Caribbean Beat — May/June 2019 (#157) by MEP Caribbean Publishers

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H E L P P R OT E C T T H E F O O D S U P P LY A N D N AT U R A L B E AU T Y O F T H E C A R I B B E A N

Declare Agricultural Items

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U.S. Department of Agriculture U.S. Customs and Border Protection Caribbean Plant Health Directors Forum

ACROSS 3. The chosen spokesperson for the Don’t Pack a Pest program. 6. Pests and disease can be transported through _______. 9. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) conduct inspections at various _______ of entry that are pathways for the introduction of pests and disease. 11. Unsuspecting _______ bring in food, plants and other agricultural items containing harmful pests and diseases. 12. Approximately 50,000 species of plants and animals have _______ the United States. 14. Any good that is made from animal or plant materials is an _______ item. 16. Passenger _______ is a critical component of the Don’t Pack a Pest program. 17. Visit DontPackaPest.com to _______ yourself on prohibited items. 20. The global economy spends $1.4 trillion annually combating _______ species. 21. Straw hats and other woven goods can carry the red palm _______ which causes severe damage to palms and banana trees. 23. Is the Caribbean spokesperson for the don’t pack a pest program. 25. A _______ dog is trained to target a specific odor, thereby locating prohibited items. 26. Unprocessed _______ like carved masks and other handicrafts can potentially harbor invasive insects. 27. The Asian citrus psyllid is a vector that carries huanglongbing, also known as _______ greening disease and arrived in the U.S. on imported items. 28. Help _______ our food supply. 29. Each year these types of pests destroy about 13 percent of the U.S. potential crop production, that’s a value of about $33 million.

DOWN 1. The giant African land _______ is one of the most damaging pests in the world because it consumes at least 500 types of plants, can cause structural damage, and can transmit disease. 2. Even one piece of _______can transport harmful pests. 4. If you do not declare agricultural items, you can be subject to _______ between $1,100 and $60,000. 5. An invasive species can be any kind of living organism, or even an organism's seeds or eggsnot native to an _______ and causes harm. 7. Before traveling with agricultural items you should ask yourself can I _______ it? 8. _______ all food and agriculture items when you enter the United States or other countries. 10. Agricultural risks grow with the ever increasing amount of this. 13. The USDA and state departments of agriculture work together to _______ introduced pests. 15. All agricultural items are subject to _______, to try and detect and prevent the unintentional spread of harmful invasives. 18. An acronym meaning animal and plant health inspection service. 19. More that 110 CBP agriculture _______ teams provide screening for agricultural goods. 22. APHIS and PPQ are acronyms meaning animal and plant health inspection service and plant protection and quarantine which are a part of what U.S. federal department? 24. When you travel please remember Don't _______ a Pest! 25. On an typical day CBP inspectors will _______ 352 pests at U.S. ports of entry and 4,638 quarantinable materials, including plants, meat, animal byproducts, and soil.

ACROSS 3. Linus 6. travel 9. ports 11. travelers 12. invaded 14. agricultural 16. awareness 17. educate 20. invasive 21. mite 23. Sassy 25. detector 26. wood 27. citrus 28. protect 29. insect DOWN 1. snail 2. fruit 4. penalties 5. ecosystem 7. bring 8. declare 10. trade 13. eradicate 15. inspection 18. APHIS 19. canine 22. USDA 24. pack 25. discover

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Contents No. 157 • May/June 2019

82 50

EMBARK

16 Wish you were here

Tobago Cays, St Vincent and the Grenadines

18 Need to know

Essential info to help you make the most of May and June across the Caribbean — from motorsports in Barbados to a pineapple festival in the Bahamas and a marathon in Tobago

34 Bookshelf and playlist

Our reading and listening picks

36 screenshots

Trinidadian filmmaker Maya Cozier talks about her new short, She Paradise

40 Cookup

Drink up Chennette cocktails? Falernum tipples? A creative new generation of Caribbean drinks specialists is changing the way we think about beverages, writes Franka Philip 8

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IMMERSE

44 Closeup

Look and look again Born in Haiti, currently based in Berlin, Jean-Ulrick Désert may be a citizen of the world — but his ideas are shaped by his Caribbean roots. A kind of discomfort that makes you look closer is key to this artist’s work, writes Andre Bagoo

formation, the role of a Caribbean university, and the moral imperative of slavery reparations — as told to Shelly-Ann Inniss

50 Backstory

60 Offtrack

Wright on Growing up in Guyana, Letitia Wright never imagined a Hollywood career. But after a string of stage and TV roles and early recognition of her talent, her casting in the blockbuster movie Black Panther was the break every actor hopes for, says Caroline Taylor

57 Own Words

“I’m aware of how fragile the Caribbean is” Sir Hilary Beckles, Barbadian historian, cricket enthusiast, and UWI vice chancellor, on his intellectual

ARRIVE

Kairi wild Trinidad may be an industrial powerhouse, but it’s also home to wildnerness areas with a rich biodiversity, from forested mountains to mangrove wetlands. Photographers Jason Audain and Brendan Delzin share images and stories capturing the island’s wild beauty

70 Escape

Back to St Lucia A childhood visit to St Lucia was a life-changing experience for Joshua Surtees — and an introduction to

CaribbeanBeat CaribbeanBeat An MEP publication

the Caribbean, where he’d later make his home. Returning to St Lucia after thirty years, what would he learn about the island and himself?

78 Neighbourhood

St George’s, Grenada One of the Caribbean’s most picturesque cities, Grenada’s capital is full of historic architecture and stunning views — and is a growing centre of attraction for lovers of highend chocolate

80 Bucket List

Blue Lagoon Just far enough from the bustling resorts of Jamaica’s north coast to feel secluded, this expanse of vivid blue water is a not-so-secret treasure

Editor Nicholas Laughlin General manager Halcyon Salazar Design artists Kevon Webster, Kriston Chen Production manager Jacqueline Smith Web editor Caroline Taylor Editorial assistants Shelly-Ann Inniss, Kristine De Abreu Business Development Manager, Tobago and International Evelyn Chung T: (868) 684 4409 E: evelyn@meppublishers.com

Business Development Representative, Trinidad Mark-Jason Ramesar T: (868) 775 6110 E: mark@meppublishers.com

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

Barbados Sales Representative Shelly-Ann Inniss T: (246) 232 5517 E: shelly@meppublishers.com

ENGAGE

82 Green

The parrotfish dilemma Among the most colourful marine species, parrotfish play a key role in keeping reefs and beaches healthy. They are also delicious, making fishing bans to protect them unpopular. Without these protections, learns Erline Andrews, they may be overfished into extinction

Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. 6 Prospect Avenue, Maraval, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago T: (868) 622 3821/5813/6138 • F: (868) 628 0639 E: caribbean-beat@meppublishers.com Website: www.meppublishers.com

Read and save issues of Caribbean Beat on your smartphone, tablet, computer, and favourite digital devices!

86 on this day

Football holiday When two English football clubs toured the Caribbean fifty-five years ago, local teams in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados were no competition. Haiti was a different story, writes James Ferguson

88 puzzles

Printed by Solo Printing Inc., Miami, Florida Caribbean Beat is published six times a year for Caribbean Airlines by Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. It is also available on subscription. Copyright © Caribbean Airlines 2019. All rights reserved. ISSN 1680–6158. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. MEP accepts no responsibility for content supplied by our advertisers. The views of the advertisers are theirs and do not represent MEP in any way. Website: www.caribbean-airlines.com

Enjoy our crossword and more!

96 classic

A dip into Caribbean Beat’s archives: Kerri Gilligan visits Trinidad for the first time, and meets her sweetheart’s Tantie . . .

The Caribbean Airlines logo shows a hummingbird in flight. Native to the Caribbean, the hummingbird represents flight, travel, vibrancy, and colour. It encompasses the spirit of both the region and Caribbean Airlines.

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Cover Guyana-born actress Letitia Wright, star of Black Panther Photo Kwaku Alston, courtesy IAG Talent

This issue’s contributors include: Erline Andrews (“The parrotfish dilemma”, page 82) is an award-winning Trinidadian journalist. She is a regular contributor to Caribbean Beat and her work has also appeared in other publications in T&T and the US, including the Chicago Tribune and the Christian Science Monitor. Jason Audain (“Kairi wild”, page 60) is a self-taught photographer from Trinidad and Tobago with a particular interest in Carnival and portrait photography. He is the recipient of awards from the T&T Photographic Society and his work has been shown in T&T’s National Museum. Andre Bagoo (“Look and look again”, page 44) is a Trinidadian poet, journalist, and arts writer, author of four books of poems, most recently Pitch Lake (2017) and The City of Dreadful Night (2018). Brendan Delzin (“Kairi wild”, page 60) is a self-taught photographer and artist from Trinidad and Tobago. From the green rainforests of Trinidad to the crystal blue seas of Tobago, he specialises in images of nature. From an initial background in finance, Shelly-Ann Inniss (“I’m aware of how fragile the Caribbean is”, page 57) decided to explore her love for writing and media. A Trinidad-based Barbadian writer and editorial assistant at Caribbean Beat, she is an explorer and adventureseeker at heart. Joshua Surtees (“Back to St Lucia”, page 70) is a British writer with Jamaican roots. Based in London and Port of Spain, he writes for international publications including the UK Guardian and VICE.

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Benus C Mathurin/Shutterstock.com

A MESSAGE From OUR CEO

Carnival time may be coming to an end for some, and starting for many other Caribbean islands, but the spirit underlying our festivals of fun never goes away. It’s this approach to life — living it to the fullest — that we are embracing this year in our celebration of the Caribbean identity. With the theme of promoting our culture, our places, and our people, our latest campaign is well underway, with support for four regional Carnivals so far in Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jamaica, and Suriname. In addition, we

supported the huge Phagwah celebrations in Guyana and Suriname. There are many more to come — have a browse through the Need to Know section of the magazine, starting on page 18, for more details of all the amazing events taking place in May and June. Plus, see how we can get you there via the Caribbean Airlines network. Alongside bringing you the best of the authentic Caribbean, we’ve also been making the whole travel experience better for our customers:

• Our new website is much easier to use on all devices — try it and let us know what you think • Caribbean Flight Notifications can keep you informed of any changes to your flight journey via email and/or SMS alerts — to benefit, just sign up by opting into our flight notifications system at www.caribbean-airlines.com/#/ notifications • The Caribbean Airlines Customer ChatBot automatically answers a range of frequently asked questions, from the status of your flight to queries about Caribbean Miles, checking-in, duty free, and much more. You also have the option to speak to a human agent at any time. Chatbot will be available over many channels, including web chat and social media • Caribbean Vacations and Tours can save you time and money, as you can book airfare, hotel transfers, and more in one single, convenient transaction. Packages can be booked directly with Caribbean Vacations and Tours via www.vacations.caribbean-airlines.com

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With the July/August vacation fast approaching, why not check out Caribbean Vacations and Tours to see if there’s a vacation package there to suit you? That’s a great example of Caribbean Airlines trying to make the travel experience better for our customers. Here’s another: following your feedback, on 15 April we started offering a twice-weekly non-stop service between Kingston, Jamaica, and Barbados every Monday and Friday. The round trip departs Kingston at 2.50 pm and arrives in Barbados at 6.25 pm. It then leaves Barbados at 7.25 pm non-stop to Kingston, arriving at 9.15 pm. We’re confident that, with a packed calendar of business and leisure events on both islands, there will be strong demand for the additional flights. Soon we’ll be announcing other new routes as we look to make travel more seamless and convenient across our Caribbean region. Thank you for your support and for being a part of this successful movement #thecaribbeanidentity. Please take your complimentary copy of Caribbean Beat magazine as a tangible memoir of your travel with us. You can find us at www.caribbeanairlines.com, on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @iflycaribbean.

Garvin Madera Chief Executive Officer

wish you were here

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Tobago Cays, St Vincent and the Grenadines

Larwin/Shutterstock.com

Protected by a national park, the five uninhabited islets of the Tobago Cays, surrounded by the clear, intensely blue sea, are a playground for visitors and a glamourous backdrop for luxurious yachts. But theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re also home to some of the Caribbeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most pristine coral reefs, teeming with turtles, starfish, sea fans, and dozens more species.

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NEED TO KNOW

Mike Evans Photography

Essential info to help you make the most of May and June: what to do, where to go, what to see!

Don’t Miss Rally Barbados On an average day, a drive around Barbados is like a Sunday afternoon outing: serene, scenic, and mostly nonaggressive. This all changes from 31 May to 2 June, as speedometers hit higher dimensions at Sol Rally Barbados, the Caribbean’s biggest annual motor sports event. Local and international race cars showcase their velocity and dexterity on the island’s black carpet. Spectacular night stages start the festivities.

And if you live for speed, clear your diary for the thrilling King of the Hill event, which returns this year to one of Barbados’s traditional venues at Stewarts Hill. Cars soaring through the air and leaving others in the dust attract spectators to every possible vantage point. Shelly-Ann Inniss

How to get there? Caribbean Airlines operates several flights daily to Grantley Adams International Airport in Barbados from destinations in the Caribbean and North America 18

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Courtesy Cherise Kenion/ Unsplash.com

need to know

Top Five Spice Island chocolate Nutmeg is almost synonymous with Grenada — but chocolate isn’t far behind, with a rapidly growing market for the country’s cocoa. For chocolate lovers, the best introduction is the annual utopia known as the Grenada Chocolate Festival, running this year from 31 May to 7 June. The Spice Island’s celebrated nutmeg, cinnamon, and ginger and its equally treasured cocoa make a distinctively delicious combination. Here are five ways to stimulate your senses at the festival. grenadachocolatefest.com

Healthy chocolate potions workshops

Might chocolate be one of the secrets of youthfulness? Compelling beauty workshops facilitated by chocolate experts will teach you a variety of beauty potions and elixirs. If you prefer to be pampered, spas linked to the festival have you covered.

Cocoa yoga Courtesy the Grenada Chocolate Festival

The scent of chocolate has a calming effect — if it can stick around long enough and not be eaten. At cocoa yoga, you’ll experience “mindful chocolate-eating meditation” after your practice.

Mini-salon with international chocolatiers

Chocolatiers lead tastings of their latest creations, or favourite finds from around the globe.

Cocoa farm tour Tree-to-bar day tour

In the great outdoors, your guide explains the potential flavours of a chocolate bar, showing the tangible links between the landscape and the subsequent tones in the chocolate.

Maybe farming isn’t exactly what comes to mind when you think of getting your hands on chocolate, but if you’d like to learn about where cocoa actually comes from, this is a great place to start. Farmers who have worked the land since their youth guide you through the process of picking the cocoa pods, fermenting and drying the beans. Shelly-Ann Inniss

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JOIN US FOR

Carriacou Regatta Festival 2-5 August 2019

Spicemas Carnival 7-13 August 2019

michelle strachan photography

need to know

Must Try

Pineapple Conch Salad

Pineapple pleasures What looks like a giant pinecone with a spiky crown? You guessed it: a pineapple! One look at a ripe one and your mouth waters. As delicious as they are when raw, there are many other adventurous ways to consume this sweet, full-flavoured, juicy fruit. Just ask any Bahamian, or find out for yourself at the Eleuthera Pineapple Festival, running this year from 6 to 9 June. The island of Eleuthera is the top pineapple producer in the Bahamas, and this annual festival, running since 1988, celebrates the spiky fruit in every form. If you can’t make it there, you can always try your hand at making a pineapple feast in your own kitchen, with dishes like . . .

Pineapple tart

After one bite, you instinctively know you want another one. Thankfully, this Bahamian snack staple is literally as easy as pie. All you need is a soft pastry crust filled with pineapple and sugar glaze, and a latticed upper crust. Place the pastry in the oven until golden brown, and try not to eat the whole thing at once.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

This old-fashioned cake is a classic. Sliced pineapple lines the bottom of the baking pan, covered with batter, then after baking the cake is flipped for serving. A delectable treat for special occasions — just like the pineapple festival itself.

A tangy twist on the Bahamian national dish. Traditionally, conch salad isn’t prepared with fruit, but Bahamians also relish the pineapple version. Close your eyes, take a bite, and imagine you’re dining beachfront on one of the Bahamas’ many idyllic islands Ingredients 1 large conch, skinned and diced (substitute lobster if conch isn’t available) 1 medium onion ½ cup green peppers, diced ½ cup pineapple, diced ½ cup cucumber, diced 1 medium partially ripe tomato, chopped juice of 2 freshly squeezed limes juice of half a blood orange 1 teaspoon salt 3 hot peppers (or to taste), minced Directions Mix all ingredients and enjoy in a pineapple shell. Shelly-Ann Inniss

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Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia

need to know

Erosion (2018, installation at Sargent’s Daughters, NY) Below Garden (2018, acrylic and synthetic hair on canvas, 81 x 59 inches)

On View

In the new solo show by Jamaican artist Deborah Anzinger, which opened in April and runs through August 11, 2019, at the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute of Contemporary Art, images refuse to confine themselves to two dimensions: the artist’s works on canvas sprout forth from the gallery walls, replicating themselves in sculptural forms. Anzinger, also the founder of Kingston’s New Local Space (NLS), imagines “at the intersection of black feminist thought, geography, and space,” says the ICA, and An Unlikely Birth assembles recent works in painting, installation, and video. Organic materials meet the entirely artificial, as Anzinger “offers intimate networks and alternative ways of being in the world.” The title work, Anzinger says, refers to the Caribbean’s plantation economy, an “unlikely birth” in which specific elements of historical exploitation, social organisation, and bodily labour created a global capitalist system whose offspring continue to shape contemporary societies and relationships with multiple inequalities in their DNA. In her own words, the artist is aiming for “a more complicated understanding of existence.” 24

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Institute of Contemporary Art Philadelphia

Deborah Anzinger, An Unlikely Birth

Omar Vega/ Getty Images

need to know

On the Field Tek it to dem The Jamaica national football team is heading to the World Cup finals in France — but this isn’t a throwback to 1998. Nazma Muller reports on the uphill battle of the Reggae Girlz, who made it to the finals with a little help from Cedella Marley World Cup football fever will once again strike Jamaicans everywhere in June, when the national team makes its debut at the finals in France. But wait? That nuh happen already? That was the Reggae Boyz — back in 1998. This time, it’s the Reggae Girlz who will be setting France on fire with their vibes, at the FIFA Women’s World Cup. And what vibes they will be! Because this time, dem a come with the Marleys. Yes, iya. With Cedella Marley as their ambassador, the Jamaica team is sure to be in the spotlight. And already the former Melody Maker has roped in her brothers Stephen and Damian to produce the single “Strike Hard (Reggae Girlz)”. Cedella Marley has done her daddy — reggae legend Bob — very proud, first by rescuing the Jamaican women’s football team from their time in the wilderness, and then taking them all the way to the top. In 2014, her son brought home a flyer from his soccer coach. She called the coach, whose daughter was a national under-seventeen player. The Jamaican 26

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women’s national soccer team was in danger of folding, Marley learned. “They were getting ready to disband the entire team just because of the lack of funding,” she recalls. “Although we know there is funding in the Football Federation — it’s just that the women were not being prioritised.” Marley felt passionate about the way the women were being ignored. “They were very talented, and not being given an equal opportunity. Never liked that, either, so I just jumped in and started raising some funds and awareness.” The issue of women playing football struck a chord with her. But even with Marley championing their cause, the players had their doubts that somebody could believe in them so much. “You could see they were already broken,” Marley says. “I remember one girl saying to me, ‘You really believe in us?’ I told her, ‘I believe in you, and it’s a real thing — a personal thing. I want to see you succeed, and I want the programme to succeed.’”

So Marley — the CEO of the Bob Marley Foundation and Tuff Gong International — used her personal brand to support the “Strike Hard for the Reggae Girlz!” campaign, to cover the initial costs of training camps, food, travel, and housing for the twenty-six-woman team. Last December, Jamaica’s minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, Olivia Grange, announced four days of celebration to honour the Reggae Girlz. The activities included a motorcade through Montego Bay and the parishes of St Catherine, Kingston, and St Andrew, and a thanksgiving service at Emancipation Park. Grange said it was important that the girls be given “a hero’s welcome, and shown appreciation for their outstanding achievement . . . We’re asking all Jamaicans to join us in celebrating with them. We want to make sure they go to France ready to tek it to dem.” And, for sure, it won’t be a walk in the park for the Reggae Girlz: they face Brazil, Australia, and Italy in the World Cup first round. But this is Jamaica, and not only are they coming with the Marleys, they’ve even got a Bunny, too. Not Bunny Wailer (although you never know), but Khadija “Bunny” Shaw, the top striker for the entire qualifying tournament and the UK Guardian Footballer of the Year for 2018. The award from the British newspaper is given to a player “who has done something truly remarkable, whether by overcoming adversity, helping others, or setting a sporting example by acting with exceptional honesty.” Shaw’s story includes more than a fair share of tragedy. She lost three of her seven brothers to gang-related gun violence in Spanish Town, where she and her eleven siblings grew up. A fourth brother died in a car accident. Then, while attending Eastern Florida State College in 2016, she lost two nephews in quick succession: one was shot, the other electrocuted. Yet through it all she remained focused, guiding the Reggae Girlz to victory. “There’s a Jamaican saying: wi likkle but wi tallawah,” Marley remarks. “We might be small as a country, but our strength is, of course, in our people and our qualities. I think every little girl that’s in some school in the Caribbean that has a dream of doing what we saw happened” — the Reggae Girlz World Cup qualification — “now knows that it can be true. “Four years ago,” Marley adds, “I said this is like a Disney movie waiting to be made. Hopefully, somebody’s writing the script. Jamaican women don’t cry. We smile and we laugh and we go through, but [that] night, I did shed a tear.” KASE STUDIOS

The 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup runs from 7 June to 7 July at venues around France. Caribbean Airlines is the official airline of the Reggae Girlz

Weddings Portraits Commercials Cinematography

St. Catherine, Jamaica | (876) 378-7822 | ks.kasestudios@gmail.com |

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need to know

Ready to Wear Easy breezy Rotchelle Parris’s energy and sunny personality easily light up a room. For the past nine years, this self-taught Barbadian designer has expressed her curiosity and sophisticated creativity through her fashion label Pink Lemonade by Rotchelle Parris, a resort-wear clothing line for women. Following the release of her latest collection in April 2019, Parris talks to Caribbean Beat about her inspirations.

How did you choose the name Pink Lemonade? I wanted something fun and catchy with a tropical feel — plus I really love lemonade. Add a dash of vanilla essence, and I’m satisfied. Shawn Fields

What inspired this line?

Daniel Boyce

The inspiration comes from the easy-going nature of the Caribbean. The pieces tend to be vibrant, effortless, timeless, and stylish.

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Daniel Boyce

Have you always been a fashionista?

I’ve had an avid interest in fashion my whole life — from watching Style with Elsa Klensch to reading various fashion publications while growing up. My fashion career started when I bought my sewing machine and taught myself to sew with the help of books and YouTube videos. Less than a year later, I debuted my first collection at Barbados Fashion Week in 2010.

What distinguishes your designs from others?

Pink Lemonade by Rotchelle Parris is one hundred per cent Bajan — it is designed and made in Barbados. Most of my pieces are also made-toorder, ensuring my clients get the perfect fit.

Do you think Caribbean fashion can hold its own at an international level?

Shawn Fields

Definitely. Along with being incredibly talented people, we have unique experiences and stories to tell through our fashion. This sets us apart from the rest of the world.

What does the future hold for Pink Lemonade by Rotchelle Parris?

In June I’m honoured to head to the Caribbean Style and Culture Awards and Fashion Showcase in Washington, DC, to receive the 2019 Award of Excellence in Fashion Innovation. A men’s line may also be on the horizon.

For more information, look for Pink Lemonade by Rotchelle Parris at www.pinklemonadebyrp.com or on Instagram @pinklemonadebyrp WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM

need to know

The Read We Mark Your Memory Over a period of more than eight decades, the movement of indentured labourers from India across the British Empire reshaped colonial societies as far-flung as Trinidad and Guyana, Kenya and South Africa, Mauritius, the Seychelles, Fiji, and Malaysia. Now, a century after the abolition of the indentureship system, a new anthology of poems, stories, essays, and memoirs reflects on the personal and collective legacies of this great movement of peoples. Commissioned by Commonwealth Writers and edited by David Dabydeen, Maria del Pilar Kaladeen, and Tina K. Ramnarine, We Mark Your Memory is the first attempt to bring together “writing from the descendants of indenture” from such a global range, with twenty-eight writers and a dozen countries represented. The Caribbean edition, published by Trinidad-based Peekash Press, debuts in May 2019, the month in which Indian Arrival Day is commemorated in both T&T and Guyana.

india has left us

Rights of Passage A three-part journey

By Eddie Bruce-Jones By Patti-Anne Ali (for ali b) india has left us in this place smitten with the distance of an arm’s length and two soles and palms laboured of their brown rivulets leaving roads and rivers etched back through the powder whole cartographies savaged each time we press the wet mound of atta we dust our hands so it will not stick around to texture the wood or fill in the space between the digits, the heady remembered lifted into salty ashen plumes and so a map is always orphaned on the flame and swallowed by the crisp of the rising roti

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india has left us alive with a cumin tongue parched between leafy halves edged of tattered urdu clamped beneath a tiny vessel bronze and mounted ivory shingles ashen insides: tastes like all the pots, stored away in cupboards fragranced by the dead of pepper seeds for the sapling deciduous trees harvested somewhere close to here in each room of each house of metal and wood an urn an elephant three bronze lanterns long gone cold on some kitchen window ledge a riddled hanuman watches us silently peeling skin into sacred dust

Part 1 She stands before him proudly humble memories of mother’s milk a fleeting instant on child-like lips averting eyes of blatant beauty dark-lashed, earth-brown and almond-shaped from his elderly, lustfully wheezing gaze. This place of warm, muddy cows and powerful rivers shrill cries of ancient devotion travelling on gentle breezes has suddenly become her jail and her mother’s voice an Executioner’s song. He jingles of money her family’s saviour who will wrench her forever from sun-drenched fields of innocence and laughter. She is eight years old and about to marry . . .

Part 2 Flames rise and grow consuming the wood ferociously. She feels the heat through the thin material that rubs one last time against her cringing flesh. She watches his age-old body through the folds of cloth and billows of bitters-sweet smoke as flames leap and work their way insidiously reaching for her. With pounding heart seized with terror zombie-like she is led to the pyre and submits screaming to an agony of tradition. She is twenty-three and about to die . . . Part 3 Rising from the ashes of her husbandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s funeral pyre she floats through time and space over continents and seas and after a rocky voyage on a turbulent, tossing vessel she lands on the shores of an unchartered land. Through cane and pain she dances her body the epitome of woman the pinnacle of motherhood hips that sway in a timeless dance of light hips that house the children slumbering peacefully in her ample curves. She dances to the island thump of a drum called the tassa. This land feeds her new food

strokes her tumbling cascade of black hair with the softest of fragrant, tropical breezes and introduces her to another whose hair is not like hers and another whose eyes are not like hers and another whose skin is not like hers. Her elders frown as she gambols playfully with the others. But they cannot stop her now. She is too far ahead shoulder to shoulder with the others of this new world doing things she never did before and things she has done, since time immemorial gathering her children beneath her protective gaze gathering policies to implement her destiny. The elders rumble in discontent pretend she does not exist. She smiles at her Executioners choosing to remember warm, muddy cows and powerful rivers shrill cries of ancient devotion travelling on gentle breezes. She reaches within for what was born centuries ago in ancestors who bled and struggled, loved and lived and breathes a prayer of gratitude for these timeless gifts she will pass onto her children born in this land that celebrates the shimmer of her tears in the light of the sun and illumines her brightly bejewelled figure poised on the threshold of discovery love firmly planted in this soil. She has righted her passage. She has chosen her luggage. She voyages on. For more information, visit peekashpress.com

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need to know

Datebook More highlights of May and June across the Caribbean European Film Festival, Trinidad

14 to 28 May Whether the issue is the environment and climate change, or migration and other human rights issues, the EFF has never been afraid to tackle those topics that affect everyone. And not to worry if you’re not a linguist — the films are all subtitled. www.facebook.com/tnteff

Guyana Carnival

17 to 27 May Are you ready for the road? Booming music and vibrant costume sections created by local and regional fashion designers will take over the streets in one of the youngest Carnivals in the Caribbean. Expect hyped-up performances from some of your favourite soca artistes at the all-inclusive fetes, concerts, boat ride, and more. guyanacarnival592.com 32

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Sea to Sea Marathon, Tobago

18 to 19 May Conquering the run from the Caribbean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean through Tobago’s ancient rainforest, picturesque villages, and the capital city Scarborough is definitely worth a year of bragging rights. seatoseamarathon.com

Antigua and Barbuda Sport Fishing Tournament 8 to 9 June Time and patience are the keys to the US$100,000 prize, awarded to anyone who breaks the marlin record. antiguabarbudasportsfishing.com

St Kitts Music Festival

27 to 29 June When the music takes over, it can be an intoxicating yet surreal feeling. Imagine genres fused together in ways you’ve never heard. Hits of yesteryear riding the wind with the lyrics and melodies of the present day. Sean Paul, Jason Derulo, John Legend, Biggie Irie, Tarrus Riley, Dionne Warwick, and Regina Belle are no strangers to the stage at Warner Park Stadium. stkittsmusicfestival.com

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bookshelf Golden Child by Claire Adam (Faber & Faber, 272 pp, ISBN 9780571339808) Peter and Paul Deyalsingh are twin brothers, growing up in 1980s Trinidad, and they are as different in ambition as two boys could ever be. Different, too, are the ambitions of their parents, petroleum worker Clyde and homemaker Joy, for their sons. Peter is their “golden child”: an academically gifted prodigy on whose shoulders weigh the hope for not only a government scholarship, but the Gold Medal, which confers opportunity and respectability for both recipient and family. Paul, having been told he is “slightly retarded” by contrast, seems most content in his world of wilderness roaming and forest jaunts. It isn’t hard for Paul to disappear into the dense bush that surrounds the Deyalsinghs’ rural home. A day comes when he vanishes, and does not return when called. Trinidad-born, UK-based Claire Adam’s debut teems with quiet power. You won’t find grand flourishes of language here. The novel is composed with a deadly elegance, trimmed with subtlety that serves to make its secrets pulse with painful,

How to Love a Jamaican

palpable strength. Every rustling leaf in the undergrowth matters in this magisterially paced saga. Every blade of grass gleams. A complex novel provides its reader with difficult choices. Golden Child buckles you into an emotional briefcase of catch-22s. Clyde, who strives to make the best decisions for both his children, is a complex, unforgettably rendered patriarch, a man who wades into deeper, murkier ethical terrain with each choice he makes. As he grimly muses, “They have two kinds of men in the world . . . One kind works hard and brings all the money home and gives it to his wife to spend on the house and children. The other kind doesn’t do that. And nobody can control which kind of father they get.” Here is a debut that does what so many other new releases claim to do, but don’t — it breaks new ground. Adam strikes under the very bedrock of complacency, revealing what we will — and won’t — do for our children, and to ourselves.

Black Leopard, Red Wolf

by Alexia Arthurs (Ballantine Books, 256 pp, ISBN 9781524799205)

by Marlon James (Riverhead Books, 640 pp, ISBN 9780735220171)

“Caribbean mothers want to eat their daughters,” one woman says in the opening story of How to Love a Jamaican. In these tales laced with good food, mermaids, and old, beloved Bibles, Arthurs tugs on the navel strings of women connected through blood, beauty, and the tidal pull of home. In the title story, ginger tea and gizzard are backdrops to a marriage’s seasonal rhythms, and the secrets of fatherhood and forgiveness it contains. “Bad Behaviour” sees a sexually burgeoning teen sent back to Jamaica, to be sorted out by her “old-time granny.” Her lessons are learning to make fry dumplings, chicken foot soup, and sweet potato pudding: proof that some education can simmer in a cast-iron pot, till it’s ready to be served. Arthurs plates her short fiction with spice and savour.

Lost the plot a couple hundred pages in? Never fear. Black Leopard, Red Wolf, first in the Dark Star Trilogy, delivers more than one seamless narrative, and more than one sleepless night spent following its tributaries of genre-limboing mystery, fable, and dark adventure. Marlon James’s prose is on rhapsodic, unfettered display here: alternately gut-punching, dizzying, and sobbingly intense. The language of the novel drives us through a search for a missing child, past a tableau of abusive fathers, politically motivated members of the feline kingdom, generations of trauma, gender fluidity, and reams of actual viscera. Our protagonist Tracker, a mysterious career sleuth with a nose of gold, is a stunning enigma — just like the rest of this unputdownable yarn.

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Wordplanting by Kendel Hippolyte (Peepal Tree Press, 64 pp, ISBN 9781845234355) S t L u c i a n p o e t Ke n d e l Hippolyte’s seventh collection regards tenderly and contemplatively, as do many poems set in a writer’s later years, the steps that lead to the afterlife. A well-earned wisdom facing down death is in these verses, and yet the poems in Wordplanting are so generously activated by what keeps us incandescently, immutably alive. In “Harp”, a ruminant elder finds himself out of step and sync with the dancehall of the current generation, yet soldiers on stalwartly in paeans of song, made to bruk down Babylon’s walls. Even the most domestic of these poems lilts with music, proof that poetry about home spaces is no less powerful in a masterful griot’s hands. Taking us from foreign cities to the depths of the unlit sea, Hippolyte is calling us all into our own power, with soaring wonder.

The Slave Master of Trinidad by Selwyn R. Cudjoe (University of Massachusetts Press, 384 pp, ISBN 9781625343703) William Hardin Burnley cut a hard, unforgiving figure against the backdrop of the nineteenth-century Caribbean, dominating Trinidad’s slave-owning society. A proponent of entrenched racism, a ruthless representative of the concerns of the British Empire, Burnley ferociously agitated against emancipation, saying it was madness “to suppose that African savages could be beneficially, either for themselves or the community, governed by the same code as English labourers.” Cudjoe’s scholarship in The Slave Master of Trinidad is a lucid, expressive mechanism, unveiling heinous doctrines that were normalised through Atlantic slave commerce. This impressive character study of Burnley in his era reveals how one man became a titan of industry while wielding the bloodiest of ledgers. Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM

playlist G.O.A.T. Machel Montano (Monk Music) Soca is now the Caribbean’s de facto festival music. Machel Montano’s wish to take soca to the universe is partly on its way to that destination. And with this album, which includes the 2019 T&T Carnival Road March “Famalay”, the soca superstar is now doing the things that make a global music industry take notice. An album of nineteen tracks fits easily into the modern music streaming environment, and his widespread collaborations with Caribbean and

Rise of the Protester Reginald Cyntje (self-released) In a series of splendid jazz albums, trombonist and composer Reginald Cyntje has been musically chronicling the range of human emotions, and providing a musical engagement with the human spirit, the soul, the cerebral self. An intelligent understanding of ourselves culminates in this new recording, Rise of the Protester, which documents the resistance of the “hue man” to bondage, to deprivation, to prejudice, and to injustice in both Caribbean and American Single Spotlight

Shy M.R.I. featuring Tico (On Lock Records) “Modern dancehall” is a genre term created by digital musical platforms to make sense of a new wave of Electronic Dance Music (EDM) with more than a hint of Caribbean rhythm and vibe. Some call it CDM. On a first listen, this new single by M.R.I sounds minimalist, but grows as the drum and bass percolate with that syncopated rhythm so characteristic of Caribbean music.

My Good Day Ronald “Boo” Hinkson (Zephryn Records) St Lucian music icon and guitarist Ronald “Boo” Hinkson has a career equivalent to that of an ambassador for his native island and its annual jazz festival. The languid pleasures of Caribbean life are mirrored in the tropical smooth jazz feel of this song. Featuring the vocals of Irvin “Ace” Loctar and Shannon Pinel, and Hinkson’s “signature feathery touch,” this song’s inspirational message of hope and gratitude is made clearer when you grasp the relationship between our 36

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US artists like Super Blue, Bunji Garlin, Skinny Fabulous, and Ashanti point to an understanding that this music is bigger than one island. St Lucian Dennery Segment, Dominican bouyon, Jamaican dancehall, and vocal colours from Belize and Martinique all accent the hybridity that is evident in modern Caribbean music. Now is really the time for a rekindling of our greatness as Caribbean folk, and G.O.A.T., Montano’s forty-fifth album in his over-threedecade career, is the template for our collective significance.

spaces, reflecting Cyntje’s multiple heritages as a Dominican raised in the US Virgin Islands, and now living in the United States. Taking his cues from a historical record of resistance, literal and figurative — from the likes of Harriet Tubman and “Queen” Mary Thomas of St Croix to Malcolm X and others — Cyntje’s evolution of protest is given gravitas with music that engages the urgent rhythms of Caribbean movement and the contemplative space of jazz. This is by no means mournful dissonance, but a joyous celebration of spirit wanting to be free.

Singer Tico adds a vocal that sounds just about right in this setting to make bodies move on a dance floor — not too loud to overwhelm, highpitched and clear enough to hear. “Shy” is a simple ditty about a guy’s self-awareness that his banter is weak because of apparent diffidence, and the recognition that this dilemma can lead to solitary nights and days. The Trinidad-based On Lock Record’s tag line is “Caribbean roots, global sound,” and this song just about has all those elements. Caribbean realities and the vision of the tourist brochure. “Survival is the triumph of stubbornness,” said St Lucian poet Derek Walcott, and in these lyrics, you get the sense that a good day is just around the corner from a series of regular bad yesterdays. The jazz guitar in the hands of giants like Wes Montgomery and George Benson became the smooth sonic antidote to melancholy, and Hinkson merrily continues that tradition here. Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell

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courtesy Maya Cozier

screenshots

“I’ve sat through enough films where the directors get the female characters wrong” A star is born — almost — in the short Trinidad and Tobago film She Paradise. It’s the story of Sparkle (Onessa Nestor), a young woman desperate to be a soca dancer. Lacking in self-confidence, she botches her first audition with a dance troupe. The brash, extroverted Mica (Cheneka Clifford) takes her under her wing, eventually leading to a climactic moment in the spotlight for Sparkle to show what she’s got. Directed by Maya Cozier, She Paradise is a prelude to a feature-length version of the film currently in production. It’s a bracingly unsentimental distaff drama, one attuned to the complexities and joys of young women’s friendships with one another. It’s also sensitive to the working-class realities of its characters, a quality that was on display in Short Drop (2016), Cozier’s previous, prizewinning short. Here Cozier tells Jonathan Ali about bringing She Paradise — the short and feature — to the screen. She Paradise considers themes of girlhood and female camaraderie through a Carnival-and-soca context. Which came first, the wish to make a Carnival film or the desire to explore these themes? I think I was initially driven by wanting to tell a story that felt like the experiences of my girlfriends and me growing up. It was an exciting time of self-discovery, loss, heartbreak — and it all happened against the backdrop of a contemporary Caribbean space. The film is set within a working-class milieu. What draws you to this world, and how do you approach it in terms of being authentic to people’s lived experiences? 38

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I was an introverted child, so early friendships have really impacted my work. My best friend, who I met at dance class when I was six, danced as a way to find escape from her lived experiences. The first film I ever made in college was about that friend. Also, my co-writer Melina Brown and I interviewed dancers before developing the film’s characters and crafting the story. That process helped us tell a story that feels authentic to these women’s lives. I think that’s the most important thing for me to accomplish as a director, because I’ve sat through enough films where the directors get the female characters all wrong. Watching the film, there’s this sense — not fully verbalised or shown —

that the competitive, even mercenary, world of dance these young women are in is on a continuum that also includes the world of sex work. I would never judge women for their decisions. I also don’t want to sentimentalise the sexuality of the dancers in the film. I know how my friends and I felt when we danced on stage for Carnival, and it’s a liberating and empowering experience. Of course we’re doing it within the culture of a misogynistic male space, and those are issues that I grapple with in the short film and the feature-length version. Your leads give contrasting, convincing performances. How did you cast them? We put out an open call for actors/ dancers and personally invited some dancers to the audition. Cheneka and Onessa are both from [the dance troupe] Malick Folk Performers. They had no prior acting experience, but their lives are so close to the actual characters that it works. Onessa and Cheneka are also friends in reality, and they have the same friendship dynamic of their characters. Cheneka is the theatrical, self-assured friend and Onessa is the more reserved, introspective friend. The feature-length version of She Paradise will be your first feature. What do you see as being key to making it a success? I don’t want to give away too much, but if I can challenge the way people think about consent and sexual harassment, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something with this film. If I can demystify some preconceptions of Caribbean girlhood, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something. I think making a film that feels real and authentic is successful. If I can tell a story that makes audiences, regardless of where they are in the world, relate this film to their personal experiences, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished something. She Paradise Director: Maya Cozier Trinidad and Tobago 15 minutes

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cookup

Drink up

Not so long ago, says Franka Philip, Caribbean drinkers’ choice of alcoholic beverages was all about getting tipsy. But a new generation of drinks connoisseurs are more interested in unique flavour profiles and the history behind their tipple. Meet some of the creative mixologists who are changing the way we sip our cocktails Illustration by Shalini Seereeram

ME Hear nah, allyuh, last night I had a cocktail that a guy made with chenette. It was bess! FRIEND 1 Wha? Chenette? Dat not computing!!! FRIEND 2 A chenette cocktail, yuh say? ME I dunno how he extracted the juice from chenette, but damn, the cocktail was awesome! It was one of the most exciting things I tasted here in Barbados, that win! FRIEND 1 I cyah imagine chennette with any kinda alcohol, but if you say it was good . . .

es, dear reader, that was a snippet of an actual WhatsApp chat I had with some friends back in Trinidad while I was attending the 2018 Barbados Food and Rum Festival. I came away from the festival’s signature rum event, “A Taste of the Exotic”, with one thing on my mind: Jamaal Bowen’s drink called Guinep Guinep, Ahaaa Ahaaa. Guinep — known in some parts of the Caribbean as chenette, and in Barbados as ackee — is a fruit with a hard seed covered with a layer of juicy pulp. It definitely isn’t the first fruit you’d

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think of for making a cocktail, but if you know of Jamaal Bowen’s reputation for adventure, then it’s not so surprising. Bowen, one of the Caribbean’s top mixologists, is taking drinks culture to a new level. He’s part of a global movement of drinks magicians who are incorporating exotic flavour profiles by using unusual fruits, vegetables, spices, and herbs. When I tell the award-winning Bajan mixologist that several months later I still have the taste of his chenette cocktail in my mind, he laughs. “If I give you a drink that has mango or passion fruit or banana, it’s something you are so accustomed to, you might link it to another drink, but it probably isn’t a standout experience,” he explains. “I try to do something different from the others — so, for example, I think about using things you would have eaten during childhood or things you quicker think about eating than drinking. “When I do drinks for certain events, like Barbados Food and Rum,” he continues, “I focus on making you, the patron, feel you’re having an experience that you can have only with me.” Bowen is an enthusiastic proponent of using local ingredients to create new drinks with different and unique flavour profiles. He jokes, “It’s easier to think about the ingredients I haven’t used.” As we speak on the phone, I hear him moving around his lab, bottles clinking as he looks on the shelves for a few of the concoctions he’s made. “I have salted sea grape, salted gooseberry, hog plum, soursop and cinnamon, dunks, tamarind, ‘five and five’ (five fingers and five spices), and a whole lot of stuff. These ingredients and these flavour profiles are what give us the edge.”

n Trinidad, meanwhile, Martin James is also challenging himself to use local items and cheaper ingredients to take his mixology game to a new level. Many of the herbs and other flavourings he uses come from his own backyard. “My mixologist friends would come and admire the garden,” he says. “At one time I had six different types of mint, several

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varieties of basil. I started to use the herbs for infusions and then I started doing shrubs” — acidulated concoctions of fruit, aromatics, sugar, and vinegar — “and other experiments.” James is part of a mixology collective called Artistic Bar Concepts. The team of six works at all levels in the food and drink industry. They recognise that people are moving away from sweet frozen cocktails in search of fresh and more natural options. This inspired James to use teas in his drink creations. “People in the Caribbean are accustomed to teas, but only in one way. We have been doing tea-flavoured cocktails that are fresh, close to natural, and offer a unique drink experience,” he explains. “We’ve observed that while there are some people who have lots of money to spend, in this economy, there are more who have limited budgets but want to still enjoy a good drink when they do go out,” he adds. “We want to use ingredients that are cost-effective, and tea is one of them. I created a wild hibiscus and blueberry cordial and paired it with gin, a spirit that Trinis are just getting used to again.”

Barbadian mixologist Jamaal Bowen is an enthusiastic proponent of using local ingredients to create new drinks with unique flavour profiles According to James, this is a time of great changes in the drinks industry. “Long ago, the thing would be for people to drink to get ‘tight,’ but that’s not the case anymore. People want an overall good experience that doesn’t include being sick the next morning.” Rafael Reyes — who works with drinks giant Diageo, and travels extensively training bartenders and mixologists all over Latin America and the Caribbean — agrees. “We don’t want people to drink more, we want them to drink better. This is why we invest so much in staff and bartender training worldwide,” Reyes says. “Globally, people are now not only more conscious about what they drink, but conscious about the effort behind the drink itself. In other words, we no longer drink to get drunk, we drink to enjoy the quality of the liquid and appreciate the experience of a tailor-made drink.” Trends in drinks culture evolve quickly, and every spirit and beverage maker is working hard to capture the market of millennials, who are definitely not drinking the way their parents did. Nowadays, tequila and gin are the biggest sellers on the world market. Reyes explains that drinkers are more interested in “the craft element” these spirits have as part of their production. “People no longer want to drink something just to drink,” he says. “They want to equally enjoy the story behind the brand and their unique processes. Gins and tequilas offer just that.”

hough both spirits are becoming big hits in the rest of the world, local favourites vary depending on where you are in the Caribbean. According to Jamaal Bowen, falernum

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is all the rage in Barbados right now. This liqueur, dating back to the eighteenth century and said to be invented by Bajans, is limebased with added sugar and spices. “Falernum is trending not just in Barbados,” says Bowen. “If you walk into any bar in the US or the UK and you say you have a bottle of falernum, you will see how quickly bartenders will gravitate towards you and try to get the bottle off you. It’s amazing.” Bowen adds, “There’s a cocktail called Grind and Toil that’s made of kola tonic, falernum, and lime juice or grapefruit juice — depending on how acidic you want the drink to be. The falernum and the kola tonic are supposed to be the sweeteners in the drink. It’s very simple and easy, and the good thing is that you can find all the ingredients for the drink in any bar in Barbados. The drink is shaken and strained into a martini glass. You serve it straight up, and the garnish is very simple — use either a fresh lime wheel or a dehydrated lime wheel. Add to that some locally made kola tonic bitters, and you have a classic drink that’s total Bajan.” Bowen said Bajans love their “straight” drinks, particularly rum. “We are not necessarily a mixed drinks culture, it’s something we are growing into.” He explains that cocktails are more likely to be drunk at fetes and all-inclusive events like Taste of the Exotic, at which chefs work with mixologists to develop cocktails to complement their meals. Drinks culture is a huge deal in Trinidad and Tobago, and always has been. During the annual Carnival — which fell in early March this year — the major drinks distributors run extensive campaigns for weeks, each aimed at making a respective product “the drink of the Carnival.” One particular drink, the classic aperitif Campari, spread its colourful banners and merchandise all over the festival — you couldn’t turn around at a Carnival event and not see a distinctive red Campari cup in someone’s hand. But after all that marketing, has Campari with its bitter flavour won over the taste buds of a people who love their drinks sweet and strong? Only time will tell. Beyond the fetes and the marketing, mixologists say that while drinkers are sometimes enticed to try these products, what people are really after is a unique drinking experience. I’ll give the last word to Rafael Reyes, who takes a big-picture view. “We have been serving the same blended, colourful ‘allinclusive’–style cocktails for years, and kind of got stuck there,” he says. “However, the palate of the people vacationing in our countries has changed, and they look for more crafted cocktails and complex flavours. I believe that in the region we should evolve and diversify our style of cocktails to cater for these needs — but keeping our Caribbean flair.” n

Jamaal Bowen runs the Top Shelf Bar Academy in Bridgetown, Barbados. Check them out on Instagram at @TopShelfBA. You can also check out the latest bar tricks with Martin James at @trinibarchef and Rafael Reyes at @reyesoncocktails.

Picture Capital/ Alamy Stock Photo

Immerse

Closeup 44 Look and look again

Backstory 50 Wright on

Own Words 57 “I’m aware of

how fragile the Caribbean is”

Letitia Wright’s Hollywood career has taken her far from her birthplace in Guyana — but the actress is proud of her roots

closeup

Neque mittatis margaritas Vestras ante porcos (Do Not Cast Pearls Before Swine) (2016, mixed media installation at the Gold Thread Gallery, Belfast, UK)

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Look and look again After fleeing “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haiti with his parents, artist JeanUlrick Désert’s restless life has made him a world citizen — but his Caribbean roots deeply inform his work, as Andre Bagoo discovers. And a certain disorientation is part of what he offers his viewers Photography courtesy Jean-Ulrick Désert

e tells me of his plans: a solo presentation here, a biennale there, a group show or two. A constellation of ever-evolving projects, revolving around an artist who is himself always changing, just as his work makes us look and look again. “I prefer to create art that is initially familiar and comforting, before allowing any of the nuance to elicit a discomfort that may reorient the viewer to break away from our shared myopia,” he tells me via email. In other words, look. And look again. We are in the world of Jean-Ulrick Désert.

ow to describe his background? Born in Haiti during the era of dictator François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Désert left as a child with his family, who took refuge in the United States. Eventually, he studied architecture at Cooper Union and Columbia University in New York City. “I have a formal education as an architect — two degrees in fact — which were fortunately better for creating conceptual art rather than building buildings,” Désert says. “I have at times argued that scale exists in art as it does in architecture, and every artwork has its own appropriate scale. The artist must intuit what that is as she or he creates it.”

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The Burqa Project: On the Borders of My Dreams I Encountered My Double’s Ghost (2002, mixed media installation, dimensions variable)

The scale of Désert’s own career can seem limitless. The label “immigrant” and the narrative of his birth then flight from Haiti cannot fully capture the polyglot nature of his outlook. New York, Paris, Berlin — he’s lived in many places. His work has travelled even farther: to Amsterdam, Brussels, Ghent, Guadeloupe, Havana, Martinique, Munich, Rotterdam, Senegal. He’s strolled the Piazza San Marco in Venice during a flood tide, roamed the oak forests of Hamburg wearing lederhosen. When we met for the first time, in Belfast in 2016, he was wearing a kilt and waistcoat — tall, with a salt and pepper beard, bespectacled and striking, at times stopping traffic, but not really paying much heed as he talked about his work in Caribbean Queer Visualities, a groundbreaking exhibition of LGBTQ artists from the region. But though Désert may identify as a Caribbean national, when he talks about his family fleeing Duvalier — whose des-

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When Jean-Ulrick Désert talks about his family fleeing “Papa Doc” Duvalier, it’s clear he harbours anxiety about the politics of any kind of regionalism

potic regime used a death squad called the Tontons Macoutes to kill opponents — it’s clear he harbours anxiety about the politics of any kind of regionalism, any kind of label. “We were thrown into exile,” he says. “We lived in the Brazilian Embassy [in Port-au-Prince] for a number of months until the president’s birthday, when we were able to escape for the airport, making our way from Haiti to New York. One more day, all three of us would have been murdered.” But some traumas cannot be outrun. “My mother is still very reticent to talk about it,” Désert says. “This is from what I pieced together from my father. Their marriage would eventually suffer and fall apart by the time we were living in the States. Even when my mom got divorced and she returned [to Haiti], she was immediately arrested and stopped at the airport, because we were still on a blacklist. Relatives had their businesses compromised. We had to abandon all our properties, leaving me no physical legacy.” He adds, “but the cultural legacy cannot be erased.” That legacy finds expression in work that shows up the falseness of the nation state. “The restrictive consequences of legal borders that define nations and its citizenry are inescapable today more than ever,” Désert once told the curator and art writer Clelia Coussonnet. “It is for me the elephant in the room.”

striking example of how all these ideas intersect is The Burqa Project: On the Borders of My Dreams I Encountered My Double’s Ghost (2002). Désert gives us a pageant of four burqas, which are the floor-length garments worn in public

by some Muslim women. Each burqa bears the pattern of the national flag of one of the G4 nations: the US, Britain, France, and Germany. Have the flags been turned into burqas? Or have burqas been turned into flags? Which came first? The artist does not give us too much. He leaves room for us to engage with ideas. He knows the burqa evokes different reactions, depending on the viewer. He builds the complex effect of this work on our own complex reactions. A person who is afraid of the sight of a burqa might question whether we are being invited to fear the power of the G4. Do both sides of the non-Muslim and Muslim worlds not share the same fears of each other? And what does that common fear tell us about our shared humanity? Equally, a person with no suspicion of the burqa might see a more hopeful window display: here are symbols of Islam and the West co-existing, a reminder of the ties between Islam and Western society, as well as a vision of a future in which the idea of Islam is not inconsistent with the ideals represented by the G4. “There is usually some interplay between signs and symbols in my art which makes it old-school and familiar for many,” Désert tells me by email. “I am less interested in my own ‘ah-ha’ moment, but rather the ‘ah-ha’ moment of the viewer experiencing an artwork through their interpretations.” Another multifaceted work is central to his perspective. In Neque Mittatis Margaritas Vestras Ante Porcos (Do Not Cast Pearls Before Swine), his 2016 work for the Caribbean Queer Visualities show, Désert filled a room with white balloons that took on a pearl-like sheen. Between the balloons were party banners in rainbow colours, spelling out different translations of the

The artist does not give us too much. He leaves room for us to engage with ideas proverb of the title. There is an air of celebration, as though at a birthday gathering, but the inability to understand some of the text makes you question: what is being celebrated? With so many rowbacks in relation to LGBTQ rights now appearing possible, is the artist questioning whether past celebration was too early? Juxtaposition of joy with the weary tone of the titular proverb also invites us to scrutinise further. The reference to casting pearls before swine makes us consider the value of the individual in the face of the collective, reminding us of the imagery of George Orwell’s Animal Farm and also the contradictory edicts of the Bible. But look again. “Pig play” is a term sometimes used in the gay community to describe a range of ribald sex acts. The artist

Artist Jean-Ulrick Désert

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Sky above Port-au-Prince Haiti 18°32’21”N 72°20’6”W 12 Jan 2010 21:53 UTC, from The Goddess Constellations series (2011, textile, pins, embossed metal-foil, 300 x 300 cm)

might be questioning whether one’s identity should be moored to one’s sexual activity — whether freedom must come at the price of the loss of complexity. I don’t think Désert wants us to chose one interpretation over another. Rather, he wants the ritual of the encounter with the work to itself become charged with a kind of poetry, opening possibilities, pushing us to new and multiple realisations. “What I aim to achieve in/through my artworks continues to evolve with the times in which we live,” he writes. “The artist is a political actor, and with it [comes] the burden and privilege of having a voice. Therefore I ask myself what is the current or continued relevance of any creation, local or global. I attest to a Roman Catholic upbringing in the sense that objects of beauty are often at the service of Christian ritual. So are words and so is space.”

pace takes on dramatic meaning in one of Désert’s most memorable works. Sky above Port-au-Prince Haiti 18°32’21”N 72°20’6”W 12 Jan 2010 21:53 UTC is part of a series called

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The Goddess Constellations. Each piece in the series picks a specific historical moment and reproduces the constellations at a specific time on that given day. Blood red velour papers on foam are covered with pins and embossed metal-foil circles, each a small silvery orb carrying Josephine Baker’s image. The overall effect: looking into the stars but seeing red. For Sky above Port-au-Prince Haiti, Désert approximates the positions of the stars at the moment of the deadly earthquake of 2010. Immediately, W.H. Auden’s poem “The More Loving One” comes to mind, with its opening lines: “Looking up at the stars, I know quite well / That, for all they care, I can go to hell.” We are being asked to consider the indifference of the universe to man’s fate; the sport of Thomas Hardy’s president of the immortals; the cruelty of history; the endless machinations of race-thinking. We are all in the gutter, Oscar Wilde said, but some of us at looking at the stars. Désert has us stare into maddening truths and asks us to make sense of his poems of beauty and rage. So look. And look again. n

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backstory

Wright on As a child in Guyana, Letitia Wright could not have known she’d grow up to be an award-winning actress, star of international blockbuster films like Black Panther. Her parents might have preferred a career in medicine or law — but once the acting bug bit her, Wright did everything it took to build the career of her dreams, even despite her struggles with depression, writes Caroline Taylor

espite a cast brimming with award-winning Hollywood legends, there was scarcely a Black Panther review that didn’t effusively single out Guyanese-British actress Letitia Wright — playing the title character’s science whiz little sister, Shuri — as the film’s scene-stealing breakout star. Born on Halloween in 1993, Wright migrated with her family from Guyana to Tottenham, north London, when she was seven. Unsurprisingly, it was a culture shock — from the climate to the people. “As Guyanese, we are accustomed to say-

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ing good morning and good afternoon to everyone . . . close to our neighbours, helping each other out, and trying to be united despite our situation. But when I came to England, everyone avoided you, locked themselves away indoors, and nobody said hello to each other,” she recalls. The requisite adjustment to her new home also sowed the early seeds of her acting talent. The children at her primary school would laugh at her accent. So, with the steely determination that would come to characterise many other major moments of her life, she resolved to transform how she sounded. That’s not to say that the Guyanese accent is no more. She can still slip back into it at will — not least, she jokes, when her mother is in the room. But it wasn’t until she saw the 2006 film Akeelah and the Bee — starring young black actress Keke Palmer as an eleven-year-old national spelling bee competitor — that the acting bug really took hold. “[Akeelah] looked like me, she was positive, she just wanted to contribute,” Wright says. “I wanted to tell stories like that . . . I wanted to be captured in a weird camera thing that records.” Convinced this was the path for her, she set about making it happen — despite her family’s resistance. “When I grew up in Guyana, we didn’t have an acting industry,” she explains. “We’re more focused on the academic side of things — being a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher.” But in Britain, there was one shining exception: “We had this amazing show called Desmond’s, about this Guyanese man and his wife — they have a barbershop in Peckham . . . And this is a hit show. I grew up on Desmond’s, and he represented Guyana. He made us proud,” she told Ebony last year.

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kwaku alston photography, Inc.

Inspired, undeterred, and still in her mid-teens, Wright took her first job — selling a magazine door to door — to pay for her headshots, eventually moving on to study at the Identity School of Acting, and signing on with their Identity Agency Group. From there, small film and TV parts began to flow in, as did the recognition. For her role in My Brother the Devil, Screen International named her one of their 2012 UK Stars of Tomorrow. Urban Hymn (2015) helped her catch the attention of Marvel, Steven Spielberg (who cast her in last year’s Ready Player One), and the British Academy of Film and Television Awards (BAFTA), who named her one of their 2015 Breakthrough Brits. That year, Wright also starred in the West End production of Black Panther co-star Danai Gurira’s play Eclipsed. In what she calls “a strange triangulation,” when the play was mounted later that year in New York City, the role went to another Black Panther colleague — Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o.

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Letitia Wright’s breakout role: Shuri, sister of Black Panther’s protagonist

here was a near-undeniable momentum to her career at this point. But it was very much in doubt for Wright herself. By the age of twenty, Wright’s struggle with depression was becoming insurmountable. At breaking point, and unable to withstand the pressure she was putting on herself, she turned down the chance to work with Nicole Kidman, and was prepared to give it all up for good. “I saw myself in a deep state of depression and I literally wanted to quit acting,” Wright said when accepting an award in February. “The only thing that pulled me out of it was God, my belief, my faith, and my family — and an email from BAFTA asking me to become part of the BAFTA Breakthrough Brits. And I was like, let me try again.” She’s become one of the growing number of stars to openly share their struggles with depression, frequently taking the opportunity to encourage others. “For me, I just speak on it, because maybe there’s that kid that’s seventeen, locked up

“I rep Guyana wherever I go . . . it’s an honour to do that for my country” in their room like I was, and thinking that they can’t make a contribution to the world, and having these negative thoughts — and seeing me talk about it and saying that I actually flipped it and flipped my mindset,” she told Access Hollywood. “Now I’m in a positive space, and they can get there too.” What followed in 2018, after she had turned that corner, was a torrent of accolades for her work in both Black Mirror and Black Panther — nominations for Primetime Emmy, Saturn, Teen Choice, BET, MTV, EDA Female Focus, and Black Reel awards. Fandango crowned her their Highest Box Office Earning Actor of 2018, based on US box office earnings. She also came full circle at the 2019

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Letitia Wright with her Black Panther co-stars Lupita Nyong’o and Chadwick Boseman

BAFTAs, winning the prestigious EE Rising Star Award. “I don’t want validation to come about from awards,” she told ET, “but when it does happen, it’s a lovely little nudge that says, ‘Hey, kid, you’re going in the right direction.’” Despite her meteoric rise and the intensity of the spotlight focused on her, Wright remains grounded. It helps to be able to call on colleagues for advice, including Naomie Harris — a fellow Brit with Caribbean (Jamaican and Trinidadian) parents. “I asked her how she has dealt with fame, and she said to me that how you carry yourself is how people will treat you . . . If you remain humble and just treat everybody with love, then people will relate to you more, and you won’t have that whole ‘Oh my god, I’m a celebrity’ thing.” Wright also takes pride in the enthusiastic response of people back home in Guyana, even if it is a bit overwhelming at times. “I rep Guyana wherever I go,” she says. “I’m really happy that people are supporting . . . I just hope that it continues to inspire people — it’s an honour to do that for my country.”

o what’s next for this rising star? She currently appears in Marvel’s blockbuster Avengers: Endgame, and she seems a shoo-in for the sequel to Black Panther, which is in development. She’s been cast as the lead in two other projects: the English-language adaptation of the 2017 French comedy Le Brio, co-produced by John Legend’s Get Lifted Film Company, as well as the forthcoming

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sci-fi love story Hold Back the Stars, alongside fellow Identity School of Acting alum John Boyega. She also features in the Guava Island project alongside Donald “Childish Gambino” Glover and Rihanna. Anyone who knows exactly what it is or when it will be released is staying mum. But she has no plans to sit and wait for films to come to her. Wright is committed to making as many indies as she can, and — taking inspiration from people like Viola Davis and fellow Black Panther star Michael B. Jordan — is resolved to

Wright has become one of the growing number of stars to openly share their struggles with depression, frequently taking the opportunity to encourage others learn more about producing so she can bring to life the diverse stories she wants to see on screen. She also has a list of directors she’d like to work with (she’s already checked off a few) — Ava DuVernay, Lynne Ramsay, and Spielberg again, but on a larger role. For Wright, all of this is merely part of how she wants her life to unfold. It’s a purpose and motivation she explains with a profound simplicity: “I try to let the light that’s within me shine to others, and hopefully they identify their own light — and they shine too.” n

own words

“I’m aware of how fragile the Caribbean is” Sir Hilary Beckles, Barbadian historian, UWI vice chancellor, and reparations activist, on finding his West Indian identity, his obsession with economic development, and the global movement towards slavery reparations — as told to Shelly-Ann Inniss Photography courtesy the University of the West Indies

was a Windrush child, raised by my maternal grandmother before I migrated to England in the late 1950s. She was a Pentecostal pastor in Redmans Village Pentecostal Church, Barbados, and she expected me to follow her into the pulpit. I actually feel evangelical at times when I stand at the lectern. I knew I was going to be involved in aspects of the black journey. I knew I was going to write about it and speak about it. I imagine her saying, “You see!” As a teenager, I was a conscious activist in the West Indian community in Birmingham, England. I got involved in the Pan-African and Anti-Apartheid Movements very early. By the time I got to the University of Hull at age seventeen, I’d written a few unpublished novels — they were terrible. I have one of them to this day, under lock and key.

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I was heavily influenced by James Baldwin, who’d impactfully narrated the experience of the black community in the United States, especially those who had migrated from the southern states to flee racism and found themselves in the big cities. I was captivated and very keen about how West Indians were becoming West Indian as well. I’d never met another West Indian before migrating to England. If your identity was Barbadian, you found yourself as a minority in the black community. We had to blend into our West Indian-ness, and eventually, it became my predominant identity. I wanted to talk about things like that. I wanted to be an activist, perhaps in the political context. I suppose from my teenage years I was global in my thinking.

“If reparations takes another hundred years, then it will be consistent with our history” When I came back to the Caribbean, my passion was for the advancement of the University of the West Indies. While I am not a graduate of UWI in a legal sense, I am a graduate intellectually. As a student in England, the books and essays I studied came out of UWI. The writings of Derek Walcott, Rex Nettleford, George Beckford, Lloyd Best, and other Caribbean intellectuals were framing my consciousness. When I came to UWI, having completed my doctorate, I felt at home immediately, because I was surrounded by the people whose work I had been studying. It felt spiritual. Every opportunity I get, I play cricket, too. When I was the principal at Cave Hill, I was probably the only principal in the world who had to compete with students for a place on the field. I went to practice, did trials and drills to prove my eligibility. I enjoyed that. Here I am in my late fifties, and when I left there three years ago, I was still on the cricket team. It gave me an opportunity to stay close to young people, hear their voices, and socialise with them in an informal setting. I still have that intimacy with my students. I live in a society where I see challenges and issues, and my first impulse is to research the background of the crisis and write about it. I’m happiest when sitting at my desk with beautiful sheets of white paper and lots of coloured pens. I have a pen fetish — hundreds are in my desk drawers. Anything I do, I write it longhand first, then go on the computer. It’s a ritual. I use different colour inks based on my mood. It gives me tremendous pleasure and fulfilment.

hen I joined UWI as a lecturer, I was twenty-four years old. I haven’t left. I became the youngest professor in UWI’s history at thirty-five. I was mentored, nurtured, groomed, and criticised, so I could get better. I took from UWI everything that it could give, and it was my time to give back. One day, Sir Alister McIntyre, who was vice chancellor at the time, invited me to be a pro-VC. At first, I was deeply ambivalent, as it meant I’d have to stop teaching and writing and enter administration full-time. Writing was something I was always doing — novels, history books, and eventually stage plays. McIntyre said administrators who can bring passion and vision are just as important as writers and researchers for the university to survive and move to a higher level. I felt a responsibility. I inherited a tremendous legacy from previous vice chancellors. Most of them had different views on how the university should proceed. My views are closest to Sir W. Arthur Lewis, the first VC, and Sir Alister McIntyre, my mentor — both economic historians. We believe in the transformational power of UWI to build Caribbean resilience, and to open a future we can then pursue as a Caribbean nation with a sustainable culture. I’m aware of how fragile

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and vulnerable the Caribbean is. I believe UWI is a major plank on which it must be built. My role is to participate with my colleagues in creating a twenty-first-century university — to reengineer, restructure, reorganise, and give it a new vision and mandate. We’re making significant headway, too. UWI is now ranked among the top five per cent best universities in the world. The last fifty years, we’ve built the Caribbean out of the colonial rubble. The issues in front of us this time are very different. An important role of UWI is to help clarify this historic moment and develop conversations about the next half-century. It’s an internal and external process, because the university itself must be strengthened to do this task. My focus was always on economic development and the role that education can play in the economic transformation of our societies. I go to bed and wake up thinking about it. How can UWI play an even greater role in pushing the Caribbean out of this recession and achieve economic growth?

eparations is connected to economic development. I’ve always sought to balance my multiple roles. I’m the vice president of the UNESCO Global Slave Routes project, the chairman of the CARICOM Reparations Commission, along with other hats. I’m responsible for developing a framework for the research of slavery on a global basis. I spend a lot of time in Africa, Latin America, and Asia looking at how black slavery was globalised. Everything is connected. Britain has a role to play in putting back some of the money it milked from the Caribbean for its own development. Having achieved its own transformation, we’ve been left with the results of that extraction. I believe we have a right! Britain should return to the scene of the crime, and participate in cleaning up the mess it left behind. Everywhere people were colonised, reparations committees are springing up. We’re part of a global transformation. This century will witness the escalation of the search for reparatory justice. I’m happy, from a Caribbean perspective, to be playing our part in the global transformation. Reparations is not an overnight issue. It took us the entire nineteenth century to uproot slavery. Haiti was the first country to abolish slavery legally in 1804, Brazil was the last in 1888. Then it took another 150 years to get independence in the Caribbean. The next phase is reparations. If it takes another hundred years, then it will be consistent with our history. The longer the haul, the more energetic you should become. As a university educator in a Caribbean where the majority of our people were enslaved, indentured, and colonised, it is my duty to stand up for them. n

roberthardin/alamy stock photo

ARRIVE

Offtrack 60 Kairi wild

Neighbourhood 70 St George’s, Grenada

Escape 70 Back to St Lucia

Bucket List 80 Blue Lagoon, Jamaica

Soufrière, on St Lucia’s southwest coast

offtrack

Kairi wild Trinidad is the Caribbeanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most industralised island, thanks to its oil and gas fields, but a surprisingly large part of its landmass remains forested and relatively wild. From the steep slopes and plunging waterfalls of the Northern Range to the mangrove forests and lagoons of the Caroni and Nariva Swamps, the island is a rich habitat for flora and fauna, full of thrills for nature- and adventure-loving visitors â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as you can see in this portfolio by photographers Jason Audain and Brendan Delzin

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A view along Trinidad’s north coast, looking east from Paramin across vertiginous forested slopes dotted with flaming immortelle trees. Photographer Jason Audain remembers the moment: “It was taken at sunrise while we were passing through the [Paramin] track. The angle was epic, and I needed to capture it to make the moment last.”

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A scarlet ibis (Eudocimus ruber), national bird of Trinidad, wings past a flock of feeding American flamingos (Phoenicopterus ruber) in the Caroni Swamp. “It was my first time seeing flamingos,” recalls Jason Audain. “We were at the bird sanctuary from around 5 am. We saw the sun rise, and I noticed the ibis by itself. It saw me, then flew away. I followed it, and kept snapping.”

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A spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus) waits in silence, camouflaged among mangroves. “All I could see were its eyes,” says photographer Brendan Delzin. “I slowly and cautiously approached, trying not to startle him. In a couple seconds, he realised I was not there to harm him. Only a few feet apart, we made eye contact, observing each other.”

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The Balandra waterfall near Trinidad’s northeast coast, near Matura. “Early morning is the best time for this hike,” says Jason Audain. “My intention was to capture the sun hitting the waterfalls. It was mystical.”

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A neon-hued orange cup fungus (Cookeina sp.) along a trail on Mt Bleu, a peak in the Northern Range near the village of Brasso Seco. “I spend a lot of my time in the forest,” says Brendan Delzin. “Green is the most dominant colour, so when I see something that’s a different shade or tone, my eyes tend to focus on it immediately.”

The brilliant green fronds of a small Mexican umbrella fern (Sticherus bifidus) stand out among dry vegetation in the hills of Paramin. Jason Audain remembers that day’s hike as arduous. “On a scale of one to ten, I’d rate it one hundred. The green fern stood out in the midst of this arid pathway. You wouldn’t believe there was a tiny waterfall nearby.”

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Getting close to nature doesn’t always mean hiking to somewhere remote: in the very heart of Port of Spain, the Botanical Gardens are an oasis for wildlife, like this iridescent Euglossa orchid bee. “It was jumping from flower to flower,” says Jason Audain, “and then it settled and posed for me. I got lucky with this photo opportunity. I was really going to the gardens to capture a praying mantis.”

Caribbean Airlines operates numerous daily flights to its hub at Piarco International Airport in Trinidad from destinations in the Caribbean and North and South America WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM

escape

Back to St Lucia

BlueOrange Studio/Shutterstock.com

Thirty years ago, a childhood holiday in St Lucia changed his ideas about the Caribbean. Returning as an adult, what would Joshua Surtees discover about how the island, and he himself, had changed?

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The sheltered bay between the Pitons, St Luciaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s iconic twin peaks

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y childhood memories of a summer in St Lucia have never left me. As a six-year-old from London, being suddenly transported from cold, grey streets to lush, rampant nature and a vibrant, jocular culture left indelible images emblazoned on my mind. It still surprises me how vividly I can see it all without even having to close my eyes. Colourful minibuses crammed with people hurtling along winding roads. Ice-cream sellers wheeling wooden trolleys full of rum-and-raisin. The women in the Sulphur Springs bathing my baby sister in the bubbling volcanic water. Locals sternly warning us not to touch the manchineel trees. Giant breadfruit

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courtesy the St Lucia Tourism Authority

A quiet day on the jetty

falling on the ground and rotting where they fell. Stalk-eyed crabs scuttling towards us on the beach at dusk. Eating mangoes in the sea. My first roti. Swimming all day, pounded by waves. Boys catching crayfish in the stream. The hammering of the rain on the galvanised roof. It was the summer of 1986, and my mother took me and my siblings on our first and only family holiday outside Europe. Normally, our summers meant packing our car with camping equipment, crossing the English Channel, and driving down to the south of France for two weeks in a tent. In St Lucia, we stayed for the entire school holiday in a house with a small pig farm on a piece of verdant, overgrown land overlooking Vieux Fort. The house belonged to my motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s

As a six-year-old from London, being suddenly transported from cold, grey streets to lush, rampant nature left indelible images emblazoned on my mind friend’s father. My mum had managed to scrape together enough money for our plane tickets on the understanding that we had a free roof over our heads, not too far from a beach. As it turned out, the beach was a good half-hour’s walk every morning across open fields, where my brother would invariably turn over a cowpat with his shoe, to inspect the underside. Mum’s friend — a St Lucian woman named Rose, who lived in Stoke Newington in northeast London — was somewhat estranged from her father. When we arrived in Vieux Fort, we discovered why. He was wildly eccentric, bad-tempered, and a drinker. A comical looking character, stick-thin with wispy hair and thick glasses, “Jockey”, as he was known, would nudge wandering cows out of his path with the bumper of his rusty old jeep. One day, he sliced open the stomach of a dead field mouse and showed us its intestines to see what it had been feeding on. Another day, his dog Lucy got ill and, thinking she’d been poisoned, Jockey decided the antidote was more poison — with disastrous effects. These dramas simply added to the wonder of that Antillean awakening in my young life. At an age when memories were beginning to be permanently formed, exposure to the delights of the Caribbean must have shaped my later desire to move to the region.

Rodney Bay

Castries

ST LUCIA Soufrière Pitons

Sulphur Springs

Vieux Fort

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BANANA PANCAKE/Alamy Stock Photo

The view from the summit of Gros Piton: forest dotted with immortelle and coconut trees

ut it was over thirty years before I finally returned to St Lucia, intrigued to know if everything I’d heard about tourism development in the intervening decades had changed the island I remembered. Arriving as a writer in my late thirties, being picked up by airport transfer and taken to the stunning boutique eco-resorts of Fond Doux and Ladera, nestled in the Pitons UNESCO World Heritage site, was vastly different to my childhood arrival. Back then, after a long flight from London on which my travelsick brother had puked on an old woman’s dress, we descended the plane down a wooden staircase on wheels and were hit by a humid tropical night air that filled my lungs and thoughts with the promise of adventure. We drove down pitch-black country lanes through swarms of fireflies to a house with a tin roof that became our home for the next six weeks. The Vieux Fort I remembered was a place preserved not so much in aspic but in mango chutney. There’d been a constant chatter and murmur in the streets and a buzz in the air. Barefoot boys played football on pitches where the grass had worn thin, whooping and crying out. Drivers tooted hellos. The smell of curried meat wafted all about. Had this all gone, I wondered? Vanished beneath golf courses, all-inclusive resorts, and marinas? Before my trip, I spoke to Anna Walcott-Hardy, daughter of St Lucia’s most celebrated author, the

late Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott, who told me Vieux Fort was one of the few places left that kept its “old-world magic.” I’d retained an image of its rugged fields with small cow herds grazing, houses dotted over gently rising hills, rivers overflowing in the heavy rain, and streams that trickled through overgrown wildernesses. Back then, the virtually empty beaches had strong waves but no tourists. At weekends, locals came to play volleyball. From behind Jockey’s house, we could see the airport and the jumbo jets slowly descending from the sky onto the solitary landing strip. We would play a game, first to spot if the plane was a Pan Am or TWA — airlines from a bygone age. Returning as an adult, I was pleased to see Vieux Fort still encased in a metaphorical preserve. Unlike Rodney Bay, with its shopping mall and buses dropping off British, Canadian, and American tourists, or Soufrière, where the cinema where I once saw a karate film had been turned into a backpackers’ bar, or even Castries, where cruise ships the size of palaces disgorge flip-flopped holidaymakers in search of fridge magnets, Vieux Fort is still a town set up for local people going about their daily business. Along Clarke Street, the main road running downtown from the airport, are solicitors’ firms, beauty parlours, mobile phone shops, barbershops, and just a handful of food places. The Food Hut is a wooden shack painted lime green and run by a woman

The Vieux Fort I remembered was a place preserved not so much in aspic but in mango chutney. There’d been a constant chatter and murmur in the streets

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named Antonia and her friendly staff. I stopped to watch the world go by over a hearty lunch of stew pork washed down with the local Piton beer. After two days dining at places like Boucan in Hotel Chocolat (where the menu is entirely chocolate-based) and breakfasting at Ladera, overlooking acres of spectacular rainforest in Soufrière, Antonia’s was a different kind of fare — this was soul food. Vieux Fort doesn’t just look, feel, and taste different to the rest of the island, it sounds it, too. You won’t hear hustlers asking if you want a jet ski or boat ride. Locals are friendly but uninterested in the tourist trade. You’ll derive more entertainment in ten minutes standing around the taxi stand listening to the drivers gossip or play dominoes than in an entire week in a foreign-owned resort.

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I wandered down to the fishing port, where young men scaled, cleaned, and gutted fish whose names were written on numbered stalls in Creole: “taza” (kingfish), “bétjin” (barracuda), “chatou” (octopus), “kamo” (freshwater fish), “lanbi” (conch), and “ton” (tuna). I passed one or two small churches, but nothing like the abundance of evangelical church halls you see travelling through the steep inland hills, with names like Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother Convent and Revival Tabernacle. Outside the beautiful white-and-carmine–painted edifice of St Paul’s Anglican Church I heard a man with a loudspeaker exclaiming jovially, “February is Black History Month — take down that picture of a white Jesus!”

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Left Chaloupe Bay on St Lucia’s rugged Atlantic coast Above The island’s lush mountains are streaked with rushing streams

ith a tide of nostalgia beginning to flow, I decided to retrace my footsteps and see if I could find Jockey’s old house in the quiet backroads of La Resource. “It’s by the cemetery,” people told me as I slowed down to ask directions. A beaming old lady handed me a bag of fruit that might have been sapotes, and pointed me onward through charming residential streets where the houses ranged from pretty to grandiose to ramshackle, until eventually I found a narrow footpath leading through soft grass and trees where a grey pony was tied up. At the end of the path was a house with a verandah, surrounded by overgrown gardens. Stacked-up chicken coops and creeping honeysuckle vines cluttered the scene.

I knew it was Jockey’s place, but it didn’t fit with the idyllic images I had stored away. I called out, but nobody came. Eventually a woman emerged from a house whose owners must have bought or annexed part of Jockey’s land. She told me Jockey’s brother lived there now, but he was out. I wondered where the crayfish stream was, or the pigsty my brother would follow the farmhands to at six o’clock each morning to feed the pigs, smell their strangely satisfying stink, and scratch their hard, scaly, hairy backs with a stick. What used to be open land all around the house now had several houses built nearby. My memories were of being far from any other human contact. Perhaps it was the vantage point of adulthood versus youth. Further down the road were even a couple of parlour shops. Driving down a dusty track into a cul-de-sac, I saw houses made of unfinished breezeblock with broken windows and rusting corrugated iron surrounding them, acting as makeshift perimeter fences. The billionaires with their yachts and multinational travel companies to the north were notably absent in the south. And yet the tranquillity of the place was something marvellous. As I made my way back to the airport to check in, I passed families sitting on their front steps, bougainvillea bushes blowing back and forth in the breeze, a winding creek passing below a bridge, mechanics taking a break in the mid-afternoon sun, schoolchildren laughing in a playground. I realised that here indeed remained that magical old world that Derek Walcott’s daughter spoke of. n

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Sonix Productions Courtesy Pure Grenada Tourism Authority

neighbourhood

courtesy House of Chocolate Grenada Museum

St George’s, Grenada Long considered one of the Caribbean’s most picturesque cities, Grenada’s capital rises above its harbour in a series of terraces, with historic churches for a skyline and beautiful Grande Anse a long stone’s throw to the south Chocolate fix

Streetscape

In recent years, a handful of local chocolatiers have started making world-class chocolate products from Grenada’s excellent cocoa, which historically was mostly exported. These bean-to-bar artisans are scattered across the island, but you can find their products in the heart of St George’s at House of Chocolate Grenada, a hybrid museum-emporium with exhibits on the history of cocoa farming on the island, plus a café where you can enjoy chocolate treats on the spot and a gift shop where you can stock up on bars from the Grenada Chocolate Factory, Belmont Estate, Crayfish Bay Organics, and others — perfect presents to take home for friends, if you can resist devouring them yourself.

Surrounding the sheltered natural harbour called the Carenage, St George’s is a city of slopes, its streets rising in terraces towards the heights of Hospital Hill. To the west, the city stretches out along a small but steep promontory, with eighteenth-century Fort George at its tip, and the 650-foot Sendall Tunnel offering motorised traffic a shortcut. The pavements here are likely to be flights of steps, and at the heart of the city a blind junction requires a policeman to keep cars moving along. Ornate French Creole houses with balconies and fretwork vie with elegant English Georgian buildings. Perched above the harbour, a trio of nineteenth-century churches — Methodist, Anglican, and Roman Catholic, in order of age — still form St George’s skyline. Though many of the city’s historic buildings were damaged by Hurricane Ivan in 2004, restoration work has returned most to service.

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Spice it up

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It’s hard to spend a day in the Spice Island and not taste a hint of nutmeg: it’s ubiquitous in the island’s cuisine, and sometimes it seems the very breeze coming down from the hills carries its scent. A fifth of the world’s nutmeg is grown on this single island, and if you love a dash of the freshly grated spice in your desserts or drinks — who doesn’t? — this is the place to stock up on whole nutmegs, whether at a traditional market or in a grocery. Look out too for delicious nutmeg jam, another perfect souvenir: as you spread it on toast for breakfast, the scent will take you back to Grenada’s green hills.

For over fifty years, a statue called Christ of the Deep on the St George’s waterfront has served as a convenient landmark, and a memorial to a tragedy averted by the heroic efforts of ordinary Grenadians. On 22 October, 1961, the Italian liner Bianca C, a regular visitor to St George’s, caught fire in the harbour, with over six hundred passengers and crew on board. As the alarm was raised, dozens of boats — from luxury yachts to small fishing vessels — formed a rescue flotilla. With the exception of three crewmen injured in the initial explosion, everyone was rescued — and housed and fed for two weeks, through the efforts of many Grenadian volunteers. The statue was a thank-you gift from the Bianca C’s owners — and the wreck itself (above) is now a famous if challenging dive site off Grenada’s southwestern coast.

History Founded in 1650 by settlers from Martinique as Port Louis, St George’s soon acquired a fort on its promontory — originally named Fort Royale — as the French colonists waged battle against the indigenous Caribs. When Grenada was ceded to Britain in 1763, the town was renamed for the patron saint of England. Long the island’s chief port, and one of the Caribbean’s bestsheltered anchorages, St George’s also served a stint as capital of the British Windward Islands. Independence came to Grenada in 1974. Four years later, the New Jewel Movement led by Maurice Bishop seized power from dictatorial prime minister Eric Gairy, launching the Grenada Revolution. Fort George was the site of the Revolution’s bloodiest and most tragic moment in 1983, when a NJM faction arrested and executed Bishop — shot against a wall inside the fort with seven others. Another blow to the city came in 2004 when the first hurricane in half a century struck Grenada. Category Three Hurricane Ivan damaged ninety per cent of Grenada’s houses alongside many St George’s landmarks. Recovery took years.

Beach time

Co-ordinates

Just a mile south of St George’s is one of the Caribbean’s most famous beaches: the long, golden expanse of Grande Anse, lined with big resorts, small guesthouses, restaurants, and every other kind of tourism amenity — but none rising above the height of the coconut trees. The calm bay is perfect for swimming and watersports, and there’s no shortage of beachfront bars for sunset cocktails. But if you’re looking for a slightly more secluded swim, head one bay south to horseshoe-shaped Morne Rouge, which hasn’t yet been built up from end to end.

12º N 61.75º W Sea level Grenada St George’s

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courtesy Pure Grenada Tourism Authority

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A rescue remembered

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courtesy the tobago house of assembly

bucket list

Blue Lagoon E

ast of the town of Port Antonio, near the quietest stretch of Jamaica’s north coast, the Blue Lagoon is no secret, but it feels a world away from the bustle of Kingston and the crowded resorts of Ocho Rios or Montego Bay. The geology of St Thomas Parish is responsible for this natural beauty-spot: the lagoon is actually a limestone sinkhole, fed by cold freshwater streams and open to the tides of the Caribbean Sea. If this sheltered expanse of water surrounded by forest seems timeless, it’s also constantly changing: visitors often remark how the lagoon’s clear waters vary in hue from bright turquoise to deep ultramarine as the sun and clouds move overhead, and the unpredictable variations of cold and warm currents gives a specially refreshing edge to a swim here. For generations, locals shared the myth that the lagoon is bottomless, but marine scientists have more recently offered evidence to the contrary: it’s been measured at 170 feet deep. A raft tour is a good way to explore without plunging in — and your guide will be happy to share other Blue Lagoon legends, like the one about the mysterious sea creature said to lurk in its depths..

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This tranquil expanse of glistening blue water, surrounded by lushly forested slopes, is a notso-secret treasure of Jamaica’s north coast

Blue Lagoon J A M A I C A

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ENGAGE

Green 82 The parrotfish dilemma

Parrotfish species bring vibrant colour to coral reefs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and help keep them healthy, too

On This Day 110 Football holiday

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t’s the kind of scene you associate with opposition to oppressive regimes or police brutality. Thick black smoke rises above burning appliances and other chunks of debris dumped in the street by protesters. A crowd of onlookers stands by. This dramatic event — captured in a 2017 photo taken in the city of Puerto Plata on the Dominican Republic’s north coast — had an unassuming catalyst: a herbivorous fish that usually doesn’t get more than half a metre long, and spends much of its time eating algae or sleeping. Its fused, protruding teeth give it the appearance of having a beak, and earn it the common name parrotfish. (There are over ninety species, all belonging to the zoological Family Scaridae, and found in tropical oceans around the world.)

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Five months before the protest, the DR government instituted a two-year ban on catching parrotfish, a popular delicacy in that country and other parts of the Caribbean. The fish have become the focus of environmental campaigns because of their key role in maintaining coral reefs in the region. Fishermen opposed the ban, and when state authorities confiscated five hundred pounds of illegally caught parrotfish in Puerto Plata, violence erupted. “We don’t know if it’s going to be renewed,” Ruben Torres, a coral reef researcher and conservationist from the DR, says of the ban, which expires later this year. “The minister who made that resolution is out . . . so a lot of people think it’s not going to be renewed.” The DR’s former environment minister, Francisco Domín-

The parrotfish dilemma The colourful parrotfish plays a key role in keeping coral reefs and beaches healthy. Unfortunately, it’s also delicious — and attempts at fishing bans have been unpopular. But if parrotfish populations aren’t protected, they may be overfished into extinction, writes Erline Andrews — to the detriment of beaches and local livelihoods Photography by Richard Whitcombe/Shutterstock.com

guez, had a resolve in dealing with the issue that other leaders in the region seem to lack. “They can sell other species of fish,” Dominguez said in response to the protest. His words were reported in Dominican Today. “If we don’t do something now,” he went on, “we will soon have extinguished these fish that help the corals and the beaches so much.” The parrotfish dilemma is the latest example of what can happen when an environmental concern conflicts with human economic interests. Last year, Jamaican authorities came close to a ban on catching parrotfish before abandoning the idea. They’re now considering other solutions, including a seasonal ban. In the meantime, the dramatic degradation of Caribbean coral reefs that has been happening for the last four decades continues. A 2014 report from the Global Coral Reef Monitoring

Network — the most comprehensive assessment of the state of reefs in the region — alarmed conservationists and contributed to a sense of urgency around the issue. The report noted coral reefs in the Caribbean have been reduced by more than fifty per cent since the 1970s. Corals are animals themselves, and provide food and shelter to a wide variety of the oceans’ inhabitants. They act as a buffer protecting beaches from wave erosion, and in this way and through their own beauty support the tourism industry, which is important to many Caribbean countries. The Mesoamerican Barrier Reef in the Caribbean is the second largest in the world, and supports much biodiversity. In addition to consuming algae that can poison the reefs and keep them from reproducing, parrotfish contribute to the

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To eat or not to eat

THINK TWICE

Back in our July/August 2014 issue, we ran the following sustainable seafood chart, offering tips for readers on which marine species you should try to avoid, for environmental or health reasons, and which you can feel free to enjoy. Many species are in trouble due to over-fishing, and are now endangered globally. Plus, many commercial fishing methods are destructive to marine habitats. So next time you’re ordering at a restaurant or shopping at your local supermarket or fish vendor, keep these lists in mind!

Lobster Although naturally resilient to fishing pressure, they are overexploited in many parts of the Caribbean. Experts recommend a minimum length of 9 cm (from between eyes to beginning of tail).

Compiled by Robin Ramdeen and Amy Deacon of Papa Bois Conservation

Tuna Pelagic longliners overfish tuna, despite local methods tending to be more sustainable. Ask how it was caught before ordering — trolled hook and line is best.

YES Lionfish As an invasive species, lionfish is the ultimate sustainable choice — and tasty too. It is typically harvested by spearfishing, so has no bycatch problem. Flying fish Fast-growing, short-lived, fast-reproducing, and tasty, these fish are fairly resilient to fishing pressure.

Dolphin/mahi mahi Not to be confused with the mammal! This fish is fairly resistant to fishing pressure, due to early maturity and prolific spawning. Squid/calamari Relatively resilient to fishing pressure, as they grow fast and reproduce at a young age.

offspring, making it resilient to fishing pressure.

Carite Matures fairly quickly and produces high numbers of

Tilapia Not strictly “seafood,” as they’re farmed in freshwater

creation and maintenance of beaches by chewing up bits of the corals’ exoskeleton and excreting sand particles. “Healthy corals are increasingly rare on the intensively studied reefs of the Florida reef tract, US Virgin Islands, and Jamaica,” the GCRMN report said. “Concerns have mounted to the point that many NGOs have given up on Caribbean reefs and moved their attentions elsewhere.”

hose who oppose bans, and other policies that could negatively affect people who earn their living by fishing, point to other factors that have caused the denuding of Caribbean reefs, like climate change and hurricanes. But while the GCRMN report found that climate change was an impending threat, the evidence points to local human activities — heavy tourism and overfishing of the herbivores that eat reef-killing algae — as the main causes of the problem. These same phenomena make it difficult for the reefs to recover from hurricane damage, as they have been doing for centuries. Still, the political will to ban the catching of parrotfish may just not be there. “It’s beyond urgent,” says Mark Tupper, a marine sciences professor at the University of Trinidad and Tobago, describing the state of Caribbean coral reefs. “I first started diving in the

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Conch Slow-moving and easy to harvest, but there are now

international concerns about declines in numbers of wild conch. However, farmed conch is available on some islands — ask first. Kingfish Seem to be relatively resilient to fishing. However, stock assessments are scarce, so the status of the population is unknown. Cro cro/Atlantic croaker Populations thought to be healthy, but ask about fishing methods before selecting; seine-caught is a much better choice than trawler or gillnet-caught fish. Jack Check if caught by handline ponds. However, this means it has zero impact on the marine environment. Wahoo Grows and reproduces quickly.

Caribbean in 1986 — thirty-three years ago. And sometimes I want to cry when I get in the water around here,” he continues. “It doesn’t look like it used to look at all. In fact, some of the reefs where I used to dive in Barbados back in the mid-80s, when I was doing my Master’s degree there, they don’t exist anymore. They’re literally gone, smashed into rubble, buried in sand. You wouldn’t even know there was ever a reef there.” The GCRMN report urged governments in the region to “develop and implement adaptive legislation and regulations to ensure that threats to coral reefs are systematically addressed.” “Fishing employs a lot of people, but it’s a lower-income job,” says Tupper. “And most of the islands, even though they’re in the middle of the sea and they’ve got all this fishing going on . . . it’s a tiny fraction of their GDP,” says Tupper. Authorities in Belize, Bonaire, the Bahamas, Bermuda, and Turks and Caicos — where dive-tourism and therefore coral reefs play a bigger role in the economy — have taken steps to protect parrotfish, from outright bans to outlawing fishing techniques, like fish traps, that are more likely to catch herbivorous fish. Other countries in the region are at various stages of considering the problem. “There are good fish alternatives that won’t destroy the

before ordering — if not, it was likely caught using coral-damaging fishing methods.

NO Shark Most have a long generation time, mature late, and have few offspring. This makes them very vulnerable to overfishing. Shrimp Shrimp tend to be caught by trawling, which means high levels of bycatch as well as causing damage to the marine environment. Swordfish Data deficient in South Atlantic. Usually fished using longline methods which have high levels of bycatch (including sharks and turtles).

Snapper These reef-fish are susceptible to fishing pressure, and tend to be over-exploited. Marlin Often caught as bycatch in longline fisheries, and considered to be a threatened species. Parrotfish These have been severely overfished in the Caribbean, putting the health of coral reef ecosystems in jeopardy.

JADE MONKEY

EAT

Grouper A popular fish that is susceptible to overfishing.

reefs,” says Robert Steneck, professor of oceanography, marine biology, and marine policy at the University of Maine. “Throughout the Caribbean, the real cash cow are lobsters. By not fishing parrotfish, other things of greater value, like lobsters, would do better.” There’s also the fact that the beaches that corals protect support the livelihoods of many people in the Caribbean. “Negril loses a metre of beach every year,” says Jamaican marine scientist Danielle Kitson. “Again, because of loss of healthy reefs.” Finding alternatives to catching and eating parrotfish doesn’t only make economic sense, it’s inevitable, say researchers. The reason some fishermen have become dependent on parrotfish is that other species were overfished to the point where there are not enough of them for fishermen to earn a living. Gregor Hodgson, founder and senior advisor at the Los Angeles–based global NGO Reef Check Foundation, offers a radical suggestion: that Caribbean fishermen be taught to rear tilapia via aquaculture. “They’re going to be making much more money from that,” he says. “Particularly in a place like Jamaica or Haiti, where there are so few fish left.” n

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on this day

Football holiday Fifty-five years ago, for the first time ever, two English football clubs toured the Caribbean. The visitors bested local teams in Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados with ease, but Haiti was a different matter. James Ferguson tells the story of this littleremembered chapter of Caribbean sports history Illustration by Rohan Mitchell

or many British football fans like me, the close season, that ten-week gap between the FA Cup final in May and the new season’s start in August, stretches like an eternity. Of course, there’s cricket and Wimbledon, but even these (and I have no desire to provoke cricket aficionados) cannot compensate for the abrupt withdrawal of the football fix. Every four years there is the World Cup, of course, and then two years later the European UEFA championship — and let us not forget the local CONCACAF Gold Cup in June and July this year, which includes Trinidad and Tobago — but even with all these events, it is easy to miss the rituals, the anticipation, the pain, and the occasional pleasure of following your own team. Yet in recent years the long wait between seasons seems to have shortened, as the phenomenon of the “preseason” has become more prominent. This is essentially a three- to four-week period before the real games begin, during which clubs play a series of friendly matches. And as football, and in particular the English Premier League,

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has become a massive global brand, so these games have become a vital part of marketing clubs to audiences around the world. Many matches are televised, but clubs often tour abroad, seeking to raise their profile and increase their fan base. Asia, above all, is viewed as the key market, and hence Manchester United might play Paris Saint-Germain in Seoul, or Arsenal take on Real Madrid in Hong Kong. Sponsorship, TV rights, gambling, and replica shirt sales are all component parts of the lucrative travelling circus. Unfortunately, history does not record how many shirts were sold or bets placed when two English First Division clubs (the Premier League had yet to be invented) toured the three independent Caribbean nations of Haiti, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago and what was still the British colony of Barbados in May and June 1964, fifty-five years ago. Cricket tours were by now commonplace, but this was the first time that top-tier English football clubs had visited the region. It seems that Chelsea, who had finished fifth, and Wolverhampton Wanderers (sixteenth) wanted to combine some exotic sightseeing with a regular schedule of matches —

five between themselves and a further six with local sides. That made eleven games in seventeen days: hardly a relaxing holiday, only three weeks after the season had ended. As Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner observed, both clubs had three aims: “Firstly to boost British soccer, secondly to do all they can to help their footballing hosts, thirdly to beat each other.”

hough by no means the billionaire’s plaything of today (the players reportedly earned £9 5s per week), Chelsea were a formidable side managed by the experienced Scotsman Tommy Docherty. In their first match against a Barbados XI, reported Bajan John Fraser, Chelsea “won handsomely, and although our team played to their best, the difference in pace and skill was evident. Lloyd Seale was in goal and had his thumb broken as the pace of a shot from outside the area was so much faster than he had ever experienced.” The result was 7-0. And this pattern continued as Chelsea travelled through Trinidad (5-0) and the Jamaican parish of St James (15-0). Only against a stronger Jamaican national team did they concede a goal (4-1).

part of the Barbados team that was thrashed 7-0 by Chelsea. Quite sensibly, he decided to abandon any such plans and turn his attention to cricket. He went on to play twenty-one Tests and eight One-Day Internationals for the West Indies as an all-rounder. One of the more bizarre incidents occurred off the pitch, as recalled by Wolves and England striker Ray Crawford in his 2007 autobiography. “I was drinking a long rum and Coke one evening in the bar of the hotel both teams were staying at, when Docherty came over for a chat. He didn’t beat about the bush before asking if I would like to join Chelsea, adding that he would throw Barry Bridges in as part-exchange.” Now this, in today’s football parlance, is known as “tapping up,” and is severely frowned upon and punished by the sport’s governing body, FIFA. (Coincidentally, Chelsea were implicated in two tappingup cases in 2005 and 2009.) To his credit, Craw ford replied that he was flattered but declined the offer, citing loyalty to Wolves and Stan Cullis. Wolves had a similarly easy time against Trinidad, in what wolvesheroes. com describes as “a 4-0 win in a downpour which left the pitch treacherous and the uncovered 12,000 crowd thoroughly soaked.” They then beat Jamaica 8-4 in an entertaining encounter. As for the allEnglish matches, Chelsea won three and Wolves two, with a cumulative score of 11-9 to Chelsea. The final leg of the tour was in “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Haiti, where the two English clubs competed with the national side in the grandly named Tournoi Angleterre-Haiti, sponsored by Dubonnet, French importer of bitter oranges from Haiti for its famous aperitif. Here things were altogether less straightforward for the English visitors, as they faced a team that was emerging as one of the leading forces within CONCACAF. Wolves managed a 1-1 draw in front of a crowd of 13,000 in Port-au-Prince, and then lost 2-0 to Chelsea. Wolvesheroes. com recalls, “What with a spectacular downpour and the sight of even the

In Haiti, things were altogether less straightforward for the English visitors, as they faced a team that was emerging as one of the leading forces within CONCACAF groundsmen carrying revolvers, Wolves’ players weren’t sorry to leave the island!” Chelsea fared even worse against Haiti, losing 2-1 in a match that was abandoned in the sixty-eighth minute due to a torrential tropical downpour.

oth squads arrived safely back in London on 9 June, and the tour was promptly forgotten. Wolves’ manager Stan Cullis dismissively described the football as “variable,” and most of the players showed little enthusiasm for their experience. But the tour did have other, more longlasting repercussions. Keith Boyce, who harboured footballing aspirations, was

He may well have come to regret his integrity, since Cullis was surprisingly sacked in September 1964 after sixteen years in charge. Wolves were duly relegated, while Chelsea finished the 1964–65 season in third place, qualifying for the European Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. Crawford moved to nearby West Bromwich Albion in January 1965. As luck — or misfortune — would have it, Wolves’ opening game of that new season was at home . . . against Chelsea. They lost 3-0. With a start like that, Wolves supporters may have reasonably concluded that perhaps the close season does sometimes have its advantages. n

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puzzles

Zoomers

P O H S

Word Search constellation Biswas fort runway cocktail chancellor arrival hero sand banana parrotfish burqa humid square Bocas barbershop club landmark

A team Grenada manchineel dancer pen philosophical pholourie Windrush firefly Piton relic jacamar CONCACAF flag role debut rainforest

Chipsters Spot the Difference by James Hackett There are 10 differences between these two pictures. How many can you spot?

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Caribbean Crossword Across 1 Conversation starter [2] 2 People who study ancient inscriptions [11] 10 This tropical flower brings sprays of colour [13] 11 Immunising fluid [5] 12 St Lucia’s southernmost town [9] 13 Marvel’s most regal superhero? [12] 15 Call your mother! [2] 17 The one who got away? [2] 18 No amateur [12] 22 From dusk to dawn [9] 24 A joining-up — or an island in the Grenadines [5] 26 Some call these green vegetables “lady’s fingers” [5] 28 The loneliest number [3] 29 Philosophy suffix [3] 30 Necessary amends [11] 31 This Mister was TV’s famous talking horse [2] Down 1 Old-time train hoppers [5] 3 Strategic team athlete [9] 4 Just add tonic [3] 5 Fancy old name for a meal [7] 6 DNA shape [5] 7 After rhyme, try [6] 8 A touch of the absurd [7] 9 What Jamaica’s Reggae Girlz play [8] 12 On the way [3]

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13 This art show comes every other year [8] 14 Having the finest palate [9] 16 Duller than dull [7] 19 One way the pendulum swings [3] 20 Italian gentlemen [7] 21 Refuse to notice [6] 23 Latin earth [5] 25 Wanderer [5] 27 Where you go to be pampered [3]

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

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Spot the Difference

Word Search N O

Caribbean Crossword

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T O O 9

The father’s eyebrows are different; the father’s turban has different details; the mother’s eyes are looking in different directions; there is different detailing on the mother’s left shoulder; the mother on the left has bangles; the son’s hair is different; there is different detailing on the son’s dhoti; the mother’s feet are different; the mother’s sari has a different pattern; the father’s elbow is different.

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How to access Caribbean View during your flight To enjoy Movies and TV, please simply download our free Caribbean View app via the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Steps

Enjoy free entertainment on your flight! Content is available only on selected flights*

In preparation for your flight

1. Ensure your device is in Airplane Mode

2. Enable your Wi-Fi and select the caribbean_view network

Charge Before boarding, ensure your device is fully charged

3. Launch the Caribbean View App OR Open the browser on your device and enter www.caribbean-view.net into the address bar. Note: The Caribbean View App is required for playback of

Download Get our free Caribbean View app before you travel, available via the Google Play Store and Apple App Store

Scan the code

Headphones Bring your personal headphones to enjoy our selection of entertainment

Movies and TV shows once using a smartphone or tablet.

Troubleshooting

Terms and Conditions

Unable to connect

By using the system, you accept the following terms and conditions:

1. Switch Wi-Fi off and on 2. Power the device off and on and repeat step 1 Unable to view content 1. Close and restart the browser and type www.caribbean-airlines.com 2. If this does not work, try an alternate browser and type in www.caribbean-airlines.com 3. Power the device off and on and try steps 1 and 2 again Note: Chrome is the recommended browser for laptops.

• *Content is available only on flights over two hours. • Content is available only during flight. • Access to content is only available above 10,000 feet. • Access to content will stop before the end of the flight. • You may not have sufficient time during the flight to watch the entirety of some content. Viewing information: Please choose your viewing appropriately. Note: Some content may not be suitable for younger viewers, so please choose appropriate content where children will be watching. Please ensure headphones are used at all times for playback of media content, unless muted.

• It may take a short time for a video or other content to start. • Please note that we are not responsible for any data loss or damage to devices that may occur while/after using our services. • Onboard battery charging facilities are not available. Safety information: • We may pause or stop our inflight entertainment system for safety or other reasons. Security information: • This service is provided using wireless LAN technology. Please be aware that it is a public network. • It is each user’s responsibility to have an up-to-date security system (e.g. firewall, anti-virus, anti-malware) for their device.

classic

’d never been to Trinidad before. I was born and bred in London, and everything I knew about Trinidad came from Frankie, my Trini boyfriend. We were coming to visit his Tantie, the lady he’d grown up with. I couldn’t wait to see the endless beaches, the wild fetes with all those intricate bottom-to-crotch dance moves. First impression, though, was that Port of Spain was a lot more like Miami than a tropical beach resort — and what’s with the traffic jams? Add some rain, and I could still be on the M25. Thankfully, surprises were something our relationship was full of — up till now, all on the good side of the fence. Another good shock was pepper. When we got to Tantie’s house and I first opened the kitchen cupboard, there was pepper everywhere, in small bottles, big bottles, little decanters, medium-size saucers. There were bird peppers brewing in jars, scotch bonnets in the fridge, aging pepper sauce in the larder. The problem is, I don’t like pepper at all. My stomach always says no. Frankie, on the other hand, eats peppers raw, spreads the sauce on crackers and bread, or just bursts whole ones into his stew. Thankfully, love does funny things to people,

WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

and he found ways to live without pepper. Then there was Tantie herself — a matriarch of the old school, witty yet stern, loving yet bossy, funny but serious. “Girl, you will love my Tantie,” Frankie had told me. “She go show you how tings done in Trini.” Not one to rain on my man’s parade, and pleased to make a good impression, I bonded with Tants like peas in a pod, or maybe more like rice and callaloo — because she soon began to smother me. After days spent teaching me to cook crab, make that dreaded pepper sauce, and darn Frankie’s socks, Tantie asked me what I’d like to do next. I was born with the gift of shopping, so when all else fails I know where to turn. And if it ain’t on the sale rack, well, it might as well be, because I’ll take it anyway! So we left Frankie at home and went to the mall. I felt this was my chance to impress Tantie with a few presents for her beloved nephew. First stop — the suit shop. I knew Frankie needed a leather belt, and there was the perfect one. “Tants, what do you think of this?” “Miss lady,” replied my aunt-to-be, “you buy a belt for a man and he will cut your tail.” “Oh,” I said, mouth falling open.

ckett es Ha

Kerri Gilligan came to Trinidad for the first time when she fell in love. Then she met her sweetheart’s Tantie . . . Originally published in our May/June 2005 issue

Jam

Don’t buy shoes

I saw some baggy pants. “Hey, Tantie, Frankie will look great in these, don’t you think?” “Like my boy have real big stones,” she screamed, turning every head in the shop. I turned the bright red only true Englishwomen can. What about new shoes, I thought — surely those are safe. I picked up a lovely pair in Frankie’s size. “Tantie, I’m going to buy these for Frankie — he needs a new pair for work.” “Girl, what dey feeding you up there in snow-land?” she asked sternly. “You doh know you never buy a man a new pair of shoes? He will just walk out on you.” I fast realised my impressive shopping skills were being trumped by Tantie’s even more impressive one-liners. I thought I’d give it one more try, and reached for an impressive wallet by the counter. I couldn’t go wrong with a wallet, could I? “How you could give him an empty wallet? It have no picture inside, no money. The no money is real bad luck, so change dat! And get a picture to put inside. It’s an old spell to make a man yours. You girls today doh know nothing.” Scolded, and worried I might never buy anything again, I thought my only hope was to throw myself on her mercy. “Tants,” I whispered, “what’s the right thing to buy?” “Buy him some jockey shorts. Make sure he wear dem, and den nail them to a tree. He will never leave you.” So, officer, that’s why I’m here in the Savannah in the middle of the night with these underpants and a hammer. Honestly. That’s how it happened. I haven’t hurt anyone. Frankie is safe at home with Tantie. n