Caribbean Beat — November/December 2023 (#179)

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G U YA N A

AMICI RESTAURANT & BAR IS THE STYLISH NEW ITALIAN RESTAURANT PRESENTED BY IMPACT HOSPITALITY, A CREATIVE AND CULINARY POWERHOUSE HELMED BY LIFE PARTNERS CLAIRMONT AND IMAN CUMMINGS AND SUPPORTED BY A VIBRANT TEAM OF PROFESSIONALS AND ACCLAIMED CHEFS. The chic hot-spot is perched atop a stylish mid-rise, overlooking the pristine elegance of Georgetown. The ambiance in the main dining room at Amici is a superb combination of an elegant, modern minimalist decor, with the warmest, most welcoming Guyanese hospitality, offering guests an experience of distinct excellence.

The back of the room features an open kitchen where guests can be treated to a live show of the bustling culinary team choreographing the Chef's creations, and pizzas being spun and cooked in an authentic, handcrafted brick oven dome.

Sunset views from the spacious terrace create the perfect setting for a fun, lively gathering of friends.

The outstanding cuisine at Amici sets this jewel of a restaurant firmly amidst the top such establishments globally. Inspired by Italy's most southern regions, the menu is a celebration of vivacious flavours with the finest ingredients presented in fresh, inventive ways, while maintaining a few must have, traditional classics and the most exquisite culinary and cocktail offerings Amici’s menu features unique and mouthwatering dishes, impeccably created by le Cordon Bleu Amici trained Chef Ryan Rutherford. Among the opening bites are truffle arancini, octopus, and steak tartare while entrees include a range of delicious options including Branzino, duck breast, prime steak selections, and fresh pastas.

The signature handcrafted Neapolitan style pizza menu was curated by world renowned pizza czar and international food consultant Anthony Falco.

The luxurious and decadent desserts are created by outstanding French trained, local pastry chef Indra Mekdeci, responsible for Amici’s much raved about Sticky Toffee Pudding, among other delights.

Amici is open for dinner Tuesday through Sunday from 4:00 p.m. Lunch is available Wednesday through Friday from 11:30 a.m.

Walk-ins are welcome at the bar and on the terrace. Reservations are highly encouraged for the main dining room.

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A Message

from our CEO Season’s greetings!

November and December are typically bustling months for travel, and our entire team — from our dedicated ground staff to our customer-facing personnel and management — is dedicated to making every flight a seamless experience for you, our valued customers.

This year took off with the launch of our Welcome Home campaign, which resonated deeply across our network.

It commenced with our prominent presence as the Official Airline of the Trinidad & Tobago Carnival. From there, we expanded its reach with successful launches in Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados, St Vincent, and St Lucia.

Another significant highlight was our role as the presenting sponsor for the 30th anniversary of Reggae Sumfest Jamaica, the world’s largest reggae festival that brings together the finest talent in Caribbean music.

The Welcome Home campaign was further bolstered by our network expansion, with resumption of or increased service on some routes and the introduction of flights to exciting new destinations like St Kitts. In support of this, we welcomed four additional aircraft to our ATR fleet, underpinning our commitment to continued network growth.

For real-time updates on our flight schedules and other important

information, I encourage you to visit caribbean-airlines.com and share your contact details with us directly via caribbean-airlines.com/#/ caribbean-flight-notifications, ensuring you receive timely notifications from us.

This year, we’ve witnessed growth across all facets of our business. In August, we introduced D’ Caribbean Shop at our duty-free store in Trinidad’s Piarco International Airport — soon to be online as well. This retail space offers a diverse range of branded items, from model aircraft to stylish hoodies, joggers, tees, caps, passport holders, travel kits, and much more.

In September, our courier service Jetpak (jetpak.caribbean-airlines.com) celebrated its one-year anniversary.

Overcoming the inevitable early hurdles, Jetpak is starting to flourish, delivering your online purchases to your door or choice of pick-up location.

In June, we proudly unveiled our Sustainability Programme, which provides support for a range of community events and initiatives. We’ll be sharing more details in the coming months.

As we conclude this transformative year, we want to express our appreciation for your invaluable feedback. Your insights have been instrumental in our growth, and will remain central to enhancing your travel experience.

Looking ahead to 2024, the Welcome Home campaign will evolve with the introduction of our Consistent Passenger Attention (CPA) initiative.

This is our commitment to enhance your travel experience across every journey wherever possible. With a dedicated team of experts, we will closely examine service gaps and work to bridge them, ensuring your journey is characterised by excellence.

CPA will also recognise and reward our exceptional team members who consistently deliver service excellence during their interactions with you.

As we eagerly anticipate 2024, rest assured that our dedication to providing you with seamless and pleasant travel experiences is resolute. On behalf of the entire Caribbean Airlines family, I extend warm wishes to you and your loved ones for a safe and joyous Christmas season.

Your support has been our motivation, and we are excited to continue this incredible journey with you.

Thank you for choosing Caribbean Airlines. Welcome Home, today and always.

Regards, Garvin

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Contents No. 179 • November/December 2023

56 36 16 Wish you were here Dickenson Bay, Antigua

18 Event buzz

Festivals and events around the region

28 Music & book buzz

Reviews by Nigel Campbell and Shivanee Ramlochan

30 Screen buzz

Jonathan Ali talks to Ian Harnarine about his feature film, Doubles

career of Guyanese-British actress Golda Rosheuvel, the titular queen in Netflix’s wildly popular Queen Charlotte and Bridgerton series

42 The deal

All aboard, ship ahoy Music-themed cruises have emerged as a platform to spread Caribbean music to the world. Nigel Campbell looks at the main players defining the space

48 Backstory

Christmas cake & mushroom clouds It wasn’t the Yuletide log burning in Donna Yawching’s house — it was her attempt at baking Christmas cake

Dancing with Cubans Cuba’s Ballet Santiago debuted a daring production that pushed its dancers and audiences beyond anything they’d done or seen before — with more to come, learns Donna Yawching

34 Bucket list

52 Own words

32 Cookup classic

Dennery Falls, St Lucia

36 Snapshot

Caribbean queen Caroline Taylor maps the life and

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“It really did feel like a dream team” Antiguan lawyer Michai Robertson on his journey to the world’s most important climate negotiating

42 tables; the landmark UN Loss & Damage Fund; and the Caribbean women who made it possible — as told to Caroline Taylor

56 Destination

The Barbados foodie files Shelly-Ann Inniss returns home to Barbados, and embarks on a gastronomic adventure from coast to coast

62 Natural wonder

The Kanuku Mountains, Guyana

Caribbean Beat An MEP publication

Editor Caroline Taylor Designer Kevon Webster Editorial assistant Shelly-Ann Inniss Production manager Jacqueline Smith Finance director Joanne Mendes Publisher Jeremy Taylor Business development consultant Halcyon Salazar

Business Development Manager, Tobago and International Evelyn Chung T: (868) 684–4409 E: evelyn@meppublishers.com

64 Discover

Business Development Representative, Trinidad Tracy Farrag T: (868) 318–1996 E: tracy@meppublishers.com

Saving the Caribbean’s butterflies Erline Andrews reports on the invaluable work being done in Jamaica to document and protect these beautiful, critically important pollinators

68 On this day

The road that couldn’t be built Daunted by Saba’s dramatic topography, Dutch colonial authorities deemed it impossible to build a road on the island. But, writes James Ferguson, islanders took matters into their own hands …

Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. 6 Prospect Avenue, Long Circular, Maraval 120111, Trinidad and Tobago T: (868) 622–3821/6138 E: caribbean-beat@meppublishers.com Websites: meppublishers.com • caribbean-beat.com

Printed in Trinidad & Tobago by

70 Icon

Sam Selvon at 100 In partnership with the Bocas Lit Fest, we celebrate the centenary of Trinidad-born author Samuel Selvon

72 Puzzles & brain teasers

Our crossword, spot-the-difference, and other brain teasers

80 Parting shot

Pigeon Point, Tobago

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 2023. 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

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Cover It’s a season of light.

From Divali to Christmas and New Year’s, from tiny deyas — like these lit on colourful rangoli — to massive fireworks and pyrotechnics displays, communities across the Caribbean diaspora celebrate the hope of light overcoming darkness Photo Phive/ Shutterstock.com

This issue’s contributors: Erline Andrews is an award-winning journalist with more than two decades of experience. She has a master’s degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and a particular interest in the environment and conservation.

Nigel Campbell is a Trinidad-based concert producer, music industry analyst, commentator, and reviewer who’s documented Caribbean music and the business of music in print, on television, and on the Music Matters: The Caribbean Edition podcast.

James Ferguson is an Oxford-based publisher, translator and writer with a background in French culture and Caribbean history. He has written several books on Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica, and been a regular contributor to Caribbean Beat for many years.

Based in Trinidad and part of the Caribbean Beat team, Shelly-Ann Inniss is a Barbadian writer; self-appointed tourism ambassador for Barbados; gluten-free baker and founder of Your Gluten-free Companion (producing a blend of gluten-free flour and other products).

Shivanee Ramlochan, a Trinidadian poet, essayist and book critic, is the author of Everyone Knows I am a Haunting. Since 2010, she has blogged about Caribbean and LGBTQI+ literatures at novelniche.net. Her debut creative non-fiction book, Unkillable, is forthcoming.

Caroline Taylor is a Trinidadian writer, editor, performer and producer with a particular interest in arts, culture, conservation and the environment. In addition to Caribbean Beat, her work has appeared in various publications, including National Geographic and The Guardian (UK).

Donna Yawching is a freelance writer, currently based in Canada. She has written for Caribbean Beat since the beginning of time — or at least since the beginning of Beat, whichever came first. Her special interests are travel and culture.

Eric Solis Marketing Ltd is proud to be the ONLY authorized distributor of Konica Minolta in Trinidad & Tobago

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Jane Johnson 12/2025

Welcome Home to Convenience and Comfort that Counts this Christmas!

My entrepreneurial A Message journey from our CEO

I

was born in La Brea, Trinidad in 1947 to Peter and Veronica Roach.

At an early age, my family moved to Tobago, then returned to Trinidad in 1959 where I entered Queen’s Royal College to complete my secondary education. I then attended The University of the West Indies (UWI) in 1966 to pursue studies in Chemical Engineering, but left the programme before completion. Twenty-five years later, I returned and today hold an Executive Master’s in Business Administration from the Arthur Lok Jack Global School of Business.

My formal education did not provide the breadth of knowledge required to be a successful entrepreneur. So I took several short courses, attended many seminars, and became a voracious reader of business, sales, and motivational literature. Continuous self-improvement and personal growth are the keys to success as an entrepreneur in a highly competitive, rapidly changing world.

My father was a public servant while my mother was a homemaker and entrepreneur. From her I learnt that one can earn income through sales of products and services. On leaving university, I joined a small family business operated by my mother and sisters before striking out on my own. I started and operated three businesses — each of which did well for a while and then folded. These experiences taught me valuable lessons, which led to eventual success.

#REcalibrated

Trinidad & Tobago is a country of approximately 1.4 million people. It is a multicultural society with ethnic, cultural, and religious influences from many parts of the world that have created an enterprising, vibrant landscape with rich music and dance, a varied cuisine, and a thriving private business sector.

However, certain historical and structural norms in the society discourage and impede Trinbagonians of African descent from starting and growing successful businesses. They include the widely held myth that Afro-Trinbagonians are incapable of doing so; risk-aversion (opting instead for the security of holding a job); the lack of collateral to obtain business loans from banks; and the absence of support from family, friends, and the community.

Given this environment, my decision to pursue a career in business was fraught with challenges, but I was clear that this was my preferred path. I was determined to succeed.

I started Langston Roach Industries (LRI) — a family-run business — in 1985. Through continuous learning, tremendous sacrifice, innovative thinking, persistence, and support from my mother, we have achieved significant success. Today, we are the largest manufacturer of household and industrial cleaning chemicals and personal care products in the Caribbean, with our brands in all regional markets.

I believe that it is our mindset that has the greatest influence on the eventual outcome of any endeavour. And it is through having clear, worthwhile goals that we find the strength, resilience, and perseverance to overcome times of adversity.

My strength in the difficult moments came from my fervent belief and resolve that it is the divine responsibility of each succeeding generation to pass the baton to the next further up the field.

My parents did the best that they could for me, and I was determined to do the same for my children. And I had a bigger and even more audacious goal. I was determined to do my part to prove that the African-Trinbagonian could be a success in business.

Langston Roach, MBA, Dr.h.c. is the Executive Chairman of Langston Roach Group of Companies, and a recipient of the Chaconia Medal (Gold) for service to Trinidad & Tobago in the spheres of business and community

CaribbeanAirlines

wish you were here

Dickenson Bay, Antigua On Antigua’s northwest coast, near the capital city St John’s, the fire truck red phonebooth on Dickenson Bay — among the island’s most popular beaches — is an easy, iconic landmark for a meetup.

Along this magnificent stretch of beach, feed your inner adrenaline junkie with watersports; explore souvenir shops; indulge in oceanfront dining; enjoy a leisurely stroll; or simply sink your toes into the flawless white sand. Antigua famously boasts 365 beaches, one for each day of the year — so make sure to put this one into your calendar.

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evenfh/Shutterstock.com

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Chris Anderson

Essential info about what’s happening across the region in November and December!

event buzz

Don’t miss Divali, the Hindu lunar festival of light — observed 12 November this year — is a celebration of Lord Rama and his wife Sita’s return from exile and defeating the demon Rawan. Hindu communities in Suriname, Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guyana honour the victory of good over evil and light over darkness with prayers, gatherings, concerts, motorcades, and rangoli, while beautiful deyas — placed on bamboo bent into elaborate shapes and designs — illuminate the night, bringing joy to onlookers of all faiths. And, of course, sharing and enjoying Indian sweets (including barfi, kurma, gulab jamon), phoulorie, saheena, kachori is a must!

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WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

event buzz

The festive season

Avast ye! The pirates have returned to the Cayman Islands for Pirates Fest.

Experiencing costume and heritage competitions, street dances, and the mock pirate “invasion” might spare you from walking the plank. The festival’s first stop is Little Cayman (3–5 November), then Grand Cayman (9–19 November), and Cayman Brac (24–26 November). Aaaaarrrggghhhhh!!

Courtesy Run Barbados

Sint Maarten Flavours will tantalise tastebuds ceaselessly through November’s month-long culinary celebrations, serving up signature dishes and cocktails from local restaurants.

Don your running shoes and choose the distance that best suits you at the New York City Marathon (5 November), Cuba’s Marabana Marathon (19 November), the Curaçao Marathon (25–26 November), and Run Barbados (8–10 December).

Challenging courses and new encounters await mountain bikers at the Kärcher Coral Estate Classic (12 November) and Kärcher Duo Xtreme (19 November) in Curaçao.

Courtesy Pirates Week Festival Events

Garifuna Settlement Day (19 November) celebrates the arrival of the Garifuna people in Belize with traditional dances, parades and food, following a re-enactment depicting the arrival of Garinagu people to Belize’s shores via canoe exactly 200 years ago.

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Courtesy the Marionettes Chorale

event buzz

A “lobster crawl”, otherwise known as a bar crawl, kicks off the Anegada Lobster Fest (24–26 November).

Each participating restaurant caters to seafood and meat lovers, alongside entertainment by live bands or popular DJs, plus prizes and giveaways.

The hills are alive with the sound of … parang! Festive parang music intensifies at Christmastime in the hills of Paramin in northern Trinidad. Parranderos there and in Carriacou serenade patrons, while others compete in competitions through parang season.

100 days of Christmas in Trinidad gets even better with the joyful voices of the Marionettes Chorale at their popular Christmas with the Marionettes series (1–3 December).

They celebrate their 60th anniversary this year.

CTHB/Shutterstock.com

And in Antigua, the melodic sounds of pan fill the air with cheer at Gemonites Moods of Pan (2–3 December) under the stars.

WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM

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event buzz

Hosts of artisans and small businesses across the Caribbean diaspora gather at Christmas markets with seasonal fare. Check out the Toronto Christmas Market, aka the Distillery District Winter Village, if you’re up north. In the chill of winter, it warms you up with a Christmas tree lighting ceremony, live performances, amusement rides, ice skating, and artisan products.

Each year is noticeably better than the next as two neighbourhoods in the Cuban town of Los Remedios try to outdo each other with their tremendous display of pyrotechnics and elaborate floats in Las Parrandas de Remedios (24 December).

Say goodbye to the old year with the vibrant Owru Yari Festival (31 December) in Paramaribo, Suriname.

Here, music and parades pause for the lighting of a half-mile string of firecrackers, causing a thrilling (and deafening) spectacle that locals say will bring good luck for the year ahead.

— Shelly-Ann Inniss

Stephen Smith/Alamy Stock Photo

A splendid lantern competition — the Festival of Light — takes over St Lucia the first week of December.

Representing the triumph of light over darkness, it culminates with the Parade of Lanterns (12 December) through the streets of Castries, with fireworks following a Christmas show and light ceremony at the Derek Walcott Square.

For nine mornings leading up to Christmas day in St Vincent, start your days with fetes, street concerts, sea baths and more at the Nine Mornings Festival from approximately 4:00am.

Hemis/Alamy Stock Photo

Courtesy Pexels

Meanwhile, St Kitts Sugar Mas (15 December–2 January), Montserrat Carnival (16 December–2 January), and Junkanoo (pictured) in The Bahamas (26 December–1 January) both end and launch the annual Caribbean carnival seasons.

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Martin Espino Garcia, courtesy HADCO Experiences

event buzz

On stage: Jazz genius for Christmas Move over, Santa Claus! The guy who’s coming to town this Christmas is the great Cuban-born jazz pianist and composer Chucho Valdés with his acclaimed Royal Quartet. At Port of Spain’s National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA) on 16 December, he will be teaming up with Trinidad & Tobago’s brilliant jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles and friends for a seasonal celebration called Creole Christmas Gift.

Chucho Valdés, that giant of Afro-Cuban jazz, incredibly turned 82 in October. JazzTimes called him “monstrously talented and endlessly creative”. He’s a legendary innovator, mixing Afro-Cuban traditions with influences from the worlds of jazz, classical, rock, and Latin music into an 24

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unmistakable style of his own.

With a career stretching back over 60 years, and a long trail of hit albums, Valdés is the proud winner of seven Grammys and five Latin Grammys; cofounder of the famous Cuban band Irakere; a veteran bandleader as well as a virtuoso pianist; and a tireless composer and arranger. Combining his ensemble work with a parallel solo career, he’s in the midst of an eightmonth European and American tour, which resumes in Miami in January.

Jazz trumpeter Etienne Charles shares the stage, with his Creole Christmas programme (Caribbean Christmas music and jazz tinged with seasonal South American influence).

He’s one of the Caribbean’s most interesting musicians, and brings with

him some Trinidad & Tobago stars including David “Happy” Williams, Vaughnette Bigford, and Robert Greenidge.

Charles, 40, is a composer, arranger, and percussionist as well as a celebrated jazz musician (Downbeat magazine praised his “sweet trumpet and stinging pen”). In addition to his touring and recording career, he somehow finds time to be Associate Professor of Studio Music & Jazz at the University of Miami’s Frost School of Music.

His international reputation was well illustrated last year when New York’s Lincoln Center re-opened its David Geffen Hall (the old Avery Fisher Hall and home of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra) after a US$550 million renovation. The first music to be heard on opening night was Etienne’s 75-minute multimedia work San Juan Hill: A New York Story — a piece commissioned by Lincoln Center — featuring his own Creole Soul ensemble and the New York Philharmonic itself.

Jason Henry, courtesy Etienne Charles

It was a great tribute to Etienne’s work, and — typically — it made a deep cultural connection. The old neighbourhood of San Juan Hill, full of fine grassroots musicians and Caribbean roots, once occupied the land that was cleared in the 1950s to make way for the construction of Lincoln Center. It was a location many Trinidadian musicians landed up in, making Charles feel that “It’s almost as if I’ve come full circle.”

Etienne and Chucho have been working together for several years, and have been touring Chucho’s ambitious work La Creación in Europe and North America. “I became interested in jazz

ToddRPhoto, courtesy Etienne Charles

Left Maestro Chucho Valdés Right Etienne and Chucho celebrate the finale of La Creación

in the early 2000s,” Etienne says, “and listened to Chucho Valdés and Irakere.

We met in 2019 when I was touring in Miami, where Chucho lives, and I invited him and his wife and son to the show.

So we met there, I visited their home, we talked about Trinidad and Cuba and La Creación.” They began to tour and perform together. “It was a very memorable experience for me as a musician and a life-long fan of Chucho Valdés and his music.”

The Port of Spain concert is being hosted by the HADCO Group, sponsors of the Phase II Pan Groove steel orchestra since 2015. The most recent addition to the group’s wide range of business interests is HADCO Experiences, which seeks to provide “bespoke vacation packages” and special experiences for locals and visitors to the country. It has already acquired and renovated the worldfamous Asa Wright Nature Centre in Trinidad, and bought the Mt Plaisir Estate Hotel on the north coast, one of the best sites in the world for turtlewatching.

When news of a successful performance with Chucho in London got back to Trinidad, HADCO soon came on board, extending its menu of experiences. A live Trinidad performance by Etienne Charles and the great Chucho Valdés just seemed like the logical — and exciting — next step.

— Jeremy Taylor WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM

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event buzz

Symphonic Synchrony — Two Heads Are Better Than One

On view

Above The Changing Light, created by Jackie Hinkson in 2022 on PVC tubes with acrylic paint, motors, LED lights, motion sensors Below Birds of a Feather, created by the late Glenn Roopchand in 2021 on PVC tubes with acrylic paint, motors, LED lights, motion sensors

Symphonic Synchrony — Two Heads Are Better Than One

— Shelly-Ann Inniss

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The art moves. Yes, it’s always moving, but this is moving, thanks to the spellbinding effects of kinetic art.

Trinidadian kinetic artist Guy Beckles says, “The very essence of kinetic art is in the motion, the movement, the change in form, the introduction of nuance, the changing perspective and the changing landscape, that captures the viewer and provides a transformative experience.”

Beckles has co-ordinated a kinetic art exhibition titled Symphonic Synchrony — Two Heads are Better Than One, running 4–30 November at the Central Bank Museum of Trinidad & Tobago in the heart of the capital city, Port of Spain.

Visualise 27 of the islands’ renowned and emerging artists including Carlisle Harris, Ken Crichlow, James Armstrong, Peter Minshall, Jackie Hinkson, Wendy Nanan, Gillian Bishop, Glen Roopchand, David Boothman and Sarah Beckett presenting their unique styles at the free exhibition, filled with a series of motionactivated canvases revolving before you.

According to Beckles, as the canvas turns, the images and forms that have been applied begin to fragment then disappear, and new images emerge and synchronise as the canvas continues to revolve.

If you’d like to learn the basics of how this “magic” occurs, a free workshop will be available to the public for a hands-on experience.

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Discover Tobago for your perfect escape and prepare to explore our unspoilt, untouched and undiscovered island.

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music buzz

This month’s listening picks from the Caribbean Reviews by Nigel Campbell

Jonathan Scales Fourchestra Re-Potted (Le’Rue) The angular harmonies and rhythms of modern jazz fusion present a rare context for the steelpan to interact, to play to its potential, to exist. Jonathan Scales is an American musician and composer recently transplanted to Brooklyn, New York. And in his hands, the instrument — in the company of his trio’s sublime bass and poly-rhythmic drums — heralds another way to engage with one’s soul outside a Carnivalesque celebration. On this, his eighth album of steelpan jazz, he explores “what it means to ‘uproot and replant’ into a more expansive yet more challenging environment”.

How that translates on the instrument is a heady mix of musical modes, melodic adventures, and varying soundscapes — rap, wordless vocals, found-object percussion, strings and horns — where challenging rhythmic changes make for a focus on how this juxtaposition of instruments brings resolution to a journey. Steelpan, “the audacity of Creole imagination”, has evolved beyond the islands.

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Etienne Charles

Hey Choppi

Live in San Francisco, Vol 1 (Culture Shock Music)

Saga Boy (Monk Music)

Prolific recording artist and composer Etienne Charles is taking his Caribbean jazz trumpet to important venues to play to audiences everywhere the music gleaned from the wanderings of his Creole soul. The Black Cat, “in the historic jazz district of Tenderloin in beautiful San Francisco”, is the setting for the recording of a live album that excerpts his Carnival opus; charts the arc of Caribbean composers Lord Kitchener, Bob Marley, Winifred Atwell, and Juan Tizol; and incorporates his new composition, “Greenwood”, which elucidates a monumental episode in American history. “Greenwood” musically translates the violence, chaos, angst, and pathos of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre against African-Americans in “Black Wall Street”. The wilful attempt by others to erase this history is countered here by transcendent musicianship and sound recording clarity that enlivens excavated histories and recalled stories from survivors. One can’t wait for Vol 2.

WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

In the 50 years after the cultural beginnings of hip-hop in America and soca in Trinidad, derivative music genres have exploded across the Caribbean diaspora and “Black Atlantic”.

Evolved music styles like zess music and drill, soca grooves that fuse with dancehall, Afrobeats and modern hip-hop rhythms have created pathways for new Caribbean artists to explore making music for the commercially important Millennial and Gen Z generations. Hey Choppi, the Trinidadian saga boy himself, utilises all these styles on his new album to cheekily and slickly project his carnal desires into danceable short jams. These are adult songs for adults, hip music for hip folk, Caribbean music that signals the ongoing evolution and quest to cross over to a broader audience beyond the islands. Collaboration is a tool for relevance outside a local market: Jhay Bhad, Timo, Machel Montano, Nailah Blackman and more add to this slow burner.

Hugh Masekela & Siparia Deltones Mango Tree (Monk Music/ Gallo Record Company) • Single Sitting under a fruit tree has been inspirational — for centuries. The story of Isaac Newton under an apple tree coming up with the theory of gravity is apocryphal. For Trinidadian jazz musician Carlton “Zanda” Alexander, a mango tree was the key to a composition that celebrates tropical idyll. Sitting under de mango tree / Watching baby mangoes fall / Making room for more to come, with tiny stems and all / Suddenly, I heard a song / Dancing through the leaves / A lonely mango fall. That song has taken a long journey to release. A decade in the making, a musical project (From Siparia to Soweto) among Zanda, the iconic South African flugelhornist “Bra” Hugh Masekela (1939–2018), pannist Akinola Sennon and his steelband Siparia Deltones in Trinidad was a major collaborative cultural event on the island. With its soothing, twee, island vibe, this lilting Caribbean ballad sung by Masekela is a hopeful entré into the long-awaited album’s release.

book buzz

This month’s reading picks from the Caribbean Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Book Review Editor

Love the Dark Days

The Mother Island

Song for My Father

by Ira Mathur (Peepal Tree Press, 232 pp, ISBN 9781845235352)

by Jacinth Howard (Brown Bird Publishing, 108 pp, ISBN 9789769642003)

by S Brian Samuel (Ian Randle Publishers, 272 pp, ISBN 9789768286819)

Winner of the 2023 OCM Bocas Non-Fiction Prize, Ira Mathur’s memoir raises its narrative head against the twin forces of shame and silencing, daring a propulsive form of lyrical candour to emerge in this account of family, history, and defiance.

Tessellating the author’s girlhood in India with her coming of age in Trinidad, Mathur’s presentations of self are so unstinting that no concealments can survive them. With journalistic thoroughness and poetic urgency, all is laid bare. Love: between intimate partners, between grandmothers and granddaughters, between a distinguished mentor and receptive mentee, between a complex individual and her multichambered heritage — this is the glowing core of Love the Dark Days. States of affection, passion, and the accompanying intemperance of love’s fractures, dominate this landscape. Peer into the stations of ardour Mathur constructs; see them radiate feminist autonomy.

Reclamatory and full of rejoicing, The Mother Island arrays its poems of womanhood into four quartets: “Hurricane Season”; “Wenchcraft”; “Animal Tales and Outings”; “Paradise”.

Vincentian and Grenadian Howard raises streaming flags of female consciousness in her debut collection, conjuring sites of worship, rest, and resistance as the everyday stations at which Caribbean women construct their identities. Meditative and nature-steeped, these deeply personal verses insist on a thoughtful, spatial occupation for those too swiftly discarded by society’s vagaries. Every ritual and ceremony evoked in Howard’s poems is presented with stylistic care, hallmarked by an attentiveness to texture and terrain. In this collection, hair is braided with worship by nimble, expressive hands, matriarchs mourn the loss of children taken from them too soon, and Indigenous voices rise in remembrance, layered with revolt. These manifestos, undaunted, echo in proud chambers.

Two decades in the making, Song for My Father is a non-fiction examination of fatherhood, failure, and disastrous family ties that balances both extreme levity and crushing heartbreak. Chronicling Samuel’s quest to honour the journey of his father, Darwin Fitzgerald “Gerry” Samuel, the memoir guides its reader from Grenada to Trinidad to England — and that’s only the beginning.

Laying bare a psychological armoire’s worth of maternal abandonment and paternal devotion, Samuel disrupts the notion of “dirty laundry” in telling one’s own history. The past herein is ripe for examination: assembling Gerry’s story of Black Caribbean ambition, of nomadic striving, better allows the son and scribe of these true stories to tell his own. Expect to be waylaid by grief, only to be brought high on the crest of a boyhood reminiscence — this is prismatic reading.

The God of Good Looks

by Breanne Mc Ivor (Fig Tree, 384 pp, ISBN 9780241609613) Bianca Bridge has dreams.

How much will Trinidad & Tobago allow her to pursue them? In Breanne Mc Ivor’s novel debut, a precocious aspiring writer steps a pedicured toe into the uncompromising world of high fashion, with results that spark dramatic fire.

Ever a storyteller attuned to nuance, Mc Ivor nimbly peels through chemical layers to get to the uncomfortable underside of beauty’s optics in a small, often dangerous scene. The book’s major romantic relationship, between Bianca and make-up magnate Obadiah Cortland, exposes as much class and social difference as it shores up the pair’s connection across boundaries.

Nothing, ironically, in The God of Good Looks is only skin-deep: with acute and often biting social commentary, Mc Ivor reveals how willing we all are to scrape and contour our outer masks, for a little lustre.

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screen buzz

“Doubles have been the great democratiser in Trinidad”

What inspired this film? It’s tempting to assume an autobiographical impulse.

My goal is always to achieve an emotional truth even though what happened in the film did not happen in real life. The film is about the relationship that I had with my father — but I had a wonderful relationship with him, unlike the one depicted in the film.

What inspired the film was my father’s descent with Alzheimer’s disease, and what it was like to be with him as he became a different person towards the end of his life. It’s those complex feelings that form the basis of the film.

The film is about a son in search of a father who went in search of the immigrant dream, a dream that eluded him.

I am interested in migration and the toll that it takes on families, both those that make the trip and those “left behind”. We create myths around immigrant success and what “success” means, so the film tries to examine that in a human way. The film is about a young man that unexpectedly understands his estranged father but is also seduced by the same lures that the father fell for. I wondered what the son would choose if given the choice of living the dream of his father or breaking free of those expectations and living life on his own terms.

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Food is used in the film as a metaphor for cultural integration. It’s also a marker of the immigrant’s identity, and on an emotional level, cooking helps bring father and son together.

Courtesy Doubles with Slight Pepper

Dhani is a young man who spends his days standing in the sun selling doubles, the popular Trinidadian street food. After his mother is robbed one night, a frustrated Dhani leaves Trinidad and flies to Canada to confront his father, Raghbir, who left the family years ago and who Dhani blames for their straitened circumstances.

Yet things aren’t as he imagined. Instead of a wealthy businessman, Dhani finds an old man washing dishes in a white-owned restaurant passing off inauthentic fare as Caribbean food. Dhani slowly fumbles towards reconciliation with his father, as he starts living Raghbir’s old dream of immigrant success.

Expanding upon his successful short film Doubles with Slight Pepper (2012), filmmaker Ian Harnarine — a Canadian of Trinidadian parentage, domiciled in New York — creates a sensitive father-son narrative in Doubles, his first fiction feature. He spoke to Jonathan Ali about migrant life, working with Trinidadian acting royalty and, of course, doubles.

many Caribbean people, specifically Trinidadian, in the film industry while making the film. For me, it is a representation of my reality in Toronto.

If you were Trini, Guyanese, Jamaican, St Lucian, etc — there was a feeling of kinship whether at school, university or work. I know that’s true for even the older generation that arrived in the earlier waves of immigration in Canada. My hope is that the Caribbean audience feels the authenticity in this film and doesn’t feel betrayed like I do when I see inauthentic representation in Caribbean cinema.

The acclaimed Trinidadian actor Errol Sitahal gives a brilliant performance as the father.

I had my eyes on Errol Sitahal for many years after seeing his name in the credits of Alfonso Cuarón’s A Little Princess. I recognised his last name as one that must have been Indo-Caribbean. I followed his career as he played supporting roles, but he was always cast to give an Indian accent, which upset me. The man was so talented but never really had an opportunity to shine on film.

Caribbean people, regardless of race or nationality, are shown as an integrated community in the film.

Representation both in front and behind the camera was constantly on my mind.

I am so happy to have worked with so

You’ve hit the nail on the head. The Caribbean community is separated by political borders, flags, currencies, ethnicities and histories, but food is what brings everyone together.

Doubles have been the great democratiser in Trinidad. All walks of life enjoy it — and it’s spreading throughout the Caribbean. Throughout the diaspora it’s the same — everyone’s eating the food and it’s permeating through the wider culture. In the film, it’s the food that brings and will continue to keep that family together despite the past.

Doubles (2023) Director: Ian Harnarine Canada, Trinidad & Tobago 92 minutes

cookup classic

CHRISTMAS CAKE AND MUSHROOM CLOUDS ‘Twas the night before Christmas … but it wasn’t the Yuletide log burning in Donna Yawching’s house — it was her attempt at baking Christmas cake.

Originally published in our November/ December 2007 issue Illustration by Shalini Seereeram

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hristmas is coming, the goose is getting fat.

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Visions of sugar plums danced in their heads. Why is it that so many Christmas images revolve around food? I swear it’s done on purpose, to make me feel inadequate.

I am not a cook — or at least, not a willing one. I love to eat, and my own childhood Christmases were indeed defined by food. In the Caribbean, Christmas is a culinary extravaganza. By October, the raisins and sultanas, currants and fruit peel, are soaking in rum and cherry brandy, preparing for their big moment as the world’s richest, booziest fruit cakes.

This is the epitome of Christmas, the test of whether or not you are a Good Caribbean Woman. All sins are forgivable if you can produce a good fruit cake. My mother, who was otherwise not a particularly enthusiastic cook (and yes, that is an understatement), made a damned good fruit cake when I was a child — actually, she still does. It was rich and dark, and so moist it was almost liquid; and you could get drunk just by standing next to it. It was archetypal.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, she would rummage in the back of the darkest kitchen cupboard, and emerge with the components of a grim metal implement that bore an uneasy

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resemblance to some sort of medieval torture instrument. This was the hand grinder; it would be assembled and screwed onto the edge of the kitchen table, the handle attached — and guess whose job it would be to stuff the monster with handfuls of sodden, alcoholic fruit, and force the stiff handle around and

around? It wasn’t an easy task, and it seemed to go on for hours (no one ever makes just one fruit cake; you make half a dozen at least). But the end result was worth it.

Well, as noted above, I am a reluctant cook. I’ve spent most of my life avoiding kitchens; my single years were a blur of Cokes and danishes and Kraft cheese slices and spaghetti sauce (not necessarily all at the same meal). Nowadays, with two hungry sons to keep stoked, I’ve learned the essentials under duress, and so far we’re all still alive.

Some years ago, however, maternal guilt got the better of me. I felt I should be doing more to instil warm yuletide memories in my boys than merely buying them bicycles and computer games, and slinking off to various friends’ houses in search of Christmas fare. I decided to make a batch of fruit cakes.

I swear, I followed the recipe. I soaked the fruits for weeks. Not owning a grinder, I hacked away at them (not very successfully) with a hand blender; then decided that almost-intact raisins would be just as good as ground-up ones — chewier, you understand. I mixed and stirred and beat and folded, and finally I closed the oven on my efforts and collapsed.

What the recipe had not told me (no doubt assuming a reader of normal culinary intelligence) was to drain some of the liquid from the fruit before folding and stirring and mixing. When my cakes should have been cooked, they were in fact burning on the outside — and liquid inside.

By this time it was getting rather late, and I was throwing a party the next night. None of my friends, luckily, expects haute cuisine from me; but I had been hoping to impress them with my cakes. That was now obviously a non-starter; but I thought I might still be able to salvage something for the boys, if I left the cakes to dry out in the oven overnight. I switched off the oven and went to bed.

I woke with a start some hours later — was that my name being called? Impossible — it was after midnight. No, there it was again. It was my neighbour, shouting frantically: “Donna, there’s smoke coming out of your house!” I leapt up, and indeed there was. My whole house was enveloped in a mushroom cloud; I could hardly find the kitchen — where, as it turned out, my oven was not quite off, and my cakes were on fire. Without my vigilant neighbour, we would have been too.

The rest is a blur, and the short version is that my house didn’t burn down, though it could easily have. The firemen — whose station was two minutes’ drive away — turned up 45 minutes later, well after I had extinguished the blaze with a pot or two of water. They had gone to the wrong area altogether.

The next night, when my guests arrived, only the faintest whiff of carbon lingered in the air, cunningly disguised by the aroma of vanilla oil. And I had learned two valuable lessons: 1 The true meaning of Christmas thankfulness, and 2 If I want a cake, I’ll buy it.

Clearly, I am not cut out for tradition. And for what it’s worth, my sons have a Christmas memory they’ll never forget. n

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bucket list

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Dennery Falls, St Lucia

Jon Massie/Alamy Stock Photo

A 30-minute hike off the beaten path brings explorers to an unspoilt oasis — Dennery Falls. But that’s only one of the names it goes by. It’s also called Sault Falls or Errard Falls, as it’s located within Errand Plantation near the fishing town of Dennery. The waterfall itself is some 65 feet high, with a shallow, refreshing pool at its base.

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Courtesy AMPR

snapshot

Caroline Taylor maps the journey of Guyanese-British actress Golda Rosheuvel, who plays Queen Charlotte in the wildly popular Bridgerton series (including its forthcoming third season) and its recently released prequel series, Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story 36

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The Masons courtesy AMPR

Caribbean queen

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†s¢

he’d originally auditioned for the role of Lady Danbury — and luckily for us, she didn’t get it.

Otherwise, we may never have been treated to Guyanese-British actress Golda Rosheuvel’s now iconic Queen Charlotte — with her trademark pout, withering looks of disdain, and meme-worthy lines like “sorrows, sorrows, prayers”.

This is the queen that presides over the Bridgerton universe, you see — a rich, complex breakout character who’s as shrewd, imperious and intolerant of vulnerability as she is loving, loyal, compassionate, and fiery.

Played masterfully by Rosheuvel, it’s no wonder that the first spinoff from the hit regency series — produced for Netflix by prolific writer/producer Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland — was a prequel series focussed on Queen Charlotte.

The fan favourite is (very) loosely based on Charlotte of MecklenburgStrelitz (1744 –1818), wife of British monarch King George III. Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story, which premiered last May, explores the queen’s arrival in England and early, beautiful and challenging love story with the king. It’s arguably the best instalment in the franchise.

With the first two Bridgerton seasons and Queen Charlotte all among the top 10 most watched English-language series ever to stream on Netflix (Bridgerton’s third season is set to drop, at press time, in late 2023/early 2024), Rosheuvel has been thrust into the global spotlight since Bridgerton premiered in December 2020.

Many now recognise her for her ground-breaking role as a Black queen of England. But fewer know Roshuevel’s story, or how her journey as a biracial, binational, queer, immigrant actress has become an inspiration for so many around the world.

weeks with the tribes,” Golda told Guyana’s Stabroek News.

When she was five, the family moved to England, living first with her mother’s brother before settling in Hertfordshire and Essex, north of London. She describes it as a “multi-cultural, multi-supportive” household — an upbringing where she retained strong connections to Guyanese uncles, aunts and cousins, and where Guyanese food like pepper-pot, garlic pork, cook-up rice, and chicken curry were as much a fixture as afternoon teas with scones, clotted cream and jam.

It was a nurturing, inclusive, life-affirming home environment, through good times and bad — one she says where “there was always joy and laughter and music and conversation”, and where their home was open to all.

Courtesy AMPR

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hat journey began on 2 May, 1970 in Georgetown, Guyana, where Golda was born to a Guyanese father — Siegfried Rosheuvel, an Anglican priest — and an English mother, Judith Evans. The couple had met years earlier when Siegfried was in Barbados for a music event (Evans was the niece of the island’s bishop). They married in Bartica, Guyana where his parents lived, before moving frequently though the country — Skeldon, Enmore, Mahaica, and Anna Regina.

“My mum would tell me stories of my dad going with her and me as a babe on my mum’s back … going into the bush for two

Golda’s parents on their wedding day (top left); Golda with her brother (top right) and mother (bottom left) as a child; and the full family (bottom right)

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WENN Rights Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo

Golda Rosheuvel and Fraser James in Che Walker’s The Frontline at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, England

“[My parents] had dear, dear friends who are gay,” she told Out magazine, “and they worked in the community with Indigenous people, with refugees, with gays and lesbians, transgender [people].”

She met nothing but support from her parents when telling them that she was gay. Her brother’s response was simply, “Cool.

What do you want for lunch?”

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hough involved in the arts from an early age, Rosheuvel’s primary focus for most of her childhood was sports. She captained her netball and hockey teams, swam for her county, was passionate about tennis, and excelled in athletics — especially javelin. She had her eyes on Olympic glory as a decathlete until an ankle injury in her mid-teens took her out of training.

It was only then that the performing arts — music, dance, and acting — took precedence. But it’s an evolution she says made perfect sense. Music in particular had always been part of her life. Her parents had met in a choir, and she too had sung in choirs with her mother (her first public musical performance was Mozart’s Requiem). The family often attended the theatre and opera, and the house was always alive with a variety of musical styles — from classical to jazz to reggae. Her father also played the steelpan.

After secondary school, Rosheuvel went on to study at the London Studio Centre, with her first big break — as Donna in a touring production of Hair — coming while she was still in school. Several more musical theatre roles followed after graduation, including Carmen Jones (the Old Vic Theatre), a British tour of Jesus Christ Superstar (as Mary Magdalene), Porgy & Bess (her West End debut), South Pacific (the National Theatre ), We Will Rock You (the Dominion Theatre), and Fame at the Aldwych.

But while she would never leave music behind, acting work soon predominated. And in between performances of celebrated works at and with prestigious venues and companies — Electra (the Old Vic); Romeo & Juliet (Shakespeare’s Globe); The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (the National); Angels in America (Headlong Theatre Company); The Tempest, Julius Caesar and Antony & Cleopatra (Royal Shakespeare Company); and the title role in Othello at

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Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre in 2018, among others — television and film roles began to come in.

Always intent on developing a wellrounded career in theatre, television, and film, she lined up guest and recurring roles in well-known series like Luther, The Bill, Casualty, EastEnders, Coronation Street, Silent Witness and Torchwood, before landing the role of a lifetime as Queen Charlotte in 2018.

She describes it as one of the easiest castings she’d ever experienced. Having been unsuccessful with the Lady Danbury role, the casting team asked her to submit a self-tape audition for the queen instead. She found 30 minutes to prepare it while packing to go on Christmas holiday — “I just knew her”, she says — and the rest is history.

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ot everything along the way was that easy, however, with fallow periods when work — especially interesting work — seemed to dry up. “I’ve definitely tried desperately to do other things because it hasn’t been easy, this journey as an actor … Being frustrated with stuff that was being offered, and wanting to progress a little bit more, I had to look at the industry and work out how the industry saw me,” she explained to Chani Nicholas on an episode of Netflix’s digital series Star Power.

The answer for her was to take and integrate what she loved from both sides of her family, creating a sense of wholeness that was completely and uniquely her own Over the years, she’s also wrestled with questions of identity — both around her ethnicity and whether she needed, professionally, to hide her sexuality. As many of mixed heritage do, she went through periods of wondering whether she was Black enough, especially given that casting agents screened her almost exclusively for Black roles (often Black stereotypes).

The answer for her was to take and integrate what she loved from both sides of her family, creating a sense of wholeness that was completely and uniquely her own. It’s why Queen Charlotte is “an ode to my mum”, she says — the first opportunity she’s had in her career to tap into “that side of me that comes from England, that loves manor houses, afternoon teas, horse-riding, that quintessential English countryside that my mother was passionate about,” she told Caribbean Heritage Magazine.

Jeffrey Mayer/Alamy Stock Photo

Golda Rosheuvel attends Netflix’s Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story world premiere screening in Los Angeles last April

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Courtesy AMPR

She also refused to believe that she needed to live anything less than a fully authentic life in order to be successful as a performer. And in her now decade-long relationship with her partner, writer Shireen Mula, she draws inspiration from her parents’ relationship, committing to joy through all life’s ups and downs.

It’s in no small part why she serves as an inspiration for viewers around the world who see themselves in her, or in the characters she plays. There’s a message that she consistently receives from fans: “Thank you, I see myself now — it is possible.”

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efore long, for the second time in under a year, Rosheuvel’s face — surveying all from under an elaborate wig that can weigh upwards of 30 pounds — will be beamed to viewers in nearly 100 countries as Bridgerton season three premieres.

“For me, through the medium of storytelling, we can ask or discuss these difficult questions about diversity and representation,” she reflected in an interview with BAFTA. “And I think Bridgerton and Queen Charlotte do it really well by just having us there … showing that we love, we cry, we laugh, we wear beautiful gorgeous clothes, we’re sexy, we love gossip, all of that stuff, celebrated in a really diverse, inclusive platform.”

And what’s next for Golda, as new opportunities follow her recent screen success? She has a couple of film projects coming

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up for release (and in 2021 had a role in the hit film, Dune). She has dreams of playing Fosca in Stephen Sondheim’s musical, Passion (since music, as ever, is never far from mind). And, perhaps, a return to Guyana — a country she’s not visited since she left as a child.

She hopes to explore the places where her father preached — travelling up the Essequibo, and hiking into the interior.

It’s a trip she and her brother, as well as two of their cousins — whose family also emigrated, but who have visited Guyana several times since then — have long talked about. Since her parents’ passing, it’s an urge that has only grown stronger — to learn more about the Guyana her parents lived in and loved, and where her father and his people were from.

In the mean time, she continues to live a life that is wholly and entirely hers, and has good advice for those wanting to follow in her footsteps.

“Your soul, your passion, your gut, your need to be an actress, to be a musician, to be in the arts — whatever that means to you — listen to that,” she says. “Don’t listen to anyone else … It’s inevitable in this industry to have difficult times. But that voice within you that drives your passion, never dull it down. Always give it the energy to speak loud and proud to in your soul. And that will get you through.” n

There’s a message that she consistently receives from fans: “Thank you, I see myself now — it is possible.”

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Ansura Vacations courtesy Soca on the Seas

the deal

All aboard, ship ahoy Music-themed cruises have emerged as a platform to spread Caribbean music — particularly reggae and soca — and their irrepressibly sweet grooves and festive vibes to the world. Nigel Campbell looks at the main players who’ve come to define — and re-define — this exciting space

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ive music performance in the Caribbean has evolved over many years beyond what one Caribbean writer decades ago noted as, “[taking] pleasure in living up to the ideals of the tourist brochure”.

Diverse island music festivals and massive fetes now dominate the live music scene in the Caribbean. Audiences are now local, regional, and international.

Tourism is still a driver of these events, with cathartic celebration a catalyst for prioritising profits and moving the masses. In recent years, the context of the live music experience has also evolved

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from the island festival space to a mobile one with a broader engagement of the environment.

Island music festivals are back — some recently chronicled in the March issue of Caribbean Beat. And now, so too are Caribbean music-themed cruises that cater for wanderers looking to elevate their music experience beyond a fete and a disco.

This is a new paradigm for how island creativity can be explored and nurtured.

These cruises have become a fresh way for soca, dancehall and reggae artists to engage with audiences — both Caribbean diaspora citizens and travellers to and from the region — in spaces beyond their borders.

An endless stream of parties and

Courtesy Ad Lab Productions Ltd

Trinidadian soca star Lyrikal delivers an energetic performance at Mélé 2022 Opposite page Jamaican reggae and dancehall singer Charly Black performs aboard Soca on the Seas

concerts, plus exclusive and immersive events — featuring food, drink, and music — make five-day cruises a marathon in which fun is guaranteed, and endurance a necessity.

A little context and background: music-themed cruises sprang up in earnest in the early 2000s with jazz cruises, targeted at a late baby boomer and early Gen X crowd. They created quite a buzz.

Damian “Jr Gong” Marley, son of the legend, and his long-time manager, Dan Dalton, proposed and launched the Welcome To Jamrock Reggae Cruise (WTJRC) in 2014, aiming to transform “the reggae festival landscape into a seascape”, with Billboard magazine calling it “the genre’s biggest event”.

A roll-call of talent over the years

justifies the magazine’s boast: Beenie Man, Bounty Killer, Sean Paul, Chronixx, Tanya Stephens, Chaka Demus and Pliers, Steel Pulse, Third World, and the Marley children — including Damian and his brothers Stephen, Julian, and Ky-Mani — among many more top-selling iconic names.

That cruise initiated the island music cruise trend, leading a new wave of cultural entrepreneurs to further assemble platforms for the proliferation of island genres, and fuelling the artists and DJ sound systems who make the music.

Promoters and event coordinators in Bermuda and Hawaii — from Trinidad & Tobago to Jamaica — have seen the nexus between a modern luxury cruise experience and live music, above and

beyond the old trope of the steelpan player serenading passengers at the poolside.

The major cruise lines working the Caribbean Sea have partnered with these event entrepreneurs to make this a continuing reality (and Caribbean-based fans can fly on Caribbean Airlines to Miami for departure).

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lmost every year since Marley’s initiative, a new music cruise is launched. In 2015, Bermudian Nathaniel Turner, along with his partners Daniel Reece and Jodi Lewis, launched The UberSoca Cruise — evolving over the years to rank among top music cruises globally, now with multiple sailings and a complete cruise ship takeover.

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Courtesy Ad Lab Productions Ltd

“King of soca” Machel Montano takes centre stage at Melé in Cancun

In-demand artists — like Kes the Band, Destra, Patrice Roberts, Bunji Garlin, and Iwer George — make this a top music cruise. Soca from St Vincent, Barbados, St Lucia, Ba ha mas, Sint Maarten, and the US Virgin Islands plays equally with that from Trinidad

immediate buy-in from the Trinidad & Tobago government at that time, which saw a number of potential benefits to local artists, tourism, and local economies.

Soca stars such as Olatunji, Erphaan Alves, Problem Child, Jadel, Lil Bitts, and Edwin Yearwood have been included

These cruises have become a fresh way for soca, dancehall and reggae artists to engage with audiences in spaces beyond their borders & Tobago. With casts including Kevin Lyttle, Skinny Fabulous, Rupee, and Teddyson John, a pan-Caribbean soca aesthetic allows for a wider reach and broader definition of the Caribbean soca and Carnival customer.

The spectacle of a Carnival experience on the sea would be duplicated by others in time. Soca on the Seas, conceptualised

by Texas-based Trinidadian Juliana Fermin, would launch in 2016. It got

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in casts, showcasing the depth of soca talent beyond a handful of superstars.

Importantly, this cruise has included rhythmically related genres like Afrobeats, chutney soca, and konpa on its cruises, allowing for a broader Caribbean music experience.

This cruise uniquely expanded its footprint outside the Caribbean Sea, having multiple soca and Carnival experiences aboard ships cruising Dubai, Singa-

pore, and Malaysia — impacting visitors there and potentially creating new artist discovery and touring opportunities.

The necessary business of music has been aided by the development of these themed cruises. As the evolution and diversification of the performance platforms take hold, the idea of collaboration and networking among Caribbean artists — even among different genres — becomes apparent within the milieu of the cruise ship.

The Love & Harmony Cruise — cofounded by Jamaican Steve “DJ Jabba” Beckford and launched in 2017 — boasts that it provides “world-class foundation acts and emerging artistes” in both reggae and soca. Insisting that it is targeted at a different market than the WTJRC, the cast has featured reggae legends like Beres Hammond, Barrington Levy, Elephant Man, Sanchez and Marcia Griffiths, and continues bringing modern dancehall heroes like Buju Banton, Tarrus Riley, Popcaan, Chris Martin, and soca star Rupee.

Courtesy Ad Lab Productions Ltd

Courtesy Ad Lab Productions Ltd

Courtesy Ad Lab Productions Ltd

Beenie Man, Destra Garcia and Buju Banton were among the soca and dancehall royalty at Melé in Cancun

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he Caribbean Carnival experience has long been exported to diaspora cities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and beyond. Carnival at sea has grown more recently to include land-based fetes, concerts, and adventure. Labadie, Haiti and Harvest Caye, Belize add to island spaces where the performances and parties — and the music that drives them — never stop.

Pre-pandemic, soca superstar Machel

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Montano and Tribe Carnival head honcho Dean Ackin had been planning a new soca cruise venture, Melé Cruise, for a 2020 launch. Making its debut in 2022, with a second edition in September 2023, it pivoted into Melé Destinations, anchoring the music experience — sans boat — onshore in Cancun, Mexico. Montano and other top soca and dancehall artists like Voice and Beenie Man headlined that event, pointing a new way to enhance fan engagement and generate revenue for the musicians and the brands.

In 2023, Hawaii-based Trinidadian promoter Jonathan Mack added another iteration of the music-themed cruise, when he and his partners — several top Carnival fete promoters and DJs — launched the Epic Carnival Experience.

The ship sailed from Barbados with entertainment from DJs like Walshy Fire and DJ Puffy, arriving the Friday before Carnival and serving as a hotel and floating resort — a “floatel” — for its passengers and island-based adventurers in search of something different.

Opulent entertainment defines the newly founded Lush Trinidad Carnival Floatel, which will continue the hotel-like anchored cruise experience concept into 2024.

The exclusivity and excitement surrounding these Caribbean music-themed cruises and experiences offers artists and DJs a unique marketing and promotion opportunity that can be leveraged to generate buzz, attract media attention, and directly engage fans — ultimately enhancing careers and loyalty.

Whether the impulse to develop these cruises was to do something positive for the Caribbean music industry, or simply to create a profitable niche within the larger cruise industry, the continued growth of the island-music cruise demonstrates the potential to go beyond borders — beyond the region. There are now dancehall and reggae cruises in Japan!

Caribbean music wins, and the new ways for audiences and fans to engage with live music from the islands, either on land or sea, continue to emerge. n

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backstory

Dancing with Cubans

For the first time in its history, partnering with an Austrian choreographer, Cuba’s Ballet Santiago debuted a daring and unique contemporary production — pushing both its dancers and its faithful audiences far beyond anything they’d done or seen before.

Donna Yawching learns about the journey — and what more is in store Photography by Sandy Jusino, courtesy Compañía Ballet Santiago de Cuba, and Donna Yawching (photo credited)

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t’s seven flights of steps up to where the Compañía Ballet Santiago de Cuba is rehearsing its latest work. Which may not be a hardship for a lithe young dancer, but for an outof-shape journalist d’un certain âge — well, enough said.

Still, I make it all the way up to the cavernous studio where, for this company at least, history is being made.

For the first time since its founding in 1990, the socialist nation’s third-string ballet company (ranking after the internationally renowned Ballet Nacional de Cuba founded by the great Alicia Alonso, and the equally lauded Ballet de Camagüey) is stepping into deeply unfamiliar territory.

It is shaking off its strictly classical roots to venture into the wilds of contemporary neo-classicism — a style that retains key classical technique while stripping away the narrative detail and theatricality of earlier periods, creating greater freedom and simplicity of movement, and placing more focus on the emotional expression of the dancer.

And in another first, they are working with a Viennese choreographer, Mike Loewenrosen, who has created a piece called Nostalgia on, and for, the company.

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n award-winning choreographer, Loewenrosen, 45, is the founder of Sunrise Studios, a state-approved dance and acting conservatory in Vienna, Austria. From his early years as a street break-dancer, he moved on to more conventional forms, eventually studying classical and contemporary dance in New York and Amsterdam.

Within the last decade, he has gravitated towards itinerant workshops and choreography, working with dance companies,

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Donna Yawching

theatres, film and TV in Europe, the United States, and South America. “I like choreography more than dancing,” Loewenrosen confesses. “It’s creative.”

He had wanted to do Nostalgia in New York (where he had been teaching and choreographing), then Covid hit. “And I had to leave,” he says. Coming out of the pandemic, he chanced upon an online video of the Ballet Santiago, and on impulse, reached out to them. “They were so nice,” he recalls. “It was cool.”

Zuria Salmon Alvarez, the company’s artistic director, picks up the story: “Mike contacted one of our professors after seeing one of our choreographies on the internet,” she tells me.

They communicated about the company’s style and training, the number of dancers, the (very brief) timeframe, and the choreographer’s vision. Three months later, Loewenrosen was unpacking his bags in Santiago and buckling down to work — in a language he barely knew.

A translator was provided. But there was another barrier that proved a little harder to overcome: the language of the dance itself. Until now, Ballet Santiago’s training and repertory had been almost exclusively classical, with minor incursions into moderately contemporary dance. What Loewenrosen brought to the table was a whole different style of movement, completely unfamiliar to most of the dancers.

A translator was provided. But there was another barrier that proved a little harder to overcome: the language of the dance itself “Mike is more fluid with the torso,” explains Salmon Alvarez.

“At first it was physically difficult on the dancers’ bodies, their knees; classical ballet has a more rigid format. But they are enjoying the experience.”

The dancers themselves — rehearsing in shoes so tattered they are barely there — concur. “It’s very interesting, this new style of moving,” says Lien-Yenen Soto Hung, who has been 22 years with Ballet Santiago. “It’s a different dance language; it widens the view. At the beginning, it left us in pain, but now it’s all fine; the body accustoms itself.”

“A mixture of different styles,” agrees Lisandra Garcia Revilla. “It’s nice to be learning something new, something fresh.”

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Some Compañía Ballet Santiago de Cuba members including company director Zuria Salmon Alvarez (centre, with flowers) and teacher, choreographer and assembly assistant Surinay Barrientos Moreno (left, in flowered dress)

The process The process of creating Nostalgia was not all butterflies and rainbows. Loewenrosen arrived in Cuba with a concept, but (except for one scene, which had already won international prizes) nothing concrete.

“I knew nothing of the company, I had to adjust,” he explains. “We were doing new things, and that’s hard for any dancer in the world.” The fact that some of his dancers were only six months out of ballet school made it even harder.

Sequences were videotaped and reviewed daily, with changes made on the fly. “I try something and see if it works. If not, I change it. The dancers have to remember the steps. You have to be very careful because sometimes they change something, and you realise, ‘Oh, that’s not me.’ But sometimes they change it for the better.”

The very short time frame made for some tense moments: everything — including tech and costumes — had to come together in four weeks.

Miraculously, it did. And with such success that there are plans afoot to repeat the experience.

Loewenrosen has remained in contact with the company, planning a new project which will bring him back to Santiago by the end of 2023.

As well, recognising the dire financial straits that limit every Cuban enterprise, he has launched a fundraising campaign to assist in purchasing costumes, fabrics, and footwear. (“Shoes are very expensive,” one dancer lamented, looking at her disintegrating ballet flats.)

The collaboration appears destined to flourish.

“Mike is now like family,” declares company director Zuria Salmon Alvarez. “Any time he wants to come, que venga.” Let him come.

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“Each day we learn more,” adds Silene Cedeño Rodriguez, another veteran with the company. “There are many movements, like undulations, that we don’t use in ballet. Mike is very patient; if we don’t understand something, he demonstrates. We get along well with him.”

Loewenrosen recalls it slightly differently: “At the beginning, it was hard to conquer their hearts; they were very reserved. But they opened up every day, more and more, and now it’s wonderful to work with them. They try so hard, and they learn very fast, they have very good pick-up. They get better every day.”

(His contract with Ballet Santiago pays him exactly zero: they’ve provided room and board only. Cuba is not a place with a lot of money to spare. “It’s the first time I’m doing this for free,” Loewenrosen emphasises.)

Initially, some of the dancers had doubts about the choreography. It was, one told me: “so linear, muy bajo”.

They worried that their audiences, accustomed to the pyrotechnics of classical ballet — the grands jetés, the pirouettes — might be underwhelmed by the low-key lyricism of Nostalgia, with its emphasis on emotion rather than virtuosity.

“At first I didn’t like the work, I didn’t understand the movements,” Silene admits. “We’re not accustomed to moving this slowly.”

Lisandra concurs: “It’s very difficult for the dancer because you need more control, more tension in the body. You have to control everything, even your mind.”

But soon, they were hooked. “We are doing art,” Silene says simply. “Each scene is a story.”

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ostalgia debuted in Santiago, at the prestigious Teatro Heredia on 5 March, 2023. The audience gave it a standing ovation. And, for the diehard pyrotechnics fans, the curtain calls did include a grand jeté or two. n

own words

“It really did feel like a dream team” Against the backdrop of this month’s United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), Antiguan lawyer Michai Robertson on his journey to the world’s most important climate negotiating tables; working toward the landmark UN Loss & Damage Fund at COP27; and the Caribbean women who made it possible — as told to Caroline Taylor

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have a bachelor’s and master’s in international environmental law.

I started out wanting to focus on aspects of justice and equity and realised in my third year, when I did an environmental law class, that the type of justice I was looking for was more on a systems level, as opposed to an individual level. With that, I decided to come back to Antigua after doing my bachelor’s.

I didn’t go into private practice — I started out in government. I moved into the Department of Environment, which opened up doors more broadly to defending the public interest — of humans, and our natural systems.

I was lucky enough that my boss — Ambassador Diann Black-Layne — was already in the centre of that world … the authority on things like raising finance for solving environmental problems. That’s why I ended up in the financing space.

Diann mentored me — really pushed me and gave me multiple opportunities.

I’ll be forever grateful for that. I don’t think there’s any other department where

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I would have been exposed to all these international meetings and opportunities for building my capacity if it weren’t for her. I haven’t seen it in other countries.

She has one of the youngest departments, with people not only from Antigua but across the region and the world.

Janine Coye-Felson [from Belize], who is a juggernaut in the space of sustainable financing, is also that way.

I’ve learned so much from these two Caribbean women: the way you go about dealing with diplomacy; positioning yourself and leveraging interests and positions; pushing for a collective good of small islands — not only from the Caribbean, but more broadly.

Janine was the chair of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS) in 2019. I had started negotiations work in 2018, and I like to throw myself into things. I think that maybe left a mark with the Belizean team, and they asked me to coordinate amongst the over 30 states on matters of climate finance. That was my first interaction with AOSIS.

Then Antigua & Barbuda assumed the chairmanship for two years during Covid at the start of 2021. So I packed up my life and I moved to New York. It’s a very short career. But because of these women, the trajectory was like that. I don’t think any 24, 25-year-old would have that opportunity if it wasn’t for nurturing and visionary leadership.

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o do justice to the story [of the Loss & Damage Fund, established in Egypt at COP27 in 2022], we have to go to the genesis of the entire international regime, which is 30-odd years old — the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

Where are they after a storm? After a drought? Developed countries for decades basically gaslit developing countries by saying: you won’t have loss or damage if you get your act together, and [the UNFCCC] is not the regime to deal with that.

However, there are climate tipping points. And when you reach those tipping points, you could be the United States of America or Europe, but you’re still going to get heatwaves and tropical cyclones.

You cannot fully adapt and brace for that.

Even if you cut emissions all the way down today, the loss and damage will be locked in.

Fast forwarding to 2021, through our chairmanship, we decided to look at the system and ways we could intervene beyond just advocacy. There was a different type of discussion between negotiators and technical people like myself to coordinate and strategise.

We got the Group of 77 and China — the UN’s main developing country

Courtesy Michai Robertson

constituency grouping — to agree to put an agenda item on the issue. This was very strategic. What they’ve done in the past is keep the technical loss and damage discussions on one agenda item, and the finance items on another. We simply made sure when we requested this new agenda item — as a grouping — it was under the financial matters agenda.

We wanted to signal that we’re not talking about the technical issues or data gathering anymore — we are probably more aware than most developed countries about how to deal with loss and damage.

What we do need is support and financing.

It was very surgical — and why understanding the process is very important — because now the presidency, everybody has to take notice of this item. Then

collectively, we have to adopt the agenda before we start.

It was a full court press. You heard Prime Ministers Gaston Brown, Mia Mottley, Roosevelt Skerritt all asking: what is the point of coming into a COP if we cannot even discuss in solidarity?

How can we get support to address the consequences of climate change under the UN Convention?

AOSIS, C A NA R I [t he Ca r ibbea n Natural Resources Institute], the 5Cs [the Caribbean Community Climate Change Centre], media, civil society within the Caribbean were all a fundamental part of that. It really did feel like a dream team, from all different parts of the world, to try and get this through, and finally get it adopted in Egypt.

We established a committee, which I’m a part of, to operationalise it. I personally have been pushing for a fund that’s different from the other UN climate funds. Does an average person on the street know what the Adaptation Fund is, or know what the Green Climate Fund is?

Do you think we need to create a fund that is like those others, especially in the context of branding — their ability to communicate to people externally, to raise and attract funding from persons and private corporations, beyond just governments who have been doing a poor job at providing finance?

We need to have a secretariat and a fund that has a different culture, that is going to be accessible and diverse enough to get to the most vulnerable populations.

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UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Left United Nations Secretary General António Guterres and Antigua & Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne survey hurricane damage in Codrington, Barbuda Below Michai Robertson at the Glasgow Dialogue on Loss & Damage

At the committee meeting [in early September], I must have mentioned culture and diversity about 10 or 20 times, because I am tired of going to funds where they’re primarily stocked up with white male economists based in Washington, DC that tell me how I should rebuild my country, when their country is not engaging in good governance from that perspective.

The image of the fund and how it represents itself is very important. Who is in the fund and operating it is very important. This will hopefully get you to the sources who want to put money into it; and ensure it’s agile enough — raising and disbursing capital for a 21st century crisis, whether it be through digital currencies or crowdsourcing.

It’s primarily the old colonial powers that have decision-making in institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It’s good to have taglines to say, yes, we’re going to focus more on climate change. But if the persons inside don’t care about climate change, or the instruments that created

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those organisations don’t even mention things like sustainable development, don’t we need an entire overhaul? How do we expect a bank to truly address the issues of public good if its ethos is to try and make money for the shareholders?

It’s the sleight of hand of the 1940s, and how one country was able to dictate how we perceive development — that it’s about economic growth and not about the well-being of humans and the planet.

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e’re really good at beating the drum and being amazing advocates, amazing orators.

That’s just the history of us in the Caribbean. Where we need work is building the right type of capacity — focusing on key areas.

I was talking to Diann the other day, and she highlighted how many of our people aren’t able to engage in the private international financial markets. If the trillions are there and we’re not, don’t we need to build capacity in how we deal with equity?

IISD/ENB — Kiara Worth

I don’t think any 24, 25-year-old would have that opportunity if it wasn’t for these women’s nurturing and visionary leadership We’re really good at racking up debt, right? We can negotiate the IMF or World Bank loan like nothing. We’re good at programming grants. But how do we invest in local businesses, with financial institutions engaged in a way that allows for more local ownership in our private sector, as opposed to foreign direct investment?

We need people in STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics]. Because they’re crucial to transitioning in the context of climate change. I feel like a “bush scientist”, because you have to be able to engage with very detailed models of how climates are going to be over time to plan correctly — looking at graphical GIS [Geographic Information Systems], climate meteorology, hydrology. We don’t have enough of that.

Our societies are also very much focused on religion and sports. And I think we also could be figuring out ways to use those influential parts of our community to teach and sensitise — influencing change from a grassroots level. n

destination

The Barbados foodie files

Image Professionals GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

In the wake of the Barbados Food & Rum Festival, Shelly-Ann Inniss returns home to Barbados, and embarks on a gastronomic adventure from coast to coast

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Courtesy Visit Barbados

Courtesy Visit Barbados

Above Grilled lobster and a delicious dish made with local ingredients Left Promenade in St Lawrence Gap

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ome things will never change. Among them, the timeless view of the bay upon entering St Lawrence Gap on Barbados’ south coast, and seeing an oftenphotographed restaurant overlooking the water.

Lanterns illuminate the length of this gorgeous oceanfront property, reflected on the surface of the sea as fishing boats gently bob on the water. It stirs a sense of warmth within me.

Barbados is by no means a hideaway, and for me there is something about each restaurant that sets it apart from other destinations — perhaps because the local chefs are no strangers to the world of culinary competition.

Award-winning culinary ambassadors who believe that people first “eat with their eyes”, as well as those presenting audacious new creations, serve up abundantly appetising dishes — all packaged with passion — that foodies like me savour.

Many of these establishments along the south coast boardwalk are favourites among locals. Seaside dining? You bet!

Eclectic menus? Of course! Mediterranean, Indian style … they’re all available. Cuisine from around the world effortlessly satisfies any palate, especially when paired with the south coast’s natural charm.

The island is abuzz with foodie activity in October, of course, for the Food & Rum Festival. Gastronomes, along with international chefs like Britain’s Michelin-starred Tom Aikens and American Anne Burrell descend on the island, while local talent like chef Marvin Applewhaite (who calls himself “a kitchen addict”); chef Nicholas Ifill (who’s won numerous awards including Barbados Chef of the Year 2019); and health coach and plant-

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Courtesy VisIt Barbados

roast breadfruit on the shore — it makes me truly feel at home.

Perhaps it’s my memories of growing up in Barbados and going to the beach 1,000 times a year eating homegrown food and freshly caught fish.

Seafood is very popular across the island. Flying fish, mahi mahi, amberfish, and shellfish frequently appear on menus.

Bajans use the freshest herbs and spices with a few unique tricks, so don’t be surprised if your fish tastes … different, in the best possible way.

“Fish! Fish! Fish!” call the vendors at Oistins — the renowned fishing village on the south coast. It’s also known for the Friday and Saturday night limes with karaoke, accompanied by fun vibes and delicious fare ranging from grilled fish to barbecue spareribs.

Further along the south coast, towards Bridgetown, hides a food garden otherwise known as Worthing Square Food Court.

Inconspicuous except for strings of lights glowing through the trees, food trucks serve up dishes from Jamaican to Japanese.

Live music combined with a chill vibe under the stars make this a cool spot for a night out with friends. The food trucks are open from morning to night, but be sure to confirm opening hours since they vary for each food truck.

I based wellness chef Ann-Marie Leach have created quite a buzz.

But for foodies, the island’s old tourism slogan holds true all year round: “never a dull moment in Barbados”.

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he hardest part of trying to make the most of my foodie adventure is determining where to start touring, and what to add to my itinerary. Should it be the platinum west coast; the jagged north coast with the Animal Flower Cave and stunning views; the highly traversed south coast, or the east coast’s countryside?

Okay, a swim in the gorgeous aquamarine waters surrounding Barbados is high on the list too — while eating pommecythere or golden apples (as Bajans call them), dipped in the salt water to enhance the flavour, of course.

There’s something unique about eating fruit in the sea or

f you’re on a tight budget, the capital city Bridgetown is your treasure chest. Sometimes roadside vendors sell food from vans, and makeshift stalls line the pavement as well.

As for the sweets … Are you a coconut lover? There’s nothing like sweetbread with coconut in the middle, sugar cakes, coconut rolls, and coconut turnovers (a sweet bun with a coconut filling) to bring out child-like glee!

While in Bridgetown, I highly recommend a walking food tour through the city. Charismatic and extremely knowledgeable guides teach eager foodies about Barbados’ culinary heritage, including how pudding-and-souse rose to fame.

Of course, you’ll have to take the tour to find out why the lines to access anywhere selling pudding and souse sometimes spill into the streets on Saturdays. The pudding — steamed sweet potato seasoned with spices — is plated loosely with pork souse and pickled breadfruit.

Honestly, breadfruit isn’t my favourite, but various establishments like Yelluh Meat in Black Rock on the west coast are excellent at persuasion. Additionally, their outdoor concept captures the community spirit of roasting breadfruit combined with tuna, red herring, lamb, pickled pigtail and other meats.

This delightful fuel can make the most generous person on earth stingy if they can’t buy an extra meal to share.

Making up for your stinginess can happen along the major highways, since some vendors prepare freshly roasted corn,

Courtesy VisIt Barbados

Above World-renowned American chef and Food Network host Anne Burrell provided insider tips and tricks for some of the best kept recipes Left Barbadian chefs Anne-Marie Leach and Nicholas Ifill were two of the personalities leaving a mark at the Food & Rum Festival

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Courtesy St Nicholas Abbey

Above St Nicholas Abbey, one of Barbados’ rum distilleries Left Bajan fishcakes

Courtesy Pixabay

Be warned: leaving Barbados without a bread-and-two — “salt bread” (a bun or hops) with two fishcakes — is sinful. Your conscience, and Rihanna, may not forgive you roasted breadfruit, barbecued pigtails, and fishcakes on the highway’s shoulder. Be warned: leaving Barbados without a breadand-two — “salt bread” (a bun or hops) with two fishcakes — is sinful. Your conscience, and Rihanna, may not forgive you.

Speaking of that superstar, fame and Barbados go hand in hand. And only Barbados’ award-winning rums can rival Rihanna’s fame. A sip of liquid gold will likely pique your curiosity about what happens behind the scenes. Learn about classic rums at the main distilleries on the island: Mount Gay Distillery (established in 1703), Four Square Rum Factory, St Nicholas Abbey, and The West Indies Rum Distillery.

Over 1,500 rum shops dot Barbados, but the term “rum shop” is subject to interpretation because they vary in form, theme, and culture — like Mexican, Irish, and of course, local. They can be

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considered off-the-beaten-path culinary treasures, too. Some of the best Bajan macaroni pie and baked chicken, sweet potato pie, cou-cou and flying fish (Barbados’ national dish) can be found in these haunts at economical prices. Follow your heart — and nose!

Not that this needs to be justified, but food is a common denominator among travellers. Although a new wardrobe appears necessary for me after eating my way across Barbados, I’ll mount a soapbox to declare Barbados is full of culinary luminaries winning over travellers with both the earthiest and most sophisticated palates.

Could this truly be the “culinary capital of the Caribbean”?

An intra-Caribbean fight may break out over this. But good food, a full tummy, and unforgettable experiences will tide me over until my next visit … This could be the start of a new tradition. 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 The global economy spends $1.4 trillion annually combating invasive species.

These harmful pests and diseases can be transported by unsuspecting travelers carrying food, plants and other agricultural items in their luggage. United States Customs and Border Protection conduct inspections at ports of entry to detect and prevent the unintentional spread of harmful invasives. Fruits, vegetables, meats, unprocessed wood and other agricultural items can potentially harbor invasive insects.

Help protect the world’s food supply by declaring all food and agricultural items when you enter the United States or other countries. Before traveling with agricultural items, ask yourself “Can I bring it?” and visit DontPackaPest.com to educate yourself on prohibited items.

Remember, when you travel, declare agricultural items and don’t pack a pest!

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U.S. Department of Agriculture • U.S. Customs and Border Protection • Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Agriculture Declare Inspection Safeguard

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DONT PACK A PEST .COM

natural wonder

Kanuku Mountains, Guyana Sustainability is a way of life for the Macushi and Wapishana communities who live in the Kanuku Mountains Protected Area. Encompassing 611,000 hectares in southwestern Guyana, and rising to over 3,500 feet, the area boasts waterfalls, rock formations, and pristine forest with abundant wildlife. It’s home to 70% of Guyana’s mammals — including endangered Amazonian creatures, species endemic to the Guiana Shield, and the largest recorded bat diversity in a protected area (89 species).

This is also where the Rupununi River originates, flowing between the east and west Kanukus, along the Guyana and Brazil border, and into the mighty Essequibo River.

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Pete Oxford

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Kathy Servian, courtesy Unsplash

discover

A monarch butterfly

Saving the Caribbean’s butterflies The beloved migratory monarch is one of several butterfly species facing extinction in the Caribbean — many of them less known and less publicised. Erline Andrews goes inside the painstaking work being done in Jamaica to document and to protect these beautiful, critically important pollinators 64

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“In Jamaica, very few people have heard of the blue kite swallowtail or remember its colourful mass migrations from Rozelle in St Thomas parish through Kingston in the 1960s,” he said. “Even fewer will have seen this butterfly.”

Turland and Turner want the IUCN to list the blue kite swallowtail as critically endangered, and have prepared a research paper making the case. The butterfly is currently listed as vulnerable.

Much more has to be done to save the species, and the men have suggested ways to do so — including employing and training wardens to patrol breeding sites.

A monarch emerges from the chrysalis, wings still wet

Joshua J Cotton, courtesy Unsplash

T

he blue kite swallowtail butterfly — swaths of bright blue cutting across black on its wings — used to descend on Kingston, Jamaica once a year in large numbers, bringing a beautiful touch of nature to the bustling city.

That was a long time ago. They haven’t been seen in the city since the ‘60s — their numbers drastically diminished by human encroachment on their habitats.

It’s the fate of many butterfly species around the world.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) currently has 258 butterflies on their Red List, designating them vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered.

Newly included among the endangered is the migratory monarch butterfly, a subspecies of the iconic orange and black monarch butterfly that travels from North America to Mexico for the winter.

The announcement last year made many headlines around the world.

The blue kite swallowtail’s situation is arguably worse. It’s endemic to or found only in Jamaica, giving it a slimmer chance of long-term survival. Once filling the sky over the capital with tufts of blue, they’ve become a rare sight, found only in a few small, forested areas. Unlike the monarch, their plight isn’t making headlines.

“Butterflies are just not important in most people’s lives,” said Vaughan Turland, an entomologist and photographer who has been studying and capturing images of Jamaica’s butterflies for decades.

He and lepidopterist Tom Turner are co-authors of Discovering Jamaican Butterflies & Their Relationships Around the Caribbean, which is promoted as the most comprehensive look at the country’s butterflies since 1972.

The two men probably know more about the blue kite swallowtail than anyone else in the world.

“The monarch butterf ly continues to fall in numbers despite the extensive conser vation ef for ts and enor mous publicity that rightly surrounds its spectacular migrations in North America and Mexico,” said Turland via email.

A nother butter f ly fou nd only in Jamaica — the yellow and black Homerus swallowtail (aka the giant Jamaican swallowtail, the largest butterfly in the Americas) — is listed as endangered.

The men are pushing for another Jamaican endemic — the Atlantea pantoni or Panton’s fritillary — to be categorised as endangered by the IUCN. “It is the continuing loss of habitat year by year that is at the root of the problem for all species, not just in Jamaica but worldwide,” said Turland.

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amaica is the only country in the English-speaking Caribbean with endemic butterflies on the IUCN list.

This doesn’t mean Jamaicans are taking less care of their butterflies. It suggests the opposite.

To be listed requires advocacy from people monitoring the welfare of the animals. An animal not being on the list doesn’t mean it isn’t threatened. It means its situation hasn’t been brought to the attention of the IUCN. Jamaica has a long history of charismatic scientists advocating on behalf of butterflies, starting with John Parnell in the 1960s. A short documentary he released in 1985 first highlighted the plight of the Homerus swallowtail.

His students, Tom Turner and Eric Gallaway, continued in his footsteps after he left the country in 1984. Both write books and papers, and give talks about the country’s butterflies and the need to protect them. They keep track of population levels at breeding sites.

Making an online presentation to the Natural History Society of Jamaica (NHSJ), Gallaway tells of how he, Parnell, and others — in a demonstration of dedication — camped in the forest for weeks in a van with no air-conditioning, getting showered with rain, to film Parnell’s documentary.

Turner spent six years tracing the origins of the blue kite swallowtail. He and Turland took more than eight years to research their book, with Turland capturing the very first images of many of Jamaica’s butterflies at all stages of their lifecycle. He photographed 126 of Jamaica’s 138 butterfly species (and 40 of the 43 endemic ones) — a painstaking task.

“In all, we spent eight years of regular field work, visiting all corners of Jamaica, trying to get photographic records. Even then, there were rare species that we observed on only one or perhaps two occasions … Two of these not photographed are known only from a museum specimen and the other — well, who knows? Very elusive,” he said.

Through their arduous work, the duo discovered the first butterfly genus endemic to Jamaica (Troyus turneri or Turner’s gold-striped skipper), and a new species: Pyrisitia euterpiformis turlandi or Jamaican yellow.

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Courtesy Vaughan Turland

Endangered endemic Jamaican giant swallowtail (Pterourus homerus), also known as the Homerus swallowtail, in Jamaica’s rugged Cockpit Country

Deforestation and limestone and bauxite mining in Jamaica threaten butterflies and other wildlife, as well as charcoal-making and the expansion of human settlements and roads.

Oxandra lanceolata, the plant the blue kite larvae feed on (known colloquially as lancewood), is cut down in large numbers to make “yam sticks”, which are used to hold up the vines of that popular human staple.

“This practice is a major contributor to deforestation in Jamaica,” Turner said in an online presentation to the London Natural History Society.

The situation is not entirely bleak.

Dr Gallaway and colleagues have been working for decades on community engagement, and their efforts have reaped rewards.

The Wildlife Protection Act was amended in 1988 to include the Homerus swallowtail. And a system of protected areas was established in 1990. The National Environment & Planning Agency banned collection of the blue kite and Homerus swallowtail.

W he n t he gove r n me nt i n 2017 announced a bauxite mining project in Cockpit Country — a rugged stretch of rainforest, hills and caves that is rich in biodiversity and contains breeding sites

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for the threatened butterflies — it drew protests. The project has been delayed.

Gallaway told the NHSJ about his encounter with three little girls when he went to Millbank to do field research after having not visited for a long while.

“For farming purposes, it would be essential to find and collect late-stage larvae and rear them to the pupal stage in readiness for release into the wild before emergence as an adult,” he said.

And this would be a challenge given that, in some years, adult emergences are not recorded, and numbers are very low. “A lot more research is needed to determine the feasibility of this approach,” he said.

Garraway has acknowledged farming would not be a quick fix. It would be many years before it yields benefits.

Turland said there has been a positive response to his and Turner’s call for action on the blue kite swallowtail. The organisation Coastal Area Management Foundation has prepared a four-year conservation action plan — sponsored by the European Union — for the subpopulation of the species located in Portland Bight, a protected area.

By protecting butterflies, he said, we’re protecting the environment and human welfare “Three young girls came out of the river and threatened to call the police to arrest me. Because I was going to capture the butterfly,” he said, sounding pleased.

“This was the highpoint of my life as a conservation biologist. The message had come down the generations, guys!”

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oncern for protecting the butterflies has waned partly because of increasing economic hardship in recent years. In discussing ways to protect Jamaica’s butterflies while helping residents and the country earn income, Dr Gallaway has suggested butterfly farming, something that has been highly successful in Belize.

Turland is sceptical that farming would help the blue kite swallowtail.

Turland has trained community members to identify the butterfly and report sightings. “Once our paper is published, we would very much hope that similar interest will be shown in the other subpopulations,” he said.

By protecting butterflies, he said, we’re protecting the environment and human welfare.

“The loss of habitat for butterflies, which may often be caused by reduction in forest cover,” he said, “has a tangible link to rainfall patterns, and perhaps availability of good quality and sufficient drinking water in a world where climate change is a stark reality … In caring for butterf lies, we are directly benefiting ourselves.” n

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on this day

The road that couldn’t be built Daunted by Saba’s dramatic topography, Dutch colonial authorities deemed it impossible to build a road on the island. But, writes James Ferguson, it’s now been 80 years since islanders, led by a selftaught engineer, built Saba’s only (spectacular) road by — quite literally — taking matters into their own hands Photography by dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo

T

he Netherlands is an exceedingly flat country.

Not the world’s flattest (that distinction belongs to the Maldives), but certainly in the top 10, with a modest high point of 1,056 feet close to the borders with Belgium and Germany. But this is only the European part of the country that used to be called Holland. In fact, the highest point in The Kingdom of the Netherlands — the official name for the federation that consists of the Western European country (98%) and overseas island territories (2%) — is to be found somewhere between Anguilla and St Kitts & Nevis, in the Caribbean’s Leeward Island archipelago.

The quaintly named Mount Scenery — rising to a much more impressive 2,877 feet — comprises pretty much all of the island of Saba, one of the Caribbean’s three Dutch “special municipalities” (Sint Eustatius and Bonaire are the others).

From a distance, it seems that the volcano rises straight out of the seabed, with dramatically steep sides and little in the way of flat terrain. And this extreme verticality has been both the curse and

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salvation of tiny Saba: its extraordinary topography has always created obstacles and exhausting work for its inhabitants, but it has also preserved the island’s cultural uniqueness and stemmed the relentless march of mass tourism.

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aba can claim a couple of minisuperlatives: it is the smallest permanently populated territory in the Americas (five square miles with 1,911 residents in 2022). It also has the world’s shortest commercial runway at 1,312 feet — perhaps explaining why those tourists who come do so in limited numbers, on small propeller planes. Landing in Saba, where the runway ends abruptly with sheer cliffs and a drop into the sea, is not for the faint-hearted, as I can testify, but the airport’s safety record is exemplary.

Before the airport, however, came the saga of “The Road” — so named because Saba essentially has a single road. It was an audacious undertaking given the island’s isolation and steepness, and it was achieved despite considerable indifference on the part of the then colonial authorities. Its construction was the work of islanders, and the guiding light is gener-

ally acknowledged to be a Saban-born engineer, who died 40 years ago, in 1983.

His legacy is the 8.7-mile “road that could not be built” — a vital part of everyday life in Saba.

Since its colonisation by the Dutch, those who lived on the island had to contend with steep paths and vertiginous tracks. Unsuitable for plantation agriculture, the island had few slaves and was largely populated by Dutch-descended and other European settlers who specialised in fishing, lace-making, and smuggling.

The absence of a functioning harbour meant that small schooners delivered and collected goods, and these had to be transported by humans or donkeys from the rocky inlet at Fort Bay to the main settlements of Windwardside and The Bottom. Most cargo that came ashore was carried up a lung-busting set of 800 steps carved into rocks — “The Ladder” — and into The Bottom, a village whose names derives from the Dutch Botte, the volcanic bowl in which it sits.

By the mid-20th centur y, it had become painfully apparent that Saba’s infrastructure was lagging behind that of other Caribbean territories. Contacts with the oil-rich Dutch colony of Curaçao underlined the problem, and Sabans who ventured abroad were not oblivious to the advantages of motorised transport. But the Dutch authorities did not view their miniature colony as a priority, and little progress was made.

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fter two Dutch engineers visited and concluded that a road was unfeasible, a providential individual by the name of Josephus Lambert Hassell (or “Lambee”) decided, quite literally, to take matters into his own hands. Returning home after a stint in Aruba, he undertook a correspondence course in civil engineering and learned the basics of road building, including the use of cement.

Michel-Jean Cazabon’s View of Port of Spain from Laventille Hill

In 1943, he was ready to begin his ambitious project. And with enthusiastic volunteers and some workers paid a basic daily rate with funds from Curaçao, the road began to take shape. Veteran island historian Will Johnson points out that some preliminary work from Fort Bay to The Bottom had already been done, but it was Lambee and his team of local helpers who carried out the bulk of the back-breaking labour.

One woman interviewed by Dutch academic Nikki Mulkder recalls how the road construction was done with no mechanical assistance: And so it was. And it was just by hand. They had no big machinery, no trucks, not anything like that.

Everything, the rocks was [sic] on their heads, the cement. Everything was by hand.

Not surprisingly, it took 15 years for the main part of the road to be painstakingly fashioned through Saba’s steep and rugged landscape, with pickaxes, shovels and wheelbarrows. Eventually it reached the suitably named village of Hell’s Gate (or Zion Hill), which had provided the most determined volunteer workforce in a bid to

Saba’s extraordinary topography has always created obstacles and exhausting work for its inhabitants, but it has also preserved the island’s cultural uniqueness and stemmed the relentless march of mass tourism be connected to the rest of the island.

In the meantime, according to Will Johnson in The Saba Islander, one Oliver Zagers from Hell’s Gate brought the first vehicle — a Jeep — ashore, lashed to two wooden cargo boats in 1947. It was for the use of the Dutch Administrator, and in 1955 was used to drive Queen Juliana around the island during her brief royal tour. In 1952, there were nine cars on the island, and in 1964, a total of 46 vehicles.

By then, the infamous Juancho E Yrausquin airport had finally opened on a small piece of level land on the other side of the island from Fort Bay. The first flight from Sint Maarten landed safely on 24 July, 1963 — 60 years ago. A switchback road, just over half a mile long with dizzying bends, leads up from the little airport to Hell’s Gate, and taxis ferry visitors

around the island (car hire is virtually non-existent; those alarming bends and the road’s narrowness deter most tourists).

Lambee Hassell’s road is a source of great pride in Saba, a sort of “founding myth” that proves that local determination and hard work could prove the Dutch experts wrong. Plenty of YouTube videos demonstrate its spectacular and at times dangerous features, but it has stood the test of time and transformed the fortunes of Hassell’s island — the “unspoiled queen of the Caribbean”.

Saba’s sustainable tourism today — based on diving, hiking and naturefriendly activities — does not, in any case, depend on a busy road network.

And in this respect, the self-taught civil engineer’s project turned out to be the perfect solution. n

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icon

Sam Selvon at 100 In partnership with the Bocas Lit Fest, Caribbean Beat celebrates the centenary and legacy of Trinidad-born author Samuel Selvon, with extended coverage on our website

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amuel Dickson Selvon was born in San Fernando, Trinidad in 1923, the sixth of seven children. Writing later of his boyhood, he remembered “stealing mangoes from other people’s gardens, and Carnival, and pitching marbles in the dusty road, or breaking biche from school to go and fly kites. And all this with children of my own age whose colours ranged from deepest black to soap powder white, of all nationalities and creeds.”

He emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1950, then to Canada in 1978 — becoming a citizen in 1981. Still, Selvon always identified himself as a Caribbean expatriate, and took every opportunity to refresh his links with Trinidad, visiting when he could, and serving as writer in residence at all three University of the West Indies campuses at different times. He believed in the idea of a multicultural Caribbean consciousness that included people from all the islands. And he saw himself as a citizen of the world.

In December 1993, Selvon returned to Trinidad to start work on an account of his own life. But illness struck: first one heart attack, and then another. He died on 16 April, 1994, at Piarco International Airport.

Caribbean Beat ran a significant feature on him that year (issue #11), written by then-editor Jeremy Taylor, with tributes from Earl Lovelace, Bruce Paddington, Ken Ramchand, George John, Susheila Nasta, Cecil Gray, and Michael Anthony.

It is free to read in our online archive.

His body of work includes novels, short stories,

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Photography courtesy West Indiana and Special Collections, The Alma Jordan Library, The University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad & Tobago radio plays, a screenplay, and poetry. And today, Selvon is celebrated for the sophisticated sense of irony and subversion in many of his comedic masterpieces. His linguistic innovations extended the possibilities of “nation language” in literatures written in English. Writer Caryl Phillips credits Selvon as a pioneer in the tradition of Black writing, as well as a key figure in the literary reimaging of Britain after World War II. In addition to two Guggenheim Fellowships (in 1954 and 1968), Selvon’s awards included honorary degrees from the University of the West Indies (1985) and Warwick University (1989), and a posthumous Trinidad & Tobago national award, the Chaconia Medal Gold (1994). n

Visit our website to read our in-depth coverage of Selvon’s life and work: https://www.caribbean-beat.com/sam-selvon-at-100-icon

NGC’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Portal Launched in 2023, NGC’s Climate Adaptation and Resilience Portal (CARP) is a new portal housed on the Company’s website which will complement the products of The NGC Group's Green Agenda.

CARP will provide, climate change projections on conditions such as sea level rise, rainfall patterns, temperature variability, storm surge, and coastal erosion.

CARP’s interactive Geographic Information Systems (GIS) interface provides a powerful and easy-to-use tool to visualise climate change projections such as sea level rise, coastal erosion and other hazards such as adverse weather alerts, storms/hurricanes, poor air quality and heat waves.

CARP will also curate useful tools and resources aimed at promoting and building climate adaptation and resilience. From GIS applications illustrating the cumulative exposure to climate change, to mapping of coral bleaching episodes, to linkages to resilience tools and plans across the region, CARP will support users in becoming more climate change aware and resilient.

Hurricane forecasts •

Flooding risk maps

•

Best practices adopted by other countries for adaptation (links)

•

Meteorological forecasts

•

A climate adaptation and resilience newsfeed

•

Linkages to other GIS interfaces/applications showing global trends

•

Articles on hurricane damage in one place and impacts (on Caribbean islands)

To access the portal, please visit

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puzzles 1

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by Gregory St Bernard

Spot the Difference answers

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There are 14 differences between these two pictures.

How many can you spot?

Kaiso: complexion is different; gloves are white; he’s wearing glasses; he’s wearing a tie; his belt buckle has a “C” instead of a “K”. Blue fish (background): is wearing shades. Pink fish: has different lips; is wearing a scarf.

Gold fish: fin is repositioned. Purple fish (foreground): has a blue hat; is holding a larger bottle.

Green fish: hat is repositioned. Christmas tree: star is pink; ball decorations are yellow.

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parting shot

Pigeon Point, Tobago

Tarique Eastman

Viewed from beach level, the thatch-roofed jetty at Pigeon Point Heritage Park — described by CNN as “a literal representation of the Caribbean beach ideal” — may be Tobago’s most instantly recognisable and most photographed landmark. But from high above, it’s barely a speck in the broad expanse of shallow, sparkling blue water extending all the way out to the Buccoo Reef Marine Park (a protected area).

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