Caribbean Beat — September/October 2024 (#184)

Caribbean Airlines Wins Best Airline Staff 2024

Caribbean Airlines’ Chief Operations Officer, Nirmala Ramai accepts the award for Best Airline Staff 2024 for the Caribbean and Latin America on behalf of Caribbean Airlines Limited at the Skytrax, World Airline Awards ceremony, held at Fairmont Windsor Park in the United Kingdom.

The World Airline Awards is a global passenger satisfaction survey that solicits feedback from over 100 customer nationalities.

This is the second year in a row that Caribbean Airlines has won the award.

Dear valued customers,

July and August are our peak season, and this year has been one of our busiest ever. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the incredible team here at Caribbean Airlines whose goal every day is to give all our passengers exceptional service.

It is this collective commitment to excellence that has enabled us to smoothly traverse this busy time, while also achieving some remarkable milestones and accolades.

On that note, I am proud to share that Caribbean Airlines has been recognised as having the Best Staff in the Caribbean & Latin America for two consecutive years at the Skytrax World Airline Awards.

This award, based on a global passenger satisfaction survey, is a true testament to the quality of service provided by our team. Our Chief Operations Officer, Nirmala Ramai, is pictured opposite accepting the Skytrax award.

We were also named the Caribbean’s Leading Airline Brand at the World Travel Awards for the eighth consecutive year. These awards are a great achievement and reflect the amazing teamwork across our organisation that is critical to our success and keeping our day-to-day operations running smoothly.

Commitment to service excellence

Over the past five years, we have seen consistent progress in our customer service based on industry benchmarks — reflected in awards and positive feedback. However, I am aware that there is always room for improvement, or days where we do not meet the standards we aspire to.

We will not be taking anything for granted, and in fact plan to build on this platform of success and improve further through establishing internal programmes to ensure that best-in-class service and customer-focussed behaviours are consistently being assessed, instilled, and delivered at every stage of your travel experience.

Throughout my own travels, I pay close attention to the customer experience on other airlines and remain passionate about service excellence. This hands-on approach helps us identify best practices and areas for improvement. I am committed to ensuring that Caribbean Airlines not only meets but exceeds your expectations.

Caribbean Culture

In July, we hosted Flavour & Flora at the Hilton Trinidad & Conference Centre — an event celebrating Caribbean cuisine at its finest. It was another element of our growing Caribbean Culture agenda,

which started with Culture in the Park at Trinidad Carnival, followed by the regional Caribbean Airlines Village T10 Cricket tournament.

Flavour & Flora was an unforgettable showcase of the Caribbean’s diverse cuisine through gourmet meals inspired by the eclectic flavours of the Caribbean, and prepared by some of the region’s most renowned chefs, including Chef Dustin Dalgetty (Guyana); Chef Marvin Applewhaite (Barbados); Chef Belinda Bishop (Grenada); Executive Chef Volae Williams (Jamaica); and, from Trinidad & Tobago, Executive Chefs Khalid Mohammed, Dominique Beens, Moses Ruben, and Chefs Bernard Long, Christopher Ackbarali, Sharaz Mohammed, Isabel Brash, Darius E Campbell, and Ryan Aming Garcia.

Our growth continues — both in size and expertise — but I believe we will always retain the personal focus and the Caribbean authenticity that have been at the heart of our success so far. Thank you for your continued support and trust in Caribbean Airlines. We look forward to welcoming you on board again in the future, and providing you with exceptional travel experiences.

Regards, Garvin

A Message from our CEO Caribbean Airlines

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20 EvEnt buzz

Festivals and events around the region

26 Music & book buzz

Reviews by Nigel Campbell and Shivanee Ramlochan

28 scrEEn buzz

Trinidadian-Canadian director Richard Fung talks to Jonathan Ali about the Enigma of Harold sonny Ladoo

30 Word of MoutH

Shelly-Ann Inniss previews Antigua & Barbuda’s Art Week

34 snapsHot Positivity Personified

After a car accident threatened to derail his cricket career, Nicholas Pooran managed to bounce back as one of the most exciting batters in the world. Sheldon Waithe maps the journey

40 oWn Words “i’m just an ordinary Person”

Award-winning Barbadian disability rights activist and former President of the Senate Kerryann Ifill on the immeasurable value of integration and inclusion; what keeps her motivated; and the legacy she wants to leave — as told to Shelly-Ann Inniss

44 tHE dEaL the Promise of Caribbean mediCal tourism

People from around the world come to the Caribbean not only for restorative wellness holidays, but to access top-class, affordable medical care. But there’s much work still to do, as Erline Andrews reports

52 panoraMa Woman is boss

Against the backdrop of Calypso History Month in Trinidad & Tobago,

As Guyanese-British artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard receives one of the photography world’s most 52 20 80

Nigel Campbell looks at the trailblazing women of calypso — from the 19th century pioneers to the titans of today’s soca and calypso

58 portfoLio

Working images

prestigious awards, Marta Fernandez learns more about the profound significance of her work

64 backstory roots and rhythm

Marsha M Hall explores the rich history of Kumina — brought by free Africans to Jamaica in the decades after Emancipation

68 on tHis day “i am Cuba”

With the recent re-release of soy cuba , James Ferguson looks at why this 1964 propaganda film — once rejected by Cubans and Soviets alike — is now considered a landmark cinematic masterpiece

70 nEigHbourHood brooklyn, neW york

With so many museums, parks, restaurants, and neighbourhoods to explore, who needs Manhattan?

72 puzzLEs & brain tEasErs

Enjoy our crossword, spot-thedifference, and other brain teasers!

Beat Beat Caribbean Caribbean

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© 2024 Media & Editorial Projects Ltd (MEP) and individual contributors. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine, or any content on caribbean-beat.com, may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher. caribbean beat (ISSN 1680–6158) is produced six times a year for Caribbean Airlines (CAL) by MEP, and is also available by subscription. MEP makes effort to ensure all content is accurate up to press time. Views expressed in caribbean beat are not necessarily those of MEP or CAL, and neither party accepts any responsibility for advertising content.

Cover Contemporary

soca superstars like Nailah Blackman come from a long line of trailblazing women who helped revolutionise calypso and soca

Photo Courtesy Nailah Blackman/Sokah Experience Ltd

Jonathan Ali , a film curator, has written about arts and culture for over 20 years, with bylines in the trinidad & tobago review, trinidad g uardian , caribbean review of b ooks, and Sight and Sound Magazine, among others. He has contributed to caribbean b eat since 2008.

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 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.

Marsha M Hall is a research officer at the African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica/Jamaica Memory Bank, a Divison of the Institute of Jamaica.

Shelly-Ann Inniss is a Trinidad-based Barbadian writer; community builder; self-appointed tourism ambassador for Barbados; gluten-free baker, and founder of Your Glutenfree Companion (producing a versatile 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

Sheldon Waithe is Creative Director at communiquett.

this issue’s contributors: com . His trinidad g uardian column and work for Caribbean and UK sites allow him to flex his mental muscles on political, societal and sport matters, while cycling flexes his physical muscles (and keeps him sane).

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The magic of Martinique

OA Message from our CEO

n 14 October, 2023, I touched down in Martinique — my weariness and sleep-deprivation weighing me down. The length of the journey was less than ideal,

and my mind was preoccupied with the challenges of the previous week.

Little did I know that this remarkable little island — Martinique — would rekindle my spirit and infuse me with newfound energy.

Once I passed through immigration with my compactly-packed bag, I emerged from the customs hall into a world of warmth. There stood Jean Marc and Catherine, waiting to welcome me. Their smiles were a reflection of the genuine hospitality that defines Martinique. Catherine departed, leaving me in the kind and capable hands of Jean Marc.

Jean Marc and I connected effortlessly. His pride in his homeland was palpable. The landscape surprised me with its many tall buildings, which is not typical in the smaller islands. Martinique’s history (a single territorial collectivity of France, and first occupied by French settlers in 1635), was evident in its wellmaintained infrastructure.

Instead of merely escorting me to the hotel, Jean Marc took it upon himself to show me the beauty of the island’s south side. We explored the Diamond Rock, Point Salines Beach, and his family’s ancestral land. We ventured through charming coastal towns, and as we gazed across the ocean, he pointed out St Lucia — a place I cherish. And here I was, seeing it from a fresh perspective.

Despite the language barrier, I felt an inexplicable connection to Martinique. The people exuded Caribbean warmth, coupled with the unmistakable French influence in their pride and attitude. I couldn’t help but wonder if this sense of connection was tied to my ancestry.

Family lore mentioned my great-great-grandfather, Oscar Ligoure, who had passed through Martinique from France, en route to Trinidad. Did he linger here, I wondered? Is that part of what tugged at my soul?

The island’s landscape was a visual delight — a tapestry of lush greenery, mountains, and, most intriguingly, rivers. Rivers have always been special for me, and I prefer a riverside gathering to the sea.

Even the Caribbean Sea here felt different. The lilting French accent was music to my ears, and the local cuisine was both satisfying and reassuring. Knowing that crops were free from pesticides, and most items imported from France (which adheres to strict European food safety standards), brought comfort in a region often plagued by food over-treated with chemicals.

From my hotel room, with a serene view of St Lucia, I felt an unexplainable tranquillity. I ventured outside only twice: once for a meal and the other for a short stroll. My limited exploration revealed that Martinique, while not perfect, had an innate charm that captivated me.

I’ve deeply admired all I’ve seen and experienced so far. The scent of the grass, reminiscent of shadon beni (cilantro), delighted my senses. The people dressed elegantly in simplicity, and the local rum was nothing short of excellent.

From the hotel room balcony, I gazed at the distant lights of St Lucia — certain that the enchanting magic of Martinique had cast its spell on me, leaving me enraptured and refreshed.

And soon, Caribbean Airlines will be providing airlift to both Martinique and Guadeloupe so that our beloved passengers can discover the magic of the French Caribbean themselves. Visit our social media platforms and caribbean-airlines.com for details.

Dionne Ligoure is the Executive Manager, Corporate Communications at Caribbean Airlines. E-mail: dionne. ligoure@caribbean-airlines.com

wish you were here

Parlatuvier, tobago

Anyone who’s toured Tobago will recognise the iconic view of Parlatuvier bay from Tobago’s Northside Road. But far too few venture down to discover the charms of its golden sand; calm, clear water (great for snorkelling, swimming or just floating!); or watching the seine fisherfolk bring in the catch of the day. Take a walk out to the edge of the pier, and breathe in the 360 degrees of beauty — the ocean, lush green mountains, the pirogues, the homes and structures dotting the shoreline and hillside. A hike to the nearby Parlatuvier Falls gives you yet another reason to stay here just a bit longer …

Shelly-Ann Inniss on the major festivals, holidays, and celebrations across the region this September and October

Celebration time

The skills of the world’s most exciting T20 batsmen and bowlers are on show at cricket pitches across the region during the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) tournament (29 August–6 October) — the “biggest party in sport”.

For a change of pace, Campechada (31 August–1 September) — inspired by renowned playwright Victoria Espinosa and hosted by the Institute of Puerto Rican Culture in Santurce, Puerto Rico — honours local theatre, painting, music, dance, and literature.

Indigenous communities the world over model sustainably living in harmony with nature. And all through September, Guyana’s Indigenous/Amerindian Heritage Month provides invaluable opportunities to learn more about Indigenous history and traditions in the “land of many waters”.

It’s one of the last opportunities to enjoy Carnival bacchanal on the North American mainland as the West Indian Day Parade (2 September) kicks off with J’ouvert and culminates with up to three million people using the streets of Brooklyn, New York as their dance floor — and runway! If the Carnival fever is still raging, don’t miss Miami Carnival the following month (11–13 October).

Still up north, literature lovers won’t want to miss their favourite authors at the Brooklyn Caribbean Literary Festival (5–8 September) and the Brooklyn Book Festival (22–30 September).

The Nevis Marathon & Running Festival (7 September) presents four distances — 5K, 10K, half marathon, and full marathon — to challenge you and your family, while offering panoramic views and other special awards.

From the streets to the sea…! At St Lucia’s Dive Fest (15–21 September), it’s all about celebrating and preserving the island’s natural world — from hunting invasive lionfish (with a lionfish cook-off!), to clean-ups on land and in the water, and an underwater photography competition. And if you see people wearing the madras (St Lucia’s traditional dress), it’s because October is Creole Heritage Month!

In Dominica, learn about their vibrant Indigenous heritage during Kalinago Week (19–26 September); while Jamaican dancehall artist Valiant, Trinidad soca powerhouse Nadia Batson, Guadeloupean band Kassav, and other cherished Caribbean acts take centre stage at the World Creole Music Festival (25–27 October).

Against the backdrop of the CPL semis and finals, Cricket Carnival guyana (19 September–6 October) features an exciting line-up of events, from dynamic concerts to scrumptious food, and mas!

Tobago’s iconic Signal Hill Alumni Choir celebrates their 40th anniversary with 2064: A Musical Odyssey, featuring an exhibition, school outreach, and dynamic performances across Trinidad & Tobago (21 September–6 October).

In Toronto, the CaribbeanTales International Film Festival (5–15 September) and Grenada’s 1261 Film Festival (24–27 October) promise memorable Caribbean films to inspire, entertain, provoke critical thought — and foster support for our talented filmmakers.

Meanwhile, it’s a sensational celebration of diversity, equality, queerness, and queer allyship at Curaçao Pride (27 September–6 October).

Up in Antigua, historic Nelson’s Dockyard comes alive during the Francis Nunes Jr Memorial Fishing Tournament & Seafood Festival (27–28 September). Enjoy freshly caught fish from returning boats and a delicious array of seafood dishes along with infectious live music and entertainment.

There’s non-stop action in Tobago this October, from the Tobago International Cycling Classic (1–6 October), to the Tobago Blue Food Festival (20 October), and Tobago Carnival (25–27 October).

Suriname’s Maroon Heritage Day (10 October) commemorates the Maroons’ victory over the Dutch in 1760. With a distinct cultural identity, some 20% of Suriname’s population is Maroon. Their food and rich traditions are central to the heritage festivities.

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Lowlands Mall, Tobago Piarco Plaza, Trinidad #15 Ariapita Ave, Trinidad

Duncan Village, South Trinidad

Duncan Village, South Trinidad

Hearthland Plaza, Central Trinidad

Hearthland Plaza, Central Trinidad

The CoCo Dance Festival (12–13 October) in Trinidad brings together some of the region’s most innovative and respected dancers and choreographers. This year, the world-renowned Garth Fagan Dance — founded and directed by Fagan, the Jamaican choreographer of the Lion king, among other productions — is in the line-up. Then, keep the dance love going with Dance grenada (17–21 October), featuring performances, workshops, panel discussions and more.

Work up an appetite at the Barbados National Triathlon Championships (20 October), before indulging at the Barbados Food & Rum Festival (24–27 October) and the Barbados Rum Experience (28 October–2 November). Patrons are sure to leave the island in high spirits!

In Trinidad & Tobago, the Animae Caribe Festival (30 October–2 November) brings together leading talents from Dreamworks, Pixar, Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and more alongside established and emerging Caribbean animators for screenings, networking, training and workshops.

As the sun sets on the month of October, Hindus and non-Hindus observe Divali, the Hindu lunar Festival of Lights. Special Indian delicacies are shared around Guyana, Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, and Jamaica, as celebrants stun in traditional Indian wear and henna designs, and cultural programmes entertain and enlighten. Deyas (tiny lamps) symbolising the triumph of good over evil, and rangoli (coloured rice) patterns representing happiness and positivity are placed around homes and community spaces.

this month’s listening picks from the Caribbean

Reviews by Nigel Campbell

angela hunte Mángó (Self Released)

Trinidadian-American Grammy-winning singersongwriter Angela Hunte has released a new album that smartly incorporates the rhythms and tropes of most of the hippest music from the African diaspora: soca, hip-hop, reggae/ dancehall, gospel, soul, reggaeton, and Afrobeats. It’s not too much — just enough to satisfy listeners without overwhelming them. The artist collaborations work effectively to distinguish this album as a potential hitmaker, and a benchmark for how Caribbean music can be packaged for uptake outside the usual island cohort in the metropolis. The title song, a duet with Wyclef Jean, bubbles with a zouk flavour that makes dancing inevitable, while Fay-Ann Lyons makes the pop-power soca duet “Gelato” work with her tremendous lyrical flow. Other collaborators — Yemi Alade, Tarrus Riley, and rising reggaeton star Christian Alicea — add to a holistic package that delivers on the promise of New World African music rising. Magnificent!

Coutain & dwala

1996 (Form & Order)

In the few years singer (Denzil) Coutain has been on the scene, he’s honed his songcraft around narratives that show a keen ear for what sounds like youthful ennui and seductive escapism, and this album marks an ascension towards a global presence. With the help of London/ Trinidad-based sound artist and producer Dwala, the singer’s relaxed island vocal delivery works well with the sultry calypso, reggae/dub, R&B/soul beats, and the producer’s delightfully chill harmonic profiles. Electric piano and saxophone smoothly enhance melodies, while the down tempo mood showcases another side of the Caribbean. Coutain sings of life and the adoration of his woman, defining intimacy and describing love. Listeners become a part of conversations that adults always have behind closed doors. This collaboration demonstrates how island beats are finding favour among a new generation streaming the world of music. Sublime and edgy.

d-achee

You’re My Champion (Music Avenue) • Single

Master percussionist D-Achee has created a celebratory sing-along anthem of joy and upliftment. With 120 beats-per-minute and a ringing West African rhythm in the guitar, this music straddles the Black Atlantic in groove and inspiration. He sings Everybody want to know if you come from africa or brazil as a challenge for self-awareness among Black people in the Americas. A bank of hand drums, log drums, gourds, and metal percussion percolate beneath lyrics affirming a life of conscious positivity: so enjoy your life in fullness in every way / don’t listen to the rumours them spreading / ‘cause i am not your enemy. At both the introduction and the bridge, the polyrhythms — with the pulse of Africa and the DNA of the Caribbean — resonate. The track effectively delivers on the simple idea of percussive sounds inspiring listeners to rise up in spirit and in action — and might just inspire many an energetic TikTok dance video after a couple listens.

juss lizz

Blue Moon (Self-released)

• Single

once in a blue moon, you will find the one who is worth it. This is the refrain Juss Lizz sings on her R&B/island pop smooth groove that is a self-confidence booster to an insecure soul. The mood is sensual, the message is inspirational. She has noted regarding her composition process that, “I sing songs I would like to hear when I am feeling down ... When I’m writing music, I’m giving that vibe out. I don’t want to create music that allows people to go back into that state of being sad.” And this tune accomplishes that. This young Trinidadian exploded out of the Spotlight programme of MusicTT in 2021, and has the potential to reach an even wider audience, as she sings and performs with a confidence that belies that she can sometimes be “feeling down”. A new generation of singers in the Caribbean is following the tropes of a modern R&B that emphasises self-reflection and honesty with a beat that does not sprint. This is a love song to oneself worthy of repetition.

this month’s reading picks from the Caribbean

Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Book Review Editor

son of grace by Vaneisa Baksh (Fairfield Books, 348 pp, ISBN 9781915237309)

Sports stalwarts across the Caribbean know our legends have long been forged on the cricket pitch. In her biography of Sir Frank Worrell, former Senator of Jamaica and the first Black cricketer to helm the West Indies team for a permanent season, Vaneisa Baksh spares no praise yet constructs no follies for the Barbados-born statesman and sportsman extraordinaire. Baksh’s prose pays attention to Worrell’s comportment between wickets and various other walks of life. A fierce denier of rank individualism, Worrell’s focus lay frequently and vigorously in regional unity through the erstwhile game of gentleman’s rounders. There might be no more perspicacious a chronicler than Baksh to both reveal and remind us of this, in a narrative that privileges Worrell’s voice, cleaving to his vision and held to his own exacting standards. son of grace hits us for six, unsparing in its delivery of a true icon’s technicolour portrait.

a stranger in the Citadel

by

Tobias S Buckell (Tachyon Publications, 256 pp, ISBN 9781616963989)

What happens when librarians, armed with books, stand in the direct crosshairs of a cultural revolution?

Caribbean-born, Grenadaraised Tobias S Buckell contemplates, in this new speculative fiction offering, the uprisings that reside at the crossroads of postapocalyptic mayhem and righteous justice through reclamatory acts of reading.

The novel’s protagonist, warrior Lilith of Ninetha, carries an unshakeable series of certainties about the walled world around her. Lilith’s awakening is an eruption of shocks, quests, and dangers. Buckell plots it all with compulsive and propulsive energy, reminding us of the nature of these knowledgebased stakes. After all, a world stripped bare of learning becomes a brutality unto itself. In this light, a stranger in the citadel ripples with warnings we would do well to heed, and protection spells reminding us of our own inextinguishable capacity to learn.

you

Were Watching from the sand by Juliana Lamy (Red Hen Press, 176 pp, ISBN 9781636281056)

Shortlisted for the 2024 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature (Fiction), Haitian Juliana Lamy’s debut collection of short stories crackles with an electric and uncontainable urgency. In these fictions, characters navigate their queerness, their states of temporal dislocation and domestic fracture, often shocking in the maps they make and then rend asunder, concerning violence. One narrator, confronting the disruption of domestic abuse in her own family, avows, “My daughter is not made up of hard, clanking things that catch the light wrong. I cannot beat her softer and I will not try.” An irresistible promise follows the central and peripheral speakers of you Were Watching from the sand: each, no matter how seemingly miniscule, is a voice that resounds, that troubles the waters of complacency. These stories contain such enviable risk at their cores.

bath of herbs by Emily Zobel Marshall (Peepal Tree Press, 72 pp, ISBN 9781845235574)

Gentleness and grace, girded by convictions of steel, structure and pattern their frequencies throughout the poems of Emily Zobel Marshall’s first collection. Of Martiniquan and British heritage, her identities are allowed both vulnerability and insistence in the chorus of experiences that abound herein: meditations on sensuality; immersions in the unbridled natural splendour of Snowdonia in North Wales; the loss of a mother that transforms the interior architecture of a daughter’s dealings. bath of Herbs is a manifesto for the abundantly alive and the honoured dead, affirmative in its convictions about the vast beauty, the untrammeled heart of the world that cradles us. Unfurling sagacity and fronds of limitless appreciation guide the registers of the poems, which move from wide-eyed exploratory zeal of children at play to a mothering worker’s fine-toothed passions and fears. The abiding emotion fuelling these poems is a verdant and self-sustaining wonder.

What is it about Harold Sonny Ladoo that makes him worth engaging with today?

I came across Ladoo’s books in the 1970s or 80s and I found them not only riveting but incredibly exciting as novels set in a fictionalised version of Trinidad by an author in Canada. By the time I came to working on the documentary, I still remembered the corporeal discomfort induced by no pain Like this body — that endless rain that saturates everything — and the defiant queerness of the villagers in yesterdays. But I knew nothing of the man. I

“I prefer offering the viewer the skeleton of an image”

The writer Harold Sonny Ladoo — born and raised in Trinidad, later domiciled in Canada — had the briefest of careers, and lives. no pain Like this body (1973), his first novel — which evokes with high poetry straitened IndoTrinidadian life in the early 20th century — marked the arrival of a writer of talent. Tragically, Ladoo was murdered at age 28 in a cane field in central Trinidad. A second and final novel, the absurdist comedy yesterdays (1974), was posthumously released, and recently republished.

In his new documentary, TrinidadianCanadian filmmaker Richard Fung attempts a reckoning with Ladoo’s life and death. Drawing on a decades-old archive of previously unseen interviews shot by Trinidadian documentarian Christopher Laird with family, acquaintances, and colleagues, the Enigma of Harold sonny Ladoo presents a shape-shifting lagahoo of a man. Richard Fung spoke with Jonathan Ali about getting to grips with him.

learned everything about him from Christopher Laird’s video interviews. What I discovered is that Ladoo’s life and death are every bit as extraordinary as his fiction. He was a brilliant writer but a flawed man, and I tried to convey this without becoming salacious or compromising the people Christopher interviewed.

How challenging was this?

The difficulty with assessing Ladoo the writer vs Ladoo the man is that his depiction of Pa’s violence against Ma and the children in no pain Like this body is usually read as a critique of

patriarchy. What does it mean that in Pa Ladoo was describing himself? My approach in the film is to provide as many of the accounts as I can and let the viewer decide.

Christopher Laird tried to film No Pain Like This Body. you beautifully invoke that film that never was, through animated renderings of passages from the novel and readings by various writers.

Christopher’s failure to complete the fiction feature film of no pain was due to lack of funding for live-action drama. This was not an issue for me

as I’m not a big fan of dramatisations in documentary. I prefer offering the viewer the skeleton of an image onto which they can create the scene in their imagination.

The authors who appear in the documentary — David Chariandy, Ramabai Espinet, Andil Gosine, Kevin Jared Hosein and Shani Mootoo — all share roots in Indian indentureship and all have some connection to Ladoo and/or the project. Adam Williams, who did the animated drawings, is primarily a ceramic artist and I’ve long admired the drawings on his pieces. I wanted someone familiar with the

landscapes and the people of central Trinidad, and Adam has a very Trini naughtiness and wit.

Enigma fits into your long and varied oeuvre as an exploration of an intersectional life, someone who we might characterise as being on the margins of history. What continues to draw you to these stories?

I was a child when television came to Trinidad & Tobago; most of the programming was American or British. Watching Chinese supposedly West Indian characters played by Black American or British actors with weird

accents, I became aware that these shows were about us but not for us. So, when I started making my own work in Canada, I wanted not only to represent marginalised perspectives but also to speak to minoritised viewers.

The challenge of working with marginalised subject matter is its marginality. I’ve reconciled with the fact that although some of my videos have screened at big international venues, I make work for limited audiences. After art school my first job was in community cable television. I remember my station manager saying that if a programme was meaningful for only five viewers and it reached those five viewers, it was a success.

The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo (2024)

Director: Richard Fung

Canada, Trinidad & Tobago • 84 minutes

opposite page Richard Fung

Above david Chariandy participates in the project

Left From The Enigma of Harold Sonny Ladoo

Photography courtesy Richard Fung

AntiguA & BArBudA Art Week

Shelly-Ann Inniss previews one of the newest events on the islands’ festival calendar

Antigua & Barbuda is relatively small at just over 100 square miles. Of course, you can always take up the evergreen invitation to find your favourites among its 365 beaches; and experience its exciting festivals — including Art Week, one of the newest additions to the islands’ cultural calendar.

With contemporary artist Heather Doram one of the driving forces behind its creation, Art Week — which debuted last year under the theme “Culture in Colour” — showcases painters and sculptors, musicians and poets, dancers, fashion designers, other artists and creators. And after the inaugural event in 2023, they’re coming together to do it again this 27 November–3 December.

Several of the islands’ most famous landmarks and restaurants around Antigua and Barbuda host exciting Art Week events. Located in English Harbour, Nelson’s Dockyard is the only continuously working Georgian-style dockyard in the world and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can take in the breathtaking views at the Shirley Heights Lookout — some 490 feet above English Harbour — and then explore the nearby Boom at Gunpowder House Art Gallery to view a collection of work from artists exhibiting during Art Week.

Exhibits and the 16 participating art galleries are open to everyone, and the festival produces an official art trail map so you can find all of them — including the Rhythm of Blue Art Gallery (English Harbour); Stephen Murphy’s Zemi’s Art

Photography courtesy The Antigua & Barbuda Tourism Authority

Cocktails & Canvas has become one of Art Week’s staple events Gallery (Redcliffe Quay); Sarah Fuller’s Pottery (Dutchman’s Bay); and Fig Tree Studio Art Gallery (Fig Tree Drive).

Self-guided tours allow for soaking in everything at your own pace. Alternatively, the Art & Culture Bus Tour is a wonderful way to visit some of the galleries while sightseeing and gaining more insight into the twin-islands’ culture.

From art and fashion exhibits to art workshops, pop-up markets to showcases, each day of Art Week presents something unique, entertaining, inspiring, and engaging — and that’s before you even start to explore all the islands have to offer.

The young-at-heart and adventurers can enjoy

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C ELEBRATIN g g uyANA’ S

I NDI g EN ou S HERITAg E

Roughly 10% of Guyana’s population is Indigenous, like Mark Andries (pictured navigating a canoe on the Essequibo River), a member of the Macushi tribe. Communities like his fish with bow and arrow; create jewellery with seeds, feathers, and shells while incorporating designs inspired by their environment and stories; and cook unforgettable traditional Indigenous cuisine like roasted Tacoma worms (a delicacy), cassava bread (a staple), and pepperpot. Their sustainable lifestyles and practices help preserve Guyana’s extraordinary biodiversity. Every September, Guyana celebrates Indigenous Heritage Month, and the cultures of the country’s nine tribes — Warraus, Arawaks, Caribs, Akawaios, Arecunas, Patamonas, Macushis, Wapisianas, and Wai Wais — with Indigenous arts and craft, cuisine, games, and performances. From Mabaruma in the north to the Rupununi in the south, even at the temporary Heritage Village in the capital city Georgetown, Guyana’s past and present converge in an experience that’s one for your bucket list.

OSITIVITY PERSONIFIED

After announcing himself on the world stage at the 2014 Under-19 Men’s World Cup, a car accident threatened to end Nicholas Pooran’s burgeoning cricket career. Through positivity, faith and support, he’s bounced back and is now one of the most exciting batters in Sheldon Waithe sat with the star player to get the story — so far

His journey to his current position — witness his blitz against Afghanistan at this year’s T20 World Cup — was charted in the moments that he first picked up a cricket bat.

“I always had one dream, to be a professional cricketer,” says Nicholas Pooran (who turns 29 this October). “I knew for a fact that I was going to play cricket. It’s all I had on my mind: eating cricket, dreaming cricket, running away from home to play cricket,” he remembers

Fast-tracked talent

Pooran’s talent was clear enough for the selectors to fast-track him into the Trinidad & Tobago national senior team at the age of 16; regional representation soon followed. Then, at the 2014 Under-19 Men’s World Cup, he unleashed a boundary-filled 143 runs against Australia. Suddenly, Pooran was the talk of global youth cricket — with relatively little experience in terms of matches played. The world was at his feet.

the accident

There is a catalyst for Pooran’s resolutely positive outlook on life — a turning point that brought home the realisation that his life-long cricket dream (and much more) could be taken away from him in an instant.

Driving home after a training session in early 2015, another car hit him — hard. “I woke from the accident and saw the casts on both legs. The first question I asked is, ‘Could I play cricket again?’” Pooran remembers. “The doctors said that’s a tough question. So, I asked whether I could run again, and they said maybe — but I won’t be able to bend the left leg 100%. Instantly my blood pressure went up.”

“i woke from the accident and saw the casts on both legs. the first question i asked is, ‘could i play cricket again?’”

His career on the line, and confined to a wheelchair for six months, he found the conviction. “My girlfriend — now wife — Alyssa and her sisters-in-law taught me certain things about faith. I started to pray a little bit more, started to believe a little bit more, asking for the strength to get through each day. I went back to the hospital, and they were surprised that I could bend my leg.”

pooran hits four runs during the Caribbean premier League t20 match between the trinbago knight Riders and Jamaica tallawahs at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in tarouba, trinidad

the comeback

He took an unorthodox journey back to the top, forsaking the Caribbean Regional 4-Day Tournament, deciding instead to play in the Bangladesh Premier League. It was shrewd to use the option of franchise-based T20 cricket to place himself in a bigger shop window.

the West Indies

“I got to play with experienced cricketers and learnt different cultures, learnt to play in different conditions, and that helped so much. I didn’t know how long my legs had, how long it would last. It could’ve gone either way, but I believe everything happens for a reason — we just have to hope it happens for the right reason,” says Pooran.

Queen’s Park Cricket Club also formed part of his support network. “After the accident, they welcomed me with open arms,” he says. “[Kieron] Pollard is like a bigger brother to me, a mentor. Sunil [Narine], [Dwayne] Bravo, [Darren] Bravo, [Kevon] Cooper played their part.

“When you’re batting, when you’re fielding, there’s someone to talk to. They have all made the type of decisions that I’m still making. They want to see me do well, and there’s never a day that I asked any of these guys for anything and they weren’t there for me. And I’m someone that asks a lot of questions, all the time!”

Pooran’s One Day International (ODI) debut did not happen until February 2019, in time for that year’s World Cup. Any concerns about the plethora of T20 cricket preventing Pooran from adapting and performing in the 50-over game were quickly dismissed.

A more mature batsman emerged throughout cricket’s biggest tournament, culminating in his century against Sri Lanka. “Every game, I challenged myself to get better. If it didn’t work in one game then fine, I have a process and I’m working with it.”

By 2021, he was vice-captain of the Windies’ T20 team, stepping up to lead them to a 4-1 series win over Australia. A year later came the natural progression to the captaincy itself, where the pressure took its toll. The team’s lacklustre display at the 2022 T20 World Cup saw Pooran stepping down to concentrate on his batting.

the West Indies’ dwayne Bravo with pooran during the 2021 ICC Men’s t20 World Cup match against Australia in Abu dhabi

Rather than admonish those that would berate his team or his performance, Pooran takes a refreshingly logical approach. “Their job in the stands is to criticise, but if you’re doing well, they are with you. You know what your job is out there in the middle — it’s just unlucky that your job is on TV! I believe that we have the best fans in the world,” he says.

However, it was not always Zen-like concentration for him, as one not so memorable Caribbean Premier League (CPL) incident demonstrates. “I was 18 years old, playing for Red Steel, and batted a Super Over against Sunil [Narine] … up to now I can’t hear the end of that! It’s a tough crowd because they are passionate.”

Talk of CPL brings the inevitable question: when will Pooran win the tournament? He’s been in two finals with two different teams. He’s also yet

to win the Indian Premier League, where his clean hitting led to an excellent 2020 season.

However, there’s little sign of any pressure: “I set a standard for myself and if I’m doing that, then I’m fine. I’ll do well if I prepare and execute.”

For 2024, the Trinbago Knight Riders will rely on his explosive batting to take them to a fifth CPL title. Pooran is calm and ready.

“I see myself as one of the best white ball players of our generation, and in order for me to achieve that I have to work hard and take the opportunities,” says Pooran. If that sounds egotistical, it’s a requirement for a batsman. But given Pooran’s outlook, it’s also realistic and forever tinged with what continually drives him forward: “You don’t know when it’s the last opportunity that you are going to get.” n

pooran hits a six for the trinbago knight Riders against the home side (the St kitts & Nevis patriots) during the Men’s 2023 Caribbean premier League Above pooran celebrates with wife Alyssa and daughter Alayra

pooran celebrates his century during the Major League Cricket final in dallas, texas

“I’M jUST AN ORDINARY PERSON”

Award-winning Barbadian disability rights activist and former President of the Senate

Kerryann Ifill (who experienced loss of vision as a child) on the immeasurable value of integration and inclusion; what keeps her motivated and inspired; and the ways in which she hopes those with and without disabilities can shift their perspectives — as told to Shelly-Ann Inniss

My disability is a blessing on most days because it’s made me who I am. I choose it to be one. People think disabilities are a curse and get depressed because they think it’ll keep them back. The only thing that keeps me back is me. Simultaneously, I’m not so blasé to think that there aren’t barriers out there.

The World Health Organisation estimated that 15% of every population has disabilities. Let’s round it down to 10%. Say you live on a tiny island with 100 children and 10 have a form of disability, but you only have a limited amount of money and can only educate 50 of the non-disabled, because to educate the disabled costs more (extra training for the teacher, equipment, and infrastructure). That’s the reality. Does it mean those children don’t deserve all those things? Not at all.

On a recent trip to Kenya, I met university professors who were deaf, who were autistic, who were blind. Imagine if they didn’t have an opportunity for higher education. These amazing people wouldn’t have been able to make contributions to their communities. Apart from the fact that they’re disability activists or advocates, they make everyday contributions. What if they weren’t given the opportunity?

The challenge is: we need to recognise persons with disabilities don’t need to be exceptional to be given the right to be included. I understand the economics and practicalities of it, but we need to start from the inclusive. If you have a ramp, does that stop someone who is fully ambulatory from getting into the building? No. But if you have only stairs, it prevents people with mobility challenges from accessing it.

For persons with a hearing impediment, when Zoom introduced American Sign Language (ASL) and captioning — it’s not great but it’s there — does it mean that if I’m planning an event that I should rely on Zoom’s artificial intelligence (AI) to provide you with all your needs? No.

But at the very least, everybody should turn it on because the hearing impaired have the right to join any meeting or webinar. Captioning shouldn’t be foreign to anyone putting it on — it should be second nature. That’s the start. Then, these hearing-impaired persons can attend every meeting or webinar.

The norm is to start with at least the basic considerations, and that’s where we need to get our societies to. If you’re having a Carnival fete, make sure persons with disabilities can enjoy it, too. There are ways to make these things enjoyable.

Accept that there’re persons with disabilities that may wish to come to your fete. Even if none turn up, at least if they attend there’s a space or area they can retreat to.

Last September, top Barbados secondary school Harrison College — it hurts me to say this — welcomed its first totally blind student and I helped him learn how to use the computer. I measure my triumphs when I see things like that: when the first totally blind attorney-at-law in the Caribbean passed through my hands; when I see that there are programmes for persons with disabilities.

In j uly, the Barbados Council for the Disabled brought to conclusion the first “My Inclusive School” competition, where schools were invited to make their school more inclusive to the disabled. I measure my achievements on those things.

As Vice-Chair of the Commonwealth Disabled People’s Forum, we have the Disability Inclusivity Action Plan, which we are encouraging Commonwealth governments to support so they have a more inclusive approach to disabilities with their various projects and programmes. That’s the next major international effort

all persons with disabilities need a space in which they can develop their full potential. that’s the legacy i want to leave

I’d like to see implemented. It’s tedious trying to get 56 countries to sign on to one thing!

Despite this, I think disability awareness in the Caribbean is getting better. St Kitts has a ministry specifically to deal with disabilities, though it may not be the only thing they deal with. Barbados has the National Disabilities Unit, which is a government agency under the Ministry of People Empowerment & Elder Affairs.

The Caribbean Court of justice this year disseminated guidelines on how legal officers should treat the issue of disabilities in the court. Barbados, Trinidad, and St Vincent have legislation pending for the rights of persons with disabilities. Also, in july, the Central Bank of Barbados launched Marketing Conduct Guidelines, and it included that banks must offer more services to persons with disabilities.

All of that is wonderful, but we still have way too many instances where persons with disabilities have to beg for equal treatment; where persons still behave like they’re doing us a favour as opposed to fulfilling our rights; where governments don’t ensure that persons with disabilities can be contributing members of their societies.

People still see us as service recipients, as objects, as subjects. They see us as passive recipients. They don’t see us as actively engaged. Banks with smart Automatic Banking Machines (ABM/ ATM) exist, yet in Barbados there isn’t one ABM that I can use independently. Persons with disabilities still have to fight to be included.

Living with a disability is a challenge every single day. It is a challenge when things that are small and simple for others are a major frustration for us, and for me just because I can’t see … like when my cat leaves the house without asking and then I have to spend 10 minutes looking for her and she’s just sitting there in the middle of the floor keeping extremely quiet laughing at me. That’s one of the funnier ones, but there are other frustrations that we deal with daily.

We are still considered by the average person as a whole host of things we should not be, but awareness has grown tremendously and we’re at a stage of integration. What we really need to be in is a stage of inclusion, and inclusion and integration are two different things. They’re not interchangeable either.

My perception about disabled people changed as I grew and spent time around other fights. Sometimes people with disabilities treat the sighted and able-bodied around them as the feet they don’t have, hands they can’t use, lips that can’t speak and eyes that can’t see. But there’s more to them than that; there’s also way more to us. All of it is a complimentary package. Stop focussing on the one or 10 things that are challenging, and start recognising there are lots of other things you can do.

My disability doesn’t diminish me as a person. I have the same dreams and aspirations as any other 50-year-old woman.

My disability doesn’t diminish me as a person. i have the same dreams and aspirations as any other 50-year-old woman

Left then Clerk of parliament pedro Eastmond with then president of the Senate kerryann Ifill opposite page Reginald Farley (left), kerryann Ifill, and dr dodridge Miller were bestowed the order of Freedom of Barbados at the country’s 57th Independence day ceremony in November 2023

then Speaker of the House Michael Carrington (left) accompanies then president of the Senate kerryann Ifill off the floor of the Lower House

All persons with disabilities need a space in which they can develop their full potential. That’s the legacy I want to leave.

Some days I wake up and I don’t feel like doing the fight anymore. Sometimes I really wish that I didn’t have to do this daily. Then there are other days when I couldn’t imagine my life without this. It’s a tiring and tireless fight.

I’ve been told that I’m intimidating and hence I’ll always be single. I’ve been told I’m funny by Prime Minister Mia Mottley; I’ve been told I’m intelligent; I’ve been told that I have a mischievous smile. I like to think of myself as being me.

I was the first totally blind woman in the Senate of Barbados (there was a blind male before me). I was the first blind person to serve as Deputy President and President — first female President and youngest person in that capacity. I was 38 then, and I am a fabulous 50 now.

I’ve travelled the length and breadth of the Caribbean too. I went to Kenya and went alone, in the sense that I didn’t take

i was the first totally blind woman in the senate of barbados; the first blind person to serve as deputy president and president — first female and youngest person. i was 38 then, and i am a fabulous 50 now

a personal aide. I have that right. I don’t need anyone throwing me in a wheelchair, I don’t need people telling me that I can’t fly because I’m blind. I am not the pilot. By the way, I met a blind pilot. Miles Hilton-Barber flew solo from the United Kingdom to Sydney. Look him up.

I get out of bed to tackle whatever is in front of me today to make better for tomorrow. So, to be recognised by the prestigious Anthony N Sabga Awards for Caribbean Excellence this year and receiving the Order of Freedom of Barbados last year means that somebody else

took time to pay attention to the things that I do, and it gives me the opportunity to reflect on what my life has done.

There is a saying in disability community: “nothing about us without us”. But the late Genie Newman had a saying that I adopted: “nothing without us”. I get frustrated when people tell me I’m an inspiration. I don’t consider myself exceptional at anything, but a lot of people say that I am because people have low expectations. I sometimes wonder what will happen when the people realise that I’m just an ordinary person. n

THE PROMISE OF CARIBBEAN MEDICAL TOURISM

After giving birth to two children, fashion vlogger Zee Allure didn’t like what became of her body.

“I didn’t look the same. That wasn’t me,” she told Caribbean Beat in a Zoom interview. She felt she knew where to turn: the plastic surgeons of the Dominican Republic (DR) had reputations that were almost legendary.

“I feel like DR is number one,” said Zee, who is 27 and lives in Atlanta. “Nobody could take that spot. They’re the best.”

So, in july 2021, she flew with her mother and toddlers to Santo Domingo for what she called a “surgery-cation”, documenting the experience in a series of videos posted on YouTube. In a video update six months later, she showed off the results of a tummy tuck, liposuction, and a Brazilian buttock lift (BBL).

She listed the myriad costs in USD of the 18-day trip: plane tickets ($1,800); accommodation ($1,450); a nurse ($810); a driver ($250); chef service ($90); massages ($180); a pre-ordered package of post-surgery must-haves like gauze and gloves ($300); and the surgery itself ($6,000).

While she was in the DR, she also got her eyebrows microbladed ($142), her lips plumped ($400), and veneers on her teeth

People from around the world come to the Caribbean not only for restorative wellness holidays, but to access top-class, affordable medical care. Though some sectors haven’t yet made the progress many had hoped for, others — from fertility treatments to plastic surgery — are thriving. Erline Andrews investigates

($2,500). The list didn’t include the costs of shopping and going to various restaurants.

Zee Allure is an example of why destinations court medical tourists. They consume more products and services and therefore spend a lot more money than other tourists.

Among CARICOM countries, the DR has been the most successful at drawing medical tourists, receiving a flood of them every year — most of them for cosmetic procedures. Many of them document their experience — positive and negative — on social media.

The DR is one of only two CARICOM countries on the Medical Tourism Index (MTI), a guide compiled by the International Healthcare Research Center (IHRC) — a nonprofit organisation in the United States (US) — based on Americans’ perceptions of destinations. For the 2020–2021 MTI, the DR is ranked 19 out of 46 countries. jamaica is ranked 40th, and has been trying to boost its medical tourism prospects for decades.

During a 2021 webinar, Diane Edwards — then president of the jamaica Promotions Corporation (jAMPRO), the state agency responsible for aiding investment and industry in jamaica — said they had drafted a medical tourism policy after four years of consultations with government and private stakeholders. An official policy hasn’t yet been put forward.

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“I’d say the most consistent story is hearing high hopes from governments and not seeing the sector actually develop,” Dr Valorie Crooks, a health geographer with the Simon Fraser University in Canada, told Caribbean Beat. Crooks’ book, Medical Tourism in the Caribbean Region, is due out next year.

Plastic surgeon Dr jan Hochtritt — who runs the ProSurgiCare clinic in Kingston and was one of the participants in the jAMPRO webinar — believes jamaica can benefit from cosmetic surgery patients.

“There was a case where a jamaican went to the DR to do a procedure and came to me about a complication. When I asked her about her implant, she did not know that she had received an implant over there,” Hochtritt told the Jamaica Observer earlier this year. “Some doctors there do not speak English well and some jamaicans do not speak Spanish well. That can lead to problems.”

“Medical tourism can contribute significantly to the jamaican economy and we believe the island will do very well if we promote the sector,” says Hochtritt. During the webinar, he explained that 40% of his patients visit from other countries, and of that number about 95% were from the jamaican diaspora — jamaicans or their descendants living abroad.

This is in line with a 2018 PricewaterhouseCoopers report for jAMPRO aimed at developing medical tourism in jamaica. A survey of 27 private surgical clinics found that 20–30% of their income was derived from foreigners, most of whom (56%) were from the jamaican diaspora. The rest were from other Caribbean countries and elsewhere.

AIn a podcast interview last year, Crooks — who defines medical tourism as health care intentionally sought by visitors, to distinguish it from emergency care — talked about the importance of the internet in boosting a destination. Social media in particular plays a big part in the DR’s popularity.

“There’s a lot of networking among people who are thinking of going abroad … chat rooms and discussion boards, for example, websites where patients are talking about their experience,” says Crooks. “So this is how you can build up the reputation of a particular destination.”

zee allure is an example of why destinations court medical tourists. they consume more products and services and therefore spend a lot more money than other tourists

nother challenge Caribbean medical tourism has faced is the limited number of medical facilities with accreditation from top international agencies. This is a significant consideration given that the IHRC, in its Medical Tourism Patient Survey, found that more than 63% of patients said accreditation influenced their choice of provider.

Among the highest regarded international accreditors is joint Commission International (jCI), based in the United States; only three CARICOM providers are jCI accredited — though others have sought accreditation from other organisations.

“The problem is that our local accreditation process may not quite align with the jCI accreditation process,” explained cardiologist Dr Ernest Madu, who founded the unaccredited but reputable Heart Institute of the Caribbean in Kingston, in the jAMPRO webinar. “If we do not align those processes with international standards, we will not get international accreditation; and if we do not get international accreditation, patients will not come in droves.”

Madu continued by explaining that the range of things providers are required to put in place for accreditation are the same things that improve patient outcomes and inspire confidence in would-be clients. He emphasised that all the available data and research support this.

Many providers do share Madu’s perspective on the value of accreditation — with those offering fertility treatments chief among them. The Trinidad & Tobago IVF & Fertility Centre, with two locations in Trinidad, has accreditation from TEMOS (Trust Effective Medicine, Optimised Services), based in Germany.

Services like IVF and egg freezing are far cheaper in the Caribbean than in the US or European Union. The wait times for an appointment also are often far shorter, while the tropical island location of these clinics is among the reasons people seek medical treatment in the Caribbean. It helps them feel

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like they’re vacationing while seeking their respective medical treatments.

Zee believes the social media community can reduce bad outcomes for any medical procedure or treatment. She took her mother to give support and help take care of her two young children. Possibly most important, she prepared long in advance — six months, to be exact.

“Don’t just decide you’re gonna do surgery and then leave in two months,” she said. “Prepare. You need more time to buy the things you need. You have to build your [blood] iron. And you need to be mentally ready as well.” n

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Celebrating 30 Years of Excellence in World-Class Heart Care: A Testament to Commitment and Innovation

Message from the Managing Director

Dr. Kamal Rampersad

[B.Sc, MB., BS, DA, LLB (Hons) M.O.M]

For over 30 years, Caribbean Heart Care Medcorp Limited (CHCm) has been a beacon of hope, healing, and innovation in the realm of cardiac care. We continue to remain steadfast in our mission to provide world-class cardiology services to the Caribbean region, transforming lives and advancing the field of cardiovascular care.

CHCm is the only centre with experience in performing 24-hour emergency cardiovascular services including heart attack and heart surgery services; and peadiatric cardiac catheteriza tion, and electrophysiology.

At the heart of our success, lies a deep-rooted commitment to surgical excellence and patient-centered care, and a relentless pursuit of innovation, which have earned us the reputation of a trusted leader in the medical fraternity. Our dedicated Team is driven by a shared passion for improving patient outcomes and enhancing quality of life; pushing the boundaries of what is possible and setting new standards of excellence in the industry.

One of our most significant contributions to cardiac care in the Caribbean region has been our expertise in performing over 7,000 coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgeries

We also perform valve repair/replacement for adult congenital aortic and cardiac cancer, and other heart surgeries. Over the last 20 years, we have expanded our range of services to encompass the full spectrum of clinical and preventative cardiology care, including diagnostic testing, interventional heart and vascular procedures, electrophysiology, pacemakers, structural heart disease and echocardiography services We rank with the top centres in the world.

Patients’ Success is our Success and much of it is attributed to the experience and expertise of CHCm’s global network of Heart Surgeons, Cardiologists, Interventional Cardiologists and Radiologists, all of whom have received the best international experience and training.

We are grateful to our alliances with Consultants from Bristol University in the U.K, colleagues from Ascardio Hospital of Barquisimento Venezuela, Children’s Hospital of Ontario, Healing Little Hearts U.K, Satellite Clinics throughout Trinidad and Tobago and those who come from near and far to volunteer their expertise to help bring the care that our country needs.

We are also grateful to the successful public-private partnership we have with the Government of Trinidad and Tobago for the last 25 years, whom without we would not have been able to reach some of our fellow brothers and sisters in need of our services and care.

We are humbled by the trust and confidence that our patients and their families have placed in us, and we are deeply grateful for the opportunity to serve our community with compassion, integrity, and excellence.

Looking ahead, we remain steadfast in our commitment to advancing the field of cardiac care and improving the lives of those affected by heart disease. With cutting-edge technology, ongoing research, and a passionate team of professionals, we will continue to push the boundaries of innovation and strive for excellence in everything we do.

Here's to 30 years of excellence in heart care, and to many more years of healing, hope, and innovation ahead.

A comprehensive heart check-up can help you discover that you have a treatable cardiovascular condition. Our patients have had unparalleled success for over 30 years, and it would be an honour to serve you today.

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A RI v ER FLoWS THR oug H IT

Tucked away between French Guiana in the east, Guyana in the west, and Brazil in the south, Suriname is home to countless beguiling species of flora and fauna that live in its wilderness, and to Indigenous Peoples who carefully preserve their magnificent rainforest, which covers some 90% of the country. About 2.5% of the Amazon rainforest is found in Suriname — and all of this is part of what makes the country so special. It’s criss-crossed by some 3,000 miles of rivers and waterways, like the gently flowing Suriname River (pictured). For 300 miles, it laces through communities across Suriname — including the capital city Paramaribo — in a north-easterly direction before flowing into the Atlantic Ocean.

WOMAN IS BOSS

Against the backdrop of Calypso History Month in Trinidad & Tobago (October), Nigel Campbell looks at the trailblazing women of calypso — from the 19th century pioneers through to the contemporary soca and calypso artists who continue to revolutionise the artforms

In May of 2024, the jukebox musical on the life of pioneering female calypsonian Calypso Rose made its debut in Trinidad & Tobago. Queen of the Road: the Calypso Rose Story detailed her life and development over 40 calypsos, and — critically — showed the misogyny of rival calypsonians and a male-centred society that all but discarded many women in calypso.

Calypso Rose was a fighter — breaking rules, reversing tropes, and pioneering a space for future women on the stage and on the record. She paved the way for countless female calypsonians and soca artists. But first, a little history.

Today’s female calypsonians and soca artists descend from a long line of women who began their singing and carnival careers on the other side of polite society — the underclass below the diamètre (the French word from which the Patois “jammette” is derived)

The jammette underworld was dominant in Trinidad Carnival in the late 19th century — singers, drummers, dancers, stickfighters (both male and female), prostitutes and pimps, and more. The roll call includes unique characters with memorable names: Bodicia; Alice Sugar and her younger sister Piti Belle Lily; Cariso jane; Mossie Millie; Ocean Lizzie; Sybil Steele; Ling Mama; Darling Dan; Hard Back Doris; Baje; Annie Coals and Myrtle the Turtle.

These women were the subject of early kaisos (the West African music from which calypso evolved, and a word sometimes

used interchangeably with calypso) — getting name-checked in lyrics. For example, Cedric Le Blanc — the famous White chantwell (kaiso singer) — was reported singing in 1873:

Bodicea the diamette who we all know

Is a real disgrace to we cariso

I really can’t understand

Why she didn’t take the training of the Englishman.

Women’s influence and power were critical to calypso’s evolution in a male-dominated society. The 1882–1884 regulations and ordinances to ban Carnival activities made the men effectively go underground, suppressing their kalinda (stickfighting) songs.

The women were more direct — combative even — and continued their opposition to legal restrictions. They continued singing their carisos — smut-filled songs (part of calypso’s evolution) that also were full of humorous picong (taunting banter).

In 1883, a Trinidad newspaper described indecent songs as “imitations of the lewd songs of Curaçao, from which island they were first brought over and practised here by one BIMBIM and her equally vile daughters, who every night, to the peculiar music of their Quelbays (songs and dances), went through the most lascivious antics, indicative of the sensuous vocation to which they abandoned themselves.”

Calypso Rose performs at the “under the trees at Hotel Normandie trinidad” series in 2014

These chanterelles (female chantwells) became the foundation upon which the female calypsonians and modern female soca artists developed. Academics and researchers have posited and defended a thesis that the restrictions made by those ordinances showed that the male singers acquiesced, and ultimately appropriated the women’s less gladiatorial carisos as the new normal.

A kind of anodyne calypso evolved into the 20th century with men at the helm, effectively double entendre (doublemeaning) and humour over aggression — man-of-words over man-of-war. It would not be far-fetched to suggest that without women there would be no modern calypso, and no soca without modern calypso.

The idea of women being sung about rather than being the singer took hold in the male-dominated calypso arena of the 20th century. Iconic calypsonian Atilla the Hun recorded the calypso “Deliso” in 1938, which included the stanza:

Women’s influence and power were critical to calypso’s evolution in a maledominated society

In those days women sang calypso

Like Sophie Mattaloney and Maribon

The used to walk about with boule-difé*

I mean, in the days of Canboulay.

(* a bottle of kerosene with a lit rag, similar to a Molotov cocktail)

That name — Sophie Mattaloney — pops up again in newspaper reports of the time as the singer of the Guadeloupean song “Estomac-li bas”, also called “Pauline”. It was considered by some experts as the most popular Carnival song of 1908, akin to a modern-day road march — a first for a woman.

History has her down as a “jammette matador” or, as the press had noted over several mentions, a “woman of the jammette world well known for ‘disturbing the peace’.”

Despite Mattaloney’s apparent pioneering achievement, misogyny and jealousy; the perverse degradation of menial or intimate quid pro quos; and a colonial Victorian social milieu that constrained island women to domestic roles — certainly not

Singing Sandra performs at trinidad’s kaiso House calypso tent in 2017

denyse plummer performs at trinidad’s Jean pierre Complex in 2013

the calypso tent — collectively subjugated women’s careers, with their achievements in the arts over the first half of the 20th century only excavated by researchers and journalists years later.

In 1914, for example, unnamed women were part of the chorus singing with j ulian Whiterose on the first calypso recording in English, and on original kalinda songs. Critically, a few women were made to become outliers — or, more accurately, pioneers.

Lady Trinidad (Thelma Lane) was the first woman to perform in a tent as a featured act in 1935, and the first to record a calypso in 1937. An apocryphal story about rival calypsonians Roaring Lion and Atilla the Hun suggesting to businessman Eduardo Sa Gomes that Lady Trinidad was too attractive to visit the United States (US) to record and perform on radio without foreign men whisking her away in marriage denied her and the world another female calypsonian first.

Her pioneering moves led to baby steps: two more women entered the tent scene in 1936 — Lady Baldwin (Mavis Baldwin) and Lady MacDonald (Doris MacDonald). Lady Iere (Maureen St john) — first with her husband, Lord Iere, and later on her own — continued the slow march of solo female calypsonians over the next 20 years. However, the number of recordings of women over the next two decades is in doubt, as record masters were destroyed by Decca and others.

It wasn’t until the mid-to-late 1950s — when Calypso Rose (Linda McCartha Sandy-Lewis) entered the calypso tent, along with Singing Francine (Francine Edwards) — that there was incremental upward movement regarding female participation in the live and recording sectors of the industry.

Only in the intervening nearly three decades spanning Rose’s entry and her dual firsts for a woman in 1978 — winning the Calypso King competition (rechristened without gender as the Calypso Monarch) and the Road March crown, which was her second in consecutive years — did tents begin the inclusion of more women, though sadly still in low numbers.

Rose writing and performing her own songs should have inspired a new cohort, but malepenned calypsos still dominated songs sung by women.

Barbadian soca queen

Alison Hinds

it would not be far-fetched to suggest that without women there would be no modern calypso, and no soca without modern calypso

The society in Trinidad had changed in the 21st century. Machismo was reluctantly dialled back for pragmatism, and when a woman was making strides, everybody got on board. Accolades were few yet seemingly not far between — a hopeful sign.

Singing Sandra (Sandra DeVignes-Millington) was the second woman to win the Calypso Monarch in 1999, and again in 2003 (making her the first to win twice). Her triumphs, along with Denyse Plummer’s (who won in 2001) showed minute progress at the turn of the new century. Karene Asche (2011) and Terri Lyons (2020) also won the Calypso Monarch. Nearly a decade passed between each of the last three wins.

Five winning women in over a century of calypso competitions repeats a pattern of indifference in calypso tents — but not on the road. Sanelle Dempster won the Road March in 1999 (the second by a woman), followed by three wins by Fay-Ann Lyons between 2003 and 2009; Patrice Roberts duetting to a win in 2006; and in 2010 the country elected its first female prime minister.

In the 50 years of soca becoming the de facto music of not just Trinidad Carnival, but carnivals across the Caribbean diaspora, there has been a marked difference both in participation and performance. Destra Garcia, Fay-Ann Lyons, Nadia Batson, and

patrice Roberts performs at dimanche Gras during the 2024 trinidad Carnival season

terri Lyons performs at trinidad’s Naparima Bowl in 2022

karene Asche

Nailah Blackman — the granddaughter of soca music’s greatest progenitor, Garfield “Ras Shorty I” Blackman — emerged from trinidad’s neo-pop/ alternative, open mic scene to become one of the genre’s bestknown and distinctive young stars

Barbadian Alison Hinds have been stars in the soca pantheon for decades, along with more recent superstars Patrice Roberts and Nailah Blackman. (All have been featured by Caribbean Beat, including cover stories on Batson, Hinds, and Calypso Rose.)

They were writing their own songs and their performances, and, in a sense, reclaimed the attitude of the late 1800s jammette Carnival by owning their bodies and desires without the need for “mansplaining” experts preaching prudence; being defiant in the face of sectors looking to censor dance movements; and normalising what had been considered provocative. Female objectification in song continued, but some female singers were redefining it on record, on stage, and on their terms.

In 2004, calypso researcher Rudolph Ottley and his team founded the Divas Calypso Cabaret — an uncensored female voice in Trinidad Carnival — to provide an all-female cast as an

alternative to the waning popularity of the modern calypso tent, and to provide a fillip for the still abhorrently low proportion of female calypsonians singing in established tents.

Two decades later, a man — Machel Montano — was the “attraction” at the Cabaret, ironically reflecting Lady Trinidad’s position from 1935.

Trinidad society has evolved, and with most masqueraders and steelpan players being women, it was inevitable that women’s participation in calypso followed an upward trajectory — almost 50% of casts in contemporary tents.

Women played a huge role in the development of calypso’s style and performance in the face of early banning ordinances, and in the return of a once-dominant Creole dance and performance aesthetic to the artform. Women in calypso is not a passing fad, but a lasting and successful reality. n

WORKING IMAGES

Celebrated artist and photographer Ingrid Pollard — who was born in Guyana — receives one of the most prestigious international awards for photography in October. Marta Fernandez learns more about the profound significance of her work

Photography courtesy Hasselblad Foundation

Ingrid Pollard's photo by TT News Agency/Alamy Live News

Aleading artist of the contemporary British art scene, the work of Guyanese-British artist Ingrid Pollard has had a major impact and influence on British and Caribbean photography and visual art. An official statement by the judges of the Hasselblad Award — endowed to Pollard this year — recognises Pollard’s vital engagement with historical memory and her impact on emerging artists:

She has consistently engaged with colonial history and how it continues to impact society, both in her artistic practice and as an educator in photography. Ingrid Pollard has a profound impact on younger generations of artists and thinkers.

Pollard is the 2024 Hasselblad Award Laureate. Known as the world’s top photography award, it provides a prize in the sum of 2,000,000 SEK (nearly US$2 million), a gold medal, and a Hasselblad camera. The award ceremony takes place on 11 October, and an exhibition of Pollard’s work will be inaugurated the same day at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, Sweden, accompanied by the release of a publication on her work.

The Hasselblad is the latest of many awards Pollard has received through her prolific career — including the Freelands Award, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Award, a Leverhulme Award, an honorary doctorate from the University of Westminster (she was also nominated for the 2022 Turner Prize), and Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 2023 — which all attest to her wide critical acclaim and influential career in the arts.

Born in Georgetown, Guyana in 1953, Pollard moved to London with her family at the age of four. She grew up in an England gripped by both acute nationalism and political resistance towards racial justice and liberation — something Pollard engaged with politically and through her work during the 1970s and 1980s.

She graduated from the London College of Printing in 1988 and completed a Master of Arts in Photographic Studies from Derby University in 1995.

Since the 1980s, Pollard’s photographic work has had a particular critical concern with landscape, memory, and identity. Much of the work from that decade uses portraiture to explore the lives of Black people in the countryside, and issues of migration, diasporic life, and belonging in a rural context.

Early artwork series such as Pastoral Interlude (1988), The Cost of the English Landscape (1989), and Oceans Apart (1989) embody an approach to disrupt myths of the English nation and its countryside — and ideas that these are exclusively white spaces.

In these series, photographs are often accompanied by text, encouraging viewers to question the power of images in constructing narratives. Other times, as in Oceans Apart , a juxtaposition of sources from historic archives, media, and personal family archives invites the connection between histories of forced and economic migration, embedded in an assemblage that displays images of Spanish and English colonists, enslaved peoples transported in ships, and photographic footage from the journeys of the Windrush generation.

Self Evident (1992)

© Ingrid pollard

Many of Pollard’s photographic techniques show a combination of analogue and digital media, while reflecting the influence of her printmaking knowledge and experience. Through this combination of processes and media, Pollard creates evocative artwork — always inviting critical reflection through compositional arrangement, use of texture and mixed media in ways that heighten the lyrical beauty and power of the work. Her collaboration with other artists such as Dorothea Smartt — a British writer and poet of Barbadian heritage — is testament to the expansive way in which Pollard’s practice dialogues with other arts.

pollard creates evocative artwork — always inviting critical reflection through compositional arrangement, use of texture and mixed media in ways that heighten the lyrical beauty and power of the work

Postcards Home (2004), a monograph of Pollard’s work published by Autograph (The Association of Black Photographers), includes a photographic portrait of Smartt — part of the series Self Evident (1995). Smartt appears dressed up as Bilal, the name and character the poet constructs in a poetic rendering of the unnamed enslaved man buried at Sunderland Point in Lancashire.

Photographic series from the 1990s continue to disrupt established portrayals of iconic areas of the English countryside. For example, Wordsworth’s Heritage (1992) presents photographic portraits of Black walkers in the countryside as

Above left pastoral Interlude (1988) © Ingrid pollard

Above right pastoral Interlude (1987) © Ingrid pollard

Below the valentine days (2017) © Ingrid pollard

tourist postcards — in visual framing that includes an image of the famed English poet William Wordsworth, who’s closely associated with the landscape of the Lake District.

This series, as with other artwork by Pollard, queries and challenges notions of English heritage that exclude racialised Britons and their experiences. Depictions of the British countryside in her work also interrogate and complicate humans’ relationship to nature — including, at times, our “management” of it.

In the 2000s and 2010s, Pollard’s photography focuses conceptually on topics of identity and erasure — as in Working Images (2008) and Belonging (2010), which also looks at acts of (re)memory and our relationships to recorded history and archives.

Revisiting and re-engaging past artwork is also a distinctive feature of Pollard’s practice. For example, a recent work from 2021, Ship Talk , makes use of the iconic ceramic paper boats from Tradewinds/Landfall (2008), where she also collaborated with Smartt.

In 2019, Pollard was also the official photographer of the Globe Theatre production of Richard III, creating stunning photographic coverage of the play. As stated on the artist’s website, the play was directed by Adjoa Andoh (perhaps best known as Lady Danbury in the Netflix Bridgerton series) and Lynette Linton leading “the first ever company of women of colour on a major UK stage in a post-Empire reflection of what it means to be British in the light of the Windrush anniversary and as we leave the European Union.”

Pollard’s artwork has been part of many landmark group exhibitions in the early 1980s — such as Black Women Time Now and The Thin Black Line, both curated by fellow artist Lubaima Himid — that firmly situate her work as part of a critically committed visual art tradition of Black British women artists including Himid, Sonya Boyce, and Maud Saulter, who challenged the imposed invisibility of Black women in the British and international artworld.

Pollard has been included in a wide number of influential group exhibitions that acknowledge her role as an influential artist from the British Black Arts movement — among them The Politics of Place (2006), Crossing Waters (2007), Thin Black Lines (2011/12).

Hidden Histories, Heritage Stories (1994), Points of View (2003), and Ingrid Pollard: Carbon Slowly Turning (2022) are a few of the many solo exhibitions of Pollard’s work that reflect the varied and layered nature of her art — which also forms part of the permanent collections of public art institutions such as the Tate, the Albert Museum, and The Arts Council Collection (UK).

Her work as a researcher is equally extensive, and has been funded by prestigious awards from the Leverhulme and the British Arts Council, among others. Pollard has taught photography and media art in universities across the UK including Goldsmiths (University of London), the Yale Center for British Art, London South Bank University, and is currently a lecturer in photography at Kingston University. n

valentine days (2017) © Ingrid pollard

ROOTS AND RHYTHM

As Jamaica celebrates National Heroes’ Day on 21 October, Marsha M Hall celebrates this rich history of Kumina — encompassing spiritual, dance, and music traditions brought by free Africans in the decades after Emancipation in 1838 and which have remained among the best preserved in the region

St Thomas, commonly referred to as the “forgotten parish”, is located in the eastern part of jamaica, and boasts a reputation as the established home of Kumina — also known as Kalunga or Kadunga.

Travelling from Kingston into the parish is a battle between humans, vehicular traffic, stray animals, heat, and dust from a highway project currently under heavy construction, expected to transform the parish.

Still, there are numerous unexpected bonuses to reward any traveller seeking to experience Kumina — an expressive artform celebrating life, death, and spirituality through dance, music, and the Kikongo language — for the first time.

From the rugged beauty, pristine beaches, breathtaking sunset vistas and the world-famous Bath Fountain — lauded for its therapeutically healing treatments — this is St Thomas. St Thomas is also defined by Kumina — rooted in celebrating the ancestors (the original Bongo Nation), and embracing an authentic cultural legacy.

Rituals and ceremonies are performed for births, engagements and weddings, deaths, wakes, and entombment, while Kikongo is still spoken in Kumina communities — but is rapidly disappearing, except when chanted during specific Kumina ceremonies. There are also communities of Kumina practitioners in St Mary, St Catherine, Portland, and Kingston.

“[There] is a well-known traditional dance music in the Kongo region known as Kumunu,” explains Kenneth Bilby, prominent anthropologist and ethnomusicologist, speaking of the ancient central African Kingdom of Kongo (which once spanned parts of present-day Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, and the Republic of the Congo. “[The] drumming style itself is known as Kumunu [which] very closely parallels jamaican Kumina drumming.”

opposite page

top A kumina ritual performance with the renowned, late kumina Queen Bernice Henry opposite page bottom Adoma Buchanan, daughter of the late kumina Queen Bernice Henry, offers libations to the African ancestors Left kumina “Set-up” for the late kumina Queen Bernice Henry in december 2014

“Bongo” as a term invokes the original Kikongo language, and among Kumina adherents refers to people of African descent. Bongo in the local dialect is often cast in a derogatory light due to the legacies of colonialism — not unlike perceptions some still hold about communities, descended from enslaved Africans, that practise Ifa, Vodou, Candomblé, Santería, and others.

However, members of the Kumina community have reclaimed this word as a legitimate source of power, their African pride, and identity.

“Bongo means real grassroots man, even though Bongo Nation is scattered,” states Lenroy Alexander, a longstanding member and elder within the Kumina community. It is the ritual drums — kbandu/bandu and playing kyas — that reinforce their link to the Bongo. Both drums speak, resist, and refuse to be silenced.

The drums are also a constant reminder of communal healing. Made from traditional tree trunks wrapped with strong vines sourced from tree barks, and headed by shegoat skin, the drums are made from the wood of cedar, trumpet, or breadfruit trees.

In the past, the drums were also constructed in disguise. The playing kyas, for example, were originally made from cask barrels that stored the rum from the sugar estates. To defy and keep the drums hidden from the (dangerously) prying eyes of the plantation overseers and masters, the playing kyas’ outward appearance would later be crafted similarly to the now famous jamaican rum cask barrels.

Playing of these drums during ritualised performances is at the heart of Kumina. Captivating, pulsating rhythms emanating from the drums are attuned to the frenzied movements of dancers communing with the ancestral spirits.

Of course, the accompanying musical instruments — the shakka (made from seed or stone-filled gourds), katta or rhythm sticks (made from thin joints of the bamboo), and grater (the kind you might have in your kitchen and use to grate cheese!) are just as important.

The playing kyas and kbandu are like conversations between a man and a woman. Philip Supersad, sculptor and musician, likened the steady four-beat pattern of the kbandu (“dudumdudum-dudum-dum”) to a very patient man saying “Yes, dear! Yes dear!” to soothe his wife; while the playing kyas respond with a very rapid, urgent, high-pitched, staccato rhythm (“peng-pengpeng”) that’s almost like a wife telling her husband to hurry home.

kumina is not an adopted practice, but a way of life embedded in the psyche of the community

During Kumina, the drum rhythms affect your entire body, and are meant to transport participants to a higher plane. It’s an ongoing conversation between dancers and drummers, dancers and ancestors. The drummers also play a role in the dancers’ safety. This is where both kbandu and playing kyas take centre stage, as the ancestors are not only revered but feared.

Myaal is described as a portal or channel for connecting with ancestor spirits, and is commonly referred to as “catching the Myaal spirit”. As a manifestation of ancestral presence, this is perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects of Kumina. A personal encounter is not easily put into words or described from an academic point of view. In the words of spiritualist Simon Davis:

Myaal is a state of being, under the direction of the spirits. When the spirits come to you, these are related to the Africans from the olden days, old Africans the ancestors. You are a vessel through which the spirit speaks, and you also respond to the spirit. The ancestors show up in different forms.

There has been a deviation in the music of Kumina in recent years, but not by “true practitioners” — individuals for whom Kumina is not an adopted practice, but a way of life embedded in the psyche of the community. The popular sound systems, generally reserved for dancehall spaces, are seen strung up at “Dead Yards” (or Nine-Nights, a funerary tradition also practised across the region). Kumina musicians must contend with the blaring sounds of speaker boxes and pop music.

Between 2003 and 2016, numerous reggae music producers also started a musical trend experimenting with Kumina music. The “Kumina Riddim” (a “riddim” being a produced instrumental track) emerged from this, with multiple reggae artistes adding their own unique vocals to the Kumina Riddim.

When this slew of riddims hit the airwaves and blared over speaker boxes, much to the delight of dancehall masses, the public was treated to songs titled “Kumina Rock”, “Dance Kumina”, “Wheel & Turn”, “Party up in Here” among other colourful and animated names.

For outsiders, the opportunity to witness Kumina in action might at first seem a bit intimidating, but it offers a glimpse of something far deeper. To understand Kumina is to observe and absorb community in action. “Like how yu cross de bridge fi come inna St Thomas, yasuh is weh wi mek cultural bridge,” a Kumina supporter stated with pride in Patois.

Gaining access into Kumina communities is not easy, since most are not within proximity of each other, and having someone with ties to the community is necessary.

Kumina remains at the heart of Afro- jamaican traditions and culture, and continues to play a significant role in the remembrance of spiritual and physical liberation practised in this African-Atlantic environment. It is an invaluable part of jamaica’s intangible cultural heritage, and one that the African Caribbean Institute of jamaica/jamaica Memory Bank is actively working to document and preserve. n

Members of the kumina band From dusk til dawn play kumina in Spring Bank, St thomas, Jamaica

“I AM CUBA”

With a restored, 4K version of soy cuba — the Soviet-Cuban propaganda film released in 1964 — having been re-released earlier this year, James Ferguson looks at why this documentary on pre-revolutionary Cuba, largely rejected by Cubans and Soviets alike, has been rescued from history and is now considered a landmark cinematic masterpiece

One early morning in june this year, the residents of Old Havana were confronted with an unexpected sight.

A Russian nuclear submarine and four naval vessels had quietly slipped into the historic port of Cuba’s capital overnight and were docked by a quayside that once welcomed American cruise ships filled, as The Guardian put it, with “mojito-thirsty holidaymakers”.

Alongside the vintage US Chevrolets and routine tourist hustle, the ominous hulk of the Kazan submarine was a disconcerting throwback to the Cold War and a reminder that Cuba and Russia are still allies.

More than 6,000 miles separate the two countries, while culturally they are different worlds. Stereotypes notwithstanding, tropical, African-influenced Cuba has little in common with the vast and mostly cold land mass that makes up the Russian Federation. Cuba suffered from imperial domination; Russia was — and arguably is — an imperial power. In terms of climate, religion, music, food and daily life, they are unlikely friends.

But what joined them from the early 1960s was a common enemy: the United States. Both countries were transformed

in the 20th century by violent revolution, and both embraced Marxism as a guiding principle. In both cases, the arrival of revolutionary government was met with hostility by the US.

Russia and Cuba were both invaded by counterrevolutionary forces, and both adopted a siege mentality. Cuba’s embrace of the Soviet Union became closer after the failed, US-backed Bay of Pigs operation in 1961, leading directly to the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year.

The 1960s were the heyday of CubanSoviet cooperation, which was mostly pragmatic and trade-based. The American embargo forced Fidel Castro’s regime to look elsewhere for technology and industrial goods such as tractors and chemicals, while Moscow bought the sugar that formerly want to US consumers.

Military hardware and intelligence were also swapped, and Cuban troops fought proxy wars in alignment with the USSR’s strategic priorities. In cultural terms, however, there was less scope for collaboration and exchange, even if Cuban students were sent in large numbers to Moscow.

And yet one fascinating cooperation did take place, resulting in an extraordinary film that was released in Cuba 60 years ago, in October 1964, and which for

many years was virtually unknown. More recently this film — Soy Cuba (in English, I Am Cuba) — has achieved a belated profile as a revolutionary (and not just in Marxist terms) example of cinematography.

In the wake of the Missile Crisis, which brought the world close to nuclear Armageddon, Khrushchev and the Soviet leadership were ambivalent about Cuba, fearful of war with the US and cautious about the unorthodox leadership of Castro and Che Guevara. But here was an opportunity to support an ally quite literally in America’s backyard and to celebrate a revolution that was younger than the 50-year-old Russian forerunner.

Perhaps the ageing Soviet leadership saw something fresh and exotic in Cuba, but they also recognised that the US embargo cut off Hollywood films from the Cuban public. So was born the idea of a Soviet-Cuban co-production, financed by the Kremlin and produced by the prestigious state-run Mosfilm.

Soy Cuba, directed by Mikail Kalatozov, was filmed from November 1962 — in the immediate aftermath of the Missile Crisis. It is set both in Havana and rural Cuba in the period leading up to Castro’s seizure of power in january 1959. Its subject is not revolutionary, but pre-revolutionary, Cuba — the final days of Fulgencio Batista’s corrupt and vicious dictatorship.

It is pure, unabashed propaganda, following in the footsteps of Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 Battleship Potemkin, a celebration of Bolshevik ideology. As such, its message is clear: four vignettes reinforce the theme that Batista’s unequal and dictatorial Cuba can only be redeemed by revolutionary change.

The mini-plots dramatise well-documented aspects of 1950s Cuba: US tourism and the exploitative casino economy, the suffering of an impoverished peasantry, the repression meted out to student opponents of the regime and, finally, the appearance of Castro’s guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra mountains.

As befits propaganda, there is little ambiguity. The villains — American tourists, landowners, US corporations and the dictator’s armed forces — are unambiguously villainous, and the ordinary Cubans decent and honest victims of malign forces.

There is not much dialogue, but a stirring musical score and plenty of action: an extended nightclub scene, the drama of an oppressed campesino torching his own sugar crop, a demonstration that turns into murderous chaos, and finally the victorious advance of the guerrilla forces.

These dynamic sequences underscore the agitprop aims of the film, vilifying the decadence of Batista’s Havana and glorifying the revolutionary violence that will overturn the regime.

What makes the film spectacular is the extraordinary camera work carried

out by Mosfilm’s gifted and ingenious Sergei Urusevsky. The film had a modest budget by Hollywood standards, but it went a long way in austere revolutionary Cuba, and allowed the use of elaborate cables, improvised elevators and even a helicopter to produce extended takes and unexpected shifts in perspective.

The funeral of the martyred student agitator, for instance, is observed from a high vantage point in Old Havana, and the camera moves in a single sequence from one balcony to another, then to the interior of a tobacco workshop, where workers unfurl a national flag in solidarity

ignored for 30 years, the film was only resurrected in 1994 and was relaunched with the emphasis on its groundbreaking production techniques

with the mourners below. The handheld camera creates a sense of proximity but also an untethered viewpoint that makes the viewer glide over the action.

It is lastly worth noting that the entire film is shot in black and white. Perhaps to avoid a cliched exoticism, the use of stark contrasts of light and dark results in an often brooding and pensive drama, where sombre scenes are juxtaposed with blindingly bright moments of sunlight, fire or even luminous tropical foliage. This bold cinematography is enhanced by experimental infrared film, apparently sourced from Soviet military contacts.

But for all its technical virtuosity, Soy Cuba was a flop, both in Cuba and the USSR, where it lasted a week in cinemas before disappearing. Cuban audiences thought it was patronising and focused too much on poverty and sleaze — unwelcome reminders of their past. It was suspected that luxury-starved Soviet viewers, on the other hand, might find the decadent Havana scenarios a little too attractive for their own good. According to George E Turner:

Any movie which sets out to combine the frigid austerity of Eastern Communism and the hot-blooded sensuality of the tropical West is bound to be something strange, and I Am Cuba was not palatable to either Castro or Khrushchev.

Ignored for 30 years, the film was only resurrected in 1994 and was relaunched with the emphasis on its groundbreaking production techniques. You can watch it in its entirety on YouTube, where though 60 years old, it remains strikingly modern. n

Brooklyn, New york

North America’s Caribbean “capital” was once an independent city, and much of the time it still behaves that way

Streetscape

The topography of Brooklyn’s 71 square miles varies from the towers of Downtown to the elegant brownstone terraces of Park Slope and Prospect Heights to the Coney Island waterfront. Atlantic Avenue, running east to west, and Flatbush Avenue, running south-east to northwest, are major thoroughfares crossing the borough. They meet at the Barclays Centre, a sports and entertainment venue which sits right at the borders of the Fort Greene, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope neighbourhoods. Closer to Downtown, Brooklyn Heights sits on a bluff overlooking the East River and the Manhattan shore, and the small DUMBO neighbourhood — it’s an acronym: Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass — is a former industrial zone now made trendy by art galleries and high-tech startups.

Crossing the bridge

The borough’s most famous landmark of all may be the Brooklyn Bridge, crossing the East River to Manhattan. An engineering marvel in its day, its double-arched stone towers are icons of the city, and you can see them up close from the pedestrian walkway, which starts in downtown Brooklyn and ends near NYC’s City Hall. The views are spectacular, and if you start your walk from the Manhattan side, you can end by exploring Brooklyn Bridge Park, which runs for over a mile along the waterfront, through what was once industrial dockland.

Co-ordinates

40.6° N 58.0° W

Sea level

History

Brooklyn is an English version of a Dutch name, Breuckelen, once a small town on the southwestern shore of Long Island. When the English took over the Dutch colony of New Netherland in 1664 — renaming it New York — this was a landscape of small villages and farms dotted among hills. The 1776 Battle of Brooklyn was the first major military incident of the American War of Revolution. During the 19th century, spurred by the urban growth of Manhattan across the East River, Brooklyn grew into a major city, with its own city hall, public library, museums, and monuments. In 1898, Brooklyn was consolidated into the city of New York, losing its independent status — opponents of the move called it the “Great Mistake” — but the now borough has never lost its distinctive identity.

The 1960s brought an influx of migrants from the Caribbean, and neighbourhoods like Crown Heights and Flatbush soon became known for their Caribbean vibe. Over the past decade and a half, rising property prices in Manhattan have driven a wave of gentrification through many of Brooklyn’s neighbourhoods, bringing new (and generally younger and wealthier) residents, trendy shops and restaurants — and anxieties about changes to long-established communities.

outdoors

Brooklyn isn’t just streets of brownstone houses and apartment towers. The borough is scattered with green spaces, from small neighbourhood playgrounds to magnificent parks. Landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead is most famous for creating Central Park in Manhattan, but Brooklynites will tell you that was just practice for his true masterpiece: Brooklyn’s very own Prospect Park. Opened to the public in 1867, Prospect Park is a 585-acre roughly triangular oasis, boasting Brooklyn’s only lake — man-made. The park’s Long Meadow, a gently rolling lawn, half a mile long and fringed by trees, is one of New York City’s most glorious strolls.

Immediately adjoining Prospect Park is the Brooklyn Botanic Garden — famous for its avenues of cherry trees, which blossom every spring, as well as its Japanese garden, complete with vermillion torii, and a Shakespeare garden with dozens of flowers and herbs mentioned in the plays and poems of the Bard. But homesick Caribbean Brooklynites head for the greenhouses, especially in the winter. Whatever the weather outside, the tropical greenhouse is always warm, humid, and lush, and the rich scent of the vegetation takes you right back to an island rainforest.

Art

New York is the global art capital of the 21st century, and its museums — the Metropolitan Museum, MoMA, the Guggenheim — are world-famous. Visitors throng the major Manhattan museums, but what many of them don’t know is that the city’s second-largest art museum is right here in Brooklyn, on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Washington Avenue. It even has its own subway stop — that’s more than you can say for the Met. What treasures does the Brooklyn Museum have on its walls and in its galleries? Major collections of Ancient Egyptian and African art, among the world’s biggest. A stellar collection of art by women, in the Elizabeth A Sackler Centre for Feminist Art. Plus old masters, Renaissance paintings, contemporary work by Brooklyn artists, and a few works that will be familiar to Caribbean eyes — like this late-18th-century painting by Agostino Brunias (at left), depicting free Women of colour with their children in Dominica.

Agostino Brunias (Italian, ca.1730–1796), Free Women of Color with Their Children & Servants in a Landscape (ca.1770–1796). Gift of Mrs Carll H de Silver in memory of her husband, by exchange and gift of George S Hellman, 2010.59. Courtesy the Brooklyn Museum

NEW yoRK

Brooklyn Long Island

Across

1 Where boats moor [8]

3 Afro-Jamaican faith involving music, drumming and dance [6]

7 A restraint [12]

10 Shape of a cricket field [4]

11 Gradual increases in volume [10]

13 Expert analyst of historical documents [14]

16 Art of filmmaking [14]

19 Attentive to detail [10]

22 Operatic solo [4]

24 Authoritarian rule [12]

25 Betting setting [6]

26 Political propaganda in art or literature [8]

down

1 Alternative to rice or couscous [6]

2 Sounds like a landmark [4]

4 Reflected in a utility bill [5]

5 Tattooed, informally speaking [5]

6 Participants at Antigua & Barbuda Art Week [7]

8 A high nest spelled by changing one letter in “eerie” [5]

9 Enslaved Africans who escaped and established these communities [6]

12 US territory in the Pacific Islands [4]

14 Wander, travel [4]

15 Give it ____ [6]

16 Meant to be humorous [7]

17 Sticks together [5]

18 Apartment accessed by staircase [6]

20 Correct signs [5]

21 It’s linked to a certain reaction [5]

23 A weight control programme [4]

Spot the Difference by Gregory St Bernard there are 15 differences between these two pictures. How many can you spot?

Spot the Difference answers

Batsman’s facial expression is different; colours of the batsman’s gloves differ; colours of the advertising banner differ; “Cricket Carnival” changed to “Carnival Cricket”; colours of the lady’s parasol (2nd row) differ; spectator’s card (front row left) differs; spectator (front row left) has different eyewear; spectator’s card (front row, 3rd from left) differs; woman (front row centre)’s costume differs; woman (front row centre)’s hair differs; father’s eyeline (2nd row, holding son) differs; colour of Jab-Jab (2nd row) differs; expression of boy (front row, centre) differs; colour of “Mighty Shadow” outfit (2nd row, right) differs; Sailor’s eye patch (front row, right) differs

Word Search prestigious photography controversy dancehall percussion percolate polyrhythms fierce corporeal prose submarine tractors propaganda Cuba unorthodox metropolis benchmark assemblage ascension corner embargo blender shower doormat

6x6 mini sudoku

Fill the empty square with numbers from 1 to 9 so that each row, each column, and each 3x3 box contains all of the numbers from 1 to 9. For the mini sudoku use numbers from 1 to 6. by www.sudoku-puzzle.net

If the puzzle you want to do has already been filled in, just ask your flight attendant for a new copy of the magazine!

Sudoku

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GRAND CAYMAN

Dominica

Curacao

Ogle

Caracas

St Kitts

Fort Lauderdale

a cave with a view

High above the valley of Puerto Rico’s Rio Grande de Arecibo, a system of caves in the limestone cliffs serves as a home for a colony of bats — and gives intrepid visitors the treat of a spectacular view. A 15-minute hike uphill from the PR-10 highway and a flashlit scramble past stalactites and stalagmites brings you to the mouth of the Cueva Ventana, the Cave Window — and a vista of green hills and fields all the way to the horizon.

Photo: Max Sawa/shutterstock.com