09282018 WEEKEND

Friday, September 28, 2018

books theatre film fashion music travel gardening puzzles history

Weekend

GAIL DOES MAKE-UP Pages 8 & 9

Room to grow Travel broadens island girl’s horizons pages 4-6

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Friday, September 28, 2018

community

Samia McClain named new

Miss Earth Bahamas

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he Bahamas Pageants Organisation and the Queen Project announced this week that they have acquired the Miss Earth franchise for the Bahamas and will hold a national Miss Earth Bahamas pageant in 2019.

After several failed requests by previous Miss Earth national directors to produce a pageant here in the Bahamas, and subsequently a delegate for the international finals, the international producers of Miss Earth have now opted to conduct business with these new entities for 2018 and beyond.

The partnership of Bahamas Pageants and the Queen Project will seek to showcase and produce a national pageant event worthy of the Miss Earth brand, which encourages its contestants and

eventual winner to be environmentally aware and visible in the community.

“Once the franchise was secured, we began an online search for our Bahamas Earth goddess,” said a pageant representative. “We considered girls with pageant experience and who exhibited the tenacity to represent the Bahamas on the international stage.

Through a process of elimination for various reasons, unanimously it was decided that the girl to wear the Miss Earth Bahamas sash of 2018 would be 18-year-old Samia Lauryn McClain. In Samia, we found a representative that possesses physical good looks, intelligence, adequate international exposure and humility... these characteristics, we feel, are a winning combination and representation of Bahamian beauty.”

The Miss Earth pageant is less than two weeks away, and the new Miss Earth Bahamas will soon depart for Manila in the Philippines to join other Earth ‘goddesses’ from around the world for one month of pre-pageant events, which will culminating with the coronation on November 4, 2018.

“We have no doubt that Samia’s participation will make the pageant fans of the Bahamas very proud,” said the pageant representative.

“After one brief conversation with Samia you would know that she is a focus-driven, well-mannered young lady. Please join all the Bahamas in congratulating her and following her goal to capture the Miss Earth crown via social media and online pageant magazines.”

Historic sorority celebrates 55 years of service Fifty-five years ago, a young American married to a Bahamian dentist petitioned the head office of the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority (AKA) to establish a chapter in New Providence.

The late Muriel Eneas, wife of the late Dr Cleveland Eneas, himself a member of a fraternity, had gathered together like-minded women who were committed to the ideals of the organisation. On September 21, 1963, the national president of AKA, Julia Purnell, officiated at the chartering of the first Greek-lettered organisation in the Bahamas and just the second chapter outside the continental United States.

Other charter members were Delores Smith, Donna Donaldson Towns and Shirley Vanderpool.

“The local chapter, Eta Psi Omega, continues to give sterling service to the Bahamian community in New Providence,” said local president Ida

Turnquest. “This year we observed the 40th year of our scholarship programme, Honours Day, through which we have given out more than $200,000 in scholarships to graduating high school females.” In the aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin, the chapter donated 55 doors for homes damaged in the Family Islands.

In recognition of the sorority’s accomplishments and thousands of hours of service to local charities, the Princess Margaret Hospital, the Willamae Pratt Centre for Girls, the Bahamas Red Cross and others, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis has declared September as Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc Charter Month.

In his proclamation, the prime minister said: “The Alpha Kappa Alpha programme today still reflects the communal consciousness steeped in the AKA tradition and embodied in AKA’s

Samia McClain

AKA members put in 55 hours of service collectively this month to charitable organisations of their choosing. credo, ‘To be supreme in service to all mankind’.”

In observation of its 55th anniversary, during the month of September, members devoted more than 55 hours of service collectively to charitable organisations favoured by the members of the chapter.

Anniversary activities will culminate this weekend with a joint conference event with other chapters from Freeport and the University of the Bahamas; worship at the St Mark’s Native Baptist Church, and a Leadership Awards luncheon. The organisation will pay tribute to its members who have given loyal and committed service to the organisation for more than 20

consecutive years as well as those members who have provided leadership at the regional and international levels. A highlight of the weekend will be the presence and participation of newly elected international First Vice President Danette Reed and newly appointed International Regional Director Joy Elaine Daley. They will join local members at a courtesy call on the Governor General, Dame Marguerite Pindling, and the president of the University of the Bahamas.

The Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority was founded on the campus of Howard University in 1908 and today boasts of an international membership of more than 300,000 members in 11 countries.

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Friday, September 28, 2018

Inside Weekend Interview 4-6 An island girl gets up close and personal with different cultures of the world, from Dubai to China

Tourism 7 The Carnival Horizon celebrates its inaugural visit to Nassau

Beauty 8 - 9 Barbados-based make-up artist returns home to the Bahamas to share her skills

Books 10 - 11 The Bahamian queen of bewitching writing returns with a novel, plus latest releases reviewed

Theatre 12 Shakespeare in Paradise celebrates its 10th anniversary with 13-day festival

Film 13 Tiffany Haddish has a lesson to teach Kevin Hart in ‘Night School’

Music 14 - 15 Bahamians embrace the festival experience with SoundWaves

Entertainment 18 Meet stars of screen and stage at SeaWords Bahamas Festival

Gardening 19 Jack Hardy gets entangled in productive vines

History 20 Ancient treasures spanning 300,000 years

Forgotten Facts 21 Paul Aranha talks pigs with a past and turtles with a future

Literary Lives 22 - 23 Sir Christopher Ondaatje looks at the very English obsession with nomads

Travel 24 - 25 Croatia’s ‘Game of Thrones’ city struggles with mass tourism, plus a new Bigfoot museum opens

Puzzles 26

Animals 27 Kim Aranha experiences life with a cat

My perfect Bahamian weekend Charlis Robins Occupational therapist Q: Saturday breakfast or Sunday lunch?

“Saturday breakfast; it’s definitely a chill day. A nice bowl of stew conch, and if there is no Bimini bread available, then a thick slice of Johnny cake will have to do.”

Q: Wine, rum, cocktail or Kalik?

“Wine, at the altar, in an Anglican Church, during communion (since I had to choose one). I associate wine with family time. Every Sunday, whether I am in Turks and Caicos with my mother or in Grand Bahama with my father, an Anglican church

service is how we begin our day.”

Q: Beach or sofa?

“Definitely the beach! The beach gives me three avenues of comfort: I get to bask in the warmth of the sun, chill under a nice cool tree, or completely submerge in crystal clear water. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

Q: What is the one thing that you can’t live without?

“One thing that I cannot live without is God. I tried time and time again to do life with out Him. But I wasn’t living, I was just existing.”

Q: Weekend away, where would you go?

“I would have to say Cat Cay, off the island of Bimini. If you have seen pictures or experi-

enced that cay for yourself you would understand why. Besides the good cooking by Bimini natives that live on the cay, it is peaceful and the beaches are beautiful.”

Things 2 Do this weekend Friday • The Mall at Marathon’s 29th Anniversary Sidewalk Sale Time: 10am - 2pm (continues on Saturday) Venue: Mall at Marathon Celebrations will feature a bouncing castle, face-painting, karaoke and giveaways. Come at 12noon for a slice of anniversary cake.

• The Seeker’s Search Book Signing Event Time: 6.30pm Venue: Bahamas Faith Ministries International Come share in a praise and worship experience at the launch and book signing of Pamela Jones’ new book, “The Seeker’s Search”.

• “So Incredible” album release concert by Ayanna Clarke Time: 7.30pm Venue: Golden Gates Outreach Ministries This musical spectacle will feature songs of praise and original soullifting worship music written by Psalmist and Tribune contributor Ayanna Clarke, as well as performances by Minister Lyn Terez Davis Nixon, Rev Christopher Roberts, Minister Edison Sumner and VOP.

• 2nd Annual Evening of Sacred and Classical Music.

Time 7.30pm Venue: St Andrew’s Presbyterian Kirk

The Nassau Music Society hosts this benefit concert for UB music students featuring the music of Christine Gangelhoff (flute) Christian Justilien ( Baritone) and Paul Jones (Piano)

• Mix and Mingle – The Choreograph Edition Time: 8pm Venue: Roof Top Lounge This is the first mix and mingle for Junkanoo participants to meet and enjoy themselves away from competition.

Saturday

• 6th Annual Paint Da Streets Pink Time: 6am Venue: Arawak Cay The fun run/walk starts at Arawak Cay and head to Goodman’s Bay. Part proceeds to aid the Sister Sister Breast Cancer Support Group.

• ‘Move It’ walk-a-thon by Weight Watchers Time: 6am Venue: Weight Watchers, Collins Avenue There are routes for every fitness level. The registration fee is $15.

• Brunch and Conversation with Gowon Bowe.

Time: 10am Venue: Garden of Eden This event is hosted by the National Progressive Institute as

part of the series ‘Our Economy’.

Gowon Bowe, CPA, is this weekend’s guest speaker. A brunch is provided at a cost of $20.

• BSC’s Annual Steak-0ut Time: 12noon Venue: R M Bailey The Bahamas Sickle Cell Association hosts its steak-out to raise funds for sickle cell awareness in the Bahamas. Proceeds help to provide information and support to the public and families with loved ones suffering from the disease. Steak and chicken dinners are $12.

• Presidente Beer presents Kes live in concert Time: 8pm Venue: Pompey Square Soca kings Kes (”Hello”) will celebrate the endless summers of the Caribbean alongside international award-winning singers Wendi and Dyson Knight.

• Paradise Plates Time: 8pm Venue: Imperial Ballroom, Atlantis Paradise Plates is a unique culinary experience where over 40 of the island’s most talented chefs and beverage purveyors host unique booths and showcase some of their signature creations to the delight of more than 1,500 guests.

All the proceeds go directly to Hands For Hunger.

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Friday, September 28, 2018

interview From enjoying stand-up comedy in Dubai to starring on a Chinese news programme, this hospitality professional as delved deep into foreign cultures. She tells Cara Hunt how she has learned about and developed appreciation for things she never even dreamed of.

Natajia

Miller

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tanley Cay, Exuma, and Yinchuan, Ningxia, may be separated by thousands of miles and very different cultures, but for Natajia Miller they are both places she calls home.

The self-proclaimed cultural addict recently moved from Dubai to China to work as a guest service manager/ corporate management trainee at a local hotel.

Natajia said her experience living abroad has broadened her horizons in ways she never thought possible.

“I have two Bachelor’s degrees (Computer Information Science and Business Management) and a Master’s degree (International Business.) All of my degrees combined cannot compare to what I’ve learned in my journey living abroad,” she said.

“Don’t get me wrong, education is key and I push for educating yourself in the field you love. But living abroad gave me access to a part of my mind that I could never know existed without the experience itself.”

Natajia encourages her fellow Bahamians who may be considering moving to a foreign country to “just do it.”

“Stop wondering and considering and letting fear keep you. Pray about it, ask for guidance and just do it.

Culture is such a beautiful thing and it’s worth going to experience someone else’s. It will give you like a third eye

almost. You will be able to see the world so differently. This is especially true if you work in hospitality, which most Bahamians do in one way or another,” she said.

Her childhood on Staniel Cay was a gift, she said. Her time was spent with cousins, enjoying water-related activities such as sailing (she was on the championship all-girls sailing team The Termites) and fishing.

“It’s my favourite place on earth. I love being an island girl from a school with only two to three kids per class and not having to worry about leaving the door unlocked,” she said. “When people say, ‘Island life sweet, aye?’, that’s pretty much an understatement.

I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Despite her love for the island life, Natajia always had a desire to see more of the world. She worked for a year in the United States after receiving her MBA and then moved to Dubai for three years “My part of Dubai is not the glitz and glamour and gold in your coffee stuff; it’s the diversity. That may sound strange to some since when people think Dubai they just think ‘rich Arabs’, but that is actually just a small portion of the population. In Dubai, I was able to work in an office with Indians, Russians, Ukrainians, Kenyans, Filipinos, Europeans, then go to lunch with a Gambian, a Sri Lankan and an

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Friday, September 28, 2018

Egyptian, and then go do stand-up comedy with an Emirati, a Palestinian, a Syrian, a German and an American,” she said.

After three years in Dubai, an opportunity presented itself for her to work in China and she jumped at chance.

“I didn’t have an opportunity to meet many Chinese in Dubai, so I wanted to learn more about their culture. And what better way than to move there? Seeing that I had already lived in Dubai for three years it made me feel more comfortable about moving even further away from home,” she explained.

Natajia noted that it is much easier to move abroad than some people may think.

“A lot of my friends and family praise me for working abroad, but it’s actually quite easy. All it takes is an application online and an interview.

No rocket science required.”

For the girl who has lived on both a tropical island and in the desert, arriving in China was like stepping into an ice box.

“I came in February, and listen, the North Pole is a joke compared to this place…or at least that’s how I felt at the time. I have been to Canada and Germany, and the cold here is just different. It was like literally chilling in my bones cold when I arrived. My second impression was, ‘I made it!’

My third impression was, ‘Mommy, mommy help’, because no one at the airport spoke English,” she said.

Fortunately, the Chinese people were extremely helpful.

“Me and my ‘fro were pretty easy to spot in the wrong line, seeing as everyone was staring in awe of both of us....yes, my ‘fro has her own identity,” Natajia joked.

“The immigration officer’s expression when I told him that I came to work was priceless. I’m living in Yinchuan, Ningxia, which is a very small city, so there aren’t so many expats here.”

Natajia said she was shocked by how many people in both China and Dubai do not know where the Bahamas is.

“Stereotypically people would ask me, ‘Which part of Africa are you from?’ So there’s things like that that help me to grow by growing others and teaching them about the Bahamas and our culture and breaking stereotypes of those that do know about the Bahamas only for beaches and/or drugs.

“The more I travel, the more I despise stereotypes,” she said. “I had

“Yes, I ate rabbit head. I know, I’m a horrible person… worst part is, I liked it.”

GUINNESS World Records recognised Natajia’s exercise group in Dubai for having the “Most Nationalities in a Yoga Session”.

NATAJIA with her mother

the stereotype of Chinese people that most Bahamians have because of the media we get about eating exotic meats like cats and dogs and pooping in the streets, that they’re all Buddhists and that they all look alike.

“Exotic meats are only popular in South China. I live in North China.

For example, and in certain places you can’t even find pork. Beef and chicken are as exotic as it gets. I have lived here for almost a year and I’ve never seen anyone pee much less poop in the streets. There are public toilets at about every street corner. They do have the stooping toilets though. In some places it is common, but you can also find the normal toilets as well.”

And she is quick to dispel the ignorant idea that all Chinese people look the same.

“Come on..there are one billion of them; can they all look the same?”

Food has been the one area that she has truly embraced in her quest to fully absorb the culture of the country.

“Chinese food can’t be just all put in one box, that’s like taking Caribbean food, including conch, jerk pork, roti and curry goat, and putting it all together as if it’s just one.”

She noted that she has enjoyed all the food she has tried whether it be halal (Muslim friendly food) or local Chinese dishes with shrimp, squid or sheep (the area she lives in is known for the best sheep meat in the region).

Natajia said the most exotic food she has tried is rabbit head.

“Yes, I ate rabbit head. I know, I’m a horrible person…worst part, is I liked it. You know for Bahamians eating cats or dogs is taboo – I completely agree – but for some Americans eating chicken feet and sheep’s tongue are gross, and for some Europeans eating snake and alligator are horrid. Everything is cultural…everything. So living abroad has made me less quick to judge someone else’s culture and try to focus on how their norms align with my own.”

Another challenge Natajia had was the language.

“My Chinese is not good, but I can speak just a little. After eight months it’s OK, but it’s really not as good as I want it to be. Chinese is such an intimidating language. It’s because Chinese is not a collection of letters, but more a collection of sounds with tones, and a tone can be the difference between ‘mother’ and ‘horse’, so getting that sorted is like the first step to really being able to speak the language.”

Continues on page 6

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NATAJIA celebrates her birthday with her team in China.

Continued from page 5 And as much as she has come to enjoy the delicious Chinese food, she still misses traditional Bahamian cuisine like conch, baked macaroni and even Vita Malt.

“I’m an island girl, so I just miss being on the island. I miss church a lot. They have a church here, but...I just miss my home church. It’s one of the things I miss the most actually. Some days I miss just talking to Bahamians. With the 12-hour time difference there is only a short window to connect, so if you miss it that’s all for the day,” she said.

But her new home makes up for a lot.

“I like the diversity of China. They have old cities, new cities, mountains, lakes, beaches – all the different types of landscapes and different cultures within China,” she said.

Recently, Natajia had the opportunity to promote her adopted home in a promotional video that played on a local news channel in the area.

“Originally, it was just like a one of four people for just a ‘How long have you been here?’ ‘What do you like about Ningxia?’ thing...a one minute max thing. However, the news host was so happy with my over-thetop run-out self that the news station did an exclusive on me. She told me so many humbling things like ‘You’re the next Oprah’ and ‘You were made to be a star’ et cetera. After my exclusive, they asked me to host a live news

programme which ran on national news and streamed live across the world,” she said.

“The blessings are just rolling in and I’m just humbled by the experience God is allowing me to have. Hotels/hospitality is what I love, but entertainment, performing arts, TV is what I’m passionate about, so I am just really in awe to have had this opportunity and the uncommon favour to be able to do such an amazing thing.”

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Friday, September 28, 2018

tourism

A new ship on the Carnival’s latest docks in Nassau

horizon

C

arnival Cruise Line’s newest Vista class ship, the Carnival Horizon, sailed into Nassau this week on a special two-day cruise from Miami.

Port and Ministry of Tourism Officials, including Deputy Director General of Tourism Ellison Thompson, were invited to tour the ship during its inaugural visit.

The Bahamian staff exchanged plaques with the Carnival staff.

The Carnival Horizon is a 133,500tonne vessel with a capacity for 3,936 passengers and 1,450 crew members.

The ship features a SkyRide, an IMAX theatre, a Dr Seuss’ WaterWorks aqua park and the Carnival Seuss at Sea Programme.

The Horizon also has some new and unique attractions, such as Bonsai Teppanyaki and Guy Fieri’s Pig and Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse and Brewhouse.

Fieri’s Smokehouse appears on two Carnival ships, the Vista and the Horizon.

However, the Horizon Smokehouse is the first restaurant at sea to have a full-on smoker.

Passengers can enjoy four craft beers brewed exclusively at the Pig and Anchor Bar-B-Que Smokehouse The Horizon has also added new retail options, including the first-ever Victoria’s Secret on a Carnival ship and new brand partnerships with companies like the Le Vian jewellery line. The ship also features Dr Seuss’ WaterWorks, which is a first for the company.

The ship offers three new Playlist Productions shows: Soulbound, Celestial Strings, and Vintage Pop. The fourth show, Amor Cubano: A Caribbean Dance Romance, has already been performed on Carnival Vista.

American musician and actress Queen Latifah serves as the godmother to the ship.

The Horizon will offer six-night sailings to the Western Caribbean and eight-night sailings to the Eastern and Southern Caribbean.

Inside the new Carnival Horizon

The Carnival Horizon’s captain, Luigi De Angelis, exchanges plaques with Deputy Director General of Tourism Ellison Thompson.

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Friday, September 28, 2018

beauty

Star make-up artist brings skills to Nassau master class

By ALESHA CADET Tribune Features Writer acadet@tribunemedia.net

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here is something very intimate about the space a make-up artist occupies. The role represents a unique blend of friend, confidante and expert all rolled into one person, according to professional make-up artist Gail Clarke.

Over the past eight years she has thrived in that space, where she can

‘Beautypreneur’ Gail Clarke wants to travel the Caribbean, supplying other make-up artists with the support and resources they need.

Gail Clarke at work

simultaneously teach, create and empower, while making a woman feel like her most beautiful self.

And this weekend, the Barbados resident is returning home to the Bahamas to assist aspiring and practicing make-up professionals reach the next level in artistry and business.

Gail told Tribune Weekend that she loves being able to connect with women from all walks of life and being able to have a hand in helping them to tell their personal beauty story.

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Friday, September 28, 2018

Her expertise has landed her commercial and print jobs, as well as bridal, fashion and film assignments. She has worked on international ad campaigns, national pageant queens, and celebrities like Peter Gallagher, known for shows like “Covert Affairs” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit”, and Bahamian basketball star Rick Fox. She also spent three years as the key makeup artist at Keen i Media, a Bahamian production company.

Gail was born and raised in Freeport, Grand Bahama, with roots that run from High Rock to Green Turtle Cay, Abaco. She grew up as a pastor’s kid in a family of creatively-minded individuals. Shortly after her marriage in 2016, she and her husband Wenrick moved to Barbados, where she currently resides.

With a Bachelor’s degree in Multimedia Studies, Gail also enjoys blogging her work every now and then via gailtalk.com.

“It had never even occurred to me to make a career out of make-up artistry, but the more I played around with it, the more passionate I became about it. Make-up is a creative sweet spot for me, because it allows me to combine several things that I love: storytelling, empowering people, creating art, and collaborating with other creatives.

Makeup allows me to do all of that at once,” said Gail.

Her brand, “Gail Does Makeup”, is the result of discovering her passion and having the courage to pursue it.

Originally just a “side hustle”, Gail said she is glad she didn’t quite think of it as a company when she first started out, because she may have gotten caught up in trying to make it perfect and missed out on what she calls “a beautiful mess of a journey”.

The young artist is excited to build “Gail Does Makeup” to its full potential. Her luxury make-up brand currently offers services for brides and special occasions. She also recently took the leap to becoming a beauty educator.

“I remember when I couldn’t afford to travel and take classes at the level that I wanted, and so one of my goals is to travel the Caribbean, equipping artists with the support, tools and resources they need to become better artists and entrepreneurs,” she said.

At a special “Filter-Free Makeup” masterclass to be held at Hillside House this Saturday from 12noon-6pm, Gail will offer lessons on learning the art of creating flawless skin and provide beauty business tips to help refine and grow businesses.

“The beauty industry can be catty at times, so it’s really important to me to create a space where artists feel safe to let their hair down and can learn without fear of judgement.”

“No matter what genre of makeup you desire to work in, skin is key.

This class is also a space for the artists to have no holds barred, filter-free conversation about our challenges as artists in the Caribbean. At the end of the day, the business is just as important as the artistry, so it’s important to have an opportunity to dialogue about possible solutions to those challenges, so that we can become more successful as

Make-up looks by Gail Clarke

‘beautypreneurs’ and work together to move the industry forward as a whole.

It’s going to be amazing,” said Gail.

During the upcoming masterclass, Gail will break down her entire beauty process from start to finish. She will be sharing the techniques and strategies that allows her to create what she likes to call “filter-free” skin. The entrepreneur will also be bringing a friend and fellow creative, photographer Scharad Lightbourne, to speak on what he looks for when collaborating with a makeup artist as it regards lighting and how to capture great beauty shots using a smartphone.

“This past year, I’ve experienced some incredible wins; some that I didn’t even think were possible. I hope that sharing some of what I’ve learned on my journey will inspire more artists to push themselves past the imaginary boundaries that we set for ourselves.

My goal is for participants to leave feeling more equipped in their artistry and motivated to take their beauty business to the next level. The beauty industry can be catty at times, so it’s really important to me to create a space where artists feel safe to let their hair down and can learn without fear of judgement, “ said Gail.

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Friday, September 28, 2018

books

The queen of bewitching writing returns

By FAY KNOWLES

D

escribed as “Queen of Scream”, “Mistress of Magic” and even “Mistress of Dark Thrills” by her fans around the world, best-selling Bahamian author Tanya R Taylor is on a roll.

This Wednesday past she will released “Cara: The Beginning – Matilda’s Story”, the ninth book in her popular “Cornelius Saga” Series. “Cornelius”, the first in the series, climbed to number one in the Teen & Young Adult Multi-generational Family Fiction category on amazon.com.

“Cara: The Beginning – Matilda’s Story” is Ms Taylor’s 21st book. It is described as the “shocking prequel to the number one international bestseller ‘Cara’ “.

The blurb for “Cara: The Beginning” reads: “No one could hear her screams that night... it was as if the universe, unlike before, was completely against her. Events concerning the present have been long buried in the past, until their roots pop up just above the surface and the story once hidden rears its ugly head again for all to see. Telekinetic and supernatural ability was not thought to be merely a

Poet Sonia Sanchez working on memoir, ‘Watch My Language’

Bahamian author Tanya R Taylor gift for Matilda, but a dreadful curse and the life of the bearer best snuffed out. Generations later, a little girl inherited the same terrifying genes and it seemed history was being repeated all over again. Did vindication come years earlier, or did it arrive much later in a most unsettling way?”

Speaking about her latest book, Ms Taylor said: “This one is going to be NEW YORK (AP) — With the help of author Ta-Nehisi Coates, poet Sonia Sanchez is writing a memoir.

Sanchez has a deal with One World for “Watch My Language,” the publisher announced Thursday. One World, an imprint of Penguin Random House, has not set a release date.

Sanchez, 84, emerged during the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and is known for such poetry books as “Shake Loose My Skin.” She recently received a Wallace Stevens Award for lifetime achievement. Sanchez will work on “Watch My Language” with Coates, the author and journalist best known for “Between the World and Me,” winner of the National Book Award.

hot. If you think Cara was something else, you’ll see just how she inherited those strange genes of hers. This is the story of Cara told long before the girl was ever conceived.”

And this prolific author has joined 14 other international authors in producing a multi-author e-book box set called “Shadows and Spellcraft: The Ultimate Urban Fantasy Binge Collection. Each story is exclusive to this collection and includes some new stories from USA Today and New York Times bestselling authors. “Shadows and Spellcraft” will be released on October 30.

Ms Taylor is also working the crime thriller “One Dead Politician”, book two in the “The Nick Myers Series”.

Book one is “Hidden Sins Revealed”.

Mr Taylor is the author of several number-one best-sellers on Amazon, in the US, the UK and Canada. All of her books have made Amazon Kindle’s Top 100 Paid Bestsellers’ List in several categories, some next to the “Master of Horror” Stephen King and Dean Koontz. She has been

The prequel to the popular supernatural series was released this week. writing ever since she could remember.

Her first published book, “A Killing Rage”, she wrote as a young adult.

She writes in various genres, including paranormal romance, fantasy, sciencefiction, mystery and suspense.

For more information about Tanya R Taylor’s books, go to amazon.com/ author/tanyartaylor or tanyartaylor. wordpress.com.

Sonia Sanchez (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP)

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books

The top 10 audiobooks on Audible.com

Review: Novel by Hank Green is out of this world

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to learn that the video went viral. They are overnight sensations, and when the world discovers that other cities have their own “Carls,” April is thrust into the spotlight as an expert.

Of course, every coin has a flip side.

While some find the Carls intriguing and mysterious, eager to solve why they are here, others consider them a threat. April finds herself in a media whirlwind defending the robots, the possibility of aliens, humanity and her personal life. She begins to crack under the pressure of social media, fear and uncertainty. The only thing that anchors her to the real world is a tight group of trusted friends and a unique challenge presented to her by Carl.

“An Absolutely Remarkable Thing” is a thrilling journey that takes a hard look at the power of fame and our willingness to separate a person from the brand. Green manages to blend humor, mystery and science fiction in his fast-paced debut novel.

LINCEE RAY Associated Press

hat if a huge, stagnant robot appeared out of nowhere on the streets of New York City? And what if you were the key to solving the mystery of what it wants? Hank Green takes readers on a sci-fi adventure, tackling issues such as social media obsession and global humanity in his novel, “An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.”

April May pays her dues working at a Manhattan-based startup by logging in a ton of hours. So it’s no surprise why she stumbles into a 10-foot-tall Transformer-style robot on the sidewalk at three o’clock in the morning. What is surprising is the robot seems to have materialized out of thin air.

Baffled by the presumable piece of art before her, April calls her best friend Andy to come and see the robot. Andy videotapes April with the structure, whom she affectionately names Carl, and uploads the project.

The next day, both are dumbfounded

Review: Past comes to life in ‘Lost Carousel of Provence’ Cady Drake is a loner who is perfectly content hiding behind the lens of her camera. After a sudden, unexpected loss, her friend lines up a photography job for Cady in France. Cady’s assignment is simple: shoot Parisian carousels for a coffee-table book.

The subject matter may seem random to some, but Cady has an affection for carousels, thanks to a gift she received when she was younger. Her eloquent wooden rabbit is thought to be sculpted by the famous French carousel carver Gustave Bayol. She’s determined to find out more about its history, especially when she discovers a photo and love note hidden in the rabbit’s belly.

Cady’s travels take her all around France, but she finds herself drawn to Chateau Clement for its rich history and mysterious rumors surrounding its

once beautiful carousel. The chateau’s crusty owner wants nothing to do with the American or her nosy questions.

But Cady manages to gain the old man’s trust and soon finds herself uncovering decades of clues and photographs pertaining to the lost carousel. And in doing so, she exposes long-kept secrets about a prominent family in Provence.

Author Juliet Blackwell is clearly enamored by art, history and the allure of Paris. She takes something as simple as a carousel and weaves an intricate story that spans generations. Blackwell uses an outsider’s passion to shine a light into the dark past of a broken family and how a sweet, wooden rabbit can bring them together again.

LINCEE RAY Associated Press

Audible.com best-sellers for week ending September 21:

1. Emma: An Audible Original Drama by Jane Austen & Anna Lea, narrated by Emma Thompson, Joanne Froggatt, Isabella Inchbald, Aisling Loftus, Joseph Millson & Morgana Robinson 2. The X-Files: Cold Cases

by Joe Harris, Chris Carter & Dirk Maggs, narrated by David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, Willliam B Davis, Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund & Bruce Harwood 3. Girls & Boys by Dennis Kelly, narrated by Carey Mulligan 4. Lethal White: A Cormoran Strike Novel by Robert Galbraith, narrated by Robert Glenister 5. Down the River unto the Sea by Walter Mosley, narrated

by Dion Graham 6. Time’s Convert: A Novel by Deborah Harkness, narrated by Saskia Maarleveld 7. Where the Crawdads Sing

by Delia Owens, narrated by Cassandra Campbell 8. The Dented Head of Joey Pigza by Jack Gantos, narrated by the author 9. Legion: The Many Lives of Stephen Leeds by Brandon Sanderson, narrated by Oliver Wyman 10. The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, narrated by Richard Armitage & Emilia Fox The Associated Press

12 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

theatre

Shakespeare in Paradise celebrates 10th anniversary

By ALESHA CADET AND MORGAN ADDERLEY acadet@tribunemedia.net madderley@tribunemedia.net

T

HE annual theatre festival Shakespeare in Paradise is embarking on its 10th season of celebrating and developing the Bahamian theatre

tradition.

For 13 days, starting October 1, Ringplay Productions will present its highly anticipated festival, which will feature six shows. This year’s signature Shakespeare production will be “Much Ado About Nothing”, directed by Erin Knowles.

The signature Bahamian work will be the world premiere of “Der Real Ting”,

a new musical created and directed by Phillip A Burrows, featuring 25 iconic Eddie Minnis songs arranged by Fred Ferguson and Adrian Archer. The script is by Nicolette Bethel, Patrice Francis and Phillip A Burrows, and the choreography is by Ricardo Christie.

The opening night gala performance of “Der Real Ting” will take place on October 1 in the Winston V Saunders Theatre at the Dundas Centre for Performing Arts.

During a press conference held at the Dundas on Tuesday, Mr Burrows said a new feature of this year’s show will be the availability of a CD. “We’re producing a two-disc CD set — first time we’ve ever done that — with new arrangements of 25 of (Eddie Minnis’) songs. But also included on this CD will be all the dialogue in the show.

So you’ll be able to listen to the entire musical on CD, like you do with ‘Les (Miserables)’ and other productions.

So that is one of the new and exciting things,” he said.

In an interview with Tribune Weekend, Patrice Francis revealed that this year’s festival will feature another new exciting addition – “Short Tales,” a production set to highlight 10 new 10-minute plays by 10 Bahamian writers, beginning on Monday, October 1.

“A group of eight directors, working under the guidance of Nicolette Bethel and Anthony ‘Skeebo’ Roberts will be responsible for what we expect to be an exciting evening of theatre. This production will also feature 30 actors, both veterans and newcomers,” said Ms Francis.

Other shows will include “Truth and Laughter with Judah Tha Lion”, hosted by comedian Sawyerboy; “The Making of Der Real Ting” and “Paul Hanna”.

“Judah Tha Lion is no newcomer to the festival and this evening featuring his thought-provoking lyrics and soulful sound is much anticipated,” said Ms Francis.

Shakespeare in Paradise will offer four student matinee performances of “Der Real Ting” and “Much Ado About Nothing”, and two matinee performances of “Short Tales”.

Mr Burrows highlighted the importance of the festival for young people, regarding both exposure and representation.

“We’ve had situations where students who study in Shakespeare in school — now they don’t only come to the Shakespeare matinee, they also come to the Bahamian productions as well — who go back and say, ‘I now understand what I couldn’t get from my teacher or what I couldn’t get from the class as it relates to this particular show.’

“And just being able to see something that reflects themselves on stage, I think is important,” he said.

An estimated 2,000 students are expected to attend matinee performances this year, adding to the over 25,000 students who have attended since 2009.

When asked about the financial constraints of such a production, Mr

The artwork for this year’s signature Shakespeare production

Dion Johnson (left) and Gregory Deane record ‘Der Real Ting’ musical at Reel Time Sound Studios.

Burrows estimated the show costs about $150,000.

“It costs us probably about $50-60 a head to run the festival. But we charge $30 for adults and $10 for children. So we have to make up the cost in some other areas.”

This includes selling ads in the programme and requesting corporate and government support, particularly through the Ministries of Tourism, Education, and Youth, Sports and Culture.

Ms Francis said Shakespeare in Paradise is pleased to once again be partnering with the National Art Gallery of the Bahamas; this time, to showcase its special event evenings. The first evening, on Tuesday, October 9, will feature “The Making of ‘Der Real Ting’.”

“On Thursday, October 11, Paul Hanna will also appear in concert at NAGB’s Fiona’s Theatre. Paul is no stranger to Bahamians. He has held a number of concerts at the Dundas both in the Winston V Saunders Theatre and in the Philip A Burrows Black Box Theatre. We look forward to his amphitheatre debut,” said Ms Francis.

All matinee performances during the festival will begin at 11an am and all evening performances will begin at 8pm, except for the “Der Real Ting” gala performance, which will start at 7.30 pm.

Reservations for all productions can be made at the Dundas Box Office at 393-3728 or 394-7179.

Further information can also be found on the Shakespeare in Paradise Facebook page or the website shakespeareinparadise.org, where for the first time ever tickets are being sold online.

Friday, September 28, 2018

The Tribune | Weekend | 13

film

review

Haddish, Hart earn mixed grades in ‘Night School’ NIGHT SCHOOL RUNNING TIME: 111 MINS

M

alcolm D Lee’s “Night School” brings together the potent combo of Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish, but this tepid if amiable sitcom-stretched-into-amovie elicits widely differing grades for its two comic powerhouses.

Energetic as it is, Hart’s hyper shtick has grown tired from overuse, while Haddish’s fresher powers appear limitless. Both are good enough — and good enough together — to keep “Night School” from flunking out; this is a decent enough placeholder in between (hopefully) bolder efforts from each.

But it doesn’t help that Lee, who made Haddish a revelation in last year’s “Girl’s Trip,” casts her as effectively the straight man. Haddish, Hart and a classroom should be all that’s really needed for a laugh-filled comedy. But a thin script (by Hart and five other writers) doesn’t give either enough material, nor does keeping Haddish slightly under wraps as a taskmaster teacher in an adult education class.

Hart stars as Teddy Walker, a successful Atlanta patio furniture salesman who — as seen in the flashback prologue — skipped out on the SATs and never graduated high school.

When his lavish proposal to this girlfriend, Lisa (Megalyn Echikunwoke), goes explosively awry in the store he works, Walker’s tenuous lifestyle — a

Kevin Hart as a student at “Night School.” (Universal Pictures via AP)

Tiffany Haddish plays an unorthodox teacher sports car and downtown condo to give Lisa the impression he’s wealthier than he is — comes apart at the seams.

Teddy’s only hope for employment beyond a Christian Chicken fast-food joint is with the financial company of his friend (Ben Schwartz), but for that he needs his GED. For night classes, Teddy returns to the high school of his youth, which is now run by his teenage rival (Taran Killam, as a racist and

pitiful principal). His teacher, Carrie (Haddish), has no patience for Teddy’s usual circumventions and eventually — sit down for the shock — gets him to study.

“Night School” is at its best in its classroom setting thanks to a freewheeling ensemble adeptly juggled by Lee. Too much of “Night School” is coated in redemption schmaltz (Hart’s story line) or is missing Haddish

(Hart’s story line). But the night school scenes, while still a little tame (the film is rated PG-13 when the freedom of an R rating seems required), pingpong animatedly between a misfit group of GED-seekers.

Best of the bunch are Al Madrigal (as a Mexican immigrant waiter who Teddy, trying to avoid a steep bill, got fired) and Romany Malco (”The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), as the class’ most off-kilter participant (He considers “The Terminator” to be “prophecy.”). But also good are Mary Lynn Rajskub, as a mom fleeing her kids, and Rob Riggle, as an earnest but oafish student. Fat Joe, as a convict, also joins by Skype from prison. There is at least a promising sitcom in there.

Yet the teaming up of Haddish and Hart goes down as a missed opportunity. Though she makes Carrie easily the film’s most human character, Haddish isn’t given enough room to let loose; “Night School” is really Hart’s film. And, like countless studio comedies of the past few years, “Night School” is a straightforward concept that relies too much on the charisma of its performers to carry a weak script. It didn’t do its homework.

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ jakecoyleAP

JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

16 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

celebrity With Karin Herig and Cara Hunt

HIT

FAIL

HIT

SPLIT

Nicki Minaj

Rosie HuntingtonWhiteley (”Mad Max: Fury Road”)

Kate Beckinsale (”Underworld”)

Dianna Agron (”Glee”)

Karin says: “Surprisingly, I’m liking this bleach blonde beach hair on her.

And I actually like the Oscar de la Renta dress. It’s cute, although I’m not a big fan of basically advertising brands on your clothing, the design works here.”

Cara says: “I am really feeling this dress. It’s just different enough, and even though it does have the brand name all over it, it’s subtle and not obnoxious at all. Nice mix of colours as well.”

Karin says: “Oh no, honey. I don’t really love velvet dresses, but the draping here is not bad. But it’s the baby blue that makes it look like a bit cheap (I’m sure it wasn’t). But then to pair them with bright red shoes with ribbon straps? What was she thinking?”

Cara says: “And this, I think, wins the hot mess award. First, the draping on the dress is just so shapeless and baggy; not impressed. And second, I’m all for a pop of colour, but I don’t care for the red accents here.”

Karin says: “Very classy. It’s simple, but yet there is quite a lot going on. I love the off-the-shoulder design with floral details. And I absolutely adore the mermaid tail flair with this midi length. The strappy shoes are also perfect for this ensemble.”

Cara says: “This is one for Cara’s closet. Great take on the little black dress. And can we all just take a moment to sit and enjoy the beauty that is those shoes. My fave of the week, I think.”

Karin says: “It’s breezy, very comfy.

And fine for an afternoon out with the girls. But for a fashion event? Nah. There’s nothing special about it at all.

It’s pretty and casual, but that’s about it.”

Cara says: “It is very lovely; perfect for an afternoon bridal or baby shower. But I agree, it’s not a super dressy outfit. But I still think it’s something I’d wear. It looks majorly comfortable.”

PHOTOS BY CHARLES SYKES/INVISION/AP

The Weekend Fashion Report Oscar de la Renta at NYFW

The Tribune | Weekend |17

Friday, September 28, 2018

community

Pinewood Festival to celebrate leaders, foster togetherness

By JEFFARAH GIBSON Tribune Features Writer jgibson@tribunemedia.net

T

HE culture, pride, talent and imagination of community members will be put on display during the upcoming second annual Pinewood Festival.

The festival, being held under the theme “Partner for the Good of Pinewood”, is the brainchild of Member of Parliament H E Reuben Rahming, whose intent it was to have those who ran in the 2017 general election, including former MP Khaalis Rolle, Lincoln Bain, Glen Rolle and Alesha Hart, to come together and do something for the community.

Those who have a specific interest in Pinewood are also welcomed to contribute to its development through the festival and other initiatives.

This year it will feature, food, fun, sporting activities, and more. It takes place on October 8 at 12noon.

“Pinewood Festival is unique because it brings to its audience tradition, culture and added to that, is a celebration of individuals who make the community proud by giving their time and effort to community development,” Mr Rahming said.

This year’s festival is called the Dennis Dean Pinewood Festival as it will pay tribute to Mr Dean, the vice president of the Sea Breeze and Pinewood Homeowners Association.

According to Mr Rahming, Mr Dean has been instrumental in ensuring Pinewood homeowners who experienced property title challenges were afforded an opportunity to present to the Bahamian government work on their behalf to restore land ownership to some 300 residents.

A commitment has been made by the government that 2019 will conclude the turning of titles over to challenged residents, he said.

While the aim of the festival is to celebrate those in the community, organisers also view the event as a

Scenes from last year’s inaugural festival.

“We need to build community; a community worth fighting for and one worth celebrating. Festivals in Pinewood afford an opportunity for persons to develop the spirit of community; to basically know their neighbours.”

way to build the community and create a sense of camaraderie among residents in the area.

“We need to build community; a community worth fighting for and one worth celebrating. Festivals in Pinewood afford an opportunity for persons to develop the spirit of community; to basically know their neighbours. It is also an opportunity to honour community builders. Further, the festival ensures a generation of sustainable revenue to afford the development of an economic block in Pinewood,” said Mr Rahming.

The festival’s execution team includes Raja Bain, Erika Bar, Cookie Brown, Katherine Edgecombe, Evadney Flower, Carmen Forbes, Princess Hutcherson, Clifford Jones, Patrice Knowles, Ray Rolle, Cassandra Saunders, Desmond Saunders, Glen Rolle and Alesha Hart are co-chairs.

“The festival is an occasion to reflect on and participate in the culture of our people – food, dance, play, enjoy the camaraderie of a proud history, embrace and learn from the challenges of past and present and celebrate the contribution of national heroes living in the community of Pinewood,” said Mr Bain.

18 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

entertainment

Claudette “Cookie” Allens and Jeanne Thompson perform at the Dundas (Photo courtesy of Peter Ramsay)

Meet stars of stage and screen at SeaWords festival

S

eaWords Bahamas ALIV has attracted the participation of a wealth of talented people as workshop leaders and panellists. In the first instalment of this multi-part series, we introduce three people from the worlds of filmmaking and stage.

Bahamian Kareem Mortimer, video artist, actor and writer, will lead the workshop “Big Screen Magic: Filmmaking” on Saturday, November 10, at Atlantis as part of the upcoming SeaWords Bahamas Literary Festival and Writers’ Conference.

Winner of over 31 awards for his projects, his work has been distributed in more than 40 countries. Broadcast on PBS and the ASpiRe Network, his short film “Passage” was named by Cine Caribes as one of the 10 best Caribbean films and Mr Mortimer named as “a director you should already know.”

His most recent narrative film, “Cargo” has premiered in over two dozen film festivals around the world.

Mr Mortimer’s award-winning ways began years before. He wrote and directed the short narrative film “Float” that won five international awards and has been distributed in North America, Germany, Australia and Austria. In 2011, he released his debut feature film, “Children of God”, which won 18 awards. It has been distributed in 26 territories, gained theatrical exposure in

Dr Nicolette Bethel the US, Netherlands and UK, and has aired on Showtime. BET named “Children of God” one of the top 10 movies of 2011 and The Independent called it one of the top features to watch. Subsequently, he co-directed the film “Wind Jammers”, which received worldwide distribution through Filmworks.

Mr Mortimer has also produced and directed over 50 television commercials clients and has also provided production services for the Hollywood films “Into The Blue” and “After The Sunset”, and has worked for HGTV, OWN, ESPN, the Tennis Channel, Bravo, Pie Town Productions and the Food Network.

He is currently the curator of the Island House Cinema and the artistic director of the Island House Film Festival, in addition to being the chairman of

Kareem Mortimer Best Ever Film, a production company based here in the Bahamas.

Leading the SeaWords theatre workshop entitled “In the Footsteps of the Bard: Play Writing & Staging” on Sunday, November 11, will be Jeanne Thompson and Dr Nicolette Bethel, who have both made substantial contributions to the development of local theatre.

A barrister, retired Justice of the Supreme Court, playwright, actor and sometime journalist, Ms Thompson is a woman of extraordinary accomplishments, which were already in evidence when she began writing plays at the age of about eight years old. She was encouraged by such notables as her music teacher Lillian Weir and Father

John Taylor, who was one of the earliest Bahamian playwrights.

Stage works from Ms Thompson’s more mature period include “The Decision”, which won the playwriting award at the Bahamas Arts Festival in the mid-1960s. Following were “Bread, Oil and Standard”, “Vicious Circle”, “The Prodigal’s Brother” “Columbus Landing”, and “Father’s Day “ among others.

She also trod the boards as an actor, delivering riveting performances.

In the early 1970s, Ms Thompson co-wrote the popular radio soap opera “The Fergusons of Farm Road” with an old school friend, Sonia McPherson Mills, sponsored by the Ministry of Tourism. The episodes gripped the nation and caused many fans to rush home to listen. There followed another radio soap opera, “Sam Finley’s Sandcastle”, a radio series for the Bahamas Medical Association called “Clinic”, and a series of Christmas plays for Monsignor Preston Moss, then priestin-charge of St Bede’s Catholic Church.

Dr Nicolette Bethel is a playwright, poet, fiction writer and anthropologist, and is currently the assistant professor of Sociology at the University of the Bahamas and serves as chair of the School of Social Sciences.

Her 1990 play “Powercut” was made into an independent film and released

by Plantation Pictures in 2001. In 2008, her second play, “The Children’s Teeth”, was produced in Nassau and Guyana to critical acclaim. She is the founder of Nassau’s Shakespeare in Paradise theatre festival and Ringplay Productions theatre company. As a theatre director, her credits include Neil Simon’s “The Good Doctor” (Pearson College, BC, Canada, 1996), Arthur Miller’s “The Crucible” (Pearson College, BC, Canada, 1997).

In Nassau, she has directed “Macbeth”, Ntozake Shange’s “for coloured girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf”, Patrick Rahming’s “Miss Ethel’s Kitchen”, Travis Cartwright-Carroll’s “The Melancholy of Suzanna Turnquest”, and her own “Small Axe” (2017). Most recently she directed a revival of her first play, “Powercut”, and oversaw the dramaturgy and direction of Shakespeare in Paradise’s “Short Tales”.

Dr Bethel was the founder and editor-in-chief of Tongues of the Ocean, an online literary journal (2009-2014).

Her essays, poetry and plays have been widely published in a variety of places, including The Oxford and Cambridge May Anthologies 1993.

The Tribune | Weekend |19

Friday, September 28, 2018

gardening

Productive

vines

O

ne of the most popular vegetables groups is the cucurbits, vinous plants that range in fruit size from diminutive pickling gherkins to Halloween pumpkins that need a forklift to move them. Included in the group are cucumbers, christophenes, zucchini and other squashes, melons and gourds. Most cucurbits have the same needs: good drainage, rich composted soil, and warm weather. When conditions are right the growth of individual plants can be extremely fast.

There is a condition that most cucurbits love, one that is essential to their welfare, and that is achieved by mixing plenty of compost or peat moss into the soil so the level is raised by an inch or two and forms an area called a hill. For an individual plant the hill can be 15 inches across while a hill for three plants would best be 24 inches.

Cucurbits need slightly moist soil but do not like too much and the raising of the soil into hills provides the necessary drainage.

Cucumbers come in a wide range of types. The standard in the Bahamas is the American ridge cucumber, a reliable performer that can grow on the ground as well as on trellises and tends to be eight to 10 inches long and slightly curved if not trellised. Ridge cucumbers bear thorny prickles that can be brushed off with one’s fingertips when the fruit is ready to pick.

There are patio varieties that produce full size fruits on very short vines and these are excellent for growing in containers with a wire tomato tower inserted for the vine to climb on.

Most ridge cucumbers send out vines eight to 10 feet long bearing firstly male flowers then female, the female flowers produced at the end of a miniature fruit. Both male and female flowers must be present at the time of fertilization and if you only have a few plants – two or three – then a female flower may open and have no male flowers around to do their part in

the reproductive process. Bees are the main pollinators.

English cucumbers tend to be two or three times longer than ridge cucumbers but must be grown on trellises to establish the classic straight form. A small and very prickly form of ridge cucumber is called gherkin and is picked early to use whole as pickles.

Perhaps the most fascinating cucumber is called lemon cucumber and it bears fruits that are baseball size and yellow and are much mellower than standard cucumbers. There is a fascinating long and twisting grey-green fruit called Armenian cucumber which is actually a squash.

Squashes come in many forms and can be summer or winter varieties.

Winter squashes grow during warm weather just like summer squashes but have thick skins and can last well into winter, and that is how they get their name. The usual summer

Jack Hardy gets entangled in the world of cucurbits squashes are crookneck, straight neck, and zucchini though there are many other shapes such as patty pan and globular. Summer squashes are much less vinous than cucumbers and produce their fruits at the base of the plants. Zucchinis can be yellow or green, sometimes a dark green that is almost black.

Winter squashes are generally easier to grow but take much longer to produce ripe fruits. I have found that Butternut is a more reliable performer than Acorn and is my winter squash of choice.

Americans love their sweet pumpkin pies, but Bahamians tend to favour pumpkins that are cooked as vegetables in soups and stews. Instead of orange Halloween-type fruits, we relish the Cuban calabaza, a fairly small pumpkin that comes in a variety of colours from green to yellow to ghostly white. The seeds are not

Christophenes, believed to be the most widely used vegetables in the Caribbean, grow on dense sprawling vines that need support.

usually available in packaged form from nurseries but a half or quarter slice can be bought at roadside stalls or supermarkets. Check that the seeds are plump and from a mature fruit, then allow them to dry for a week or two before sowing. Each seed should be planted at least 10 feet from the next. The calabaza pumpkin vine is large and vigorous and need plenty of space in which to wander. The vine puts down roots and may die off at the original sowing point. This allows the vine to ‘walk’ around the yard.

Christophenes, sometimes called mirliton or chayote, grow on dense sprawling vines that demand some form of support. The whole fruit is buried to produce new vines and hereby lies a problem. The seed fruit must, of course, be mature but the fruits sold in stores are immature and will not germinate. To grow your own christophenes you will need to get mature fruits from somebody who already grows them.

Most of the sweet melons like cantaloupe, rock and watermelon are best started early in the new year so we will leave them for the moment.

One exception is the crenshaw that is delightfully sweet yet is little known locally. It is a reliable producer and could become your favourite.

Young cucurbit vines are lovely and leafy but tend not to stay that way. Our high humidity promotes the growth of fungus and mildew spores on the leaves that quickly reduce them to skeletal patchwork. One remedy is to spray regularly (weekly) with a fungicide. Organic gardeners who do not like spraying chemicals on their foodstuff use milk as a deterrent.

Use powdered milk (low fat is fine) mixed as per the carton instructions and use a hose-end sprayer to apply to your vine leaves. Unlike chemical sprays the strength of the milk mixture is not critical. You can also, of course, use fresh milk in the sprayer.

For queries and comments e-mail jacktribune242@gmail.com

•

20 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

history AP PHOTOS/MARKUS SCHREIBER

Ancient treasures spanning years

300,000

reveal turbulent past

BERLIN (AP) — An arrowhead firmly lodged in the skull of an ancient fallen warrior, a voluptuous woman’s form carved from ivory and the mask of a Roman river god are among more than 1,000 major archaeological discoveries being brought together for the first time.

The exhibition opening Friday at Berlin’s Gropius Bau museum reveals how war, art and migration have left their mark in Germany since the Stone Age. The show spans more than 300,000 years, starting with a sleek wooden spear used by one of the pre-human species that once roamed the continent long before homo sapiens arrived.

Neanderthal hand axes show how our ancient cousins fled the approaching ice age southward — the first tangible evidence of climate refugees — while the ivory “Venus of Hohle Fels” and similar etchings on slate dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 BC attest to early Europeans’ fascination with the female form, pursued by artists ever since.

“The basis of Europe’s common cultural heritage can be found going back thousands of years,” said Christina Haak, deputy head of the Berlin State Museums that helped bring the objects together from museums across Germany.

Often, the exact nature of the objects is unclear: The Nebra sky disk, a plate-size object of gold and bronze, depicting the sun, moon phases and the Pleiades star cluster, is considered one of the first astronomical depictions in history but may also have had religious significance.

Dated to around 1600 BC, the disk is only a few hundred years older than three spectacular hats made from sheet gold first believed to have been worn by early Celtic priests, but which may also have served as primitive calendars.

Many of the artifacts in the exhibition, which runs until January 6, show how strongly progress was linked to the movement of people, goods and ideas into and across Europe.

“Migration is not the mother of all problems.

It is the beginning of all innovation,” said Matthias Wemhoff, director of Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History.

Wemhoff cited the wealth of objects found during the recent construction of a new subway line in Cologne, where artifacts from all over the Roman Empire prove the city was an early melting pot of cultures.

Alongside the river god’s stony face was the perfectly preserved gravestone of a trader by the name of Sextus Haparonius Iustinus, who sold cosmetics and perfumes long before the city became known for its Eau de Cologne.

Germanic smiths copied Roman helmets and later designed their own weaponry, including the Ulfberht swords that became prized by warriors throughout Europe in the Middle Ages.

Fashions came and went, including the habit of binding babies’ skulls so they grew conical heads — a practice documented in what is now Bavaria and the Crimean Peninsula around AD 500.

Likewise, the search for elusive formulas for turning mundane materials into gold, represented by the remains of an alchemist’s workshop from the 16th century, hasn’t survived, though the thirst for knowledge and profit lives on in Germany’s high-tech industries.

Venus von Hohle Fels, an ivory figurine dating back to between 40,000 and 35,000 BC.

The so-called Sky Disc of Nebra, made of bronze and gold, from 1,600 BC.

The Golden Hat of Schifferstadt, right, with a similar object found in France and another of unknown origin, all from about 1,300 BC.

Some of the objects on display, all of which were found in the past two decades in what is now Germany, are still shrouded in mystery. The skull with the arrowhead is part of a massive trove of bones and weapons that archaeologists believe could be the earliest known remains from a largescale battle in human history.

While another ancient military confrontation — the Battle of Kadesh in 1274 BC that pitted the Egyptian and Hittite armies against each other

in what is now Syria — has been well documented, no physical evidence of it has yet been found.

About 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometres) away in the Tollense valley on the frigid plains of northern Germany, thousands of Bronze Age warriors were also going to battle at almost the same time. So far, nobody knows why, or who they were.

FRANK JORDANS Associated Press

The Tribune | Weekend | 21

Friday, September 28, 2018

history

Pigs with a past and turtles with a future

Forgotten facts | Paul C Aranha

K

nown for travelling around the world whilst writing articles, Frederick Simpich was assistant editor of the National Geographic Society from 1931 to 1949.

He wrote over 80 articles for the magazine, more than anyone else, before or after his time, and his 28-page article “Bahama Holiday” in the February 1936 edition of National Geographic Magazine took me by surprise: “Sea-going pigs of the Bahamas ...we passed over an old lumbering camp, near some of the thick pine forests on Abaco. In these Abaco woods, and on other islands, men and dogs hunt the fierce wild pigs...these Bahama pigs are known to jump into the ocean – but only when chased by dogs, or when they swim to another island, hunting food.

Said a Cuban sportsman, resident in the Bahamas, “these wild pigs can swim at least two hours, unless they are over-fat. Hunting on the Berry Islands, I’ve seen pigs swimming from one island to another. When worried by dogs, the pigs will dash into the water, then face about, and maybe disembowel a dog, with one up-jerk of the tusks. On Inagua and Abaco, I’ve often seen wild sows followed by big broods of young; they can hide instantly, like a quail.”

Obviously, the “swimming pigs”, our highly acclaimed new tourist attraction, are not as new as we thought and for certain not unique. Nevertheless, let’s not argue with success. Our new generations of swimming pigs have become a world-wide phenomenon and a tourist attraction, lining many Bahamian pockets.

Recently, I watched a report about Little Farmer’s Cay, one of the Exuma Cays, where an influx of turtles is attracting an increasing number of tourists to a settlement that had been very low on the list of attractions.

Now, boatloads of visitors are brought there to swim with the recentlyemancipated turtles, who, since they became a protected species, have

Near Lighthouse Point, Eleuthera

Atlantic Beach near Lighthouse Point

The natural beauty of the islands, from Lighthouse Point to Little Farmer’s Cay

Contrasting landscapes at Lighthouse Point

learned that humans are not always enemies.

Swimming pigs and cossetted turtles don’t leave ugly scars on the Bahamian landscape the way bulldozers are capable of doing, and our islands, cays and rocks need to be protected from man and his machinery.

I do not suggest that all change is bad, but I never forget how horrified I was to see, from the air, how so-called developers had fled the West End, Grand Bahama scene, leaving behind vast acres of denuded landscape; or the countless roads bulldozed, on a previously-pristine Exuma cay, by an overenthusiastic, East European would-be ‘developer’.

The Exuma Cays don’t belong solely to the people of Exuma. They, and the other areas in the Bahamas, belong to the people of the Bahamas – and this includes Eleuthera’s Lighthouse Point.

There is so much beauty on Eleuthera, but nowhere more breathtaking than Lighthouse Point. I know it’s private property, but we need to find ways that its natural beauty can

22 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

literary lives

On the fringes

modern world

of the

A nomadic tribe in the Sahara desert

Sir Christopher Ondaatje discusses the English obsession with the world’s nomadic communities, from Lady Hester Stanhope and Jane Digby to Bruce Chatwin.

“O

f the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of civilisation, man feels once more happy.” – Sir Richard Burton (1821-1890)

For any armchair traveller I recommend a captivating book by John Ure “In Search of Nomads” (Constable, 2004) – the most entertaining and prolific of diplomatic travel writers.

He has produced a polished successor to “Trespassers on the Amazon”.

He clearly relishes the stories he tells about eccentric British (and one American traveller), and is a past master at finding anecdotes to illustrate the personal lives and obsessions of those who have chosen to seek out and travel with nomads, focusing on four territories: the Arabian peninsula with its Bedouin; the Sahara with its Moors and Tuareg; the mountain ranges of Southern Iran with their migratory pastoral tribes, and the steppes of Central Asia with their Mongol horsemen and Tartar descendants.

John Ure, a former British ambassador to Brazil and Cuba who gives ‘travelling uncomfortably in remote places and writing about it comfortably afterwards’ as his recreation in ‘Who’s Who’, has made journeys with tribes in each of the four areas, and is thus well qualified to write this primer to wanderlust-struck Westerners.

Ure attempts to explain the fascination of the nomadic life: “It can be argued that the attraction has in part been one of region rather than of role – that is, the desert itself rather than the migrant nature of its peoples has been the draw.” However, as his examples prove, “the concept of movement has played the decisive part in drawing English-speaking travellers into the nomads’ orbit”. Byron, Kipling and Buchan have all described the lure of people constantly travelling; Tennyson wrote of “that untravelled world, whose margin fades forever and forever when I move”. It is clear therefore that although the endless horizons of desert and plain have a magnetic appeal, it is in fact the movement across them that captures the imaginations of travellers and readers alike.

“My roses are my jewels; the sun, moon, and stars my clock; fruit and water my fare.” – Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839)

Many of the characters Ure discusses were exiles from 18th- or 19th-century society. Lady Hester Stanhope and Jane Digby both spent time with the

The Tribune | Weekend | 23

Friday, September 28, 2018

nomadic Bedouin of Arabia, Digby marrying a Bedouin Sheik.

“If I had neither mirror nor memory, I would think I was fifteen years old.” – Jane Digby (1807-1881)

Others were restless intellectuals, like Charles Montagu Doughty and William Palgrave, who made major journeys across Arabia at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There were also political misfits, like Harry St John Philby and the American Owen Lattimore, who travelled the Empty Quarter of Arabia and the entire length of Mongolia respectively. T E Lawrence was perhaps the Englishman most responsible for persuading others of the romance of Bedouin life.

“By day the hot sun fermented us; and we were dizzied by the beating wind. At night we were stained by dew, and shamed into pettiness by the innumerable silences of the stars.” – T E Lawrence (1888-1935)

Also included are restless rolling stones like Sir Richard Burton, who in 1853 (before his ill-fated journey to search for the source of the White Nile with John Hanning Speke) made the perilous pilgrimage to Mecca in disguise; and later the enigmatic Bruce Chatwin, who made intrepid journeys into Afghanistan, and in 1971 to the Qashqai in Southern Iran. Chatwin, perhaps because of his own itinerant childhood, was obsessed for all of his short life with the concept of nomadism.

“To wake in the desert dawn was like waking in the heart of an opal ... See the desert on a fine morning and die – if you can.” – Gertrude Bell (1868 - 1926)

The insatiable obsessions of Beatrix Bulstrode, Sir Henry Layard, Alexander Gordon Laing, Oliver Garrod, William Moorcroft, Vita Sackville-West, Freya Stark, Gertrude Bell, and Wilfred Thesiger are all described in this book, but, surprisingly, Ure is at his most engaging when describing his own experiences with nomadic peoples.

John Ure has written many travel books, among them “The Trail of Tamerlane and Trespassers on the Amazon”. His honeymoon in Southern Morocco in 1972 gave him his first taste of nomadic desert life – complete with blue-robed Tuareg, sandstorms, camel markets, and black goat-skin tents. He determined then that if he could not live as a nomad, then at least he could

Lady Hester Stanhope, a socialite and adventurer

Travel writer Bruce Chatwin

English aristocrat Jane Digby

Explorer Sir Richard Burton

A Qashqai nomad in Iran

Writer Gertrude Bell

explore that world through reading, travel, and eventually writing. One of my favourite passages from this new book concerns the author’s search for the Qashqai in Southern Iran: “It was not long before the rest of their part of the tribe appeared. First we saw on the horizon what appeared to be emerging from a tranquil sea. Then humps beneath the posts. Then camels beneath the humps. The Qashqai, their tent-poles projecting from their baggage like knitting needles from a ball of wool, were bearing down on us.

They went on coming like an incoming tide: behind the camels were mules, goats, children on foot, young men on moving posts above covered dunes, like periscopes from submarine ponies, old men on donkeys, women jingling with ornaments; and tied on to the pack animals were black iron cooking pots clanking, live chickens fluttering, new born lambs bleating and an occasional well-wrapped-up Qashqai baby gurgling contentedly. All the paraphernalia of nomadic life was here, unchanged in essentials since the days when Abbott (then British Consul) had encountered them a hundred and twenty years before. It was what we had come for.”

This is a book for all those suffering from the Anglo Saxon preoccupation and obsession with nomadic people. I am certain that, as it did me, it will get your restless blood boiling again.

NEXT WEEK: One of the most famous English novelists who pioneered the fiction movement with vivid descriptions of the West Country.

• Sir Christopher Ondaatje is the author of “Sindh Revisited”, “Journey to the Source of the Nile”, and “Woolf in Ceylon”

24 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018

travel

Believers, sceptics welcomed to new Bigfoot Museum

H

ASTINGS, Nebraska (AP) — Sceptics and believers alike can learn more about Bigfoot thanks to a new museum.

The Crossroads of America Bigfoot Museum in Hastings hosted its grand opening last week. Harriett McFeely, the museum’s owner, said she became interested in Bigfoot after seeing footprints on Mount Everest on TV. “I was eight years old and they showed pictures on TV of these footprints that the Himalayan natives called ‘yeti.’ I saw those pictures and never doubted it,” McFeely said. “At that time, that was when I got interested in science. I have been interested in science my whole life. I studied on my own for years. Then, in 1967, Patty walked down Bluff Creek, everybody saw that and I was hooked for life.”

She said she got the idea for the Bigfoot Museum after looking at her dining room table cluttered with Bigfoot artefacts.

“I couldn’t see it. Just about everything that is in this museum I have had in my dining room,” McFeely said.

“There were pictures, footprints and everything; it was driving me crazy.

I have gone out to different places and given talks. I always take different things I know about to groups. I thought it would be so much fun for people to see that.”

She said she started looking for a site for a museum to house the artefacts and did not have any luck finding a location due to the sites either being too big, too small or too costly. Finally, one day, a friend suggested she use a small corner of her house, previously used for wedding receptions, as a museum.

“What is the museum now used to be one giant room and I would cook the rehearsal dinner. I had room for 50 people to sit down and eat. Then, I later divided it up and made the walls.

So I thought, ‘There is my museum,’” McFeely said.

The Grand Island Independent reports that the artefacts housed at the Bigfoot Museum include three 2,000-year-old skulls, Bigfoot hand

HAND casts are seen in the Bigfoot Museum in Hastings, Nebraska. (Carissa Soukup /The Independent via AP)

VISITOR ALAN HEMMELMAN, of Grand Island, looks at a newspaper on display at the Bigfoot Museum. (AP Photo, The Grand Island Independent/Carissa Soukup) castings and a picture of Bigfoot “Patty” famously walking across Bluff Creek in 1967. McFeely said she also received hand castings from Cliff Barackman of the Animal Planet TV show, “Finding Bigfoot.”

She added she “picked up” a lot of the artefacts in her museum over the

years, but people have given her some items as well.

“When we are out ‘squatching,’ you have two things. You look down all the time and you listen to the animals, so I found a lot of things,” McFeely said.

“If you go inside the museum, you’ll see a ‘killing field.’ Bigfoots, when they

A STILL from the contentious 1967 Patterson-Gimlin video. The filmmakers claim it shows the first-ever footage of a female Bigfoot. kill an animal, will eat it and toss the bones. Every once in a while, you will find a killing field. They just toss them over there. I just borrowed a few bones from the killing field and brought them home.”

She said her favourite artefact in the Bigfoot Museum is a picture of “Patty” walking along Bluff Creek.

“I just love that,” she said. “That has influenced my whole entire life.”

McFeely said she realises some people are sceptical about the existence of Bigfoot, but she still welcomes them to her museum.

“I like the sceptics because they ask really good questions and make you think, which is good,” she said. “In all this time, I have only had one sceptic that was really nasty.”

The cost to visit the Crossroads of America Bigfoot Museum is $5.

Information from: The Grand Island Independent, http://www.theindependent.com AUSTIN KOELLER Grand Island Independent

The Tribune | Weekend | 25

Friday, September 28, 2018

travel

Mass tourism threatens Croatia’s Cruise ship passengers spend little money at historic site DUBROVNIK, Croatia (AP) — Marc van Bloemen has lived in the old town of Dubrovnik, a Croatian citadel widely praised as the jewel of the Adriatic, for decades, since he was a child.

He says it used to be a privilege. Now it’s a nightmare.

Crowds of tourists clog the entrances to the ancient walled city, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, as huge cruise ships unload thousands more daily.

People bump into each other on the famous limestone-paved Stradun, the pedestrian street lined with medieval churches and palaces, as fans of the popular TV series “Game of Thrones” search for the locations where it was filmed.

Dubrovnik is a prime example of the effects of mass tourism, a global phenomenon in which the increase in people travelling means standout sites — particularly small ones — get overwhelmed by crowds. As the numbers of visitors keeps rising, local authorities are looking for ways to keep the throngs from killing off the town’s charm.

“It’s beyond belief, it’s like living in the middle of Disneyland,” says van Bloemen from his house overlooking the bustling Old Harbour in the shadows of the stone city walls.

On a typical day there are about eight cruise ships visiting this town of 2,500 people, each dumping some 2,000 tourists into the streets. He recalls one day when 13 ships anchored here.

“We feel sorry for ourselves, but also for them (the tourists) because they can’t feel the town anymore because they are knocking into other tourists,”

AP PHOTOS/DARKO BANDIC

‘Game of Thrones’ town

THE HARBOUR in the old town of Dubrovnik from a hill above the city.

TOURISTS walk through Dubrovnik old town. he said. “It’s chaos, the whole thing is chaos.”

The problem is hurting Dubrovnik’s reputation. UNESCO warned last year that the city’s world heritage title was at risk because of the surge in tourist numbers.

The popular Discoverer travel blog recently wrote that a visit to the historic town “is a highlight of any Croatian vacation, but the crowds that pack its narrow streets and passageways don’t make for a quality visitor experience.”

It said that the extra attention the city gets from being a filming location

for “Game of Thrones” combines with the cruise ship arrivals to create “a problem of epic proportions.”

It advises travellers to visit other quaint old towns nearby: “Instead of trying to be one of the lucky ones who gets a ticket to Dubrovnik’s sites, try the delightful town of Ohrid in nearby Macedonia.”

In 2017, local authorities announced a “Respect the City” plan that limits the number of tourists from cruise ships to a maximum of 4,000 at any one time during the day. The plan still has to be implemented, however.

“We are aware of the crowds,” said Romana Vlasic, the head of the town’s tourist board.

Vlasic said that over 800,000 tourists visited Dubrovnik since the start of the year, a six percent increase from the same period last year. Overnight stays were up four percent to three million.

The cruise ships pay the city harbour docking fees, but the local businesses get very little money from the visitors, who have all-inclusive packages on board the ship and spend very little on local restaurants or shops.

Krunoslav Djuricic, who plays his electric guitar at one of the two main entrances of Dubrovnik’s walled city, sees the crowds pass by him all day and believes that “mass tourism might not be what we really need.”

The tourists disembarking from the cruise ships have only a few hours to visit the city, meaning they often rush around to see the sites and take selfies to post to social media.

“We have crowds of people who are simply running,” Djuricic says. “Where are these people running to?” ___ Darko Bandic contributed to this report.

DUSAN STOJANOVIC Associated Press

alphapuzzle, ev

26 | The Tribune | Weekend

Best described as a number crossword, the task in Kakuro is to fill all of the empty squares, using numbers 1 to 9, so the sum of each horizontal block equals the number to its left, and the sum of each vertical block equals the number on its top. No number may be used in the same block more than once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Kakuro increases from Monday to Sunday.

CRYPTIC PUZZLE Across 1 Actors are prepared to appear in it (4-2,4) 6 Broken oar left for examination (4) 10 Cook demands the right oven (5) 11 Lavish with everything but mercy? (9) 12 Attempting a composition in G (8) 13 The short measure not taken with permission (5) 15 Drug possibly oceanic in origin (7) 17 Strong blow wrenched a door half off (7) 19 Drop of French perfume (7) 21 See sign is incorrect for a start (7) 22 There’s some point in a story having one (5) 24 Raises to a higher state, but some given no blessing (8) 27 Not having had any hot drinks? (4,5) 28 African port bar that is smashed up (5) 29 The temptation of misrule (4) 30 It’s said to be praise for good sportsmen (4,6)

T Gm a U d TarGeT THe aLPHa

Excellent: 10 mins Yesterday’s solution: soLId (across) BoILs (down) Sudoku is a number-placing puzzle based on a 9x9 grid with several given numbers. The object is to place the numbers 1 to 9 in the empty squares so the each row, each column and each 3x3 box contains the same number only once. The difficulty level of the Conceptis Sudoku increases from Monday to Sunday

Yesterday’s Easy Solution

Down 1 Spoils of war? (4) Across: 1 Chaotic, 5 Grasp, 2 Sounds like sleeping 8 Out of hand, 9 Tot, 10 Dash, bags carried on 12 Stubborn, 14 Repeat, 15 Mutiny, 17 Probable, 18 Myth, the back (9) 21 Opt, 22 Guatemala, 24 Terse, 3 It’s very much used as a 25 Earthly. prefix (5) Down: 1 Crowd, 2 Act, 3 Tuft, 4 Asian defeat is far from 4 Crafty, 5 Gadabout, 6 Authority, unusual (7) 7 Potency, 11 Supporter, 5 A new song hit right 13 Harangue, 14 Rapport, away (2,5) 16 Please, 19 Hoary, 20 Tear, 23 Ash. 7 Collect more pay (5) 8 A flashy edifice (10) 9 The actors have to press hard (4-4) Yesterday’s Cryptic Solution 14 Bill gets a medical qualification of Across: 1 Slapped, 5 Baste, a college (10) 8 Ascertain, 9 Amp, 10 Kids, 16 A visionary transaction is 12 Chastise, 14 Distil, 15 Remiss, included in it (8) 17 Isotherm, 18 Myth, 21 Ego, 18 I stay true to the principle 22 Repairman, 24 Straw, of self-denial (9) 25 Liberty.

20 Three times surrounded Down: 1 Smack, 2 Arc, 3 Port, 4 Deaths, 5 Bandsmen, a number show 6 Stability, 7 Express, fear (7) 11 Dishonour, 13 Withdraw, 21 Non-specialist 14 Drivers, 16 Propel, 19 Handy, officer (7) 20 Limb, 23 Mar. 23 Man who may impose a rigid measure? (5) 25 Scene of a towering row (5) 26 Pole getting into corrupt company (4) Down Across 1 Identical (4) 1 Suave (4-6) 2 Agitator (9) 6 Blow with whip (4) 3 A fight (3-2) 10 Worth (5) 4 Daunt (7) 11 Attempt (9) 5 Incessant (7) 12 Annul (8) 7 Take up (5) 13 V-shaped cut (5) 8 Unsentimental (4-6) 15 To fancy (7) 9 Assert (8) 17 Staying power (7) 14 Arbitrary (4-6) 19 Crowded closely together (7) 16 Deceptive (8) 21 Authentic (7) 18 Going from place to 22 Protection (5) place (9) 24 Take 20 Notwithresponsibility standing (7) for (8) 21 Adult (5-2) 27 Deviation (9) 23 Auctioneer’s 28 Elizabethan hammer (5) buccaneer (5) 25 Stay 29 At the proper temporarily (5) time (4) 26 Take care of (4) 30 Inveterate (4-6)

EASY PUZZLE

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The Tribune | Weekend | 27

Friday, September 28, 2018

animals

A few weeks

Lyford the cat

with Lyford o, this is not a typo; I do not mean to say a few weeks in Lyford, I mean a few weeks with Lyford... the cat.

Lyford was adopted from the Bahamas Humane Society some eight years ago by an Orlando-based Bahamian businessman who had just recently lost his good friend and very royal cat Spencer.

I had stayed with Spencer before and he considered the guest room his and was totally unamused to have this unknown female move into his room and would retreat as far as possible when I was visiting. Poor Spencer passed over the rainbow bridge and his sad owner decided he should take a Bahamian kitty back to the States to follow in Spencer’s footsteps.

Enter this delightful, playful, snowwhite kitty with a grey tail and ears, and a touch of grey over his right eye. Somehow in the cat annex with all those dozens of kittens, my friend picked this guy out…. a vet’s clear bill of health and they were up, up, and away in a private plane destination Orlando Executive Airport, were all the rich and cool cats hang out….twolegged and now, four-legged.

Now, my friend stayed with me in Lyford Cay, and even though our

house was full of potcakes, he thought, when trying to come up with a name, that ‘Lyford’ would make a nice and unusual name for this little Bahamian ‘potcat’ of humble origins and now the proud owner of his own plane. So Lyford it was.

This little ball of fluff settled in very nicely to his new home with his new and doting family. He hung out wherever they were. and frankly. whenever I visited it struck me that he behaved more like a dog, running after balls and following us around. His “parents” decided that he needed a friend, and fair is fair, the next cat came from the shelter in Orlando. They chose a very exotic and sultry female feline whose smokey grey fur was a sharp contrast to our little Bahamian’s white fur reminiscent of the beaches in Lyford Cay. The first few years were blissful, and the two of them were good friends, until, who know what happened, but there was a terrible fight and they have never been able to reconcile their differences. Fortunately, they have wise owners who have been able to split up the house and the cats have a roster: one day he has most of the house, the next days she does; not ideal, but both kitties are safe and happy. There are no fights and they both get tons of affection and love.

Now, staying with Lyford this August for a prolonged time, because Lyford’s human parents welcomed my husband and I into their home when he was convalescing from his heart surgery, was interesting for me because I have never really lived with a cat. I have a house full of spoiled and indulged potcakes.

With interest I entered the “realm of the cat”. I watched with fascination as this nimble, sure-footed, smoothfurred animal twisted and turned around breakable items on shelves and bookcases with out tripping over anything and never touching any of the ornaments even lightly. Like a feather dancing around the house he would stalk the inhabitants and follow the children if they had food in their hands that tickled his fancy.

Add some spice to your life

By The Bahamas Humane Society

PHOTO/PATRICIA VAZQUEZ

N

Animal matters | KIM ARANHA

Lyford would smother you with affection, until he had enough and without a backward glance would float off to perch in a commanding position where, like a general during a war, he surveyed the field. You can call him, but you have lost your fascination for the time being; a butterfly outside the window, or the rustling leaves in the tree have captivated Lyford’s attention, and you have disintegrated before him like a crumbling cookie, until that is, he has nothing else to do and then with no shame he will return to demand the attention you so lavishly gave him previously.

Life as Lyford’s house guest was on his terms. There were days when you were his honoured lodger and he would wrap himself around you until he would pick himself up and walk away without a backward glance.

This cat was so dog-like when sitting begging for a treat, but unlike a dog there was no thanks needed; it was his divine right and you were honoured to give him his due – treats and love.

I am indebted to Lyford for teaching me how magical a cat can be and how expressive and enchanting life can be with a feline or two. When I came home, I admit, I was grateful that my dogs didn’t climb up on shelves and bookcases. Can you just image the havoc!

S

picy is a collie cross potcake of about two years old who lives up to her name. She’s very friendly, both with humans and dogs, but she likes to ‘woof’ and would make a great yard/ guard dog. Spicy is also very smart so would likely be quite trainable, if you’re looking for a dog you can train. She arrived at the Bahamas Humane Society with an injury along her upper side, but that has healed nicely and she’s feeling quite chipper again. She’d prefer a home

with no cats though, but kids are fine. Do you need some spice in your life? Consider adopting Spicy.

Adoption hours are 11am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, and 10am to 4pm on Saturday, or you can call 323-5138 for more information.

Spicy looks forward to meeting you!

• Save the date! The next BHS Thrift Shop jewellery sale will be held on Saturday, October 20, from 10am to 2pm. As usual, there’s a large selection of jewellery and a wide range of prices. We hope to see you there.

28 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, September 28, 2018