first stove, and the lady who used to clean for us helped out with her friends. They worked in the day and So how did you get started in baking? In 2001, I was doing my master’s degree in food technology. I fell I worked in the night. With that money, I reinvested and started down in the lab, cracked a bone in my neck, and broke my wrist. supplying several restaurants in south Trinidad. Eventually my It was really bad. When I returned to school, we had a bake sale, sister suggested I open a bakery. Around that time, Lange Park [near Chaguanas in central and I took a fruitcake. People from all over campus asked if I Trinidad] needed a bakery. My father took a mortgage without took cake orders, and I said yes. my mother knowing, and in three months I opened a gourmet store. Everyone watched Cake Boss on cable TV, and people What happened next? would come in asking whether I could do this or that. Everything I started at home, baking two cakes at a time in my mother’s they asked, my answer was yes. I started learning about it. oven. I was self-taught, learning from trial and error. The Internet was a new thing back then, and we didn’t have YouTube. I used to go to the local bookstore, and literally three books Have your customers’ tastes in cakes and desserts focused on cakes and desserts. I couldn’t afford them, so I hid changed in recent years? them behind other books. When I sold the cakes, I went back to Trinidadians’ tastes have changed drastically, due to social buy them. media. People want you to try new flavours. We recently did a
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coconut cake with blueberry compote and lemon mascarpone. It was such a hit. I’m doing all these fresh flavours and combinations.
Do you have customers with special dietary needs? When I started the bakery, I had two aims. One was to supply the Muslim market and the second was to cater to vegetarians. A lot of my friends are Muslim, and complain that when people say things are halal, they really aren’t. I have no pork products, as all meats are bought halal. All my essences are specifically ordered with a non-alcohol base. And for vegetarians, it’s very hard to get eggless items. At Bakery Treatz, there are only four items containing eggs at any point in time — Swiss rolls, macaroons, sweetbread, and banana bread.
What’s one of your most memorable moments in this journey? I met Chef Norman Davis, a multiple award-winning chocolatier and pastry chef, at my first international competition in 2014. Two weeks later, he invited me to participate in a Food Network challenge. It was a dream for me. Only Americans could enter the competition. He told me, don’t worry, I’ll be partnering with an American. I was in his studio and around me was everyone I’m accustomed to seeing on television. It was so surreal. I was the only Caribbean person. We won that competition.
What are some of your seasonal specialties, as Divali and Christmas get closer? For Divali, our dessert cakes are in high demand, as Hindu families celebrate this event with their loved ones. Christmas is our biggest time of the year. We have many company requests
for individual Christmas-themed cakes to be given as gifts to employees and customers. On Christmas Eve, we sell all the goodies for a great Christmas morning breakfast, including croissants, bread, pone, sweetbread, and mini tarts.
Is there a special Christmas dessert recipe you’d like to share with Caribbean Beat readers? Here’s my recipe for sorrel cupcakes with ginger mascarpone.
{ Ingredients } For the cakes: 2 cups sifted cake flour 1 cup brown sugar 3 eggs (for an eggless version: 6 tsp baking soda plus 4 tbs vinegar) 1 cup sorrel purée (see below) ½ tsp vanilla bean paste 1 tbs fresh grated ginger 1 stick margarine ½ tsp ground nutmeg 1½ tsp ground cinnamon ½ tsp salt Red food colouring (optional, depending on the colour when mixed into batter) For the filling: 16 oz mascarpone ½ cup white sugar 2 tbs fresh grated ginger 1 cup whipped cream
{ Method } To make the sorrel purée: bring 2 cups of water and 1 cup sugar to the boil, and stir until there’s a light thickened consistency. Add 400 g cleaned sorrel fruit and 1 tbsp grated ginger and lower heat to simmer for 10 minutes. Let cool slightly, and purée with a hand blender To make the ginger mascarpone filling: whisk mascarpone with white sugar and then add grated ginger — the mix will look a bit grainy. Fold in whipped cream. Keep refrigerated. To make the cakes: mix all the dry ingredients together — sifted flour, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt, baking soda. Cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs (or substitute vinegar mixture) and vanilla bean paste (or vanilla extract), then slowly add the dry ingredient mix, a third at a time, and completely blend together. Add the sorrel purée and fold in with a spatula. If the colour is not bright red, you can add a bit of food colouring. Pour into cupcake liners and bake for 30 minutes at 350ºC. When cooled, cut cupcakes in half, layer with additional purée and ginger mascarpone, and top off with whipped cream.
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Immerse
Backstory 52 Dr Jones
The one and only Grace Jones
Closeup 60 A writer with a plan
Own Words 66 “It doesn't matter where
you come from�
backstory
Dr Jones BALCOR FILM INVESTORS/Ronald Grant Archive/Alamy Stock Photo
Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Grace Jones — trailblazing singer, actress, record producer, and fashionista — has been a global cultural icon for decades. On the heels of her biopic Bloodlight and Bami, Jamaica has honoured her with a national award, and an honorary doctorate from the University of the West Indies. Nazma Muller argues that her Jamaicanness is at the heart of her success 52
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Of course, she would have to be Jamaican. In her biographical film Bloodlight and Bami, released in 2017, Jones’s Jamaicanness is clearly one of the secrets to her success — manifested in the awesome physicality that makes her performances so hypnotic (she still works out daily, lifting weights), the scathing yet playful wit, and the absolute disdain for pretension. No other culture could have produced a force so defiant, and revolutionary, as Grace Jones. “Bloodlight” refers to the red light in the studio that is switched on when an artiste is recording, and “Bami” is the popular Jamaican bread made from cassava. The title alone lets us know how profoundly Jamaica has shaped Grace Jones.
Of course, she would have to be Jamaican. No other culture could have produced a force so defiant, and revolutionary, as Grace Jones
courtesy bloodlight and bami
n her memoirs, published with the title I’ll Never Write My Memoirs, Grace Jones writes: “Trends come along and people say, ‘Follow that trend.’ There’s a lot of that around at the moment: ‘Be like Sasha Fierce [Beyoncé]. Be like Miley Cyrus. Be like Rihanna. Be like Lady Gaga. Be like Rita Ora and Sia. Be like Madonna.’ I cannot be like them — except to the extent that they are already being like me.” Indeed, these contemporary cultural icons are all — consciously or unknowingly — following the woman who has rocked the music world to its very foundations with her inimitable style, husky voice, and boundless audacity over the last forty years. “I have been so copied by those people who have made fortunes that people assume I am that rich,” Jones writes. “But I did things for the excitement, the dare, the fact that it was new — not for the money, and too many times I was the first, not the beneficiary.”
Opposite page Grace Jones in 1986 Above The musical icon in a still from her biopic Bloodlight and Bami
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Her album covers were studies in and of themselves. They made you stop and think, and you never forgot them In the film, she returns home for a family reunion which includes her brother, a well-known pastor in Los Angeles. We discover the source of much of her angst — a childhood peppered with licks and repression, exposure to a fundamentalist religiosity by her grandmother’s partner that she would later channel on stage, mimicking his mannerisms and way of speaking — exorcising her demons, as it were. After the screening of Bloodlight and Bami in Kingston last year, Jones took part in a question-
and-answer session with the literary and cultural scholar Carolyn Cooper, founder of the Reggae Studies Unit at the University of the West Indies. It was Cooper who proposed that Jones be conferred with an honorary doctorate at this year’s graduation ceremony. It’s more than fitting that UWI should honour Jones. Both born as British colonial subjects, they came of age in the early 60s with the independence movement, entering a phase of radicalism in the 70s that changed the way the people of these islands saw themselves, and gave them a newfound sense of identity and confidence. “The film is inspiring,” says Cooper, “because it shows her as this diva, the Grace Jones persona, but also as an ordinary Jamaican girl, who had a sense of style from she was young, who had to fight against the religious conservatism of the family and just say, Hell no! I’m not going to be limited by people’s definition of who I should be — and she just buss out!”
B
orn on 19 May, 1948, in Spanish Town, the first capital of Jamaica (and also the birthplace of roots revival artiste Chronixx and sprinter Yohan Blake), the seemingly ordinary girl who was brought up in a strict and extremely religious household would channel all her repressed emotions and traumatic experiences into performances and videos that pushed all kinds of boundaries — of thought, beauty, expression, art, fashion, music, you name it, Grace Jones challenged it all.
CBW/Alamy Stock Photo
CBW/Alamy Stock Photo
EyeBrowz/Alamy Stock Photo
EyeBrowz/Alamy Stock Photo
A succession of album covers in the 1980s helped establish the image of Jones as a personality defying boundaries
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Mike Coppola/Staff/Getty Images
She left Jamaica at the age of thirteen to join her parents in Syracuse, New York. By twenty, she had abandoned her attempt to become a Spanish teacher and instead became a fashion model — eventually dubbed “the ultimate fashion muse” by Vogue. Her dramatic bone structure and unapologetic androgyny made her a hit on the runway, adored by the likes of designers Yves Saint Laurent and Issey Miyake, and at once she was sought after as a model for big-name photographers Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin. From the moment she arrived in Paris in 1970, she became a member of the elite party crowd. In addition to sharing a flat with American actresses Jessica Lange and Jerry Hall — in Bloodlight and Bami she tells off a TV producer in impeccable French — she often tore up the dancefloor with the likes of designer Karl Lagerfeld. Considered “a touchstone for designers in need of a muse to channel fearlessness, androgyny, and
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raw sex appeal,” Jones soon had a list of admirers including everyone from the Tunisian-French couturier and shoe designer Azzedine Alaïa to the Italian fashion designer Riccardo Tisci. Jones’s statuesque flamboyance proved to be a hit in the New York City nightclub world, too — she was one of the most memorable characters to emerge from the infamous Studio 54 disco scene. An encounter with fellow Jamaican Chris Blackwell led to a recording contract with his Island Records in 1977, and the girl from Spanish Town moved from top model to pop star. She made the transition with an insouciant confidence that has not diminished in the slightest with time. While her first three albums — Portfolio, Fame, and Muse — weren’t commercial hits, gay men loved her. For her sexually charged live performances, she was dubbed “Queen of the Gay Discos.”
H
er album covers were studies in and of themselves — the suit and cigarette on Nightclubbing, that nude arabesque on the cover of Island Life: they made you stop and think, and you never forgot them. She made the hooded scarf her own, and the geometric flat top was suddenly sexy on a woman. Then there was the body paint. Her Afrofuturist image and Cubist fashion, her close crop and dazzling makeup made her an instant icon.
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Despite her undeniable diva status, and her elusiveness as a subject, at home in Jamaica, she can be herself. The French photographer Jean-Paul Goude, her one-time partner, created some of the most iconic images of Jones. “I wanted to focus on Grace’s masculinity,” he recalls, “to use what other people thought an embarrassment, and turn it around to her advantage. I wanted to create — with her, of course — a new character. It went beyond just a haircut, it was an attitude. It was new and strong and ambiguous. You didn’t know if it was a man trying to be a girl or a girl trying to be a man. It was a revolution. I remember the A&R guys at Island [Records] saying, ‘Are you f---ing crazy? This is never going to work.’ And, of course, it did.” “It made me look more abstract, less tied to a specific race or sex or tribe,” Jones has said. “I was black, but not black; woman, but not woman; American, but Jamaican; African, but science fiction.” The 1980s and the end of the disco era led Jones to New Wave and more experimental work, including the albums Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing, produced by the “Riddim
Jones’s “statuesque flamboyance” in full display on stage
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Joseph Okpako/getty images
Twins” — Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare. This was also the decade when Jones would launch out into film, landing roles in Conan the Destroyer and the James Bond movie A View to a Kill. She was also a favourite with the tabloids, who were obsessed with her romantic involvement with Rocky IV star Dolph Lundgren. In 1985, she unleashed Slave to the Rhythm and Island Life. The following year, Inside Story spawned one of her last successful singles, “I’m Not Perfect (But I’m Perfect for You).” After 1989’s Bulletproof Heart, Jones continued to record singles and collaborations with performers as diverse as operatic tenor Luciano Pavarotti and rapper Lil’ Kim — but for almost two decades Jones released no new albums. Then came 2008’s Hurricane, “classic Jones,” according to one review, featuring a slew of guest performers. “This being Grace Jones,” wrote the music magazine Pitchfork, “she easily upstages her contingent of helpers. Indeed, Jones isn’t so much a singer as a force of nature, a black hole that pulls all attention right to its centre.” But despite her undeniable diva status, and her elusiveness as a subject (“Grace only does press when she feels she has something new to say”, according to her agent), at home in Jamaica, she can be herself. “I immediately warmed to her,” recalls Carolyn Cooper. “She didn’t have the vibe I was expecting. You know, when you hear Grace Jones, you think she’ll be full of herself. But she was just cool. I admire that about her. She wasn’t caught up in the hype.” n
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closeup
A writer with a plan When Trinidadian Kevin Jared Hosein was announced as the winner of the prestigious 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize, it brought a shot of fame that any writer might covet. But this was no overnight success, explains Shivanee Ramlochan — rather, the culmination of a steady, wilful devotion to writing Photography by Mark Lyndersay
K
evin Jared Hosein meets me for our interview on the day V.S. Naipaul dies. The 2018 Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner is neither dismissively snide nor desperately heartbroken at Naipaul’s passing. It may seem surprising that a prominent literary son of the Trinidadian soil has no strong feelings about Naipaul, one way or another, but it’s true of Hosein, who fields my queries on the 2001 Nobel Laureate with an unperturbed equanimity. This isn’t hubris. Hosein doesn’t imagine himself superior to Naipaul’s influence or legacy. This is something else entirely: it’s the year in which Kevin Jared Hosein finds himself a household commodity, at least in homes lined with books. “A lot of it is luck,” Hosein says baldly, referring to his success. This from a man who tried
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to inveigle his way into a bachelor’s degree in literature or journalism (whichever would have him), despite not having studied literature for “O”levels. It wasn’t on offer at his secondary school, he explains, though this didn’t dampen his desire to live in worlds of books. The opposite seems to have happened: from early on, Hosein wrote prolifically and read with deep appetite. Stephen King was a childhood staple, followed by Cormac McCarthy. Ask Hosein which Caribbean book has most influenced his sensibility as both reader and writer, and he’s likely to reach for Harold “Sonny” Ladoo’s 1972 novel No Pain Like This Body. “It made me understand how diverse this whole setting is,” Hosein says, referencing the small agrarian Hindu community in which Ladoo’s brutal, uncompromising narrative unfolds. Tr inidadian and Car ibbean authors f ind themselves in something of a golden age. In 2017, Penguin Random House’s Writers Academy named the NGC Bocas Lit Fest one of the world’s top literary festivals. The Forward Prize for the year’s best poetry collection has been awarded to Caribbean poets in a trinity from 2014 to 2016: Kei Miller, Claudia Rankine, Vahni Capildeo. Hosein’s own Commonwealth win this year is the second time in a row the international prize has been scooped by a Trinidadian: Ingrid Persaud took it last year. Betting pundits might not be blamed for setting their sights on 2019 as a crowning hat-trick for T&T talent. Though, as Hosein soberly comments, talent might be the least of the equation. He’s equally calm, stoic even, when it comes to prizes. “I don’t ever think about winning a next prize. The prize is a validation, yes, but you can’t expect nothing from nobody.” It’s not animated cheerleading, but you shouldn’t expect that from Hosein, who doesn’t deal in false literary hope. His plans to bamboozle his way into the humanities at the University of the West Indies didn’t pan out, so he graduated in his other interests, earning a degree in biology and environmental studies. He doesn’t regret this, or think of it as a second-string career path: teaching science is his bread and butter, and
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it’s equipped him with ways to think more capably and clearly about his writing. Some of the ecological detail in his Commonwealth prizewinning short story, “Passage”, was lifted directly from his degree, from his own walks on forest trails.
“
P
assage” is a remarkable story on many fronts. Told from the perspective of a dedicated forester who goes on an unlikely mountainous quest in Trinidad’s Northern Range, it simultaneously suggests a landscape victimised by the exploits of humans, alongside a world in which nature always, ruthlessly, has the final say. Hosein’s narrative was praised for its use of the demotic. Hosein himself seems bemused by the doggedness of this particular plaudit from non-Caribbean readers, critics, and publicists: it is, after all, how we people have been writing for generations, he says. It’s telling, he points out, of
Hosein speaks at length about the handsome list of rejections he’s earned since starting to write. “No matter how good your writing is, you have to have a plan . . . a scheme” 62
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how woefully under-read the literary metropolis remains in a range of Caribbean voices, despite recent bookish success emanating from our region. T his isn’t Hosein’s f irst rodeo w ith the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. He’s entered six times, from 2013 to 2018. In 2015, his story “The King of Settlement 4” won the regional arm of the prize. The first story he ever entered, “The Monkey Trap”, was anthologised in Pepperpot: Best New Stories from the Caribbean, the debut publication of Peekash Press. Hosein, who speaks at length about the handsome list of rejections he’s earned since starting to write, quantifies these six years of entries, largely populated with misses, as part of a larger goal. “No matter how good your writing is, you have to have a plan . . . a scheme.” If "scheme" sounds like a slightly mercenary word, you should remember that this is a writer who earnestly gave great thought to sneaking into a literature degree. Still, it’s prudence, not pugilism, that’s the better part of Hosein’s endeavours in the world of writing. This dates back to his secondary school days, of showing his stories to his classmates, acquiring their feedback, and repeating the cycle. It was in form four, he says, that his work began to acquire an especially grim, menacing glint, layered with violence, tones of the macabre, and an arsenal of baleful sexual suggestion.
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His father, who dutifully printed off copies of the stories at work, gave him a sage kernel of advice that Hosein has never forgotten: “Even if you writing smut, keep writing. Just be careful of who you showing it to.”
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s it possible to stay right here, on these complex islands, and write your way into a sustainable career? Hosein seems to think so. It’s one point on which he is calmly optimistic. It took him two Commonwealth wins — one regional, one overall — plus three books, Littletown Secrets, The Repenters, The Beast of Kukuyo, for the world to start knowing his name. And know it they do. Hosein is awash
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in media requests, invitations of all sorts, and the kind of solicitations which might make an emerging writer’s head spin, and even cause an established writer’s eyes to glow green with envy. This moment, he knows, has its own capricious lifespan, and it could all turn on a dime — but he says it feels good, if startling, to be here in the epicentre of it. It would be churlish of anyone to claim that Hosein hasn’t earned it the hard way, the long way, taking the path of patience and a Submittable queue full of red dismissals. Though so much of it is a crapshoot, Hosein softens when he offers advice to young writers. He says, “You might think it have this one path. Degree, MFA, agent. And that’s
Hosein understands what Naipaul understood: that to write for yourself means you also invariably write for an island
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fine. But there’s lots of other paths too, and following them is like uncharted territory. Think of T&T’s unexplored genres: comedy, horror, romance, true crime. People love to read these things. They fly off the shelves, and they are so underwritten here.” Hosein’s actively taking his own advice: his current work in progress is a full-length novel, tentatively titled The Nest, set in 1970s rural Trinidad, and billed as Caribbean horror. “Writing is like understanding something,” Hosein tells me as we part ways. “Rather than saying, “That is madness,” seek to understand it.” It’s an ultimate declaration not only of empathy, but of responsibility. Hosein understands what Naipaul understood: that to write for one man, for yourself, means you also invariably write for an island, a complicated and consuming home. n
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own words
“It doesn’t matter where you come from”
I
went St Gabriel’s RC School in San Fernando, and was in choir participating in the Music Festival and SanFest. I had a love for music, and was very good at it. I believe it helped my school work, so I began entering examinations for piano, up until professional studies level. Our lives changed when my mum had to move to Port of Spain for work. I transferred to St Joseph’s Convent, Port of Spain. The choir director there and my piano teacher said to me, “You know, you could have a career in this.” One thing led to another, and
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Jeanine De Bique, Trinidadborn classical singer, on how her upbringing has shaped her career, the importance of a solid support network, and her breakthrough performances of the past year — as told to Caroline Taylor Photography courtesy Jeanine De Bique I got into the Manhattan School of Music. I did my undergrad, master’s, and then one year of professional studies. And from there it started. I think my journey is completely different from anybody else’s, especially somebody who’s coming from here. I grew up on St John’s Road, St Augustine [east of Port of Spain]. My mother was single, with three kids. It wasn’t easy for her, but she wanted each one of us to have our own idea of who we were, and what we wanted to be, and create the space to be able to achieve those things. One of us is a doctor, one is a physiotherapist, and one is an opera singer. I always try to remind people that it doesn’t matter where you come from — it matters your support network, the energy that is around you. My team is my agency, my teacher, my mum and family, and my partner. Work, family, and love. All of this comes together. They always say keep your eye on the target, but there’s more to that. It’s really your whole being, your whole self, knowing you have something bigger for yourself. Your whole being, the universe, feeds off of that energy, sucks it in, and gives you back exactly what you give out. Nobody’s said “you can’t do it” to me. I wouldn’t even allow that. I’ve never faced any major blocks in my development, other than from myself — me fighting against myself, which is kind of the worst struggle to be in, because you could just be going around and around. I told my agency maybe five or six years ago, “Look, if I’m not making it . . .” I said maybe I should go back to school for business or something. And they said, “Jeanine, just wait
five years. Don’t quit yet. You have to put your all into this.” And then the Scottish Opera happened, the Salzburg Festival . . . And the BBC Proms came because they saw a viral video of me on Facebook. Those things that I did last year are meaningful in a different way than people think. I was overwhelmed and proud to be at the Salzburg Festival and the BBC Proms. But it was only while I was there and things were happening to me on a racial level, a social level, that it became way more important to be there. So when I look at those things, I
“I don’t want to be a specialist in any one period or composer — I want to sing everything” remember St John’s Road. And I remember my grandfather always wanting to see me perform in England, and he didn’t get the chance. There’s so much strife and tribulation around people who are otherwise discriminated against because of who they are, what they love, what they look like, and no one is really addressing those issues. When the Chineke! Orchestra went up to perform at the BBC Proms, we did not know each other. I met that group two days prior. And when you got into that room, you felt like you were home. This whole thing took place in, like, seventy-two hours.
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The BBC was there to interview me that day when I arrived from Salzburg. That miraculousness of it — it was more than just being at the BBC Proms. When you see four black singers on the Salzburg stage, which has never happened before in the history of Salzburg, there’s something more to that than just being at the Salzburg Festival.
I
love to be a part of new productions, where people have new concepts. Friends of mine who are in jazz say that, in classical music, we have what’s on the page and we just do what’s there. We
have to change that perspective. What I would love audiences to further appreciate is that there are different voices, different backgrounds of people, different experiences — that we all bring ourselves to the paper, to the music. So what I would express in my voice, in my instrument, would not be the same as the people who they love listening to on CDs and records from back in the day. I listen to every other type of music. I explore other singers and other operas, but I also widen my range and keep up with what’s happening in the rest of the world. Those other artforms teach me about life and how to bring different elements into my acting, into my craft, into my appearances — because ultimately our artform is competing with them, so we have to know what’s going on in other artforms. Of course, I am from Trinidad and Tobago, so soca and calypso is a must. And I’m also learning more about our folk songs. So that’s been an eye-opener, with learning more about my heritage, and about why we have so many sad, sad folk songs. That is overwhelming. And if it’s happy, it’s about food! I don’t want to be a specialist in any one period or composer — I want to sing everything. Hey, I’m from Trinidad and Tobago. We could do anything! Everything! Anything you put in front of us — we know how to do it, because we were taught here in school to achieve anything. Convent was good for that. Part of my vision is to highlight that the classical artform is part of our heritage in Trinidad and Tobago, in its own right, and has influenced the evolution of folk and steelpan music and other indigenous artforms. It should not be dismissed but rather valued. So I want to keep working, keep my vision board in check, stay very close to God, and to keep spreading the message of equality and diversity through my music. I am just starting. Last year was a whirlwind, and it’s propelled me forward. The roles I have now are roles I want to do, should be doing, and safe for my voice, to help it grow. People might say that because of my age, there are other people starting earlier than me . . . or some people might say that I’m very young and I have a lot of time. I think that I am in a really perfect place right now. It couldn’t be more perfect, honestly, with my career. n
In November and December 2018, Jeanine de Bique will be performing in France, Italy, Germany, Hungary, Australia, and the United States. For more information on her schedule, visit jeaninedebique.com
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ARRIVE
Destination 70 Foodies' Barbados
St Lucia’s Marigot Bay
Escape 80 Picture-perfect
St Lucia
In the Bag 88 “A travel bag should
be a bit ugly”
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The TIDES RESTAURANT courtesy barbados tourism marketing inc
Foodies’ Barbados
An elegant meal at Sugar Cane Club Hotel and Spa Above right Seafood bursting with Bajan flavours
Did you know Barbados has declared 2018 the year of culinary experiences? The recently concluded Barbados Food and Rum Festival has become a highlight of the calendar for Caribbean foodies, and year-round the island offers ample delights for the stomach. Shelly-Ann Inniss recommends a parish-by-parish itinerary for eating and drinking your way across the landscape. Hope you’re hungry . . . WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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courtesy barbados tourism marketing inc
Enjoying the vibe — and the food — at the Friday-night fish fry in Oistins
St Michael It’s a daunting task that only true epicureans can conquer. It won’t happen in just a day or two, so pace yourself — start on an empty stomach, grab a road map, rev your engine, and let’s nyam our way through Barbados one parish at a time.
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A drive through this parish proves Barbados is neither quiet nor sleepy. Commercial, leisure, and educational activity booms in the southwest. A walk through the capital city Bridgetown leads to meals reminiscent of family reunions. Restaurants on Broad Street are renowned for generous portions of macaroni pie, sweet potato pie, creamed potato, cou-cou and flying fish, rice and peas with baked chicken and stewed meat. Oh, and a side of sweetbread with coconut in the centre. First-timers can enlist the help of Lickrish Food Tours for an in-depth experience. Buying a meal is simple, but obtaining the ingredients opens a world of theatrics. Celebrated calypsonian the Mighty Gabby sings:
Whether you’re heading into Bridgetown and its Garrison — a UNESCO World Heritage site — or leaving, there’s a landmark on Pebbles Beach you’ve got to pause at. Cuzz Café is sweet for so! Before Adam was a lad, this fish shack was satisfying locals and visitors alike with the best fish and cheese cutters in town.
Christ Church Barbados is the land of flying fish, and Bajans have proven over and again that they are true fish connoisseurs. Fish cakes (round saltfish fritters) burn like an eternal flame in the hearts of many. When you’re on the south coast, at any time of day, Oistins Bay Garden is definitely worth a stop for terrific budget dining. Many of the eateries next to the second-largest fish market in Barbados play the dual role of restaurant and bar. The catches of the day are prepared with your choice of sides, and you’ll even find a splendid serving of barbequed pork ribs on the menu. Outdoor family-style picnic tables provide an uninhibited, relaxed atmosphere as you dine roadside or around the amphitheatre. Or come back on Friday and Saturday night, and join the locals who gather for an after-work lime with dancing and karaoke. Let’s not forget Granny’s across the street! For over thirty years, queues have stretched into the parking lot as patrons patiently wait to taste Granny Walcott’s renowned chicken necks, gizzards, and livers. Her recipes continue to live on, though she’s no longer with us.
With aprons around their waists and heads traditionally wrapped to balance the loads on their heads, Bridgetown’s market vendors beckon eagerly to potential buyers. Most wear broad smiles while they engage in unpretentious friendly conversation. The sweet aromas of the fruits in season easily persuade you to grab a few banknotes from your stash. Nearby, the Rastafarian street market Temple Yard sells ital and vegetarian fare.
courtesy foodie nation TT
Bridgetown early, Saturday morning, See de women, how dem calling, Saying, come fuh ya breadfruit, come fuh ya corn, Come fuh de apples, fresh as de morn, Come fuh banana, come fuh potato, Come fuh de guava, de guava, de guava, de guavaaaaaaaaa.
Fried flying fish and macaroni pie at Sand Dunes Restaurant
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courtesy barbados tourism marketing inc
At a traditional rum shop, you can work up a thirst playing a game of road tennis
St Philip Spirits soar high in Barbados. For every church, a rumshop is close by. Traditional rumshops sport a spinoff design from traditional chattel houses, with three wide doors and two steps leading to the road. Over a thousand colourful shops with drinks branding are scattered around the island. Barbados, after all, is the birthplace of rum. And, given the Caribbean’s climate, a fiveyear-old rum has the maturity of a ten-year-old scotch whisky. What are you drinking? The slam of dominoes may greet you as you enter a rumshop. An intense game of draughts may be happening in the corner, too. Lively chatter fills the air while you sip an infamous Bajan rum punch. Some of the cheapest but
most scrumptious local food is found here, without the inflated prices of cosmopolitan eateries. Rum shop visits are entertaining, and so too is an exploration of Barbados’s distilleries, which all make internationally acclaimed rums. Although the Mount Gay Distillery is the oldest in the world, in this parish, the Foursquare Distillery and Heritage Centre brings high notes of enlightenment. The tours are insightful, and if you’d like to sample the beverage, there’s a fee of US$10. Leh we fire one for the road! Try not to be amazed if someone sings a rendition of this ditty: Hark the Herald Angels sing A gallon o’rum is just de t’ing Peace on earth and mercy mild A pint for a man and a gill for a child
St John
courtesy foodie nation tt
Many Bajans identify themselves as pork-mouths. One dreadful year, the island experienced a pigtail shortage. Desperate to quell the cravings and possibly earn money, someone broke into an establishment which sold “proper pork” to obtain some buckets of pigtail. Those were some serious times. Barbecued pigtail is generally a street food, but it’s also accessible in some restaurants islandwide. If you’re around on a Saturday, this day is dedicated to pudding and souse. The pudding is made from grated and
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steamed sweet potato, while the souse is pickled pig parts. It’s often accompanied by breadfruit. Two locations, a bit difficult to find but definitely worth getting lost for, are Lemon Arbour and the Souse Factory. People drive from all areas of Barbados for the lime and the food. One couple I know first met at one of these establishments, and years later it was the scene for the marriage proposal. Where there’s food, there’s love.
ST LUCY
ST PETER Speightstown ST JAMES
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Community spirit is palpable as you traverse this parish en route to the Flower Forest Botanical Gardens. Have you ever wondered what Barbados would have looked like before it was colonised and the landscape transformed by agriculture? These gardens paint a beautifully vivid picture. Complete serenity. Birds harmonise with each other, chirping in delightful melodies. Inhale deeply for the scent of ginger lilies. You’re caught midbreath as you take in the panoramic views towards the Atlantic Ocean and Scotland District. Here’s a good place to rest for a bit. Conkies — coconut, pumpkin, sweet potato, sugar, spices, raisins, and cornflour wrapped in banana leaves — are on offer at the café. Traditionally, conkies were prepared on Guy Fawkes Day (5 November), commemorating a failed attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in London. Since that colonial-era celebration has disappeared, conkies are now in abundance around Barbados’s Independence Day (30 November).
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St Andrew
courtesy barbados tourism marketing inc
Empty tour buses line the east coast road after offloading groups for picnics, surfing, and sunbathing. On Ermy Bourne Highway, a large tent above picnic tables catches your attention. Like an oasis in the desert, the Sand Dunes Bar and Restaurant stands out. There’s no official menu, except for a chalkboard highlighting the daily specials — mostly traditional Bajan cuisine. During the Christmas season, jug-jug (a meat and pigeon pea dish), great cake (black cake), and sorrel will make appearances on menus. Eat your heart out!
St Peter The second largest city in Barbados is named after William Speights, who once owned this land. Speightstown (pronounced Spites-town) is rich in history, and some of the colonial buildings still remain along Queen Street, Church Street, and Orange Street. Have you ever heard of lead pipes and meat rolls? Maybe salt bread? How about salt bread with two fish cakes, locally known as “a bread and two”? These can be found in just about any Speightstown bakery. They are perfect for a good breakfast or mid-morning snack. On Orange Street, head to P.R.C. Bakery for some of the most mouthwatering coconut slices, turnovers, and current slices on the island. Sometimes in the evening, mainly on Sundays, bread vans
Fried flying fish, a tradional Bajan snack
drive around Barbados honking their horns and yelling, “bread, bread, bread!” You may see them parked outside of workplaces selling baked goods, pumpkin or corned beef fritters, cutters, fish cakes, and bakes (the name is misleading since they are fried).
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courtesy barbados touyrism marketing inc
Pudding and souse, hors d'oeuvre–style
St Lucy
St Thomas
Generally off the beaten path, this parish is the only one named after a female patron saint. Located at the northern tip of the island, the Animal Flower Cave welcomes numerous return visitors. In the cave, small brightly coloured sea anemones, biologically classified as animals, play hide and seek. After eating so much, the cave is a good, dimly lit place to swim, especially if you’ve developed a slight paunch. Above the cavern, souvenir huts, spectacular views, and the North Point Restaurant overflow with Barbadian and West Indian flavour.
Magnificent stalactites and stalagmites run through caverns in Harrison’s Cave. Deep inside, near the cave’s lowest point, is a forty-foot waterfall dropping to a blue-green lake. Outside, vendors sell souvenirs and local sweets. A hard candy made with molasses, coconut, and sugar melts in your mouth. But when you hear what it’s called, try not to choke. The controversial black bitch has been having this effect on people from time immemorial. Other local sweets include guava cheese, nut cakes, tamarind balls, and sugar cakes.
St James
St George
Against the backdrop of the Caribbean Sea, the districts of Holetown and Sunset Crest are your oysters. Locally known as the Platinum Coast — due to the abundance of upscale hotels, resorts, golf courses, and shopping centres — this stretch offers endless choices for fine or casual dining. The Tides Restaurant breathes life into your culinary sojourn with elegance, and across the road, Just Grillin’ Restaurant exemplifies the true meaning of refreshment after a day at the beach — or, in this case, a road trip. Grilled mahi mahi seasoned with Bajan seasonings and love is a crowd favourite. Maybe you’ll catch a glimpse of DC United football player Wayne Rooney (formerly of Manchester United) leaving his villa when you’re in the area.
When traffic gets heavy around the island, this parish provides ample back roads to reach your destination. The Bulkeley Sugar Factory is a major landmark, although it’s no longer operational. The Portvale Sugar Factory (in St James) is the only working sugar factory remaining in Barbados. They’d be happy to give you a tour. Meanwhile, early on Saturday mornings (6 to 10 am) the Brighton Farmers Market on Brighton Plantation has become the meeting spot for those seeking a good bargain, plus breakfast and coffee. You may find roast corn and breadfruit, with some mauby too. Come rain or shine, this open-air market supplies produce, artisanal products, plants, and clothing. n
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The perfect way to end a Barbados road trip: with an ice-cold fresh coconut on the beach
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escape
Picture-perfect St Lucia Is St Lucia the most photogenic island in the Caribbean? Our photo album may just convince you. From soaring mountains to brilliant blue waters to friendly smiles, “the Helen of the West Indies” will fill your Instagram account with amazing images 80
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At the heart of Castries, St Lucia’s intimate capital, is the historic market — the place to come for fresh produce, charming craftwork, and vendors’ welcoming banter
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#fresh #buylocal #goodmorning
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The most iconic view of St Lucia: the twin Pitons, their steep slopes covered in lush forest, rising above the picturesque town of Soufrière
michael murray/alamy stock photo
#whataview #breathtaking #headforheights
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Rodney Bay, St Lucia’s tourism epicentre, has a spectacular beach and upscale restaurants and resorts, but it holds on to a relaxed vibe, with fishermen’s boats lined up near the old jetty
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#sun #sand #sea #timeforaswim
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From its elevated perch on Morne Fortune, Pink Plantation offers amazing views of Castries Harbour, an orchid-filled garden, and a spectacular French creole menu
At St Lucia’s southern tip, the town of Vieux Fort still boasts a handful of traditional gingerbread houses, with ornate fretwork and shady verandahs
#architecture #heritage #sayhello
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findlay/alamy stock photo
danielle devaux
#thinkpink #historic #bringyourappetite
On the outskirts of Soufrière, easily accessible by car, Toraille Falls are surrounded by flower-filled botanical gardens, and feature a plunge pool perfect for a refreshing dip
danielle devaux
#nature #wild #taketheplunge
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Sheltering Rodney Bay, Pigeon Island — now connected to the mainland by a man-made causeway — is one of St Lucia’s key historic sites, home over the centuries to indigenous Caribs, French pirates, and the British military
danielle devaux
#fort #panorama #forhistorybuffs
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ADVERTORIAL Bay Gardens Resorts Whether you’re looking for accommodations overlooking the marina, extraordinary island retreats, or suites on a stunning beach, Bay Gardens Resorts’ fantastic properties provide beautiful island getaways in St Lucia. This amazing offer is available to Caribbean nationals with rates starting at US$89, including free breakfast for two, access to Splash Island Water Park, unlimited nonmotorised water sports, and more! For more information on booking your ideal location for a fun and relaxing atmosphere, email us: info@baygardensresorts.com. Tranquility Getaway Less than ten minutes to the closest beach, Castries centre, and airport. Honeymoon suite, one- and twobedroom apartments, all modern amenities included. Private chef to indulge you. Conference room. Secure parking. Several patios for events. A friendly and courteous staff await you. www.tranquilitygetaway.com tranquilitygetaway758@gmail.com +1 758 458 2995 Coco Palm St Lucia’s award-winning four-star boutique hotel, located in the heart of the entertainment capital, caters to the independent traveller, for either work or pleasure. Offering personalised service with warm St Lucian hospitality, and authentic Caribbean cuisine at affordable prices.
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in the bag
“A travel bag should be a bit ugly”
A
bag, I’ve come to believe, should have a shape that conforms to your travelling needs. Most travel luggage is pretty straightforward. They are shells that offer varying levels of protection, a few pockets to organise the interior, but it’s just a hollow box for your stuff. It’s also what leaves you at the check-in counter. With a decreasing amount of space available for carry-ons, I need to make the gear I can’t do without fit shrinking restrictions. That’s led to reductions in the size of the devices I travel with, but there are things I absolutely need as a writer and photographer, and my shoulder bag remains the focus of my thinking whenever a trip gets booked. On my first professional travel assignment for computer journalism reporting, back in 2005, I crammed a laptop sleeve into the back pocket of a photographer’s bag, and hooked everything together with carabiners. It was hideous, but it protected camera gear and a laptop, with space for all the peripherals I’m yoked to for working remotely. It was also readily accessible
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Mark Lyndersay
Mark Lyndersay — photographer and writer — on the importance of a travel bag that keeps professional gear in shape, and doubles as a portable workspace for security searches and for disgorging equipment for separate scanning. Business trips often require multiple transfers, and sometimes jogs through an airport terminal to catch a connecting flight. Checked baggage is always more prone to tardy arrival or complete disappearance on such jaunts, so I try to keep everything with me. A small roller and a shoulder bag work well for my personal travel profile, but everything has to fit, even on smaller aircraft. I can work without fresh underwear, but I’m helpless without my devices, so the roller can go in the hold — but I need the shoulder bag, thank you. Over the years, I’ve worked with three different bags, seeking the best possible piece of hand luggage. The first, a hefty marriage of camera and laptop bag, eventually fell afoul of reduced dimensions for carry-ons. Its successor didn’t have a properly designed computer compartment, and offered too little protection for my taste, though it had the right shape. My travels began with a small DSLR kit, a fifteen-inch laptop, and all the chargers and transfer cables associated with making everything work. I’ve since scaled down to a prosumer point-and-
shoot, the Canon G1X, and the laptop is a thinner, lighter model. The current bag is the Urban Disguise 60, which comes with sensible pockets and a truly crazy number of separators. These are critical to keeping gear organised and accessible. The bag isn’t just for travel; it’s also a workspace once I arrive. When it comes to travel, form should follow function. A carry-on shoulder bag should attach firmly to the extensible handle of your roller. There’s nothing more appalling than having to stop a desperate run for a closing flight to adjust a bag that’s swinging wildly. Any travel bag should be anonymous, perhaps even a bit ugly. Bags that advertise expensive contents should be avoided at all costs, and while a carry-on should never leave your side, it shouldn’t make you a target. Eventually, it will have to sit on your shoulder, so confirm it has a strong, comfortable strap (same goes for backpacks). A truly great carry-on disappears. It fits where it needs to go. Pleases check-in staff and safety inspectors. And, most critically, keeps your gear with you, ready for action. n
Classic Image / Alamy Stock Photo
ENGAGE
Be Well 92 Finding the balance
Green 92 The secret life of
sunscreen
On This Day 94 The war after
the war
Trenches on the Somme battlefield during the First World War
be well
Finding the balance Practised for millennia in the Indian subcontinent, traditional ayurvedic medicine, with its focus on achieving both physical and spiritual balance, was brought to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century — and recently has been more widely adopted as a form of “alternative medicine.” Cate Young learns more, and talks to two practitioners who say ayurveda has helped them bring their lives and health into equilibrium Photography by frank60/Shutterstock.com
W
est Indians have always had a taste for “bush medicine.” Whether it’s orange peel tea for fever reduction and sore throat relief, bush baths for cleansing “maljo” and negative spirits, or ginger root for relieving gas pains, the knowledge that medicinal plants can be used for physical relief is not a foreign one. But a growing number are turning further east for relief. Enter ayurvedic medicine. Ayurveda — a Sanskrit word meaning “knowledge of longevity” — is a system of medicine practised for many centuries in the Indian subcontinent, and brought to the Caribbean in the nineteenth century by Indian immigrants. And over recent decades, certain elements of ayurveda have been adopted more broadly worldwide, often under the heading of “alternative medicine.” As its principles and practices have become more mainstream, they’ve found a wider audience and become integrated into more general wellness practices and medicinal use. Ayurveda teaches that the body is made up of doshas, or elemental substances — vata, pitta, and kapha — and that every person is a combination of these three. The Ayurvedic Guidebook and Cookbook for Modern Living describes the doshas as “biological energies found throughout the human
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body and mind [that] govern all physical and mental processes and provide every living being with an individual blueprint for health and fulfillment.” Each dosha represents a specific bodily constitution around which diet and exercise plans should be made. While there is as yet no scientific evidence that supports ayurveda’s supposed effectiveness, for many practitioners the proof is in the pudding. Dominique Samaroo, co-owner of Tobago’s Namaste Café food truck, says she was drawn to ayurvedic medicine as a means to heal her body. As a teen, she suffered from polycystic ovarian syndrome, and was often in debilitating pain for several days of the month. The birth control pill she was prescribed was masking her symptoms, but caused her to suffer from additional undesirable side effects like chronic fatigue and bad acne.
Long established in India — where up to eighty per cent of the population use some form of traditional medicine — and other countries on the subcontinent, ayurveda has often been promoted as “alternative medicine” in other parts of the world, especially since the 1960s. In recent years, the World Health Organisation has begun investigating whether and how ayurveda and other traditional medical practices could be integrated into modern healthcare, recognising its importance to many communities, especially in maintaining general health and preventing disease. According to the WHO’s Traditional Medicine Strategy, published in 2013, traditional and complementary medicine “is an important and often underestimated part of health care . . . A global strategy to foster its appropriate integration, regulation and supervision will be useful to countries wishing to develop a proactive policy towards this important — and often vibrant and expanding — part of health care.”
“I went on a vegetarian diet, but I found that it wasn’t enough for relief,” she says. “I eventually started taking supplements to help balance my hormones and clean my blood while I was refining my switch to veganism. Now I’m no longer on the supplements, and I’m not dependent on them the way I was dependent on the pill,” she explains. “Ayurveda is a healing system. I wanted something that would fix me rather than simply make the symptoms go away.” While she avoids doctors and has no independent verification of her results, Samaroo describes ayurveda as the means through which she was able to take back her life, and get back those many missing days during the month. “My skepticism about Western medicine is that the only solutions for my PCOS were to take the pill or have surgery. I wanted a natural remedy, and ayurveda helped me do that. Western medicine isn’t focused on healing the source of the problem, just cutting it out. It was too invasive.” “I found ayurveda in 2013 when I went to an ashram to do karma yoga,” Samaroo explains. “An ayurvedic doctor gave a presentation, and it appealed to me, because it made sense. It breaks down your personality type and body type and gives you specific solutions based on them. It seemed practical, and I like that it was about healing and not just medication to prevent pain.”
For Dominique and her mother Judith, with whom she owns and operates Namaste Café, ayurveda is similar in purpose to traditional Caribbean bush medicine — it simply finds its roots in Indian and Chinese traditional medicine. As yoga has become more of a fitness trend, ayurveda has also slowly entered the mainstream, with digital spaces cropping up around its practice — it’s often seen as the next step in a yogic life. According to Judith Samaroo, “it’s not really medicine, it’s an alternative lifestyle. This isn’t over-the-counter stuff, it’s stuff in your yard and things you’ve planted. It’s only medicine when you’re in ill health, because you need it to make you better.” For ayurvedic practitioners, there is a central spiritual balance that everyone is trying to achieve, and their choice of food along with meditation helps balance the natural body type and bring it into alignment. While it may seem counterintuitive to forgo medication in favour of food, for those who follow ayurvedic principles, the focus on diet and lifestyle is about managing the two, avoiding side effects, and finding a holistic approach to healing themselves. n
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green
The secret life of sunscreen The blazing rays of the tropical sun can take a heavy toll on your skin — which is why most beachgoers and swimmers in the Caribbean slather on a layer of protective sunscreen before they disrobe. But the very chemicals that protect human skin can be toxic for corals — and the Caribbean’s reefs pay the price. Erline Andrews investigates Photography by photopixel/Shutterstock.com
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ragments of Hope is an award-winning nonprofit in Belize, committed to saving coral reefs decimated by climate change, pollution, and other phenomena related to human activity. On the group’s
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regularly updated Facebook page, there are photos of volunteers and researchers chest-deep in clear Belizean sea water going about the work of creating coral nurseries, where they raise young coral on small plates to later be transplanted to areas that need replenishing.
The men and women are dressed in long-sleeved tops and in caps or hats with brims so wide that their faces are obscured. One volunteer’s face is covered except for the eyes with a bandana, and another wears what looks like a beekeeper’s mask. What might seem like strange attire for time spent in the sun and sea is explained in captions above two photographs. “No sunscreen allowed, thus our big hats,” is the text above one photo. “Covered up from the sun, no sunscreen allowed!” is written above another. If you want to find out why sunscreen should alarm people concerned about coral reefs, the Fragments of Hope Facebook page is a good place to start. In multiple posts, the NGO shares information about studies that have found the widespread use of sunscreen by swimmers, divers, and other people who enter the sea is having a detrimental impact on marine life, particularly corals. A study conducted by a team of researchers from the National Centres
for Coastal Ocean Science and published in the 13 December, 2013, issue of the journal Ecotoxicology found that the chemical ingredient in most sunscreens that protects consumers from ultraviolet light also kills young corals, and contributes to coral bleaching: it causes them to lose the coating of algae that gives them protection and their vibrant colour. The chemical contaminates the marine environment not only through people entering the sea but indirectly through users washing it off in the shower — that water eventually reaches the sea through the sewer system. “Please read and share widely! And buy your lycra skins and big hats!” is the exhortation from Fragments of Hope above the link to the study. When Hawaii moved to ban products with oxybenzone and two similar sunscreen chemicals earlier this year, Fragments of Hope posted the news along with the message, “maybe Belize can be next.” The organisation has shared a link to the short film Reef at Risk, a compelling look at the issue from a team of Hawaiian filmmakers, and even screened the film at primary schools in Belize as part of an outreach pro-
Save the coral, and your skin One 2015 estimate says that 14,000 tons of sunscreen end up in the world’s oceans each year — adding to the numerous other man-made substances that pollute the sea. Oxybenzone and octinoxate are the two sunscreen ingredients thought to do most damage to reefs by bleaching corals. But there are other sunscreen ingredients you should to avoid, such as titanium dioxide, which reacts in warm saltwater to create hydrogen peroxide. So what’s the most eco-friendly sunscreen that will also save your skin from UV damage? Experts recommend zinc oxide, which some sunscreen manufacturers now offer as a reef-friendly alternative.
vice providers now request that clients wear what’s referred to as “reef-safe” sunscreen, which uses alternatives to oxybenzone. St George’s Caye Resort, for example, offers reef-safe sunscreen for sale at their gift shop. And the rest of the Caribbean is slowly taking steps, too. In May, Bonaire’s Island Council followed in the footsteps of Hawaii, and banned products containing oxybenzone and the similarly harmful chemical octinoxate. Scientists from Wageningen University in the Nether-
The chemical ingredient in most sunscreens that protects consumers from ultraviolet light also kills young corals gramme. “We are surprised how many people are still unaware of the issues relating to sunscreen and coral reefs,” says Monique Vernon, Fragments of Hope’s outreach officer. The organisation is working with the Belize Tourism Board to educate tour operators about the issue — in turn, they hope the operators will help educate their clients.
T
here’s good reason why average Belizeans and regular visitors to the country should want to know about the harmful effects of sunscreen. The Belize Barrier Reef, one of the world’s largest, is the habitat for a wide variety of coral and fish species, and supports the country’s fishing and tourism industries. Awareness is slowly spreading, and a number of Belizean tour ism ser-
lands have been studying the effects of the chemicals in waters around the island. Elsewhere in the Dutch Caribbean, Sint Maar ten’s env ironmental NGO Nature Foundation has started urging residents and visitors to “avoid sunscreens with oxybenzone, use sunscreens with a combination of zinc and titanium, use lotions not sprays, apply sunscreen at least thirty minutes before entering the water, and avoid sunscreen factors above fifty,” according to a press release. The last three bits of advice help reduce the amounts of harmful sunscreen that gets into the water. “The coral reefs of Sint Maarten, especially in the Man of War Shoal Marine Protected Area, contribute significantly to the economy of Sint Maarten and all steps should be taken by the community to
protect this very important resource,” the release explains. Craig Downs, the lead researcher behind the 2013 study, has also conducted research in the Bahamas and Barbados at the request of NGOs there. He says it’s too soon to share his findings. “The Caribbean overall is slow to respond,” says Downs in an email exchange. “This is reasonable, because until someone does the science — and determines levels of UV chemicals along the coast in that country — that country will not recognise it as a problem. “So more groups need to do some environmental sampling and assessment,” he continues. “Many countries may not have the technical equipment or infrastructure to analyse samples, but there are commercial service companies in the US and in Europe who can do these analyses.” Monique Vernon of Fragments of Hope shares similar sentiments. The organisation would like to see “more research into the potential hazards of sunscreen chemicals into the environment, and providing choices to alternative sunscreen use,” she says. The organisation maintains contact with Craig Downs and his team. “ T hey ca n’t endor se ‘ree f- sa fe’ sunscreen until those other chemicals undergo the very same research,” explains Vernon. “Until further testing can be done, we can recommend the use of protective clothing.” So next time you see someone swimming in long sleeves and a wide-brimmed hat, it may not be a fashion choice — but an attempt to keep coral reefs uncontaminated and healthy. n
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on this day
The war after the war Thousands of men from the British West Indies enlisted in the armed forces during the First World War, playing a crucial but often thankless role in the Allied victory. And when the fighting was over, another struggle for respect and recognition began — feeding a new wave of self-determination in the Caribbean. James Ferguson remembers the events of a century ago that set it all in motion Illustration by Rohan Mitchell
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couple of issues ago I told the story of the First World War hero Walter Tull, the grandson of a Barbados plantation slave who went on to become a ground-breaking professional footballer before enlisting in the British Army and gaining promotion to the rank of lieutenant — the first non-white soldier ever to do so. Tull’s experience, though it ended tragically in the mud of northern France in March 1918, showed at least that an exceptional individual could shrug off the institutional racism of the British military establishment in the early twentieth century and set an example of self-sacrifice. Tull was not alone among people from the Caribbean or of Caribbean descent in wanting to play a part in the war effort, and to assist the imperial “motherland.” When conflict broke out in Europe in July 1914, thousands of men across the region volunteered to join the army. Some may have been inspired by patriotic idealism, others were perhaps keener to escape the hardships of an economically and socially stagnant colonial backwater — but the enthusiasm was real enough, and considerable numbers made their way to Britain under their own steam.
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The response of the War Office was at first negative, as the prevailing racism of the day questioned the volunteers’ loyalty and commitment. But pragmatism took over as casualties mounted on the Western Front, and in 1915 it was decided to form an exclusively Caribbean regiment, the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR). The First Battalion was comprised of volunteers who had already been accepted into other regiments, members of the much older West India Regiment — a body founded during the Napoleonic Wars to defend British colonial territories — and, finally, new recruits from Jamaica, Barbados, and British Honduras (Belize). When formal training began in Sussex in September 1915, the BWIR numbered 15,600 men, two-thirds from Jamaica, and with sizable contingents from Trinidad and Tobago, the Bahamas, and the smaller islands of the eastern Caribbean. Many of these men would have been bitterly disappointed, as it became evident that they were seen less as a fighting force than as a supply of cheap, albeit vital, labour. In the Somme, for instance, they were put to work digging trenches, stockpiling munitions, and building roads in the thick mud. It was gruelling but also dangerous work, since they were within shelling and sniping
range of the German front line. Some battalions were sent to the Middle East, Egypt and Palestine in particular, and here they saw some direct action, participating in driving the remaining Ottoman forces from the region after the Battle of Jerusalem in 1917. Two men won the Military Medal for valour, and the commanding officer of the BWIR, Major General Sir Edward Chaytor, wrote: “Outside my own division there are no troops I would sooner have with me than the BWIs who have won the highest opinions of all those who have been with them during our operations here.”
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igh opinions aside, many in the regiment nursed grievances, sensing they were being treated as secondrate personnel, useful for hard physical work but not for real combat. There were many instances of discrimination and poor treatment, as in March 1916, when a troop ship carrying recruits from Jamaica was diverted into a freezing blizzard near Halifax, Canada, leading to five deaths and more than a hundred amputations due to frostbite among men who had been given no cold weather clothing. BWIR personnel were routinely discriminated against in terms of pay, accommodation, and
promotion. As the war drew to a close, resentment simmered, leading to an episode in November and December 1918, exactly a century ago, that was more or less unprecedented in the history of the conflict. It occurred in the southern Italian port city of Taranto, where eight of the BWIR’s battalions were gathered together after their time in France, or having been shipped back from the Middle East and Mesopotamia prior to demobilisation after the Armistice of 11 November. While other troops were allowed to rest, the Caribbean men were ordered to work, loading ships, moving supplies, and even digging latrines for white soldiers. They were also forbidden to enter Taranto itself. To make matters worse, word spread that other regiments had been awarded a pay raise, but that the BWIR had not, on the grounds that it was a “native” regiment. At this point, tempers boiled over. A previous polite petition complaining about discrimination had been sent to the authorities by men of the First and Second Battalions in August, but was flatly ignored. Then on 6 December, soldiers from the Ninth Battalion simply refused to work, followed three days later by the Tenth. Another petition to the Secretary of State, signed by 180 sergeants, outlined the men’s grievances and demanded equal treatment. This was nothing less than a mutiny, though it was mainly peaceful, except when several officers, who were trying to maintain discipline, were assaulted. One private was shot dead by an NCO, allegedly in self-defence. With the protests threatening to escalate, the top brass at Taranto sent for help, with the Worcestershire Regiment, armed with machine guns, answering the appeal. In the ensuing imposition of order, writes Steven Johns, “Approximately sixty soldiers were later tried for mutiny, and those convicted received sentences ranging from three to five years, but one man got twenty years, while another was executed by firing squad. The BWIR itself was disbanded in 1921.” In the process of demobilisation, the battalions were repatriated under armed escort. With a revealing taste for vindictiveness, the authorities banned them from any victory parade, especially in London. But the genie was out of the bottle, and the experience of the BWIR fed directly into a wave of militancy and nationalism across the Caribbean in the 1920s and 30s, which would eventually lead to greater self-determination and independence. Better organised and more confident after their wartime experience, ex-soldiers returned to every Caribbean colony with a new sense of mission. And, as Johns points out, their erstwhile superiors now understood that something would have to give: A secret colonial memo from 1919, uncovered by researchers for a Channel 4 programme on the Taranto mutiny, showed that the British government realised that everything had changed, too: “Nothing we can do will alter the fact that the black man has begun to think and feel himself as good as the white.” By the end of the war, 185 BWIR personnel had been killed in action, and 1,071 of disease. It was not, as we know, “the war to end all wars,” but it was certainly a defining moment in the English-speaking Caribbean’s quest for independence. n
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Spot the Difference
by Gregory St Bernard There are 12 differences between these two pictures. How many can you spot?
Spot the Difference answers Candy cane from top section of tree is removed; red ribbon of bow on wreath is shorter; candy cane is added to woman’s Afro; colours of woman’s Afro are switched; blue decoration on tree is larger; shades are removed from Kaiso’s face; stripes on Kaiso’s jersey have changed direction; bracelet is added to Kaiso’s left wrist; “C” at end of Kaiso’s cap is changed to “K”; colours of stripes on candy canes in Kaiso’s hand are swapped; Christmas present is smaller; background colour is different.
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classic
Sweltering Santa
james hackett
A Christmas favourite from the magazine archives, first published in our November/ December 2004 issue
T
he Santa suit was made of wool, and the tall black boots would hardly go over my feet. The jacket buttoned up to my neck. I fastened the long white beard behind my ears with elastic, and glued on the shaggy white eyebrows. I donned the Santa hat and rang the Santa bell. “Ho ho ho,” I said cautiously. The sack of Christmas gifts was heavy, since every child had to get one, but I found I could swing it over my shoulder without staggering too much. The real trouble was visual. “Take those glasses off, man,” clucked Pearl, who had organised the party. “Santa don’t wear glasses!” I protested. Santa is getting on in years and must need glasses by now, if not a walker. But Pearl was adamant. So Santa could hardly see. He groped. People were a vague blur.
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“Ho ho ho,” I said again. It didn’t sound very jolly yet. Pearl didn’t think so either. “Louder!” she commanded. I puffed up my chest, swung the sack of gifts and nearly overbalanced. I heard Pearl sigh. “Santa’s got to sound really jolly,” Pearl said, “so all the kids will come running to him as soon as they hear him.” “Ho ho ho!” I bellowed. Sweat was trickling down my face and into my eyes. It was three in the afternoon, the sun was blazing, and there was no breeze. Pearl pushed me out into the garden where the kids were playing. “Hey guys,” she called, “Look who’s here!” “Ho ho ho!” I said loudly. Nobody took any notice. I brandished my bell. “Ho ho HO!” I roared, swinging the sack of goodies off my shoulder and accidentally felling what seemed like a young girl. She started to cry.
“Look what I’ve got here!” I cried, delving into the sack. Some of the kids drifted over, with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. “The first one is for . . .” I sat down, pulled out the first wrapped gift, and peered at the label. I couldn’t read it. No glasses. “Well,” I said lamely, “who’s going to come and help Santa read the labels?” I detected giggling and steupsing. But the girl I’d knocked down came and sat on my knee, sniffing loudly, and read out the names in a piercing voice. “Jason!” she began. Out of the haze a figure appeared, and I thrust the gift at where I guessed its hands should be. The hands ripped the wrapping off right away and the figure shouted “O gyad, My First Encyclopaedia of History,” and steupsed loudly. When the sack was empty, the child beside me said, “Santa, why you so wet?” I was sodden, it was true. Try playing Santa in ninety-five-degree-Fahrenheit tropical heat, in a woollen suit. “Well,” I explained, “Santa lives at the North Pole, so the Caribbean’s a bit hot for him.” “Are you really Santa?” she said accusingly. “I think you’re a friend of my daddy.” I beamed reassuringly. But the child persisted. “So how come there’s another Santa in the mall? And another Santa that came to our school on Tuesday?” “A h,” I said. Sherlock Holmes, I presume. I had seen the mall’s Santa: he worked in air-conditioning, and he was surrounded by dwarves, cotton-wool snow, and plastic pines. “I’ll tell you a secret,” I whispered. “Nobody sees the real Santa, because Santa has to be in so many places at the same time, all over the world. So he has lots of special assistant Santas, like me — ” “Hey,” the child screamed in horror, “this isn’t the real Santa, and he can’t even read!” “No no no,” I cried, scrambling to my feet, sodden now with shame as well as sweat. “Of course I’m the real Santa, I’m off to the North Pole tonight, ho ho ho!” “Yeah right,” said the child. Pearl’s voice snapped: “Now look what you’ve done, you jackass!” There’s no gratitude in this world any more, I tell you. n
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