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Contents No. 158 • July/August 2019
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80 66
EMBARK
20 Wish you were here
Grand Cayman’s undersea caves
22 Need to know
Essential info to help you make the most of July and August across the Caribbean — from Reggae Sumfest in Jamaica to Carifesta in T&T
38 Bookshelf and playlist
IMMERSE
48 Panorama
Far and near Suriname’s indigenous communities walk a line between the traditional and the contemporary, distance and proximity — documented in a new book of photographs by Milton Kam
60 Backstory
Cuban filmmaker Arturo Infante talks about his new sci-fi feature, The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste García
Strong and sweet Just nineteen years old and five feet tall, Mikayla Simpson, better known as Koffee, boasts an outsize talent that’s made her the rising queen of Jamaican reggae. And a relentlessly positive attitude drives her success, reports Nazma Muller
44 Cookup
66 snapshot
Our reading and listening picks
42 screenshots
FIRE up There’s nothing like cooking on an open fire, says Franka Philip. As she prepares to light her grill, she takes inspiration from two popular Instagram chefs, and shares tips for a meaty open-flame menu 12
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“It was never my goal to blend in” Haitian-Japanese-American Naomi Osaka is a visible hybrid — which means things haven’t always been straightforward for the tennis champion. 2018 was Osaka’s
breathrough year, writes Caroline Taylor, but along with Grand Slam success has come the need to figure out how to be a role model ARRIVE
72 Explore
Carnival city Elsewhere in Cuba, people celebrate Carnival in February. But in Santiago, the country’s second-largest city, the season for festivity is July. And Santiago Carnival’s historic and even revolutionary elements are thriving, writes Donna Yawching
CaribbeanBeat CaribbeanBeat An MEP publication
80 Destination
In the pink You can find every colour of the rainbow across the seven hundred islands of the Bahamas — but a certain rosy tint keeps drawing the eye
88 Bucket List
Brimstone HilL Sometimes called “The Gibraltar of the Caribbean,” this massive hilltop fortress in St Kitts is a monument to a more violent era, when colonial powers vied for Antillean supremacy ENGAGE
90 Discover
Archaeology’s eye in the sky Rediscovered in the nineteenth century, the Mayan civilisation of Central America has been charted by archaeologists hacking away dense rainforest with machetes. Now new developments in LiDAR technology have revealed thousands of hidden structures under the forest canopy, potentially rewriting history, learns Erline Andrews
94 on this day
Get a kick Eighty years ago, an undersea eruption alerted scientists to the existence of a submerged volcano north of Grenada, Kick ’Em Jenny. The name may sound comic, but as James Ferguson reports, the volcanoes that have shaped the Caribbean’s geography also pose a potential threat to lives and livelihoods
96 puzzles
Editor Nicholas Laughlin General manager Halcyon Salazar Design artists Kevon Webster, Kriston Chen Production manager Jacqueline Smith Web editor Caroline Taylor Editorial assistants Shelly-Ann Inniss, Kristine De Abreu 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
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 2019. 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
Enjoy our crossword and more!
104 classic
A dip into Caribbean Beat’s archives: Philip Sander goes to Kingston’s Bob Marley Museum and encounters a very special piece of kitchen equipment . . .
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 Tennis champ Naomi Osaka plays for Japan, but she cherishes her Haitian roots Photo Adam Pretty/Getty Images
JADE MONKEY
This issue’s contributors include: Erline Andrews (“Archaeology’s eye in the sky”, page 90) 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.
EAT
Andre Bagoo (“Walk in Pride”, page 30) is a Trinidadian poet, journalist, and arts writer, author of four books of poems, most recently Pitch Lake (2017) and The City of Dreadful Night (2018). Milton Kam (“Far and near”, page 48) is a Surinameborn cinematographer whose work includes over twenty feature films and numerous TV series. Points of Recognition: Suriname’s Indigenous Peoples in the 21st Century is his first book of photography.
PLAY
Nazma Muller (“Strong and sweet”, page 60) is a Trinidad-born, Jamaica-obsessed writer who has worked in newsrooms in T&T, Jamaica, and the UK. Trinidadian Caroline Taylor (“It was never my goal to blend in”, page 66) makes a living doing what she loves most: telling stories. That includes acting (and directing) in theatre, film, and TV productions, and writing and editing for both print and online publications. Donna Yawching (“Carnival city”, page 72) is a journalist and longtime contributor to Caribbean Beat. Born in Trinidad, she is based in Toronto, and has lived on several continents and travelled widely.
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A MESSAGE From OUR CEO
There are many other exciting events taking place in these busy months of July and August. Please check the Need to Know section on page 22 for more details on how Caribbean Airlines can take you there. Soon we hope to have even more routes connecting the Caribbean and the Diaspora. Subject to approval by the Civil Aviation Authority of Trinidad and Tobago, and the authorities in Grand Cayman and Cuba, we hope to add the following to our network:
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• Kingston–Grand Cayman: twice weekly on Tuesday and Saturday, from July • Kingston–Havana: twice weekly on Wednesday and Saturday, from late July • Trinidad–Curaçao: twice weekly on Monday and Friday, from August
We’re always striving to make the travel experience smoother and more comfortable for our customers. Having all the information and options you need at your fingertips definitely helps — which is why we are introducing your all-in-one travel partner, the Caribbean Airlines Mobile App. The app makes booking and managing your travel experience easy and dynamic. On your preferred device, you can book flights to all Caribbean Airlines and interline partner destinations. When booking, you can pay for your Caribbean Plus Seat, extra baggage, or to select your seat using the interactive seat map. From that point on, you can manage the booking, check in, use your digital boarding pass, and keep tabs on your flights or any changes to your journey. Of course, it will also retain your Caribbean Airlines Miles number and other travel details. The app also has the ability for you
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to book flights between Tobago and Trinidad, and pay in Trinidad and Tobago dollars! Via the app, you also have easy access to car and hotel bookings, flight schedules, other Caribbean products such as Caribbean Upgrade and Club Caribbean, and to live chat and the help centre if you need assistance with the app or your travel. There are more features to come, so try it out and see what a difference it makes to your journeys through the Caribbean and beyond. We hope one of those journeys may take you to one of the many events and festivals that take place every year throughout the region. As part of our Caribbean Identity campaign, we are the Official Airline for many of the Carnivals taking place at this time of year. This includes Barbados Crop Over, which runs from May until early August.
So many options, so many exciting places to visit. Please make the most of them, and enjoy the benefits of our Mobile App in helping you get there the easy way — with Caribbean Airlines.
Garvin Medera Chief Executive Officer
The Mas is real By Sunity Maharaj
A
s the curtain fell on the closing decade of the twentieth century, the world seemed poised to enter a brave new future beyond boundaries and barriers. Spurred on by the rapid evolution of digital technology, the globalisation of capital and industry cut highways through national markets and cultural hideouts, leaving its brand wherever it went, like immigration stamps on a global passport. Then, within the space of a decade or so, as the old order of the twentieth century peered closer into the new, it baulked and pulled back, panicked by the face of change so unlike its own. The rise of nationalism in the heart of the industrialised world sets the stage for an epic battle between the old world and the new. Whichever one prevails will set the terms and shape the future. When the old and the new last collided in the Americas, over five hundred years ago, the terms were settled by the rising technological power of the new with its guns, germs, and steel, as Jared Diamond so succinctly put it. Today, what was once new is the old, fighting to maintain its hold on a world that is slipping through its gnarled fingers. In contention are competing ideas of twenty-first-century globalisation. One is sculpted in the shape of recolonisation with its ideology of resource exploitation and wealth transfer; the other marks the arrival of once marginalised peoples demanding a place at the table of power and a fundamental re-ordering of the values underpinning the global economy. In this borderless world, geography is re-contoured into The Caribbean Identity is a concept to which we can all relate. It is an affirmation of what makes us unique as a people and a region. It is also the theme of Caribbean Airlines’ corporate campaign. Through The Caribbean Identity, the airline is showcasing the best of our Caribbean region and reflecting this across the airline’s identity, in its branding, community activities, and presence at festivals and major events. The campaign has resonated with the people of the region and beyond, and given us the impetus to reach out to some of the Caribbean’s leading minds to get their take on this movement: The Caribbean Identity.
a place of the mind, where the answer to the question of “who am I?” is “it depends.” In this world of shifting identity, few people are as comfortable as those of the Caribbean. Here, identity is a matrix of cultural variables, where historical disconnection has bequeathed a blank sheet for self-design and identity re-creation, expressed so vibrantly in Carnival. For us, the Mas is real. The psychic elasticity of playing ourselves as another is an act of liberation from the identities assigned to us by a history of denial, including denial of our very humanity. Through Mas, we re-present ourselves to the world in identities crafted from unfettered imaginations, drawing on the dreams which were once the only relic of our stolen humanity. In our dreams, we were kings and queens, bold and beautiful, vengeful and defiant, creatures of the underworld and lords of the sky. All of these Carnival makes real. This is not a fete nor is it madness; it is a people’s quest for self-recovery and wholeness from a broken past. “Break a vase, and the love that reassembles the fragments is stronger than that love which took its symmetry for granted when it was whole,” wrote the poet Derek Walcott. In this quest, there is no map to guide us in re-charting the ruin on the way to higher and holier ground. Like so much else, it must be invented out of memory and myth. In this way, we can will identity into being, weaving a piece of this into a piece of that, crafting characters like no other, out of an experience like no other. The choice is ours, to accept being a nobody or a nation, to borrow an idea from Walcott. Across the arc of this archipelago of islands, Caribbean identity is an uneven absorption, to a degree more or less of influences from the Indigenous Caribbean, the Spanish Caribbean, the Portuguese Caribbean, the French Caribbean, the English Caribbean, the Dutch Caribbean, the German Caribbean, the Danish Caribbean, the Latvian Caribbean, the African Caribbean, the Indian Caribbean, the Chinese Caribbean, the United States Caribbean, the Javanese Caribbean, the Jewish Caribbean, the Arab Caribbean, and a multitude of permutations of all of the above, and more. Cutting across countries of origin are other categories of religion, colour, race, class, age, gender, sexual orientation, and yet more. In another world, this would merely describe the cosmopolitan. But not in the Caribbean, where identity was forged from a love of liberty so powerful that the individualism of self-representation remains the preferred form of political and social organisation, almost two hundred years after emancipation. Sunity Maharaj is a journalist and research fellow at the Lloyd Best Institute of the Caribbean This essay is the first in a series written by eminent thinkers from across the region, reflecting on The Caribbean Identity and what it is and can be
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wish you were here
Undersea caves, Grand Cayman Grand Cayman’s offshore topography makes it an adventure diver’s paradise: vertiginous undersea walls plunging thousands of feet into the depths, winding canyons, plus a series of submerged caves teeming with fish and corals, where light filters eerily from the surface through pristine water. Starting at the end of July 2019, Grand Cayman will be Caribbean Airlines’ newest destination, with direct flights from Kingston, Jamaica, and connections to other destinations.
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Ethan Daniels / Alamy Stock Photo
NEED TO KNOW
M. Timothy O’Keefe/Alamy Stock Photo
Essential info to help you make the most of July and August: what to do, where to go, what to see!
Don’t Miss Tobago Heritage Festival Have you ever travelled somewhere and wondered what the culture is truly like? Tobago offers endless opportunities to become immersed in its rich traditions from mid-July to early August, at the annual Tobago Heritage Festival. Village communities across the island host daily events bringing longtime practices to life, telling stories about history and identity. The Moriah Ole Time Wedding is a classic, and if you love folktales, there are plenty creative spirits in Les Couteaux. “Dance the cocoa” in the time-honoured technique for drying cocoa beans, or head to the Pembroke Salaka to witness the bélé, a dance with roots in the Congo. Shelly-Ann Inniss 22
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How to get there? Caribbean Airlines operates several flights daily to A.N.R. Robinson International Airport in Tobago from its headquarters in Trinidad, with connections to other destinations in the Caribbean and North and South America
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need to know
All About . . . Mango season One of the most popular fruits on the planet is the mango. In fact, it’s known as the “king of fruit” worldwide. Here in the Caribbean, mouths water in anticipation even before mango trees are covered in buds, much less the ripe fruit, and mango connoisseurs argue over their favourite varieties. There’s no doubt mangoes create hits, literally. Did you know the first calypso ever recorded was “Mango Vert” in 1912 by the Trinidadian group Lovey’s String Band? Ever wondered what other fun facts this sweet fruit bears? Here’s a roundup of mango trivia to boost your credentials. The word “mango” is derived from the Tamil word “mangkay” or “mangay.” When Portuguese traders settled in Western India, it became “manga.” The mango tree is a symbol of love and family. In Jamaica, an ancient mango tree called the Kindah Tree plays a significant role in the Maroon village of Accommpong, St Elizabeth. This is where Captain Cudjoe held meetings 24
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to bring the Ashanti, Coromante, and Congo tribes together in the fight against the British. Mango trees start to produce fruit after four years. Some trees still bear fruit even after three hundred years — yes, they live that long. In the Caribbean, the phrase “go mango walk” means to steal someone’s fruit.
The heaviest mango ever recorded, according to the Guinness Book of World Records in 2009, weighed 7.57 pounds. Mangoes are the official national fruit of India, Pakistan, and the Philippines. And the unofficial national fruit of every island in the Caribbean big enough to grow a tree. SAI How do passionate people celebrate mango season? You can find out at the Antigua Mango Festival (running from 6 to 7 July) and the St Kitts and Nevis Mango Festival (4 to 7 July)
need to know
Word of Mouth Reggae Sumfest Reggae is the pulse of Jamaica, and that pulse beats strongest come July, as Reggae Sumfest (14 to 20 July) brings thousands of music fans together to experience the island’s biggest performers. Reggae superfan Johnnel Smith has travelled to over forty destinations worldwide, observing and analysing how countries and cities use their unique culture as a tool for attracting visitors. But she never misses Sumfest, as she explains in this Q&A.
So what is Reggae Sumfest?
To me, it’s the world’s greatest Jamaican reggae and dancehall music festival. It offers a platform for new artists to showcase their talent, and for well-established artists to put forward the best of Jamaica’s music. It brings together other aspects of Jamaican culture and is staged with a backdrop of one of the most beautiful tourist destinations. We dance, sing along, and give our favourite artist a “forward,” which means to start the song again when we are pleased with their performance. A Jamaican audience is one of the hardest audiences to please, so performers don’t hold back.
When did you first attend?
I have been attending the festival since 2013. Once a new artist “buss” [i.e. performs for the first time] at Reggae Sumfest, their career usually takes off from there, and it’s always good to say you saw them first before they become immensely popular.
What’s your favourite Sumfest event?
There are so many good things about the festival that it’s hard to choose one. Dancehall night is always a must-see. All the top artists perform and they all try to out-do each other. There is always an undercover rivalry for the best performance of the night.
How has the festival changed throughout the years?
Prior to 2016, the festival had a focus on bringing international artists to Jamaica. Many were trending hip-hop or R&B artists, along with a few reggae and dancehall artists. In 2016, the new organiser Josef Bogdanovich [of DownSound Records] gave a resurgence to the festival and brought back the emphasis and essence of reggae music. That is what the locals and tourists want — only the best of Jamaican music.
Which acts are you looking forward to seeing in 2019?
This year will be epic! Headlining the festival are Beres Hammond, Buju Banton, and Chronixx [pictured at left]. That’s like having the grandfather, father, and son of reggae music on one stage. All legends in their own right.
What are your tips for first-timers? Courtesy Reggae Sumfest
Wear comfortable shoes, bring blankets and portable chairs if you get tired easily and might like to rest in between acts. Forget all your worries for the night! When that music hits you, you feel no pain. Interview by Shelly-Ann Inniss
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need to know
Courtesy Tate Britain/©Frank Bowling. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2018
On View Frank Bowling at Tate Britain
Courtesy Tate Britain/© Alastair Levy
Some would argue it’s forty years overdue. The Frank Bowling retrospective at London’s Tate Britain — which opened at the end of May and runs until 26 August — is the first full career-wide survey of the Guyana-born artist, now eighty-five years old and still working daily in his studio. “The possibilities of paint are neverending,” Bowling says, and the range of his experimentation with the medium is on stunning display in the Tate’s galleries. Born in 1934 in the town of New Amsterdam, Bowling left what was then called British Guiana at the age of nineteen, for postwar London. His first inclination was to write poems, but after enrolling at the Royal College of Art he began a six-decade study of technique, colour,
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shape, and texture. A move to New York in 1966 triggered a decisive shift away from figurative painting towards abstraction and Bowling’s celebrated map paintings, in which stencilled maps of continents and countries float above fields of luminous colour. The 1970s saw another major shift in technique, as Bowling devised a technique of pouring layers of thinned paint over tilted canvases, to sometimes psychedelic effect, with elements of chance and accident creating unpredictable cascades of colour. The latter part of the Tate exhibition follows Bowling as he increasingly experiments with unusual textures, incorporating gels and foams, beeswax, chalk, and glitter, and even found objects and fabrics into his canvases, creating surfaces that tempt the viewer’s fingertips. Bowling’s later paintings offer few obvious hints of biography, but as the artist describes it, a return trip to Guyana in 1989 produced a significant revelation. “‘When I looked at the landscape in Guyana,” he says, “I understood the light in my pictures is a very different light . . . It occurred to me for the first time, in my fifties, that the light is about Guyana.” Thirty years later, that remembered light still glows in the astonishing works of an insatiably curious artist, whose total oeuvre is at last visible.
Courtesy Tate Britain/© Frank Bowling. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2019
Opposite page above Iona Miriam’s Christmas Visit To & From Brighton (2017, acrylic paint and plastic objects on collaged canvas, 1890 x 1225 mm; Frank Bowling and Hales Gallery, Alexander Gray Associates, and Marc Selwyn Fine Art) Above South America Squared (1967, acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 2430 x 2740 mm; Rennie Collection, Vancouver)
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need to know
Maria Nunes
Rainbow flags fly high at T&T’s first-ever Pride Parade in 2018
Own Words Walk in Pride As T&T prepares to celebrate its second-ever Pride Parade, Andre Bagoo explains why the visibility of identity feels so potent Moko jumbies, feathers, glitter, confetti, hot pants, bikinis and beads — Trinidad and Tobago’s Pride Parade is basically Carnival in July. You’ll see women wearing pink triangle t-shirts gyrating alongside drag queens with big wigs and Swan Lake-inspired tutus. You’ll see ecstatic muscle Marys, daddies, bears, twinks, and twunks. There’ll be music trucks crammed with so many boom boxes they might burst. You’ll hear soca and vintage calypso one minute, Rihanna and Madonna the next. Fall under the spell of hundreds marching in sync, chipping, wining to the same heartbeat of freedom, equality, love. Think Mardi Gras, think Rio de Janeiro — but in a 30
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small, wildly multicultural country a few miles off the South American coast with a population comprised of the descendents of enslaved Africans, East Indian indentured labourers, migrants from Europe, China, and, more recently, its closest neighbour, Venezuela. (Simón Bolívar’s middle name was Trinidad.) Though T&T’s Carnival is an annual tradition, Pride only happened for the first time in 2018 — the same year a High Court judge struck down an archaic colonial-era law targeting same-sex couples. When the judgement was delivered, crowds celebrated spontaneously outside the Hall of Justice, vibesing on its
steps then spilling into neighbouring Woodford Square, the historic park in downtown Port of Spain with a statue of Aphrodite. The spontaneity of that celebration tapped into a deeper truth. Carnival flows in our blood. The Pride parade coursing through the streets of the capital feels as inevitable as that celebration was natural. With my boyfriend, I join the jugglers, the acrobats, the tassa drummers, the flag women. But walk with a water bottle. It’s easy to get thirsty in the sweltering heat. And make sure you have enough stamina to go all the way: there are limes and fetes after all the street revelry that will demand your undivided attention. There’s something to be said about affording people the time and space to come to terms with who they are, to quietly nurse the realisation of being queer without the pressure of public scrutiny. Equally, the visibility of Pride is, for me, as potent as prayer, as moving as meditation, as authentic as heading to the beach and letting warm salt water kiss your weary feet. Prepare yourself for the feeling of euphoria, as you hold the gigantic Pride flag that links every type of person imaginable, fabric flowing like a Peter Minshall river down the middle of a sea of queer bodies and allies — all charged with the electricity of walking, for the first time in centuries, on roads that feel, for a moment, lovingly solid, familiar, and safe. T&T’s second annual Pride Parade takes place on 28 July, 2019, in Port of Spain, part of a month-long programme of events
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need to know
Carnival Calendar
July and August are Carnival season across the Caribbean, and in the diaspora, too.
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a cool down in the Jam to Dennery soca, with Sulphur Springs
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Steelpan, soca, and food. West Indian spirit in the north!
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Notting Hill Carnival
Music and masquerade energise the streets of London
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Colour, humour — and jabs
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Top Five
special showcase of Indo-Caribbean performance — dance, music, theatre, poetry — on Thursday 22 August will demonstrate how millennia-old artforms have evolved in a New World society.
Carifesta XIV There’s no shortage of arts and culture festivals across the Caribbean, from the internationally acclaimed to small community-based startups. But none of them is so much like a family reunion as Carifesta, the (now) biennial Caribbean Festival of the Arts, which returns this year to Trinidad and Tobago, for the fourth time. From 16 to 25 August, performers, craftspeople, and artists in all media and genres will assemble for a packed ten-day programme showing off the host country’s best talent alongside established stars and promising newcomers from other participating nations. How to navigate through the many dozens of scheduled events? Our top five picks are a start.
Art at Castle Killarney
Also known as Stollmeyer’s Castle, this grand edifice on the Queen’s Park Savannah was once a private residence. Recently restored, a gleaming example of T&T’s heritage architecture, the castle will be the venue for an exhibition featuring classic and contemporary artists from T&T.
Celebrating Kitch
Writer Anthony Joseph’s novel Kitch is a genre-bending fictional biography 34
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of the great Lord Kitchener, T&T’s calypso legend. On Monday 19 August, Joseph’s prose and Kitchener’s lyrics come together in a special performance at Port of Spain’s Big Black Box — just one part of the Carifesta literary lineup programmed by the NGC Bocas Lit Fest.
Rangeela
Cultural traditions from South Asia, brought to T&T during the era of Indentureship, immeasurably enrich the country’s arts scene. This
J’Ouvert in August
For many Trinis, J’Ouvert morning — the traditional pre-dawn opening of Carnival — is the true start of the year. On Saturday 24 August, Carifesta visitors will have the chance to experience it themselves.
Island Beats
The indisputable Carifesta finale: a “super concert” on 24 August featuring T&T’s Machel Montano and Calypso Rose, Guadeloupe’s Kassav, Jamaica’s Shaggy, and Alison Hinds of Barbados — and that’s just the start of the lineup. Caribbean Airlines is an official sponsor of Carifesta XIV. For more information on these and other festival events, visit www.carifesta.net
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need to know
Datebook More highlights of July and August across the Caribbean Dominica Dive Fest
5 to 14 July The Nature Isle is an idyllic destination year-round, but this annual diving festival brings the thrill of underwater treasure hunts, snorkelling picnics, and educational tours along the pristine coast. dominicawatersports.com
Calabash Festival, Montserrat
14 to 21 July Creativity shows us the expected in a different way, and at the annual Calabash festival, this is guaranteed — from artisanal talent to tours and a family fun day. The memories you’ll shape might make your calabash bowl overflow. montserratcalabashfestival.com 36
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Emancipation Day
1 August Across the Caribbean, the rhythm of African drums heralds the commemoration of the end of slavery. From the Bahamas in the north to Guyana in the south, Afro-Caribbean culture and history are celebrated with processions and parades, concerts and exhibitions, rituals and remembrances.
Curaçao North Sea Jazz
29 to 31 August International superstars Gladys Knight, Pitbull, and Mariah Carey are just some of the names in the line-up, alongside local musical talent. After having a wonderful experience in Curaçao, one of Caribbean Airlines’ newest destinations, Jamaican band Third World will probably ask “Now That We Found Love What Are We Going To Do With It” when they perform on the final night. curacaonorthseajazz.com
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bookshelf
Earl Lovelace by Funso Aiyejina (The University of the West Indies Press, 114 pp, ISBN 9789766406271)
Derek Walcott by Edward Baugh (The University of the West Indies Press, 112 pp, ISBN 9789766406455)
Marcus Garvey by Rupert Lewis (The University of the West Indies Press, 112 pp, ISBN 9789766406486)
Beryl McBurnie by Judy Raymond (The University of the West Indies Press, 122 pp, ISBN 9789766406783) Two writers, with a treasury of awards between them. The leader of the Pan-Africanism movement. The dancer who founded Trinidad’s Little Carib Theatre. These are the first, often declarative statements that historians and schoolchildren alike can make of Earl Lovelace, Derek Walcott, Marcus Garvey, and Beryl McBurnie. The Caribbean Biography Series, undertaken by the University of the West Indies Press, considers the gaps of knowledge between these vast, sweeping definitions. The series, which pairs one Caribbean icon with one skilled biographer, pivots on an ambitiously practical axis, to serve multiple needs: these biographies are archival, instructive, crafted for maximum cultural resonance in clear, unpretentious tones. To pore over, assemble, and present the structure of an extraordinary life requires an unflinchingness of vision and a discipline of focus in the biographer. In that regard, Aiyejina, Baugh, Lewis, and Raymond are committed curators of human experience. Lovelace, Walcott, Garvey, and McBurnie are served up with their laurels, and not without their attendant warts: their biographers are not intent on mounting hagiographies, and each book shines with the specificity of this nuanced, tempered devotion. This is not a devotion of ardour, always: for these four biographers — themselves each eminently respected in their fields of academia and journalism — the focus, the intensity of reportage, is an activated attention in each work. See how Aiyejina reports from close quarters on his own relationship with Lovelace, marrying personal anecdote with information gleaned from hours of recorded interviews, immersion in formally housed archives, and the scrutiny of Lovelace’s manuscripts. Raymond, in constructing several complementary (if not always complimentary) images of Beryl McBurnie as she was — visionary, self-possessed, tem38
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peramental — transcribes the voices of other researchers and experts, producing an enriching myriad of perspectives on La Belle Rosette. Garvey, ever the larger-than-life figure, is animated with a sensitive candour via Lewis, who works superlatively to bring “The Black Moses” within accessible reach: “Garvey had no illusions as to where his vision came from. In a reply to a Costa Rican evangelist who was his supporter and saw him as a prophet, he said his vision was based on the practical side of life.” As Aiyejina did with Lovelace, Baugh reaches deep into the caverns of Walcott’s writing, puzzling and working at its majesty of significances with a generosity that benefits the reader first. Everything is done for the benefit of the reader of these Caribbean Biographies, assuming nothing about who might pick up one of these slender, unassuming volumes: professional or dilettante. Not only will you understand Lovelace, Walcott, Garvey, and McBurnie better, following these readings: you will be inspired to read their biographers, too.
bookshelf Q&A
Tentacle by Rita Indiana, translated by Achy Obejas (And Other Stories, 160 pp, ISBN 9781911508342) In this audacious, utterly necessary novel of the dangerous future, the Dominican Republic’s Rita Indiana gives us a dystopia bleeding just on the fringes of our worst — and wildest — imaginings. A trans sex worker of abusive origins, Acilde Figueroa is tasked with saving the fate of the planet’s ecologically distressed oceans, a feat which necessitates a trip through time itself. If this blistering, vertiginously intense prose sounds fanciful, elements of magical realism are layered in the exposition, but you’d be unwise to pass this off as a pale García Márquez knockoff. Losing none of its dark urgency in Obejas’s virtuosic translation, Indiana animates a future we must avoid, even as sea levels rise in warning.
Where There Are Monsters by Breanne McIvor (Peepal Tree Press, 192 pp, ISBN 9781845234362) In this shapeshifting debut, McIvor’s Trinidad is a land of secrets and concealments as old as the mountain ranges. These short stories not only show us what people are willing to do in the dark; they map (in)human complexity — and the psychology of finding oneself to be monstrous — in prose that pulls taut with the control of a nocked arrow. McIvor locates her storytelling targets repeatedly, with a carefulness that belies her certain talent: she writes of women and men made desperate and clumsy by love, of a centenarian cannibal matriarch, of a Midnight Robber turning macabre in the Botanic Gardens. That very Robber incants, convincingly, “Trinidad, I walk on water to you.” Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor
T&T born, US-based Krystal Sital’s memoir Secrets We Kept: Three Women of Trinidad (Norton, 352 pp, ISBN 9780393609264) has earned critical acclaim for its raw, unflinching unveiling of family trauma. Sital talks to Shivanee Ramlochan about writing into, and confronting, legacies of domestic violence in the Caribbean.
The women in Secrets We Kept are your family: was it uniquely challenging to access their stories? Yes and no. Yes, because I had to figure out just how to do it, and that was all trial and error. In one of my earlier attempts at figuring out how to nail the interviewing process, I tried recording my mother while we spoke. What a mess that was, because she kept staring at the recorder, even if I moved it from view, and then slipped into this pseudo-American accent that wasn’t how she spoke, no matter what world she was inhabiting at the time. And no, because once their stories started to flow, they flooded. It was like me trying to contain the sea in a bowl.
In this memoir, you’ ve renamed ever yone but yourself. Tell us about this singular, genre-challenging choice. I changed everyone’s names to protect their privacy and identities, but also because my lawyer advised that I do this so I wouldn’t get sued. One of the things I hoped to accomplish with this book was stop the silencing of women’s voices, stories, and histories. To honour that, I entered into an agreement with my readers, and therefore I didn’t want to change my name or hide my identity. That, to me, would be another form of silencing myself, and I refused to do that.
Your book dismantles stereotypes of IndoCaribbean trauma survivors. Which cliché was it most valuable for you to tackle? That we are not actively breaking these cruel cycles of violence. From one generation to the next, these women were working against the cultural norm. My grandmother fought back. My mother not only hit but beat my father who was a policeman. What they were doing was dangerous and could’ve cost them their lives. WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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playlist Ego Trishes (Nash the Boy) Trinidadian-American Trishes (Trish Hosein) has completely erased her previous ingénue musical incarnation, reviewed in this magazine in 2015, to remake herself as a crafter of songs and lyrics that resonate cerebrally and capture a more mature slice of life everywhere: a tabula rasa with a natural grown-up sensibility that is charming and musically intriguing. Ego is her new multimedia project that includes a five-song
Ascension Jeremy Hector (Thunder Dome Sounds) Young, gifted Grenadian guitarist Jeremy Hector makes his album debut with the aid of countryman — and Canadian Music Award winner — Eddie Bullen at the production helm. There is a flawless sheen to the smooth jazz tropes that ooze like treacle from these eleven tracks. That could be a bad thing, in that there is a sameness of song profile, but there’s a silver lining in the sound of that guitar. The tone of Hector’s
Creole Big Band MizikOpéyi (Aztec Musique / 3M) MizikOpéyi is an interesting concept in the Caribbean: an ensemble in the style of a New Orleans big band, but one which “combines swing in all its forms with the rhythms of the Antilles, with a rejuvenating modernity.” Formed by former Malavoi lead singer Tony Chassseur and his fellow Martiniquan, pianist and arranger Thierry Vaton, the band mines the music of the French Antilles, Haiti, and other Creole music Single Spotlight
Breaking Down the Door Santana, featuring Concha Buika (Concord Records) The Trinidad calypso is now in the hands of the legendary Carlos Santana, one of the world’s most popular artists, and Afro-Spanish singer Concha Buika. This nugget, composed by the Roaring Lion in the late 1930s, was a lament about a deceiving woman named Tina. Icon Calypso Rose transformed it into the calypso “Abatina” in 2016, about the domestic abuse of Tina, who “was no deceiver.” Santana takes his cues from the Calypso Rose version, both
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electro-pop EP, tied together thematically by an interesting take on the human psyche. As Trishes explains, “Ego explores money, government, language, self-awareness, and creativity, and does it with songs, music videos, spoken word pieces, and small art collections.” Songs that reflect headline news, such as the rise of the alt right in America and the counter-protest response — “Hydra” — and plight of refugees — “Language” — suggest that Ego is a soundscape for the wise use of metaphor and the clever reemergence of an original voice. instrument is remarkably listenable, suggesting there’s more for the audience than sonic fantasies of island life and tropical vacations. Hector’s mature supple fretting technique allows for fluid playing, and the listener’s obvious ease of engagement with these compositions — ten, self-composed — add to the idea that this debut was long overdue. A Caribbean rhythmic aesthetic shines through on the tracks “St Paul” and “Islander”, in particular, to give this album a unique distinction.
sources globally. On their fourth album, the eponymous Creole Big Band covers the Creole music of the Caribbean and the overseas department of Réunion, and adds new tunes that showcase their wide repertoire. It also fascinates with a sound that can rival any big band in the land of jazz, yet is suffused with a kind of Caribbean fusion originality. Guest soloists include Jacques Schwarz-Bart, Franck Nicolas, Orlando Valle, Alain Jean-Marie, and Michel Alibo, to name a few. A new favourite for the seeker of Caribbean excellence. lyrically and musically, as he steps up the tempo from the classic 1930s calypso to a danceable primitive soca groove. Buika’s voice is heavenly as she squeezes out the pathos of the lyric that turns Tina from a scourge of Roaring Lion to a martyr killed by the hand of her abusive husband. The guitar sound is classic Santana. This song is on his new album Africa Speaks, said to be “inspired by the melodies, sounds, and rhythms of Africa.” Trinidad calypso has gone global in inspiration and influence. Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
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screenshots
Celeste García is a guide at Havana’s planetarium. Nearing old age, she retains a cynicism-free outlook, despite Cuba’s hardships and personal disappointments. One day the authorities announce that a race of aliens from the planet Gryok — who have been living incognito on the island — have extended an invitation to the Cuban people to come live with them. Good fortune bumps Celeste to the front of the departure queue, and she grabs this opportunity to start over in a galaxy far, far away with both hands. The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste García is the debut feature by writer and director Arturo Infante, one of a new generation of independent Cuban filmmakers. It’s a charming seriocomedy, anchored by a performance by María Isabel Díaz as Celeste that movingly blends humour and melancholy. Jonathan Ali speaks with Arturo Infante about bringing his unique sciencefiction vision to the big screen. What inspired the film’s premise? I really enjoy science fiction. In the 1980s, I saw a lot of American movies that were shown in theatres in Cuba. E.T., Cocoon, Gremlins — to name a few films — contributed to this love for the genre. On the other hand, whenever I write, I feel more empathy with female characters. I suppose that Celeste is a natural mixture of these two things. The film has that science fiction premise, yet is grounded in contemporary Cuban reality. I always knew the movie should focus on Celeste’s everyday life. And that everything about Gryok should remain in the background. Also, I did not have the resources for too many visual effects. In any case, it’s the allegorical use of the speculative, not its spectacular component, that resonates. Yes. There is a metaphor in this. For many years — although not so much now — Cuba was isolated from the rest of the world. Everything about foreign countries sounded distant, exotic, and surprising, as if you were talking of another 42
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world. Also, emigration had a much more definitive nature — people left Cuba for good, and they said goodbye to their families as if they were travelling to a distant galaxy and thus would never have the chance to meet them again. The existence of Gryok and extraterrestrials is treated in an absurdly humorous, matter-of-fact way. Many years of economic difficulties, I think, have made Cubans a little insensitive to astonishment, or the mystery of existence. People live close to reality, surviving day to day, losing the ability to dream. Of all the characters, only Celeste keeps intact her curiosity and capacity for wonder — the others see Gryok only as an opportunity to get some kind of practical advantage. The satire is strongest when Celeste and the others are awaiting the arrival of the spaceship from Gryok. The transfer facility feels like Cuban society in miniature, with its excessive officialdom and rumours of corruption. How much does this reflect reality?
courtesy Producciones De La 5ta Avenida
“Everything about Cuba is so politicised that any story is read as an allegory”
Everything about Cuba is so politicised that any story is read as an allegory. That is something you must assume and use in your favour. My fundamental goal was not to make a metaphor about Cuban society, but I was aware that it would inevitably be read like that. The head of the camp particularly embodies that type of petty authoritarian officer who enjoys her power and uses it despotically. Even though she proves to be not such a bad person at the end. As a woman in late middle age, Celeste García is the kind of protagonist we seldom see in cinema. What made you choose her? I feel more empathy towards that generation, the generation of my parents. It is a generation marked by disappointment and disenchantment. They gave the best years of their lives to the realisation of a social project that did not turn out as they dreamed. It was also a way to subvert gender conventions. Normally, the main character would be a young and beautiful girl, with all of life ahead of her. By choosing an older woman, I’m trying to make the audience feel a much stronger empathy. And I also wanted to talk about second chances in life. It’s never too late to start over, if you find the courage to do it. The Extraordinary Journey of Celeste García Director: Arturo Infante Cuba 92 minutes
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cookup
Fire up Illustration by Shalini Seereeram
When it comes to cooking, there’s nothing more elemental than an open fire, says Franka Philip — who talks inspiration from two popular Instagram chefs as she plans a meaty menu for her grill
A “When you cook with fires, when you build a fire, it is a bit like making love”
bout eighteen months ago, I decided to treat myself to an exciting food gadget. So I went and bought a barbecue grill. I got one that would hold a suckling pig, because I expected I’d be hosting regular limes where grilled and barbecued meat would be the star of the show. I’ve used it only three times. There hasn’t been any suckling pig as yet, but there have been pork chops. To be honest, the fare has been run-of-the-mill, with chicken, fish, and lamb chops ruling the roost. But now I’m excited all over again about the grill, because of all the food porn I’ve been watching. Don’t be alarmed — food porn is not actually pornographic, it’s just a term used to describe photos and videos of extremely mouthwatering dishes. I’ve been following the hashtag #grilling on the social media site Instagram, and I have a renewed sense of excitement about getting the “barbie” going again. One of my favourite Instagram profiles is @overthefirecooking, curated by Derek Wolf of Nashville, Tennessee, who modestly describes himself as a food enthusiast. I’m one of 750,000 followers on Instagram who think he’s awesome. Wolf was inspired after watching Argentina’s top chef Francis Mallmann on the Netflix series Chef’s Table (one of my favourites, too). Mallmann’s philosophy is, “When you cook with fires, when you build a fire, it is a bit like making love. It could be huge, strong. Or it could go very slowly in ashes and little coals. And that’s the biggest beauty of fire: it goes from zero to ten in strength. And in between zero and ten, you have all these little peaks and different ways of cooking with it, and it’s very tender and very fragile.” Wolf, taking that to heart, has been regularly posting instructional videos on his website and his Instagram feed where he cooks everything on the fire — from porterhouse steaks and mussels to eggs and nachos. Wolf’s passion ties into my desire to learn more about butchering and cooking meat, as well as eating in a very elemental way. It also helps that cooking on the fire is one of the best excuses for having a great lime with friends and family.
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nother serious cook who loves cooking on the fire is Ontario-based Trinidadian Chris de la Rosa. He has a huge social media following for his website Caribbean Pot, where for more than a decade he’s been taking us on little adventures as he recreates the dishes of his childhood and other classic Caribbean fare.
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He’s one of those people who can’t wait for the summer, to get outside and start cooking on the barbecue. De la Rosa told me why he loves to cook outside during those warm months. “My love for an open flame and smoke-infused dishes means that eighty per cent of the food my family eats during the summer months comes off my propane grill, my charcoal/wood smoker, my wood-burning stove, or my new best friend — my coal pot,” he says gleefully. “I get to enjoy two things which not only make me very happy, but help with stress-filled days: cooking and being outdoors playing with fire.” A Trini who loves curry, de la Rosa takes this to the barbecue as well, and regularly makes one of his favourites, warmly flavoured geera (cumin) chicken skewers. “I enjoy currying tough meats like game, duck, and goat outdoors,” he says, “as I can cook up the spices without having to worry about the lingering scent in the house and on clothing. Plus I get to excite my neighbours’ taste buds with that captivating scent of a good Caribbean curry.” Unsurprisingly, de la Rosa has mastered Jamaican jerk as well, and he’s used some of his favourite flavours to add interesting twists. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say I do enjoy a good jerk — chicken or pork, and fish, too. I play around with flavours like pomegranate, pineapple, and even maple syrup, and a wonderful Concord grape reduction which I made using pure Concord grape juice. I add it to the jerk marinade and finishing glaze.”
Cooking on the fire is one of the best excuses for having a great lime with friends and family I feel that because de la Rosa lives in a country where bitterly cold winters can seem to last forever, he appreciates the warmth of Trini cooking much more. He even harks back to cooking methods used by his ancestors — the indigenous people of Trinidad. “My dad taught me about buccaneering,” he says. “It was a way, especially for hunters, to preserve meats. It was traditionally done by my great-grandparents, who learned from their ancestors about using smoke to have meats last longer without going bad. “So with that sort of knowledge, I use my smoker to sort of duplicate that technique, but with added flavours of herbs, spices, and Demerara sugar for outstanding smoked meats.”
If you’re looking to sharpen your grilling and fire-cooking skills, check out Derek Wolf’s Instagram account @overthefirecooking or his website www.overthefirecooking. com. Check out Chris de la Rosa on Instagram at @caribbeanpot, or visit his website www.caribbeanpot.com. His book The Vibrant Caribbean Pot: 100 Traditional and Fusion Recipes is available on Amazon.
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N
ow that many of us are enjoying the August holidays — an easier time when children are off from school, the pace of life has slowed a bit, and people are more inclined to lime and chill out — I’m going to host a couple of gettogethers where the menu will be cooked totally on the fire. I’ve cleaned up my grill, and stocked up on coals. I’m borrowing a recipe from Derek Wolf, and adapting it a bit. He has a really sexy-looking recipe for chipotle adobo skirt steak, and I’m going to replace the chipotle chillies with local pimento and habanero peppers. Adobo is a marinade of vinegar and spices, and it will be helpful in breaking down the fibres of the beef, so we can cook it for about fifteen minutes on the grill. I’ll serve that with breadfruit, a twist on potato salad suggested by Chris, as well as some grilled vegetables fresh from the farmers’ market. Let the cooking begin! n
Courtesy Sony Music
Immerse
Panorama 48 Far and near:
Milton Kam’s photos of indigenous Suriname
Jamaica’s meteoric reggae rising talent, Koffee
Backstory 60 Strong and sweet:
Jamaica’s Koffee
Snapshot 66 “It was never my goal
to blend in”: tennis champ Naomi Osaka
panorama
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Far and near
Photographer and cinematographer Milton Kam’s images of Suriname’s indigenous peoples document a way of life that balances the traditional and the contemporary, telling stories of resilience in communities that may seem remote on the map, but are close in spirit
Dosu Pelenapin pilots his boat on the Lawa, one of the rivers that forms the boundary between Suriname and French Guiana
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Marin Aj Aj and Rarissa Tujase harvest fruit from the maurisie palm (Mauritia lexuosa), known locally as koi. The fruit is eaten or used for its juice, while the leaves of the palm are used for roof construction
S
urinamese-American cinematographer Milton Kam has worked on numerous international films throughout his career, including projects for Netflix, Amazon, the History Channel, and National Geographic. But after living away from his homeland for more than twenty years, he felt stirred to explore Suriname’s diverse society through photography — starting with it’s indigenous peoples, who make up approximately four per cent of the country’s population. Like many Caribbean people, Kam learned about “Arawaks and Caribs” in primary school, but during his photographic mission — which took him deep into Suriname’s interior regions — he came to know the several distinct indigenous peoples who have called this land home long before there was a nation named Suriname. With his photographs newly published in the book Points of Recognition: Suriname’s Indigenous Peoples in the 21st Century, Kam talks to Shelly-Ann Inniss about the evolution of the project and what he learned along the way.
How did your career in film get started? As a child in Suriname, I always loved watching movies. Back then, it never occurred to me that movies were crafted by a group of people. My interest in filmmaking as a career began when I saw a documentary about the making of my favourite adolescent movie, Star Wars. I was fascinated by the complex filmmaking process, in which many people with different specialisations work together to tell a story. When I left Suriname to go to college in New York, I decided to major in both fine arts and filmmaking, ultimately hoping to get into special effects. During my film education, I discovered
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cinematography, which essentially is the art and craft of telling a story with images and movement. It brought together my interests in fine arts, adventure, and storytelling.
Have you worked on any films in Suriname or the wider Caribbean? My career in cinematography has taken me to many places, where I shot a range of projects from documentaries to TV series. I have not worked in the wider Caribbean, but I have worked in Suriname on a few commercials, documentaries, and narrative films.
Old footpaths crisscross the open savannah of southern Suriname and Brazil. Archeologists have determined that the Sipaliwini Savannah is the place where the earliest human settlement of Suriname occurred. It is still crossed by travellers today. In this photograph, Shisedoe Tawadi (left), Ramona and her grandmother Pasoe Sawewe, and Shisedoe’s husband Kamainja are on their way to a village in Brazil
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As a cinematographer, why did you choose to create a photo book?
Do you consider yourself an unofficial cultural ambassador?
I have always been interested in how accomplished photographers and photojournalists manage to encapsulate a story and a world in just one or two images. I also felt that a photo book allows the viewer to take in the images at his or her own pace. The content of a photograph can be studied more actively and thoroughly, and a photo book can literally be touched and smelled, which makes the experience all the more intimate.
During a period of six years, I had the opportunity to observe the indigenous peoples of Suriname in various contexts, from traditional ways of life in the rainforest to more urban conditions in and near Suriname’s capital, Paramaribo. I consider myself a witness, and share what I have seen, heard, and learned. I don’t particularly see myself as a cultural ambassador, because I don’t feel the need to speak for the indigenous peoples.
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They are very capable of speaking for themselves about their challenges and their dreams, and they do this more eloquently than I ever could. I see myself more as a friend, who uses his photographic skills to contribute to expanding public awareness of the beauty and dignity of Suriname’s indigenous peoples.
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Students pay attention as Arnold Arupa instructs them in Dutch, the official language of the education system in Suriname. As the principal of the Kananoe primary school in Apetina, he is aware of the educational hurdles indigenous children face. “I want to be a role model and an example of what they too can become. I want them to continue to appreciate and develop their culture and language.” In his work, Arupa uses examples from their Wayana culture. If a textbook uses a bus to make a point, he will instead use a canoe as an example. “I look for points of recognition, and that helps a lot”
“He gave me advice when I had problems with the government and he also encouraged me to keep fighting for our land rights,” says Pikin Poika village chief Joan van der Bosch about her great-uncle Nicodemus Hoogland. He is seen here in the window of his village shop, which he operated after his retirement from the meteorological service
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David Benschop performs a war dance with the cultural group Waiono during the inaugural ceremony of Ronald Makosi in Powakka. “The war song and dance serve as a reminder to the newly elected village leader of how the Lokono people have fought wars against intruders. It reminds him to remain vigilant for his land and his people,” says Harold Taweroe (third from left), the chairman of this cultural group
Which community resonated with you the most? I honestly can’t say that one community stood out above all others, as my interactions with each village offered me different experiences. While I was in the village of Kwamalasamutu, I was often not aware of the tribal background of the person I was interacting with. Although most of its inhabitants are Trio, there are also members of eleven or twelve other tribes present there. If I were to single out one village which resonated with me the most, it would be Sipaliwini Savanne, a small Trio village near the southern border with Brazil. There I felt
at the top of my craft as a photographer. I abandoned my routine of checking off a list of things to see, and adopted a mode in which I let myself be led by serendipity — the unexpected.
Do you speak any indigenous languages? I learned a few basic expressions, such as good morning, how are you?, thank you, but most of my communication with the indigenous communities was in Sranan, the lingua franca of Suriname, or Dutch, the official language of the country.
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Under an endless expanse of stars, villagers gather for a night of entertainment in Sipaliwini Savanne
What advice would you give to anyone who wants to visit these communities? There are opportunities to visit some of the indigenous villages as part of a guided tour. There are now several guides and tour companies which are run by indigenous peoples themselves, which I highly recommend. The most important advice I can give to a visitor is to treat everyone in these communities with respect, not to rush to judgements based on presumptions, and to help the local economy by purchasing souvenirs from the villagers themselves, instead of the hotel shops in the city.
How has this project affected you? My experience has filled me with a deep appreciation for the indigenous way of life and what it can teach me as a city-dweller. Indigenous people have a relationship with their environment that has sustained them throughout the ages. By being the stewards of the rainforest, they are in fact the custodians of the health of our planet. People like myself owe them our respect and support as they struggle with economic, social, and political challenges. I truly believe that the health of the indigenous peoples and their position in society will reflect the health of the world’s future as a whole.
Each year, Suriname celebrates Indigenous Peoples Day on 9 August. To learn more about Milton Kam’s Points of Recognition, published by Kapelka Books, visit pointsofrecognition.com
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backstory
Strong and sweet Dancehall’s latest sensation, nineteen-year-old Koffee, is captivating fans across the globe with her vibesy toasting, catchy riddims, and cheeky lyrics. Nazma Muller reports on the pint-sized Jamaican phenomenon with the relentlessly positive attitude Photography courtesy Sony Music
Cyah bawl inna life, man Gwaan wid it, mi gwaan wid it Toast, yeah! Say we a come in wid a force (yeah) Blessings we a reap pon we course (inna handful) We nuh rise and boast Yeah, we give thanks like we need it the most We haffi give thanks like we really supposed to, be thankful! Blessings all pon mi life and Mi thank God for di journey di earnings a jus fi di plus (yeah) Gratitude is a must (yeah) . . . It was the night of Buju Banton’s first highly anticipated, sold-out concert after his release from prison in the US. The national stadium in Jamaica was packed for his “Long Walk to Freedom” show, with more than fifty thousand fans from all over the island, and the globe, there to welcome the Gargamel home. Onstage was the legendary Cocoa Tea. “Sweet, sweet Jamaica, Jah Jah send Buju forward to we! Me say, sweet, sweet Jamaica, Jah Jah send Buju forward to we!” And as he paid homage to his colleague, Cocoa Tea brought on the young woman whom he had once prophesied — at 2017’s Rebel Salute, when she was just seventeen years old — would become a musical star. “Me tell dem, this female is going to run Jamaica and run the world! Dem laugh and say, ‘Cocoa Tea, yuh a fool, yuh a joke.’ Ladies and gentleman, here comes the biggest female sensation out of Jamaica, Original Koffeeeeeeeeee!” And in she came, with a force. A simple “Good night, everybody,” and then the now-nineteen-year-old calmly and smoothly slipped into one of her massive hits:
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Raggamuffin reggae beat yeah Dancehall pan di street yeah Caan stall nor defeat, 2030 we still a dweet Every stage show we still a keep Every big song deh pan repeat Dem a respond inna dem feet Dem a clap hands . . . Then she launched into a rapid-fire rap: Mi gi dem heart attack inna mi halter back . . . “Pull up!” shouted Cocoa Tea. “Show respect where respect due!” “Thanks for having me,” she replied to Cocoa Tea, humbly. And then it was straight back into her sweet groove: A di reggae music causing the commotion When di music in mi come in like a potion Yuh mi have the waves never stuck inna di ocean Koffee have the style dem smoother dan a lotion . . .
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ver the decades, we have seen — repeatedly — Jamaica’s capacity to produce singers who blow our minds with their genius. But Koffee — well, she has even legends like Cocoa Tea singing her praises. She’s just
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“The pace that Bob Marley set in reggae music, on such a positive and widespread level, is something that I want to emulate and carry on,” Koffee says
five feet tall, but her audacious and masterful toasting style blew even Buju out of the water. By his second show in Trinidad, he had hired Koffee as one of his opening acts. A week or so later, Rihanna was rocking to “Toast” in Barbados, as seen in a video clip she posted online. The video went viral on social media, and soon Rihanna’s seventy million followers were clicking on Koffee’s YouTube videos, including “Toast”, which already had 32 million views. The song has been featured in the recent US box office hit, Us, and the EP Rapture made its debut at number one on the Billboard Reggae Chart — making Mikayla “Koffee” Simpson the youngest woman reggae/dancehall artist ever to top the chart. Koffee hails from Spanish Town, the first capital of Jamaica, which is also the birthplace of Chronixx, a mentor who has taken her under his wing. A graduate of Ardenne High School, Koffee cites fellow reggae stars Protoje, Lila Ike, Royal Blu, and Runkus as her other inspirations. She also counts Bob Marley as an influence. “The pace that Bob Marley set in reggae music, on such a positive and widespread level, is something that I want to emulate and carry on,” she says. “I want to honour his legacy in that sense.” Koffee grew up in church, surrounded by music. In ninth grade, she started listening to Chronixx. “Those inspirations motivated me to try ah ting,” she says. “While I was in school, I basically had to make the decision between what was important at the moment [to me] or go into a line of work that I knew wasn’t for me. I had to embrace the musical opportunities that I received.” At first her mother, with whom she shares a close bond, was not too happy with her decision to commit to music. (In “Burning” she sings, “I neva have
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nuff fun time, life rough sometime, but mi know me and me mommy haffi see de sunshine / That’s why mi come wid di fyah di city burning”). “She was a bit sceptic in the beginning, because she’s been the one sending me to school all my life,” Koffee explains. “But when she got wind of my talent, she grew to trust the moment and trust the journey.” In August 2017, still a largely unknown talent, Koffee uploaded a video to her Instagram account of herself on acoustic guitar, performing her composition “Legend,” a tribute to her fellow Jamaican Usain Bolt. “Yuh nuh need no medal with a heart of gold, yuh stay humble inna yuh glory,” she sang. Bolt saw the video and posted it on his own Instagram account, which has several million followers. Things started moving fast. Columbia UK approached her with a record deal. Walshy Fire of electronic dance music producers Major Lazer came across “Burning” and reached out to the singer. The speed of her rise turned meteoric.
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offee’s acceptance into stardom has been sanctioned by none other than the crown prince of reggae revival himself, Chronixx, who invited her to freestyle with him on BBC 1Xtra last year. “He’s definitely a big inspiration,” says Koffee. “He’s a person who discovered my music on his own and decided to support it. That’s something I really have to appreciate.” She also joined him onstage at Alexandra Palace in London last year at a sold-out concert before ten thousand fans. “That was like a goosebump moment for me,” she says. “Because he’s still young as an artist and he’s been doing so much positivity in the world — it’s very inspiring to see that.”
At first her mother, with whom she shares a close bond, was not too happy with her decision to commit to music. “But when she got wind of my talent, she grew to trust the moment” Giving thanks has been Koffee’s message throughout, as she brings a fresh yet sophisticated feel to her songs. Despite touring non-stop, she says she takes time to meditate and read her Bible in the mornings, to keep her core values, “like being humble, grateful, and kind. There’s little things here and there that help me stay grounded.” On her new single “Throne”, she sings about a woman taking control. “I think music as a whole can be more male-dominated,” she muses. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s happening more on a wide scale. So [this song] is just introducing myself to the world as a positive person in reggae music as a female. I’m basically saying, “You males are good, but mi come siddung pon di throne now!” And she is ready to take the crown worn usually by men like Vybz Kartel and Popcaan. “Heavy is the head that wears the crown,” she adds. “So I’m gonna take all the responsibilities that come with being on the throne.” Her fresh innocence, combined with her masterful toasting, has already changed the tone of dancehall, nudging it towards positivity and solid content.
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Koffee wields words with a dexterity and style that few in the genre can match. It’s hard to imagine that this wicked wordsmith was turned down for sixth form at her secondary school. The disappointment was deep, but it turned out to be a blessing. The motive behind her EP Rapture is her wanting to project her abilities and talent to the world. “I really want to reach out to the youths everywhere, especially people closer to my age group, since I just left high school,” she says. “There’s a lot more room for positivity in the reggae and dancehall space. So I’d love for my music to influence the young people, because I know that we’re the future. “I want my name to turn into a household name ten years from now,” she adds. “I want my collection of music to be listened to by old people, young people, babies — just everybody. It’s important that my music makes a positive impact on my country, the reggae genre, and the world.” She knows Jamaica has an extraordinary influence on popular culture, far beyond its size. “We are a small country, but we can be very impactful, and I believe in that — the power of what we can do as a country,” she says. “It’s kind of difficult to describe sound as positive, but I feel like music has feeling. I will add words as I go on in my career.” n
H E L P P R OT E C T T H E F O O D S U P P LY A N D N AT U R A L B E AU T Y O F T H E C A R I B B E A N
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ACROSS 3. The chosen spokesperson for the Don’t Pack a Pest program. 6. Pests and disease can be transported through _______. 9. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conduct inspections at various _______ of entry that are pathways for the introduction of pests and disease. 11. Unsuspecting _______ bring in food, plants and other agricultural items containing harmful pests and diseases. 12. Approximately 50,000 species of plants and animals have _______ the United States. 14. Any good that is made from animal or plant materials is an _______ item. 16. Passenger _______ is a critical component of the Don’t Pack a Pest program. 17. Visit DontPackaPest.com to _______ yourself on prohibited items. 20. The global economy spends $1.4 trillion annually combating _______ species. 21. Straw hats and other woven goods can carry the red palm _______ which causes severe damage to palms and banana trees. 23. Is the Caribbean spokesperson for the don’t pack a pest program. 25. A _______ dog is trained to target a specific odor, thereby locating prohibited items. 26. Unprocessed _______ like carved masks and other handicrafts can potentially harbor invasive insects. 27. The Asian citrus psyllid is a vector that carries huanglongbing, also known as _______ greening disease and arrived in the U.S. on imported items. 28. Help _______ our food supply. 29. Each year these types of pests destroy about 13 percent of the U.S. potential crop production, that’s a value of about $33 million.
DOWN 1. The giant African land _______ is one of the most damaging pests in the world because it consumes at least 500 types of plants, can cause structural damage, and can transmit disease. 2. Even one piece of _______can transport harmful pests. 4. If you do not declare agricultural items, you can be subject to _______ between $1,100 and $60,000. 5. An invasive species can be any kind of living organism, or even an organism's seeds or eggsnot native to an _______ and causes harm. 7. Before traveling with agricultural items you should ask yourself can I _______ it? 8. _______ all food and agriculture items when you enter the United States or other countries. 10. Agricultural risks grow with the ever increasing amount of this. 13. The USDA and state departments of agriculture work together to _______ introduced pests. 15. All agricultural items are subject to _______, to try and detect and prevent the unintentional spread of harmful invasives. 18. An acronym meaning animal and plant health inspection service. 19. More that 110 CBP agriculture _______ teams provide screening for agricultural goods. 22. APHIS and PPQ are acronyms meaning animal and plant health inspection service and plant protection and quarantine which are a part of what U.S. federal department? 24. When you travel please remember Don't _______ a Pest! 25. On an typical day CBP inspectors will _______ 352 pests at U.S. ports of entry and 4,638 quarantinable materials, including plants, meat, animal byproducts, and soil.
ACROSS 3. Linus 6. travel 9. ports 11. travelers 12. invaded 14. agricultural 16. awareness 17. educate 20. invasive 21. mite 23. Sassy 25. detector 26. wood 27. citrus 28. protect 29. insect DOWN 1. snail 2. fruit 4. penalties 5. ecosystem 7. bring 8. declare 10. trade 13. eradicate 15. inspection 18. APHIS 19. canine 22. USDA 24. pack 25. discover
ANSWER KEY
snapshot
“It was never my goal to blend in” For anyone who likes easy answers to questions of identity, Naomi Osaka is a conundrum: half-Haitian, half-Japanese, raised for part of her childhood in New York City, visibly hybrid. As Caroline Taylor learns, Osaka hasn’t always been comfortable with the role of mixedrace role model — but she’s learning to embrace it, on her own terms
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s I tuned in to the US Open semi-finals last year, I realised I recognised one of the competitors — twenty-three-year-old American Madison Keys — but not the other. Naomi Osaka was tall, brown, baby-faced, and with a shock of blonde highlights peeping through the pony-bun at the back of her cap. As Osaka and Keys traded powerful groundstrokes from the baseline, I headed to Google for details: born 16 October, 1997; half Japanese, half Haitian; a dual American and Japanese citizen who’d lived in the US since she was three. Debates were also raging online about how to describe her (Japanese-American? Haitian-Japanese? Haitian-Japanese-American?). It was a curious thing to observe. Osaka, in many ways, was the hometown girl, having lived for years in New York City as a child — but she played for Japan. The crowd in that Queens arena was squarely behind Keys, with support for Osaka manifested through a smattering of Japanese and Haitian flags in the stands. Osaka herself has said she wouldn’t know what being an American feels
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like. When, by Japanese law, she must “endeavour to renounce” her US citizenship this October, there’s little doubt what she will do. Almost identical scenes played out as Osaka took on her idol, Serena Williams, in the US Open final. She’d not been favoured to beat Keys, and only a few bold pundits had picked her to stand between Williams and a record-tying twenty-fourth grand slam. It would become an unforgettable match for a multitude of reasons: a controversial showdown between Williams and the chair umpire, a fraught trophy presentation that left Osaka in tears, and the feverish debates about sexism and racism that followed the match. But through it all, this rising star showed tremendous composure and form to win her first major championship. Questions immediately began to circulate about how she would cope with the newfound attention, pressure, and controversy. Could she do what no other female player since Williams had done, and become a consistent threat at majors? Osaka answered by following one grand slam championship with another, winning the Australian Open in January, and claiming the number-one ranking. If anyone mistook Osaka’s gentle and introverted demeanour for weakness, a closer look might have revealed that finding success against the odds may as well be in her DNA.
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saka’s parents — Leonard Maxime François and Tamaki Osaka — met in Sapporo, Japan, in the early 1990s. After dating secretly, their decision to marry would cause a rift between Tamaki and her parents that would last
Osaka hit a wall in 2017. She was having difficulty staying positive, being consistent, and elevating her game. Towards the end of the year, she travelled to Haiti for the first time WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
Marijan Murat/dpa/Alamy Stock Photo
nearly fifteen years. Their two girls, Mari and Naomi, were born in Osaka in 1996 and 1997, respectively, taking their mother’s last name (and, by coincidence, the city’s) to make things like enrolling in school easier. The family moved to the US in 2001, living with François’s parents in Long Island, NY. There, the Haitians spoke Creole and cooked spicy vegetable stews, fried plantains, beans, and oxtail, while Tamaki kept Japanese language and traditions alive. In 2006, the family moved down to Pembroke Pines, Florida, a suburb of Miami. By this time, François was closely following the Richard Williams playbook for developing the talents of his two daughters, who he was convinced could be the next Venus and Serena. It was a struggle for the family to make ends meet. François served as Naomi and Mari’s first coach, but had to seek out the support and magnanimity of various professional coaches in south Florida as they progressed. They trained hard by day, and were home-schooled online in the evenings. The family made an early decision to have the girls represent Japan, and Naomi
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turned professional in 2012. By mid-2014, she was playing her first WTA tournament (knocking out a former US Open Champion in her first match), before winning the 2015 WTA Rising Star Invitational and 2016 WTA Newcomer of the Year award. But Osaka hit a wall in 2017. She was having difficulty staying positive, being consistent, and elevating her game. Towards the end of the year, she took a break and travelled to Haiti for the first time, visiting the school her parents had built some twenty years earlier, the IOA Centre, and getting to
What Osaka is also learning is that the best way to be a positive role model is simply to continue trying to be the best version of herself know her father’s hometown of Jacmel. The trip — and her hiring a new coach — marked a turning point in Osaka’s career. “I went to Haiti the first time two years ago — and then I started playing well,” Osaka explains. “It meant a lot, because it’s my Dad’s motherland, and I’ve been to Japan so many times but I haven’t been to Haiti as much. Just to see everyone being so kind and welcoming was incredible, and humbling. It was really eye-opening and helped me with my mentality when I’m playing . . .
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It helped me be grateful that I’m even on the court, that I’m not injured, having the opportunity to play the matches . . . Even if I lose, I realise this isn’t the worst thing that could happen to me.” Her first WTA tournament win came at prestigious Indian Wells the following March. She made another trip to Haiti in late 2018 — this time as a grand slam champion. Not only did she launch a new wing of the IOA Centre, she also received the keys to the city of Jacmel, was made a goodwill ambassador for Haitian sport, and donated the racket and sneakers she’d used at the US Open final to the National Museum in Port-au-Prince. It’s a Haitian connection Osaka seems eager to maintain. After a Barbie doll version of her was launched in March, she announced that her partnership fees would be donated to the IOA Centre. In April, at the Coachella festival, she unveiled a collaboration she initiated with Haitian-American artist Tracy Guiteau — a sprawling, psychedelic installation called the Osaka Wave. It was a piece Guiteau said took nearly thirty hours to construct, and represented the positive “ripple effect” Osaka was having both for Haitians and mixed Japanese.
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ExxonMobil and Guyana In May 2015, a world class oil discovery, Liza, was made offshore Guyana in the Stabroek Block. Since then, 12 discoveries have been made including Payara, Liza Deep, Snoek, Turbot, Ranger, Pacora, Longtail, Hammerhead, Pluma, Tilapia, Haimara and most recently in April 2019, Yellowtail. The recoverable resource for the Stabroek Block is estimated to be more than 5.5 billion oil-equivalent barrels. Exploration for more recoverable resources continues.
At ExxonMobil we seek to contribute to the social and economic progress of the country and local communities where we operate. We believe that responsibly managing our impacts on communities and making valued social investments are integral to the success and sustainability of our business. We strive to establish meaningful relationships that benefit communities and the company for the long-term. Our focus areas include Education; Youth, Women and Community Empowerment; and Environmental Sustainability. Since 2018, over GYD$550 Million in grants were awarded. This included GYD$400 Million given to Conservation International Guyana for a program to advance Guyana’s sustainable economy through investments in education, research, sustainable management and conservation.
LOCALLY DEVELOPED. GLOBALLY COMPETITIVE ExxonMobil’s approach to Local Content is a coordinated and focused effort to enhance the economic and social opportunities associated with our activities – with tangible results for people, communities and businesses. ExxonMobil is committed to working collaboratively with Guyana to develop opportunities for Guyanese nationals and businesses in a structured and sustainable way. Liza will be developed in two phases.
Liza Phase 1 & Phase 2 Projects
Phase 1 includes a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel called Liza Destiny, and related subsea equipment; umbilical, risers and flowlines. It is designed to produce up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day from 17 wells in total: eight production wells, six water injection wells, and three gas injection wells. First oil is expected by early 2020. Phase 2 is similar with a second floating, production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) called Liza Unity. It will produce up to 220,000 barrels of oil per day from 30 wells, including 15 production, 9 water injection and 6 gas injection wells. Liza Phase 2 startup is expected in mid-2022.
Liza Destiny FPSO
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Supplier Development ExxonMobil supports Local Content initiatives that assist in the development of local capabilities. The Centre for Local Business Development, established in July 2017, provides a space for Guyanese companies to learn about opportunities in the oil and gas sector, strengthen their competitiveness and prepare them to join the oil and gas supply chain. Learn more at www.clbdguyana.com
At ExxonMobil, prevention is our number one priority. We have multiple spill prevention measures in place that we frequently test to prevent an event from occurring. In the unlikely event of a spill of any size, we use a three-tiered system to respond. Each tier uses local resources and, if necessary, calls on additional support within the region and internationally.
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nitially uncomfortable with the idea of being a role model, and weary of identity conversations, Osaka is quickly learning to better appreciate and embrace both. “A lot of parents of biracial kids come up to me and say that their kid looks up to me, and I feel like that’s a big responsibility,” she says. “But it’s also an honour, because I feel like I’m representing not only me but a bunch of other kids that maybe wouldn’t have gotten that chance to be represented.” What she’s also learning is that the best way to be a positive role model is simply to continue trying to be the best version of herself, and to share that journey honestly. Though her quirky and self-deprecating sense of humour is often a hallmark of her outings with the media (she won Tennis Now’s Best in Press Award in 2018), what is also on display is an unusual thoughtfulness and authenticity. She’s spoken openly about struggles with depression, perfectionism, and “immaturity,” and she’s also spoken about things — like gratitude, cultivating a sense of inner peace, and remembering to just have fun — that help her overcome them.
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It’s been an intense and bumpy road since the Australian Open. She unexpectedly parted ways with her coach in February — who many had seen as instrumental to her meteoric rise. The adjustment period to a new coach, the pressure of being the favourite rather than the underdog, and the intense media scrutiny weighed heavy on her. Following a string of disappointing hard court results, she took time out to successfully improve her clay court game in the lead-up to the French Open. She’ll undoubtedly look to do the same for the grass season in order to make a deep run into Wimbledon (1 to 14 July). Then it will be back to the US Open (26 August to 8 September) — this time, however, as the defending champion.
“It was never my goal to blend in,” says Osaka. “I never felt I had to fit into a box. I made my own box”
She’s always relished the big stages of grand slams, where she’s found her best tennis. There’s a sense of inevitability to her lifting all four of the major trophies, sooner or later. And along the way, she’s carefully and quietly ensuring that she puts her own goals and expectations for herself ahead of any imposed on her from outside. “I always felt like I was different, didn’t look like other people — but it was never my goal to blend in. I never felt I had to fit into a box. I made my own box, and was just happy being me,” she says with a wisdom that belies her age. “I don’t think there is ever going to be another Serena Williams. I think I’m going to be me. And I hope people are OK with that.” n
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ARRIVE
Explore 72 Carnival city:
Santiago de Cuba
Destination 80 In the pink:
rosy-tinted Bahamas
Bucket List 88 Brimstone Hill, St Kitts
Carnival in Santiago, Cuba’s second city
explore
Heat and noise, colour and chaos: Santiago de Cuba’s July Carnival overwhelms all the senses
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Carnival city
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Santiago, Cuba’s second-largest city, has long been a hotbed of culture — and it comes to a blaze each July, as Santiago’s unique annual Carnival, centred on the feast of St James the Apostle, takes over. Donna Yawching explains the historical roots of Santiago Carnival, and why it’s a time of year when no one expects to get much sleep
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C
arnival and the Caribbean are like love and marriage, horse and carriage. The noisy, colourful festivals dominate national psyches across the region, and Cuba is no exception. However, while one Carnival per year is enough for most of the other islands, Cuba — perhaps because of its much larger size — has several, at different times, in different places. And the standout, no-holds-barred, undisputed champion of Cuban Carnivals is the extravaganza that takes place in the eastern city of Santiago at the end of July. Most of the world’s major Carnivals — Rio, New Orleans, Trinidad and Tobago, Venice — are tied to the Christian season of Lent, and occur in February. “Generally, all festivals begin for religious reasons,” comments Omar Lopez, conservador of the City of Santiago. In Santiago, the religious connection is
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to Santiago Apostol (St James the Apostle), the patron saint of the city, whose feast day falls on 25 July. But the celebration does not begin or end there: it flows over and around the saint’s commemoration, to give the city an entire week of music, dance, street food, and chimaeric costumery. Small bands of brightly clad masqueraders, called comparsas and paseos, gather near the waterfront to parade before rows of bleachers and a panel of judges, competing for prestigious prizes (though, this being socialist Cuba, no money is involved!). Congas, which are rhythmic percussion groups punctuated by stridently discordant Chinese horns, move swiftly down the avenue, joined by passersby in a hip-jerking, wide-legged step (arrollando) that looks easier than it is. Some of the bands, known as carabali, can trace their lineage back to the nineteenth century, with costumes that hark back
Huge tractor-drawn floats are the most spectacular part of Santiago’s Carnival
to the days of slavery and colonialism (and band members who look almost as old!). There is a band of Santiagueritos, the city’s big-headed mascot, and another of Muñecones (big dolls): large papier-mâché heads atop swaying conical bodies. The whole experience is surrealistic, made more so by the fact that this all happens at night, under blazing lights. The overwhelming heat of the city in July would make daytime parades a dangerous proposition. Undoubtedly, the most spectacular visuals of the Santiago Carnival are provided by the carrozas, huge tractor-drawn floats glittering with lights and lavish decoration. They drift by like
Some of the bands, known as carabali, can trace their lineage back to the nineteenth century jewelled cities, blasting music and bearing energetic salsa dancers dressed like Vegas showgirls. The latter are lithe and lovely, as one might expect; but Cuba is nothing if not equal-opportunity: the crowd favourite is the carroza called Las Voluminosas, where the skimpily-clad dancers are all Triple X-sized, rocking their spandex shorts and halter-tops con gusto. Adjudicating all these apparitions — not an easy task, one suspects, given the eclectic nature of the displays — is taken very seriously. A panel of seven judges includes specialists in
Carnival and Revolution Santiago, which calls itself the City of Heroes, has a long tradition of revolutionary fervour, and the Carnival over the years has played its part. It was here that Fidel Castro launched his first (disastrously unsuccessful) assault on the dictatorship government of Fulgencio Batista in July 1953, and it was here, on 1 January, 1959, that he gave his historic victory speech. But Castro’s was only the culmination of a struggle that started in 1868 with the Ten Year War, wherein Cuban-born creoles (known as the mambises) launched the first of many attempts to throw off the oppressive yoke of Spanish colonialism. During this period, and others to come, the Carnival celebrations served as subversive support to the revolutionaries. Songs and costumes often used double entendre as a means of propaganda for the liberationist cause, and mambises disguised as peasants would take advantage
of the festival’s bacchanalia to infiltrate the city and carry messages to and from the field. This tradition of using the Carnival as a cover for conspiracy was the reason Castro, then twenty-seven, chose to attack the Moncada army barracks on 26 July, at the height of the festivities. It was easier to smuggle arms and guerillas into the city with the influx of other countryfolk, and he calculated that most official attention would be focused on maintaining order in the areas of unbridled celebrations. It didn’t quite work out that way. His untested young fighters, recruited and trained in the countryside, were no match for Batista’s soldiery, and Castro and his brother Raul eventually ended up in prison. But the Moncada assault is widely regarded as the opening salvo in a war that would forever change the course of Cuban history — and, perhaps even (given the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1961) that of the world.
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Dancers of all ages join the street procession
traditional music, dance, and the plastic arts. Bands are judged as much for their adherence to traditional standards as for their design. “El Carnaval has an educational purpose,” the president of the panel tells me. “The aim is to preserve the culture and the traditional ways of the culture, the folklore.”
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n this, Cuba differs from many other regional Carnivals, where the aim is simply to party, and the costumes have become generic (beaded or sequinned bikinis, a few feathers, and not much else). The Santiago Carnival has a history that has been as much political as sociological. “Because of its (geographical) position in the Caribbean, Cuba, and especially Santiago, has had close ties with Haiti, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico,” explains Omar Lopez. “Waves of immigration from these islands have produced mestizaje [mixing] between immigrants, aboriginals, Spanish, Africans, French, and even Chinese. This mixture is the foundation of the Santiago culture. There were strong cultural influences from all of these groups.” The first enslaved Africans to come to Cuba, in the sixteenth century, arrived via Spain, and were already influenced by European styles of dress, traditions, and culture. Once on the
island, each nation or tribe formed its own self-help organisation or cabildo, modeled on the fourteenth-century Spanish administrative structures of the same name. Authorised by the king, and strictly excluding creoles or blacks born in America, these cabildos allowed the Africans to maintain social cohesion and to keep their separate cultures alive. The slave cabildos were crucial to the development of the Santiago Carnival. On festive days, their members were allowed to play drums, sing, dance, and parade in the streets. Their mamarrachos (burlesque masqueraders) — men dressed as women, or whatever would provoke a laugh — would probably be recognisable in Trinidad’s ole mas tradition. Later, follow ing Haiti’s slave uprising at the end of the eighteenth century, Cuba was inundated with French plantation owners (and their slaves) fleeing the insurrection. Already, there had evolved some cultural crossover between the French and their slaves; in Cuba, a double transculturation occurred, as these rhythms and dances added yet another rich ingredient to the Carnival melting pot. The legacy of the Haitians can be found in the Tumba Francesa, where the rhythms of traditional drums brought from Niger, Benin, and the Congo are merged with the stately steps of eighteenth-century French minuets and quadrilles which the
Santiago Carnival is a fierce representation of Cuban culture in all its manifestations. Everyone, from octogenarians to young children, is fully involved
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slaves copied from their masters. (The Tumba Francesa was designated part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO in 2003. Performances are staged daily at the organisation’s headquarters on Calle Pio Rosado, a.k.a. Carniceria.) At first, the comparsas were strictly African-based, but in the 1940s and 50s other social and ethnic groups joined in, and the Carnival is now a fierce representation of Cuban culture in all its manifestations. Everyone, from octogenarians to young children, is fully involved, with the latter celebrating their own five-day Carnaval Infantil in the days preceding the week-long adult event. Teams of social workers go into the schools — often in disadvantaged neighbourhoods — to teach the dances and traditions and to help produce a comparsa. There is even one group, Sin Barreras (Without Barriers), whose members are physically and mentally
handicapped children, many pushed in wheelchairs by adults. In Santiago, the Carnival is all-inclusive. It is also entirely government-sponsored. Comparsas receive shipments of cloth and paint, gold braid and shoes, to create their costumes and banners, from the Dirección Municipal de la Cultura, and the traditions of history, dance, and music are transmitted through cultural centres known as focos. Before the Revolution, Carnival activities were sponsored by big companies like Bacardi, but that, of course, ended with socialism. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba — and the Carnival — fell on hard times. The populace barely had enough to eat, far less to spend on festivals. The Revolutionary Government took charge of the event in 1993, emphasising its historic and cultural roots.
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The Museum of Carnival
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Housed in an eighteenth-century building on Calle Heredia, Santiago’s Museo del Carnaval offers visitors some insight into the city’s largest festival. The museum was founded in 1983 by a group of intellectuals and artists, with the aim of promoting the Santiago Carnival as well as organising international workshops around the theme. It is also an educational resource for schoolchildren to learn about the history and culture of the festival. “For us researchers, the Museo del Carnaval is very important in maintaining the Santiagueran tradition,” says Josefina Bruff Henry, director of the facility. “The museum is una memoria viva, a living memory of the festival,
Festival of Fire As if two weeks of children’s and adult Carnivals were not enough for one month, the early days of July also host Santiago’s Festival del Caribe, also known as the Festival of Fire. Over the course of five days, there are conferences, panel discussions, and lectures on every possible aspect of Caribbean culture — an academic Carnival, as it were, with intellectuals invited from across the region. For those who prefer their culture live, there is a plethora of performances, exhibitions, and folk ceremonies, taking place at the Casa de Caribe and other venues around the city. Musicians and dancers from across the region take
part, with one particular country showcased each year. “It is an important moment, for the Caribbean region to look inwards at itself and have an intercultural exchange,” explains Omar Lopez, conservador of the City of Santiago. “It also functions as a pre-Carnival to the actual event.” The festival ends with a street parade by all the different groups and troupes, culminating at the Alameda, where a giant papier-mâché effigy of Satan awaits a match. As the sun goes down, the drumming and chanting rise to a crescendo, the match is struck, and Evil goes up in a whoosh of flames, purged for another year.
Opposite page above Another distinctive sight: Muñecones with their giant heads of papier-mâché
Since then, says Lopez, “The Carnival has become more and more brilliant and professional, and gets bigger and bigger each year.” There are now nineteen adult paseos and comparsas, and twenty-three children’s groups. Each comparsa develops its costumes around a theme, usually to do with history or culture, and performs dances to match. Not surprisingly, there is not a whole lot of social satire or criticism, à la Trinidad — this is a festival that knows which side its bread is buttered on! While all the tourists, and families with children, are flocking to the port area (known as the Alameda) to see the costume parades and gape at the shimmering carrozas, the real Carnival partying is happening elsewhere. In barrios around the city, the major avenues — Trocha, Martí, Cespedes — are given over to food stalls, bars, music stages, and street vendors of every
year after year. The Carnival is of the people, with many anecdotes, involving design, food, traditional songs. It is joy, it’s colorida. The Santiagueran cannot live without his Carnival.” The museum’s six rooms, tracing the history of the Carnival from its mamarracho origins to contemporary times, are dedicated to the display of historical documentation, period photos, and a selection of African drums and colourful costumes. The texts, unfortunately, are all in Spanish, and difficult to read. However, five days a week at 4 pm (Tuesday to Saturday), there is a live performance of folkloric music and dance, included in the modest price of admission ($1 CUC).
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Right Salsa is the soundtrack of Santiago’s Carnival
description. “This is where the people enjoy themselves,” says Lopez. “The Carnival is viewed as a reward for their hard work all year round.” From about 5 pm, the streets start to fill with old and young, dancers and drinkers, friends greeting friends. Music blares from giant speakers (with live bands kicking in around 11 pm), and it’s not a great time for the local pigs, roasted in their numbers on hand-turned spits and converted into fresh-sliced sandwiches. Chickens are no luckier, since exceedingly greasy fried chicken and chips is the other street snack of choice. The celebrations go on into the wee hours, for a whole week. “No one works very much during the Carnival,” Omar Lopez says wryly. By all accounts, no one gets a lot of sleep, either. n
Carnival 2019 in Santiago de Cuba runs from 20 to 27 July. Caribbean Airlines operates two return flights weekly from Trinidad to Havana, with local transport connections to Santiago WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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destination
In the pink The seven hundred islands of the Bahamas boast every colour of the tropical rainbow — but everywhere you look, a certain rosy tint catches your eye 80
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Rosy-fingered dawn breaks over Nassau, capital of the Bahamas
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Poolside, pink and blue are a perfect colour combination
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Fragrant frangipani is just one of the gorgeous blooms in the gardens of New Providence Island
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Balcony House in downtown Nassau is an architectural landmark
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Full-on pink at Nassau’s annual Junkanoo parade
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Getting close to nature doesn’t always mean hiking to somewhere remote: in the very heart of Port of Spain, the Botanical Gardens are an oasis for wildlife, like this iridescent Euglossa orchid bee. “It was jumping from flower to flower,” says Jason Audain, “and then it settled and posed for me. I got lucky with this photo opportunity. I was really going to the gardens to capture a praying mantis.”
A pair of flamingos bask in the afternoon sun
Caribbean Airlines operates direct flights to Lynden Pindling International Airport in Nassau from Kingston, Jamaica, with connections to other destinations in the Caribbean and North and South America WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM
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bucket list
The “Gibraltar of the Caribbean” is the most impressive heritage site in St Kitts, and a monument to the violence of colonialism
Brimstone Hill
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Brimstone Hill F
rom the summit of Brimstone Hill, nine hundred feet above the leeward coast of St Kitts, the view extends not just across the island but far out to sea, with the islands of St Martin, Anguilla, Montserrat, Saba, and Sint Eustatius in the near or far distance. Today that means incredible photos for tourists, but a few centuries back, during the long period when European powers vied for supremacy in the Caribbean, Brimstone Hill’s prospect made it an ideal site for a fortress. Gradually constructed by the British over a period of more than a century, built by enslaved labour with local volcanic stone, the fort boasts five terraced bastions, once bristling with cannon. A national park since 1987 and recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, Brimstone Hill remains a stark reminder of the colonial era that shaped today’s Caribbean. n
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ENGAGE
Discover 90 Archaeology’s eye in the sky:
uncovering Belize’s Mayan ruins
On This Day 94 Get a kick: the Caribbean’s most
famous underwater volcano
Xunantunich, one of the most important Mayan sites in Belize
discover
Archaeology’s eye in the sky
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For centuries, much of the evidence for Mayan civilisation has been covered in dense rainforest. Now new developments in LiDAR technology have made it possible for archaeologists to do sophisticated aerial surveys — revealing tens of thousands of previously unknown structures. Erline Andrews learns more
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ction movies, adventure documentaries, and sensationalised news reports might lead some people to think otherwise, but archaeology is mostly hard, painstaking work, with very slow progress. In Central America, where most of the landmass is covered by dense rainforest, it’s even more so. American archaeologists Arlen and Diane Chase have spent thirty-four years studying the same site, the ruins of the Mayan city of Caracol in Belize. When the Chases started, Caracol was thought to be small and insignificant among the forty or so Mayan cities in Central America. Over time, the Chases’ work helped change that perception, somewhat. But the couple felt the city’s size and importance were still being underestimated. They just couldn’t prove it. By 2009, after almost a quarter century, they’d The view from the top of the Canaa pyramid at Caracol, a key Mayan site in Belize
mapped and excavated only a small section of what they believed had been a sprawling city of around 115,000 residents. Much of this work was around the city’s epicentre, which is dominated by the stone palace Caana, one of the largest manmade structures in Belize. The Chases, frustrated by the slow pace, were looking for alternatives to the transit, a mapping tool that’s mounted on a tripod. Surveying from above was the obvious solution, but aerial photography, which has been used by archaeologists since the early twentieth century, or more recently popular satellite imagery, would both be obstructed by the thick forest cover overlaying Mayan territory. The jungle also hampers traditional archaeological efforts, as researchers and their assistants must hack through foliage with machetes before they can excavate. Then one of the Chases’ colleagues at the University of Central Florida, biologist John F. Weishampel, recommended remote sensing technology he had been using to study forests in Costa Rica. LiDAR (which stands for light detection and ranging) sends billions of pulses of light down to the earth from the sky. The pulses hit different surfaces, then bounce back to sensors attached to an aircraft. Used along with GPS, it allows experts to make detailed three-dimensional maps. With LiDAR, scientists can digitally remove forest cover to see objects on the ground underneath. The technology has been around for decades, used primarily to map clouds and other particles in the atmosphere. It also aids navigation in self-driving vehicles. Archaeologists had attempted to use it earlier, but didn’t get satisfactory results. But by the turn of the century, the technology had improved considerably. After discussions with Weishampel, the Chases decided to try LiDAR themselves. They started applying for grants. “Everybody said we were crazy, that we weren’t going to get it,” Arlen Chase recalls. But in 2009, after “the sixth or seventh” try, the team received US$400,000 from NASA, which wants to promote different uses for LiDAR. Over four days, a LiDAR-equipped twin-engine plane covered two hundred square kilometres around the Caracol area, and picked up ruins previously undiscovered by modern researchers. The Chases were able to see settlement structures far beyond the epicentre: reservoirs, buildings, roadways, and — perhaps most important — agricultural terraces, which show that Caracol residents used sophisticated water-conserving techniques to feed a relatively large population. The LiDAR images even revealed structures the team had missed in areas they’d previously mapped. “It worked beyond our wildest dreams,” says
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Chase. “It was the first time there was large-scale LiDAR done in the Caribbean and in the Maya area.”
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ince that first try, LiDAR use has been spreading across Central America, the Caribbean, and indeed the world. In 2012, filmmaker and explorer Steve Elkins, who’d been searching northeastern Honduras for a “lost city,” convinced the organisation that conducted the Caracol surveys, the National Centre for Airborne Laser Mapping, to help. To the surprise of many, the survey turned up hitherto undiscovered ruins of an ancient city. In Guatemala, the largest ever LiDAR archaeological project took place in 2016, and is due to continue later this year. Over twelve days, a small plane surveyed more than 2,100 square kilometres of the Maya Biosphere Reserve in northern Guatemala. Researchers discovered sixty thousand ancient structures, which suggested millions more people lived in the area than previously thought.
In 2013, the Chases embarked on an even more ambitious LiDAR project, coordinating a fourteenday survey of more than a thousand square kilometres in west-central Belize — incorporating multiple Mayan sites and allowing researchers to compare them and see the physical relationships among them. LiDAR saves time, and despite the high up-front costs, its proponents believe it ultimately saves money that would have been spent on years of archaeological expeditions. It also allows governments to do more to plan modern development around the ruins and protect them from looters. But it isn’t a substitute for old-fashioned archaeology. An important part of using LiDAR is what researchers call “ground-truthing.” “You have to
Courtesy Arlen Chase
LiDAR technology allows archaeologists to look below the rainforest canopy and detect structures otherwise invisible to the eye
Outside of archaeology, LiDAR is being used to put together the first highresolution map of Caribbean coral reefs, in a bid to document and reverse their degradation. The technology will also be used over the next three years to map ten thousand square kilometres of coastal land in the region, to monitor the effects of climate change, in a project spearheaded by the Caricom Climate Change Centre and financed by the Caribbean Development Bank, USAID, and the Italian government. “Everybody wants it. It’s absolutely amazing,” says Arlen Chase. One of the researchers with the Guatemala project, Steven Houston, told the BBC, “This is one of the greatest advances in over 150 years of Maya archaeology. I know it sounds hyperbolic, but when I saw the [LiDAR] imagery, it did bring tears to my eyes.” To understand the feeling, you have to appreciate what the findings could mean from an academic and sociological perspective. Researchers and descendants can now see that the Mayan civilisation — which existed between 1000 BC and 900 AD, leaving behind huge, intricately designed stone pyramids and other monuments that have become major tourist attractions in Central America and parts of Mexico — may rival the great ancient civilisations of Greece and China. As an article written by the Chases and Weishampel and published in 2010 in Archaeology magazine explains: “The airborne LiDAR data will help us finally dispel preconceived notions about ancient tropical civilisations — that they were limited in size and sophistication — by letting us peer through the trees.”
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be careful with your analysis and your interpretation of what you’re seeing,” says Melissa Badillo, a researcher with the Belize Institute of Archaeology. “And the only way you can be certain is by actually walking out there and checking it to make sure.” Badillo will be the first Belizean woman with an archaeology PhD when she graduates in a few years from the University of Nevada, where her mentors, the Chases, are now based. The director of the Institute of Archaeology — which earns money from tourism to maintain the ruins and educate people about them — is also a former Chase student with a PhD. It’s hoped that the LiDAR revelations will attract more tourists and also draw young Belizeans into archaeology. “It is a growing field in Belize,” says Badillo. “There are several other younger students in the streamline right now pursuing a degree in archaeology.” And as the LiDAR data suggest, there are decades’ worth of exciting work for them to do — as they uncover how a great early civilisation may have been even greater. n
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on this day
Get a kick Illustration by Rohan Mitchell
Kick ’Em Jenny sounds like a comic name, but for the scientists who study this underwater volcano, first recorded eighty years ago, it’s no laughing matter. The Caribbean was shaped by its volcanoes, says James Ferguson, which created our mountainous island landscapes — but can also wreak havoc
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lessed by climate and topography, the Caribbean is a region of extraordinary physical diversity. Its economy is determined both by the fertility of its agricultural land and by the beauty of its beaches and mountains, which attracts almost sixty million tourists and cruise ship visitors a year. From the grandeur of St Lucia’s twin Pitons and Guyana’s seemingly infinite rainforest to the rivers, beaches, and tropical exuberance of an island like Jamaica, the Caribbean is testament to the aesthetic power of nature. Yet nature’s might is not always benign. The Caribbean’s islands and surrounding mainland are regularly ravaged by terrifying hurricanes, most lethal in areas of poverty. With shifting tectonic plates under the Caribbean Sea, earthquakes can wreak havoc: up to 300,000 people are thought to have died during the 2010 disaster in Haiti. And earthquakes produce tsunamis, one of which crashed into the Dominican Republic in 1946, with waves up to five metres high. One of the region’s most threatening features is also one of its most beautiful: the volcano. Across the Eastern Caribbean, magma has been forced upwards from the seabed by a volatile plate boundary to erupt and create a series of volcanoes. The arc of conical, often forest-clad mountains that define the island landscape is the result of this ancient geological activity. Most appear to be dormant, and are close to towns and villages. The tiny Dutchadministered island of Saba is a single
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volcano, whose summit, Mount Scenery, is the highest point in the Netherlands. From here down the archipelago to Grenada, visitors can admire the rugged terrain, perhaps oblivious to its destructive potential. The University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Centre takes nothing for granted, noting: There are nineteen “live” (likely to erupt again) volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean. Every island from Grenada to Saba is subject to the direct threat of volcanic eruptions. Islands such as Grenada, St Vincent, St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, St Kitts, Sint Eustatius, and Saba have “live” volcanic centres, while other islands such as Anguilla, Antigua, Barbuda, Barbados, the British Virgin Islands, most of the Grenadines, and Trinidad and Tobago (which are not volcanic) are close to volcanic islands and are, therefore, subject to volcanic hazards such as severe ash fall and volcanically-generated tsunamis. History certainly suggests that volcanic activity is unpredictable and foolish to ignore. The greatest volcanic disaster in the region took place on 8 May, 1902, killing 30,000 people and destroying the French colonial city of Saint-Pierre in Martinique. The mayor had discouraged the population from leaving, since his re-election was imminent. More recently, increased seismic activity has been recorded in Guadeloupe in the 1970s and St Vincent in 1979 — the latter an event that necessitated the evacuation of 17,000 people — but the most damaging eruption occurred in the British overseas territory of Montserrat in July 1995, when the long-dormant Soufrière Hills volcano abruptly buried the capital, Plymouth, under twelve metres of mud. Fortunately, almost everybody had been advised to leave. The major volcanoes may now appear quiescent, but seismicity continues unabated across the region. Hot springs are to be found on almost every island, and it is a common claim that you can boil an egg in the streams and ponds close to the volcano site. Soufrières — from the French word for sulphur — are areas where a rotten-egg smell hangs heavy in the air. Carbon dioxide, sulphur dioxide, and hydrogen sulphide often escape from under the earth’s surface through fumaroles, cracks or fissures in old and solid lava flows. The gaseous odour serves to remind us that much is still happening under our feet.
bean — might have erupted before, but this was the first recorded sighting, and probably something of a shock for the fishermen and traders who ply the busy sea route between Grenada and Carriacou. The debris propelled into the air created a series of tsunamis, and waves of up to several metres battered northern Grenada, even travelling as far as Barbados. Subsequent surveys of the area revealed a structure rising 1,300 metres from the sea floor, with its summit 180 metres below the water’s surface. It is thought that Kick ’Em Jenny is what is left of a much larger predecessor volcano which once stood clear of the sea as an island, but subsequently collapsed during an eruption some 43,000 years ago. Its name was borrowed from an infamously rough stretch of water nearby, but it seemed appropriate, especially when a deep rumbling sound could be heard as far away as Grenada. Explosive eruptions have been recorded twice since 1939, in 1974 and 1988, but persistent seismic disturbances have been monitored, making it not only the most recently discovered but also the most active volcano in the Caribbean. Volcanologists warn that submarine volcanoes pose a particular threat, as they are hard to monitor and can produce especially violent tsunamis through tectonic movement and “ballistic projectiles.” According to UWI’s Seismic Research Centre, “If Kick ’Em Jenny erupts, it might throw hot rocks up through the water column into the air above the surface of the sea. Such rocks could travel as far as five kilometres from the volcano, and would pose a great danger to nearby ships or boats. Any ship which happened to be over the vent of Kick ’Em Jenny during the 1939 eruption would certainly have been destroyed.” Although unproven, it has been suggested that this volcano may have caused one of the Caribbean’s unsolved maritime mysteries. Even when quiescent, submarine volcanoes can release large amounts of gas into the seawater in what is called “degassing.” This process lowers the density of the water and radically reduces the buoyancy of any vessel passing over the volcano. The disappearance of the wooden schooner Island Queen on its journey from Grenada to St Vincent on 5 August, 1944, was at first blamed on a German U-boat. Yet no debris or bodies of the sixty people aboard were ever found, fuelling the theory that the boat had lost buoyancy and sunk. “Kick ’Em Jenny had, in fact, erupted the year before (1943), and it is highly likely that it was still actively degassing in 1944, without any signs at the sea surface of such activity.” So concludes the Seismic Research Centre, and it is hence reassuring to know that it has introduced a 1.5 kilometre maritime exclusion zone from the centre of the submerged volcano, expanding it to five kilometres when heightened activity is detected. It is also some comfort to know that the Caribbean’s volcanologists are experts in their field and can nowadays, as Montserrat demonstrated, predict events with great accuracy. n
The Caribbean’s major volcanoes may now appear quiescent, but seismicity continues unabated across the region
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he most recent volcano to be identified in the Caribbean carries the strange name of Kick ’Em Jenny, making an unexpected and dramatic appearance exactly eighty years ago. On 24 July, 1939, an eruption suddenly broke the sea’s surface five miles north of Grenada, shooting a cloud of boiling water, steam, and rocks almost three hundred metres into the air. This submarine volcano — the only one known to exist in the Carib-
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Across 7 Dance line at some parties [5] 8 T&T hosts this arts festival in August [9] 10 Good plot size [4] 11 A thirsty reason to interrupt cricket [3] 12 T&T’s soca artist serenades “Savannah Grass” [3] 13 Its tail makes a delicious soup [2] 14 Suggestive double meaning [8] 15 Old-fashioned word for indigenous societies [6] 16 Type of whiskey [3] 17 You can crunch them into a six-pack [3] 24 A big noise at Wimbledon [6] 26 Imminent talent [8] 27 “Rave” companion [4] 28 To beat with bare knuckles [3] 29 “I need it yesterday!” [6] 30 Small dog from Mexico [9] 31 The Caribbean’s favourite fruit actually came from India [5]
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Not very generous [6] Musclemen flex them [6] Chocolate dessert filling [7] Suspiciously imperfect [7] Pungent smell of hot springs [7] Ethically wrong [7] While performing [7] The touchdown spot [6]
If the puzzle you want to do has already been filled in, just ask your flight attendant for a new copy of the magazine!
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Spot the Difference
Word Search T G D R U M E
Caribbean Crossword
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Cricket batsman’s bat is longer; cricket batsman’s right antenna is repositioned; cricket batsman’s wings are repositioned; fish team’s uniform has changed colour from red to yellow; purple fielder fish’s cap is smaller; spot on purple fielder fish is repositioned; green keeper fish’s eyes are repositioned; green keeper fish’s mouth is repositioned; blue bowler fish’s tail fin is repositioned; bigger starfish supporter’s cap is removed; bigger starfish supporter’s sign is changed from “9”to “6”; smaller starfish supporter is larger.
WIRELESS INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT Welcome to
The NEW way to be entertained!
Use your personal device to stream Blockbuster movies, TV shows, games and more Caribbean content while in the air.
How to access Caribbean View during your flight To enjoy Movies and TV, please simply download our free Caribbean View app via the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.
Steps
Enjoy free entertainment on your flight! Content is available only on selected flights*
In preparation for your flight
1. Ensure your device is in Airplane Mode
2. Enable your Wi-Fi and select the caribbean_view network
Charge Before boarding, ensure your device is fully charged
OR
3. Launch the Caribbean View App OR Open the browser on your device and enter www.caribbean-view.net into the address bar. Note: The Caribbean View App is required for playback of
Download Get our free Caribbean View app before you travel, available via the Google Play Store and Apple App Store
Scan the code
Headphones Bring your personal headphones to enjoy our selection of entertainment
Movies and TV shows once using a smartphone or tablet.
Troubleshooting
Terms and Conditions
Unable to connect
By using the system, you accept the following terms and conditions:
1. Switch Wi-Fi off and on 2. Power the device off and on and repeat step 1 Unable to view content 1. Close and restart the browser and type www.caribbean-airlines.com 2. If this does not work, try an alternate browser and type in www.caribbean-airlines.com 3. Power the device off and on and try steps 1 and 2 again Note: Chrome is the recommended browser for laptops.
• *Content is available only on flights over two hours. • Content is available only during flight. • Access to content is only available above 10,000 feet. • Access to content will stop before the end of the flight. • You may not have sufficient time during the flight to watch the entirety of some content. Viewing information: Please choose your viewing appropriately. Note: Some content may not be suitable for younger viewers, so please choose appropriate content where children will be watching. Please ensure headphones are used at all times for playback of media content, unless muted.
• It may take a short time for a video or other content to start. • Please note that we are not responsible for any data loss or damage to devices that may occur while/after using our services. • Onboard battery charging facilities are not available. Safety information: • We may pause or stop our inflight entertainment system for safety or other reasons. Security information: • This service is provided using wireless LAN technology. Please be aware that it is a public network. • It is each user’s responsibility to have an up-to-date security system (e.g. firewall, anti-virus, anti-malware) for their device.
classic
Bob’s blender Philip Sander visits the Bob Marley Museum in Jamaica and sees the most precious relic of them all. Originally published in our January/ February 2007 issue
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with all sorts of memorabilia, glass cases protecting precious artifacts. One dark corner contained a life-size hologram of Bob in performance. My guide was clearly accustomed to visitors overcome with emotion. At the threshold of each room, she would announce the contents, then give a slight bow and back out through the door, closing it behind her. The first time she did this, I was puzzled. Then I realised:
RUSSEL HALFHIDE
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his was the great Bob Marley’s favourite shirt. He often wore it on stage and always took it with him on tour.” The small, faded blue denim shirt hung in a glass case, slightly forlorn. Nearby were three women’s gowns, flowing, pleated, multicoloured. “These are three dresses formerly belonging to the I-Threes. They often wore them on stage when they performed with the great Bob Marley. The I-Threes were Rita Marley, wife of the great Bob Marley; Judy Mowatt; and Marcia Griffiths. They never used cosmetics and were inspiring examples of responsible womanhood.” My guide looked like a good example of responsible womanhood herself. She was tall and grave, and dressed in a plain brown smock. She never smiled. Her enunciation could have won prizes. I was visiting the famous house at 56 Hope Road, Kingston 6, Jamaica, the former residence of Bob Marley — sorry, the great Bob Marley — now the official Bob Marley Museum. Formerly the property of Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, signed over to Bob in 1974 as part of a record deal, and since then indelibly associated with the Marley legend. This is where Bob held court over an ever-changing crowd of musicians, rude boys, and assorted Rastamen, this is where he built the Tuff Gong studio, where the world’s best music journalists flocked in the 1970s, where Bob barely survived an infamous assassination attempt in 1976, and on this patchy lawn he played many, many football matches. Most of the downstairs rooms had been converted into galleries, walls covered
she was considerately giving me a few minutes alone with the relics. If I were so inclined, I could fall to the floor weeping in privacy, or perhaps paw gently at the wall. Now here I was in the upstairs verandah. My guide paused with her hand on a doorknob. “This is the great Bob Marley’s bedroom.” She opened the door. “Everything in this room is just as it was when the great Bob Marley died. Except the bedspread.” Well, what kind of climax was that?
After the life-size hologram and the favourite shirt, surely I could expect to see the actual bedspread upon which the great Bob Marley napped? But wait — the guide was standing at another door, leading deeper into the house. Some further sanctum was about to be unveiled. Could it be — ? “This is the great Bob Marley’s upstairs kitchen.” Clearly, nothing here had changed since Bob passed on — the arborite on the countertops was vintage circa-1975 off-white. “These were the great Bob Marley’s favourite plates. He often took them with him on tour. Brown and cream were his favourite colours — for plates. For other things, his favourite colours were red, green, and gold.” I was starting to wonder if my guide was making some of this up. “And this — ” Her voice was suddenly higher, and betrayed a quaver of emotion. I turned to behold this new wonder. “This — this is the great Bob Marley’s blender.” And so it was. “With this blender the great Bob Marley made many healthful juices from natural fruits and vegetables.” Were there tears in her eyes? “His favourite juices — were carrot — and beetroot.” She bowed her head and backed out of the little kitchen, closing the door behind her. I was alone with Bob Marley’s blender. It probably wasn’t really on a spotlit pedestal, though you can hardly blame me for remembering it that way. There it sat, the glass jug gleaming in the afternoon light, the chassis barely touched by rust, the electric cord curled in a perfect circle, like a halo. My knees weakened. I may have sniffled. I felt the distinct urge to paw gently at something. Downstairs in the gift shop, I bought a t-shirt featuring the likeness of the great Bob Marley, and thanked my guide. At the side of the house was a small garden planted with herbs. An old man was sitting on a stool, wreathed in pungent clouds. “Boy — you smoke?” No, I didn’t. He narrowed his eyes and fixed me with his stare. “Then you must play cricket.” He turned away, exhaling with polite disgust. n
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