11082019 WEEKEND

Friday, November 8, 2019

art books theatre film fashion music gardening food puzzles

Weekend

PROFILES IN LITERATURE Pages 20 -23

Diving deeper Artist looks beyond the surface for healing page 13

02| The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

beauty

Know your type

Natural hair specialist breaks it down

By CARA HUNT | Tribune Features Writer cbrennen@tribunemedia.net

T

he journey to healthy, beautiful, natural hair begins with identifying your natural curl type and your hair’s porosity – which is another way of saying how your hair reacts to moisture and water.

Many natural sisters often find styling and maintaining their hair a challenge, because they may actually be confused about the type of hair they have.

Hair porosity is important because natural hair needs to retain moisture to look its best, and knowing how your hair absorbs this moisture is key to how you condition and moisturise your hair.

The recent CurlyCru Fest organised by TRAV Creative sought to address this issue.

The festival, held as part of the Nassau Night Market, featured stylists who specialise in natural hair to help people determine their type hair and the best products to use.

Rennae Sweeting of Born Again Naturals explained that the best way to determine your hair porosity is to do a simple strand test.

“You take a few stands of hair and put them water and see how it reacts,” she explained.

If your hair floats, you have low porosity. If it sinks, you have high porosity.

Low porosity means your hair is resistant to receiving

water and moisture and you should find ways to deepcondition your hair.

High porosity hair should be treated with a moisturiser that is mostly water based as it absorbs moisture easier than low porosity hair.

It is also important to know your hair type.

Natural hair is usually between 4A and 4C. Type 4A hair has a texture with an “S” pattern; the curls tend to be softer and better defined. Type 4B hair has a “Z” pattern texture that bends in angles; the curls are tighter and less defined. Type 4C hair is the most delicate of all, with curls being much more prone to shrinkage and breakage, and without a defined curl pattern.

“My best tip to maintain your hair is to first find the routine or regiment that works best for you and then stick with with. For it to be successful and for your hair to look its best you have to be consistent,” said Rennae.

Rennae added that it is also very important to make sure you are putting the right products in your hair and the right food in your body.

“What you put in your body will show up in your hair. So be sure that you are drinking lots of water because that will help keep your hair moisturised,” she said.

FIND out your hair type

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Friday, November 8, 2019

Inside Weekend

My perfect Bahamian weekend Drew Fresh Singer/songwriter

Cover | “My Bahama Land” by Chantal Bethel

“I like Saturday lunch because I like to chill with my friends in a nice quiet area, we could go and have some fun and eat at the same time.”

: Wine, Kalik, rum or cocktail?

“I’m not really a drinker. I may have a drink here or there, but coconut water for sure that is my thing; I need that.”

Interview 4 - 5 Santina McKinney is a businesswoman of the 21st century who believes in sisterhood when it comes to entrepreneurship

Food 7 The Bahamas’ Peruvian community is proud to share its cuisine with locals

Entertainment 8 - 9 The Nassau Night Market introduces new themed festivals

Gardening 10 Jack Hardy has all the ingredients for the perfect salad

Junkanoo 11 Saxons Superstars to tackle the unusual topic of ‘Cancer’ for their Boxing Day parade

Film 12, 17 Documentary ‘Perfect Feet’ kicks off new diabetes campaign, plus Ewan McGregor’s ‘Doctor Sleep’ reviewed

Art 13 Chantal Bethel goes ‘Beyond the Surface’ with new art and book

Music 14 - 15 Hennessy Artistry’s annual concert provides a sweet escape

Theatre 18 Young playwright highlights societal issues

Calendar 19 Things to do around town this weekend

Literary Lives 20-23 Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s new book, ‘Profiles in Literature’

Books 24 New releases hitting shelves this week

Forgotten Facts 24 - 25 Paul C Aranha remembers the fallen

Puzzles 26

Animals 27 How to move a bee colony, plus Pet of the Week

Q Q Q Q Q

: Saturday breakfast or Sunday lunch?

: Beach or sofa?

“I prefer the beach because I love swimming and I love looking at sea animals. I also love getting things from the beach like those little shells and stuff.”

: What could you not do without?

“I would have to say my glasses. As much as I hate sometimes putting them on, I need them to see honestly and they are cool because they have the HD lenses. I call them my X-ray glasses.”

: Weekend away: where would you go?

“I would go to Denver. Why? Because Denver is amazing. I love Denver, the atmosphere, the people the food the air the buildings it has a peaceful vibe.”

this week in history

Box Office) made its debut with a showing of the movie “Sometimes a Great Notion.”

Today’s birthdays: Singer Bonnie Raitt is 70. Actress Alfre Woodard is 67. Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro is 65. Chef and TV personality Gordon Ramsay is 53. Actress Tara Reid is 44. R&B singer SZA is 30.

November 9

November 8 • In 1923, Adolf Hitler launched his first attempt at seizing power in Germany with a failed coup in Munich that came to be known as the “Beer-Hall Putsch.”

• In 1960, Massachusetts Senator John F Kennedy defeated Vice President Richard M Nixon for the presidency.

• In 1972, the premium cable TV network HBO (Home

• In 1620, the passengers and crew of the Mayflower sighted Cape Cod. • In 1938, Nazis looted and burned synagogues as well as Jewish-owned stores and houses in Germany and Austria in a pogrom or deliberate persecution that became known as “Kristallnacht.”

• 1961, The Beatles’ future manager, Brian Epstein, first saw the group perform at The Cavern Club in Liverpool, England.

Today’s birthdays: Actor Lou Ferrigno (”The Hulk”) is 68. Gospel singer Donnie McClurkin is 60. Rapper Pepa (Salt-N-Pepa) is 50.

Singer Nick Lachey (98 Degrees) is 46. R&B singer Sisqo (Dru Hill) is 41.

November 10 • In 1871, journalist-explorer Henry M Stanley found Scottish missionary David Livingstone, who had not been heard from for years, near Lake Tanganyika in central Africa.

• In 1969, the children’s educational programme “Sesame Street” made its debut on National Educational Television (later PBS).

• In 1990, the movie comedy “Home Alone,” starring Macaulay Culkin, premiered in Chicago.

Today’s birthdays: Film composer Ennio Morricone is 91. Movie director Roland Emmerich is 64. Actorcomedian Sinbad is 63. Author Neil Gaiman is 59. Actor Hugh Bonneville (”Downton Abbey”) is 56. Actor-comedian Tracy Morgan is 51. Actress Ellen Pompeo is 50. Rapperproducer Warren G is 49.

Rapper Eve is 41. Actress Kiernan Shipka is 20.

04 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

interview

She’s been a businesswoman since she was in primary school.

Now, as an adult she wants to unite women in forward-thinking entrepreneurship and promotes 21st century advertising through solar-powered billboards.

Santina McKinney

E

ntrepreneurship is in Santina McKinney’s blood.

The chief executive officer of MediaBox Bahamas still fondly recalls her very first business – a fruit stand she and her brother started back when she was in elementary school.

“My father was an entrepreneur and so entrepreneurship is in my blood. My father started my brother and I in our first business, because we used to have to sell all these cookies for school fundraisers (at the Bahamas Academy).

My Dad told us if you can sell cookies for school, you can sell stuff for yourself, and so he provided us our inventory – he brought us fruits and we had a little fruit stand and we sold

bags of fruit,” she told Tribune Weekend.

That lesson of being your own boss and having financial independence stayed with Santina.

“What I like about entrepreneurship is the freedom that it gives you,” she said. “I don’t like to be told what to do, I like to set my own schedule and take care of myself.”

Santina worked at the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce where she was a certified trainer providing support for members of the private sector and was handpicked by the International Labour Organisation to go through training courses on how to start your own business with 16 other successful young Bahamians.

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Friday, November 8, 2019

“That’s really how I got started as a serial entrepreneur in adulthood,” she said.

Today, she is the co-founder and chief executive officer of MediaBox Bahamas, which she started with her financé and business partner, Jobeth Newbold.

MediaBox is a full service marketing company that focuses on providing eco-friendly outdoor advertising with solar-powered signs as well as other more traditional avenues of marketing and advertising such a e-blast advertising, business development and marketing research, and graphic design services.

They also have a Wi-Fi vending machine which allows customers to purchase pre-paid Wi-Fi at remote locations.

Santina said her financé Jobeth is the creative force behind the company, while she tends to be the public face.

She conceded that owning a business in the Bahamas is not without its challenges.

“I think the biggest issue is that there is so much red tape and you find yourself running around in circles to get approvals,” she said.

“I will give the government credit, because getting licences is not as difficult as it used to be, but I do find that when you have to go to these offices they may not understand that you need to have these things completed in a timely manner and sometimes they just do not understand any sense of urgency. I do find that you have to very aggressive and persistent to get what you need.”

Santina and Jobeth are using their own experiences to help other Bahamians through the Young Entrepreneurs and Artist Hub (YEAH) they formed two years.

“It is a support group, like the name says, for artists and entrepreneurs,” she explained.

The hub’s mission is to unite and develop talented and innovative individuals on a global scale and provide mentorship, networking, partnership and funding opportunities.

In addition to professional events, there are opportunities for socialising as well.

One of Santina’s biggest goals for the next five years to have a mandatory entrepreneurship class as part of the high school curriculum which would teach students everything they need to know about starting their own business.

SANTINA has found success with her Woman’s Investment Group (WIG), a networking group for female entrepreneurs and professionals.

SANTINA McKinney and her fiancé and business partner Jobeth Newbold

“When I first was trying to open my business, seven men in power closed their doors on me. It was one woman who opened her door to me and helped me establish my business...

Women make things happen.”

Santina also launched the Woman’s Investment Group (WIG), a networking group for female entrepreneurs and professionals.

“I started WIG through my contacts at the Bahamas Chamber of Commerce. I had wanted to update my list of contacts for networking purposes and so I put out a call out on Headknowles for women to send me their details and now we have a group of women who are all serious and focused about supporting and working with each other,” she said.

The women are representative of almost every profession. The group has partnered with the Office of the Spouse, the International Development Bank and the US Embassy.

Santina explained that the reason WIG has been so successful is the calibre of women they have attracted.

“We are all willing to support each other and work together, even though have a marketing business, I have other women in marketing involved in the group. We understand that when we work together we can all achieve more. When I first was trying to open my business, seven men in power closed their doors on me. It was one woman who opened her door to me and helped me establish my business.

When she opened her door to me, she did not know that in the future she was also opening her door to all these other women. Women make things happen,” she said.

06 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

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Friday, November 8, 2019

food

From Peru with love

F

ood can be one of the most important expressions of a country’s culture.

When travelling, sampling foreign cuisine is for many just as important as seeing the sights and enjoying the natural beauty and other attractions of their chosen destination.

For Peruvians, they experience a sense of pride in sharing their food culture with the world. Malca, a Peruvian resident of the Bahamas, told Tribune Weekend he has fond memories of his mother visiting the market every day to find fresh ingredients to cook for his family. Even today, he said, this is still a Peruvian tradition.

“Peruvians rarely go outside to eat. We love to cook our food at home. We want persons to visit our country to see what I am talking about. We are also happy to have a presence in the Bahamas through our food,” said Malca.

At the recent International Cultural, Wine and Food Festival, Malca and friends showcased Peruvian specialties like seco al nortena, tamales, adobo de puerco, empanadas, causa, papa rellena, seviche de pescado, chicha morada, parrillada de pollo, and more.

Speaking of the tasty tamales wraps, Malca said the dish is usually made with yellow corn, sometimes with additions like chicken or pork.

“This is like a typical Sunday breakfast in Peru. Everyone enjoys this for breakfast. It is a tradition in our country,” he said.

The seviche or “ceviche” de pescado is also a very popular Peruvian meal.

“With our seviche de pescado we make like something close to conch salad and

By ALESHA CADET | Tribune Features writer | acadet@tribunemedia.net

HERE in the Bahamas, Peruvians make their seviche de pescado with grouper or snapper.

TAMALES with chicken people love it here. However, we don’t do it with conch, Peruvians are known to do this with fresh fish, onions and spices. For example, we are in the Bahamas so we are using grouper and snapper. It is our version of seafood and we are

PISCO sour is the perfect drink for any celebratory occasion. getting great reviews,” said Malca.

Meanwhile, the parrillada de pollo, is a dish you can get anywhere you go in Peru.

“It is chicken based with Peruvian marinate. We let the chicken marinate for two days,

which makes it different once it is put on the grill,” he said.

To top it all off, Malca said the only drink that is perfect for Peruvian cuisine is the cocktail pisco sour.

“We make this with a grape base, and I would describe it as something close to tequila

but it is not tequila, and it goes down smoothly. We use this to celebrate birthdays and special occasions. If we say ‘cheers’, we are usually saying it with our pisco sour in hand. So it is very famous now,” he said.

Malca said Peruvians love to share their culture with others.

“We want to show the world our culture...We want persons to ask questions and to learn more about where we are from. If you visit, you would find that everything in our country is fresh: the meat, vegetables, sweet potatoes and more. The people from our country bring their crops from the farms to the markets every day, as early as 4am,” he said.

In the Bahamas, Malca said foodies can usually find Peruvian dishes at places like Casa Del Mar at Arawak Cay and Tropicana in Downtown Nassau.

“The food is good there.

Bahamians love our tamales and our empanadas because they are easy to carry with you. You hold it in your hand, and it is similar to a fast food.

We feel proud to see Bahamians eat our food,” he said.

08 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

entertainment

Nassau Night Market comes alive with new themed festivals

“It is the only family-friendly nightlife activity that takes place on a regular basis Downtown. (It’s) especially for tourists who are accustomed to a city’s downtown area being one for cafés, street performances, and general positive ambiance.”

By ALESHA CADET Tribune Features writer acadet@tribunemedia.net

T

he Night Market has seen tremendous growth since it launched last December. When first they started hosting the weekly festival, organisers said there was nothing but an empty street with a maximum of six vendors and their tables strewn across Market Slope, next to the Downtown Straw Market.

Nearly one year on, patrons now encounter a very different picture when they visit the site on Saturdays from 2pm to 10pm. With the help of live music, themed weeks, décor, and seating for patrons, not to mention the creative re-branding of many of the vendors, the night market experience is starting to really take off in Nassau.

Brandon Kemp, Nassau Night Market founder and

SeaRoc Experiences owner, said his vision was always to see the Downtown area brimming with life. He hopes to achieve this vision through his street market where tourists and locals alike are able to taste, feel and see the Bahamas in the moonlight.

Since its launch, the Nassau Night Market has hosted a different roster of vendors each Saturday. The products on offer range from Asian bubble tea and Cuban delights, to a wide variety of Bahamian food, drinks and crafts.

Frequent vendors include Marooned Chicken, Island Pops, Mama Jo’s, The New Duff, Tropical Smoothies, Mojito Duchess, Chops Conchy Conch, Black Pearl Bubble Tea, Kay’s Kitchen, The BBQ Stop, Natural Scrubs, Bubbles and Lather, Life’s Lemons, Mama Lil’s

Sweets N’ Treats, and iRep Christ.

Mr Kemp is happy to note starting this month, the Nassau Night Market will host a differently themed festival every weekend. The first, the Curly Cru Natural Hair Fest, was held last Saturday. Then, on November 16, the market will transform into an Asian Festival. Festivities will continue on November 30 with “Open Mic Rhythm” where musicians and artists will showcase their

songs. Groups are invited to reach out to the Nassau Night Market team to host their very own festivals at the event.

“The Nassau Night Market plays a key role as a small business incubator. The main goal of the event is to give small businesses immediate access to a large clientele on a platform where they’re almost guaranteed to make money.

This model has allowed entrepreneurs to show up their first week with nothing but their

products, and four weeks later own all their own equipment, build a following of dedicated customers, and have even on multiple occasions made contact with a store owner which led to their products being sold in stores,” said Mr Kemp.

“The Nassau Night Market also has great significance for the visitors. It is the only family-friendly nightlife activity that takes place on a regular basis Downtown. (It’s) especially for tourists who are accustomed to a city’s downtown area being one for cafés, street performances, and general positive ambiance. The Nassau Night Market gives them opportunity to experience just that.”

Regular Nassau Night Market vendor Karen Green of Kay’s Kitchen said taking part in the weekly event has been refreshing. She said it has opened her eyes to so many new possibilities.

“It is an opportunity to interact with other entrepreneurs. Collectively we are

Friday, November 8, 2019

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now forming family relationships where we encourage each other and learn so much from each other. This movement can only grow bigger and bigger,” she said.

Shardae Pratt of Bubbles and Lather said the Nassau Night Market is beneficial for the vendors as it provides an opportunity to network with other small business owners. Personally for her, she said it has pushed her out of her comfort zone, and she is grateful for the feedback she has received which has inspired her to create new products.

Mama Jo’s Nicholas Diah added: “We are grateful to have a platform such as the Night Market to offer our products and crafts in a high-traffic area such as Downtown to tourists and locals alike.”

Mr Kemp said one of the biggest changes visitors will see starting this Saturday is a new stage with lights and a sound system, provided by Big Dunn Entertainment. This stage will be used to highlight local entertainers.

“Visitors will have to come to see what’s different as each week the Nassau Night Market will transform into something unique to fit that week’s festival theme.

Since the launch late 2018 the Nassau Night Market has partnered with many groups to add their special twist to the event.

Some of these themes include open mic nights, game nights with domino tournaments, board games, and giant Jenga. A Latin Fiesta hosted by Hello Culture offered free Spanish lessons while people ate Cuban food amidst Latin music. The Artists’ Circle hosted a pop-up art exhibit, and Eternic hosted an after-hours dance party,” he said.

This holiday season, Mr Kemp said, the Nassau Night Market will really focus on giving back to the community. He said it’s a bit too early to give away exactly what they have planned, but people should stay tuned for updates by following the event on social media via @nassaunightmarket or visit the website www. nassaunightmarket.com.

10 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

gardening

Salad makings

If you want some variety in your salads, there are a many different types of tasty lettuce that can be grown in the Bahamas, says Jack Hardy

I

f your idea of the perfect salad makings is an iceberg lettuce, the only advice I can give you is to choose one in the food store that is heavy for its

size. Iceberg lettuce cannot be grown in the Bahamas at anywhere near the quality and size that it achieves in California. Fortunately, the varieties of lettuce we can grow successfully include a wide range of colourful, healthy, and tasty offerings that can liven up a sandwich or salad bowl.

Humans have been eating lettuce for thousands of years and it was very popular in Roman times. The Romans particularly liked a tall, firm lettuce that grew on the isle of Cos, off the coast of Greece.

It remains popular to this day and Americans call it Romaine.

Salads are often mixed with edible greens in a mélange.

True lettuce is still readily identifiable because it has a milky sap that is slightly bitter.

It is this bitterness in lettuce that makes it appealing to discriminating palates but too much is not desirable. Ideally, lettuce should be harvested while young and slightly immature and the harvesting should occur as close to eating time as possible. The only way to guarantee these qualities is to grow and harvest your own salad makings.

Lettuce is very easy to grow.

The seeds usually germinate within a week and can be harvested within a month.

Whenever possible, choose pelleted seeds over plain.

Lettuce plants can be sown moderately close together as the roots remain compact.

This means lettuces should be watered often, more often than most veggies in the yard.

It also means lettuces are great candidates to grow in containers with drainage holes.

Lettuces can be harvested by picking individual leaves or as a head by cutting the stem at a point an inch or so into the head to allow the lower greenery to survive. The plants will grow back in short order and the coarser lower leaves will help the process.

What varieties of lettuce to grow? We have already mentioned Romaine/Cos which is the only lettuce you should use in a classic Caesar salad and, of course, a Greek salad. It has body and substance and is very popular. There are dozens of varieties of Romaine/Cos available, the standard being Parris Island. The leaves of Romaine/Cos lettuces grow vertical and a mature plant is usually four times taller than it is wide.

Bibb lettuce is highly prized and is usually more expensive than most other lettuces when bought as a fresh head.

It is subject to bruising and damage and does not travel

well. It is best grown close to where it will be consumed.

How about the distance between your garden and your kitchen table? The leaves start out very light green then turn darker approaching maturity.

The texture of the leaves is creamy and the taste is pleasant and distinctive.

Butterhead lettuce has much brighter and somewhat leaner leaves. Also called Boston lettuce, Butterhead is the lettuce that is circled in clear salad bowls to make the potato salad look nicer.

Trouble is, the lettuce is usually left behind like a garnish instead of being eaten with the potato salad. Next time you are offered, take a couple of green leaves along with the white stuff.

Oakleaf lettuce is popular because the leaves only need collecting and mixing, not cutting or breaking. The leaves on different varieties may be green, red, or bronze. Grow each colour and your salad will be truly autumnal.

I have perhaps left the most attractive type of lettuce to last. Loose-Leaf lettuces produce abundant amounts of large leaves that very convenient for adding to sandwiches.

The most popular variety is Simpson’s Black-Seeded, not a very attractive name for a wonderful lettuce. The leaves should be nipped off individually.

I mentioned earlier that other greens could be added to lettuce leaves to make a rather complex salad. Young spinach leaves are perfect for the job and are very popular.

The young leaves of Malabar spinach are also very tasty. A Chinese green called water spinach has attracted my attention in catalogues but I have never grown it.

A herb called arugula (rocket, roquette) adds pepperiness to salad mixings as does mustard leaves. Young nasturtium leaves also have a delicate peppery taste and flowers are edible too. Napa cabbage can also be used, along with beet greens and young chard greens. There is a form of watercress available that needs a lot of water but does not need water. A sprinkling of watercress leaves into a salad livens up the taste.

On the more delicate side we have pea shoots, the end of stems on snow pea plants that include the stem end, flower and bud clusters, and tendrils.

These are both delicate and distinctive. Amaranth leaves can also be torn and added to salads.

There are many oriental greens on the market that I can only recommend you try.

I have used a few in the past and have been delighted. Chinese yau choi and Japanese tsoi sim are two types that I will be planting this weekend.

Perhaps the most popular salad green at the moment is one I have been using for years. Endive frisée is a beautiful plant and the leaves, if picked early, meld into any salad. If you able to shut light away from the plant during daylight hours the endive frisée will in the space of three weeks turn white. The flavour mellows considerably in this state and makes it well worth the effort.

Let the salad season begin!

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

•

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Friday, November 8, 2019

junkanoo

Saxons choose unusual "Cancer" theme for Boxing Day

By JEFFARAH GIBSON | Tribune Features Writer | jgibson@tribunemedia.net

P

URE artistry and innovation is what the Saxons Superstars say they will be drumming up as they execute their unlikely theme of “Cancer” for this year’s Boxing Day parade.

The shacks are packed, practice sessions have been amped up, and the 2018 New Year’s Day Junkanoo champions are diligently preparing to grace Bay Street with a bigger spectacle than ever, even though this time around their theme is a serious one.

Saxons leader Percy “Vola” Francis revealed the group’s plans at a special cocktail reception held recently at the Bahamas Cancer Centre to pay homage to survivors of the disease.

Mr Francis told Tribune Weekend that this is the first time Saxons will be depicting the fight against cancer in a Junkanoo parade.

“Normally we have a design team that is comprised of a group of young men.

Formerly, I would have been the man to actually make the decision on the theme,” he said.

However, Mr Francis said this year younger members of the group were allowed to present ideas for the Saxon’s theme.

“I wanted to give the younger men an opportunity to put their ideas forward.

There was a young man who was adamant about the cancer theme for a couple of years now. So we went to the table and it was unanimously chosen. We did quite a bit of research on this and all

“It is a very difficult theme to portray, but we were able to go before the Father God to give us a vision for the interpretation of this...We have gotten over the fear that people would be distraught because we are bringing this theme to Bay Street.”

aspects, and so that is what we ended up with,” he said.

Saxons are no strangers to taking on big, complex ideas for their yearly showcase. And while Mr Francis knows this is one of the most ambitious themes yet, he firmly believes they will master the challenge.

“It is a very difficult theme to portray, but we were able to

go before the Father God to give us a vision for the interpretation of this,” he said. “We are very excited about it. We have gotten over the fear that people would be distraught because we are bringing this theme to Bay Street.”

Mr Francis said Saxons’ representation of the “Cancer” theme will be the complete opposite of people might expect, as it will bring lots of

cheer to the audience with music and dance.

“The main driving force is to bring about an awareness so that people can do what they need to do: get proper testing.

At the end of the day it is necessary for men in particular to go and do (prostate) testing, and for women to go and get their mammograms,” he said.

“I think by bringing this up we are able to take the scales off the eyes of a lot of people.

We want them to understand how important it is to get the regular check-ups. Our message is to bring about awareness. Saxons believe this message will go forth in one of the most artistic ways.”

Mr Francis said Junkanoo fans can “expect some great music and great songs that will be able to uplift the spirit of people who have actually gone through this horrible disease.”

12 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

film

'Perfect Feet' documentary launches new diabetes campaign

By JEFFARAH GIBSON | Tribune Features Writer jgibson@tribunemedia.net

A

re-screening of Calvin Dwight Harris’ documentary “Perfect Feet” will kick off a campaign designed to raise awareness of diabetes.

The first screening takes place today at the University of the Bahamas from 8am. A second showing will be hosted tomorrow at 6pm at The Island House Cinema. The campaign is designed to educate those in attendance about the effects of diabetes and the diabetic foot.

The Dennis E Harris Diabetic Foundation & Harris Entertainment is collaborating with Dr Danny Johnson, surgical podiatrist, and Dr Monique K Mitchell, a podiatrist, as well as the Bahamas Diabetic Association to launch the national campaign to sound the alarm and raise awareness of the horrible impact diabetes is having in the Bahamas.

Two international guest speakers – prominent Atlanta-area podiatrist Dr Jocelyn Curry and podiatric surgery specialist Dr Victor Horsley – will also give a presentation. The event will be hosted by Spence Finlayson “The various doctors will discuss the current statistics diabetes is having in every demographic and region, globally. They will discuss what preventive measures that can be used to improve one’s blood sugar levels on a daily basis and to encourage everyone to see a local doctor/nurse/podiatrist in order to get their feet inspected to avoid amputations,” said Mr Harris, who is an awarding-winning filmmaker.

The Bahamas has the highest rate per capita for Type 2 Diabetes in the region. There is an average of over 1,000 amputations per year in

OLYMPIAN Jackie Edwards discusses the specially-designed shoe made for her by Puma during her interview for the documentary ‘Perfect Feet”.

the country that are directly linked to diabetes.

“There are more than one million annual limb amputation globally; that’s one every 30 seconds. The

International Diabetes Federation (IIDF) predicts that the current global prevalence of diabetes will explode from 285 million to reach 435 million by 2030. Unhealed ulcers and foot infections are the main cause of diabetes related amputations. The statistics are truly alarming,” said Mr Harris.

The filmmaker began work for “Perfect Feet” back in October 2013 in hopes of encouraging people to take better care of their feet.

One of the things he noted when he first started this project is that not everyone possess a perfect pair of feet,

himself included. The film was shown recently in Atlanta, Georgia at the Landmark Theatre ahead of National Diabetes Awareness Month.

The documentary takes a look into such industries like fashion, athletics, healthcare, art, cosmetics, as well as the multi-billion dollar socks and the shoes business. He hopes at the end of the film viewers will have learned something new and recognise that healthy feet are so much more than just nicely shaped toes, groomed nails and the absence of corns or calluses.

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Friday, November 8, 2019

art

Chantal Bethel allows art lovers to look 'Beyond the Surface'

By ALESHA CADET | Tribune Features writer | acadet@tribunemedia.net

G

rand Bahama’s Chantal Bethel has made a name for herself as an interdisciplinary artist whose inspiration comes from a deeply emotional place.

With her upcoming exhibition, she is giving people a glimpse of behind the curtains, The aptly named “Beyond the Surface” showcase will also have one other special feature: Chantal will be using the occasion to launch her first book.

She told Tribune Weekend that “beyond the surface” for her means letting people see beyond the obvious. She added that many of her 17 new works are about healing and transformation.

“We do not have to bear our wounds forever. If we take care of the present, we can repair the past. Through art I have learned that the first step for healing is to face reality— which means looking beyond the obvious – other steps are to believe you can, and then surrender. Prayers, letting go, forgiveness are great for healing,” she said, As has been her modus operandi, Chantal said her new artwork was made with the use of various materials, including found objects.

Sea fan, a soft coral, is used throughout the show. Chantal said although it can look very delicate like lace, but is actually very strong and resilient.

“Living beneath the sea, the sea fan survives the worst hurricane,” she said.

Chantal added: “My favourite medium is crackle - an acrylic medium which cracks and literally allows the viewer to see beyond the surface; it is really a metaphor. The rough

THE COVER of Chantal Bethel’s first book, “Beyond the Surface”

surface also tells us that the journey of life is not always smooth.”

A piece that is special to her is the painting “Broken, But Not Destroyed”, which the artist created just after Hurricane Dorian. For this painting she used crackle for the woman’s dress to portray the pain and stress Bahamians went trough during the monster storm.

“Our island (Grand Bahama) was devastated. The hand at the bottom of the painting reminds us that many have died during the storm. But the golden circle behind her face shows that there is hope and she is strong and rising,” said Chantal.

Tying the launch of her new book, also titled “Beyond the Surface”, into the exhibition,

“Broken, But Not Destroyed” was painted right after Hurricane Dorian is a new and exciting venture for the artist.

In the book, a 112-page, full colour, hardcover coffee

table book, Chantal shares her drawings, paintings, sculptures, assemblages and installations through the lens of discovery, healing and transformation.

Readers will find a selection of essays, quotes and poems about the artist’s work by various writers, art historians, curators and critics.

Chantal said she is especially grateful to her friend, Paula Boyd-Farrington, the book’s designer and one of the contributing writers. She is also grateful for the assistance given to her by Ian Fernander of I-EASE Publishack.

With this book, it is Chantal’s hope that people become aware of the healing power of art.

The “Beyond the Surface” exhibition will open on Thursday, November 14, at 6pm at the Hillside House Art Gallery. Part proceeds from the sale of artworks and books during the event will benefit the Grand Bahama Children’s Home, which was destroyed

by Hurricane Dorian.

16 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

CELEBRITY The Weekend Fashion Report LA Premiere of “Harriet”

SPLIT

HIT

FAIL

FAIL

SPLIT

Cynthia Erivo ”Widows”

Janelle Monáe ”Hidden Figures”

Amanda Seales ”Insecure”

Kasi Lemmons, director

Karin says: “That is a lot of feathers! I like the concept of big, somewhat outrageous, fluffy gowns like this. And this dress almost works, it just takes things a bit too overthe-top in that it looks like it’s going to swallow her whole.

The bright pinks and peaches, however, are lovely on her.”

Cara says: “Well, she certainly brought all the drama to the red carpet. I just think she looks like a flamingo or an ostrich who fell into a Pepto-Bismol bottle. I’m sorry Cynthia, this is just too much for me.”

Karin says: “As usual, Janelle hits it out of the park with her red carpet choices. I love this ‘starry night’ dress. It’s just so sparkly, sexy and classy all at once. And for once I don’t mind that you can see the ‘granny panties’ underneath; all that sparkle kinda hides them. And I adore the sheer cape.”

Cara says: “This dress is just amazing and she looks like a million dollars. This is what a star looks like. That cape is just too pretty for words. Love it so much. And I even kinda like that unusual topknot she’s got going on.”

Vanessa Bell Calloway ”Saints & Sinners”

Karin says: “In theory this works. However, the satin material is just so wrinkly and the corset (?) is not sexy or attractive in any way. And what in the world is going on with that cowboy fringe on the one arm of the jacket?”

Cara says: “OK, I don’t mind the peekaboo lingerie look, but the problem I have with this bra/bustier is that it’s just not cute. It looks like it has industrial strength granny support. It’s strictly an undergarment not to be seen.

And also the suit itself is so baggy and wrinkled.”

Karin says: “She looks classy and very professional.

Normally it would sadden me a bit to know fuller figured women of a certain age feel the need to hide in caftanlike clothing, but she actually looks really chic with the matching shiny brown coat and shoes. And I’m sure she felt comfortable.”

Cara says: “The word that comes to mine honestly is ‘serviceable’. It’s lovely, works well, but it’s just a tad boring.

I mean it’s not a runaway hit, but definitely not a miss.

It was probably perfectly adequate for the event.”

Karin says: “This looks like a marriage between a nightgown and a maternity dress. I don’t think the high empire waist suits her, and the bust is way too tight. The colour scheme is very nice, but overall it just looks like something to be worn in the boudoir and not beyond.”

Cara says: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Vanessa rocking short hair. She looks cute. This dress through...I hate that her ‘girls’ are a sneeze away from popping out, but the detail on the gown is striking.”

PHOTOS/Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

With Karin Herig and Cara Hunt

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Friday, November 8, 2019

film

Review:

Is “Doctor Sleep” worthy of “The Shining”? doctor sleep | 152 minutes NEW YORK (AP) — Here, again, is Johnny.

Our glimpses of Jack Torrance are fleeting in Michael Flanagan’s “The Shining” sequel, “Doctor Sleep,” but Stanley Kubrick’s colossal 1980 horror film is seldom out of mind, or out of frame. Even that axe is back. Adapted from Stephen King’s 2013 book, “Doctor Sleep” shifts the story to the tricycle-riding tyke of “The Shining,” Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor), now grown and dealing, understandably, with a few residual psychological issues from his childhood stay at the Overlook Hotel.

Yes, Hollywood’s insatiable search for new iterations for old intellectual property has wound its way, like the Torrances’ car meandering up the mountain road, to the House of Kubrick. It’s so overwhelmingly a misguided mission that you want to shout, “Don’t go in there!” And yet “Doctor Sleep” careens right ahead, recreating Kubrick shots, casting lookalikes to replay his scenes, refilling the elevator with blood and vainly trying to recapture some of the eerie majesty of “The Shining.”

Maybe I’m wrong but I suspect even those who don’t deeply appreciate Kubrick’s movies will feel a little icky about such a classic being reengineered, its hallowed

halls reanimated like a defunct amusement park. It’s one thing to get endless “Star Wars” movies, but we might be venturing into even more shameless territory by leeching sequels to masterworks like “The Shining.” Should we also brace for “2001: Return of the Monolith” and “Barry Lyndon: Back in Business?”

“Doctor Sleep” posits the question everyone has been nursing since “The Shining” first greeted audiences: What if the story kept going, only we added psychic vampires in top hats?

The defence of “Doctor Sleep” is that it wasn’t conjured out of thin air but adapted from King’s novel.

To be clear: King, who never cared much for Kubrick’s adaptation of his 1977 novel, can do whatever he pleases.

These are his books. In “Doctor Sleep,” he delights in charting a very different post”Shining” path. In his author’s note, King granted “nothing can live up to the memory of a good scare, especially if administered to one who is young and impressionable.”

The situation, though, is quite different for Flanagan et al who are working in Kubrick’s medium, and doing everything they can to mimic him, right down to the dissolves. Flanagan, who previously adapted King’s

EWAN McGregor as Danny Torrance in “Doctor Sleep.” (Warner Bros Pictures via AP)

A YOUNG Danny Torrance at the infamous Overlook Hotel.

“Gerald’s Game,” also wrote the script, which adds a return to the Overlook Hotel not in the book.

Yet when “Doctor Sleep” stakes out its own ground, it’s a far more palatable supernatural thriller. Danny’s adult life is one of bar fights, cocaine and one-night stands; he has been working hard to submerge his “shine” with alcohol. He gets clean, though, and finds his place working as night attendant at a hospital where patients, grateful for his ability to gently force slumber, give him the “Doctor Sleep” moniker.

Scenes early on establish the movie’s wider mythology — “The Shining-verse” — includes others who, like Danny, shine. It’s a small number of clairvoyant kids who shine brightest — fewer all the time because of cell phones and Netflix, we learn.

Among them is 13-year-old Abra (the exceptional newcomer Kyliegh Curran), whose great powers she, and her family, are only just beginning to realise.

But the downside to possessing the Shining is — like the side effects of so many things — psychic vampires. A

gypsy-like band of them, led

by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson), feast on their souls, sucking up their last breaths — their “steam” — like a drug.

The Shining is like food to them, and as one of them says, “the world is a hungry place.”

They can recruit new members, too, by turning those who shine into one of them with the promise of near immortality. “Live long. Eat well,” says Rose.

Geographically separated from the start, “Doctor Sleep” draws these characters together, eventually leading them all the way to Room 237. It’s patiently plotted (the movie runs a hefty 2 ½ hours) and Ferguson — despite the inherent ridiculousness to her part — is creepily compelling.

But none of this is remotely worthy of “The Shining.” The most entertaining thing here is trying to imagine how Kubrick would have reacted to the entire notion of “fan service.” It’s a frightfully regular approach to movie-making today that should, at the very least, have the sense not to mess with Kubrick. All sequels and no originals make us all dull boys.

JAKE COYLE AP Film Writer

18 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

theatre

Young playwright focuses on societal issues i n ' Struggles and Dreams'

By FELICITY DARVILLE

S

erious societal issues such as poverty, hopelessness and crime are at the heart of the latest play produced by the Youth Development Through the Arts (YDTA) programme.

For eight consecutive years, YDTA has produced a full-length stage production in celebration of National Youth Month. YDTA is a after-school programme that focuses on the dramatic arts, specifically of youth between the ages of 13 and 21. It gives them a platform to express themselves in a safe, creative space that seeks to develop their talent as well as their social and personal skills.

Team-building, conflict resolution, problem-solving and communication skills are some areas the Ministry of Youth supported programme focuses on.

This year, YDTA featured the work of 27-year-old writer/ director Jonico Pratt. He wrote the play “Struggles and Dreams” to inspire young Bahamians and to help them to see they can pursue their dreams no matter the struggle.

Jonico is the CEO of Bright Light Productions and can be seen in his YouTube series, “Broke Bosses”.

“Struggles and Dreams” tells the story of young artist and songwriter by the name of Craig, who wants nothing more than to be someone

in life and to use his craft to make life easier for him and his family. However, as his circumstances go from bad to worse, the young man is forced to consider a quicker way of getting rich.

The play takes place in Craig’s home where the electricity has been off for months, but he’s still determined to do what he loves and can be seen writing music in the dark. His little brother tells him about a music competition, which Craig immediately wants to enter, before realising he does not have the money to go into the studio to record a song for it, so he dismisses the idea.

For the first time ever, he contemplates putting his music to the side and turning his side job of washing cars into his only focus so he can help his struggling single mother with the mounting bills.

One day, KO, the biggest drug dealer in the neighbourhood, brings his Lexus “under the tree” to be cleaned.

Just a casual conversation between the two young men

may change the trajectory of Craig’s life as KO offers him a way out of poverty.

The cast for “Struggles and Dreams” includes Kentario McKenzie as Craig; Valene Rolle as Natasha; Gabriel Decius as Corey; Jamel Dawkins as Veronica; Brent Burrows as Valentino; Cade Darling as KO; Bahamian Trae as Laurence; Derea Hall as Princess, and T-Day as Sefalotia. The play was staged for the first time last week at the Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts.

Terez Davis-Nixon, the Cultural Affairs officer and coordinator of YDTA, said she is very pleased of what Jonico has accomplished with his play.

“I am very proud of his writing and execution as a director. It all made my job as the producer that much easier,” she said.

“I truly enjoy my work with Youth Development Through the Arts here at the Ministry of Youth Sports and Culture.

For the first few years I wrote and directed the plays myself, but recently I have met young talent like Felisha Woodside (”Dry Bones”), Jeriel Gould (”D’s Shack”) and Desiree Aranha (”Jail House Rock Revised”), who I have been privileged to give the opportunity on behalf of the Ministry to present their plays,” added Mrs Davis-Nixon, who is known for her famous “Dynamite Daisy” character.

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Friday, November 8, 2019

race series and the P1 AquaX World rankings, which identifies the most consistent and successful riders in the world. The result will be an elite field of the world’s very best personal watercraft racers

FRI 11/08

• 2019 P1 AquaX Bahamas World Championship Time: 11am (continues Saturday and Sunday) Venue: Atlantis

The Tribune Established 1903

• Prohibition Cognac & Smoke Experience Time: 6pm - 11pm Venue: British Colonial Hilton

Enjoy ready D’ussé cognac and music by the Synergy Band at the Bullion Bar. Tickets are $50 per person and include a cigar, a drink and complimentary parking.

|100 Jamz | Y98

What's going on this Being Bound To Swear To The Dogmas Of No Master

This is the annual fundraising event for the Pilot Club of Nassau. Turn up to 70s, 80s and 90s hits with DJ Supa and DJ Ace. Tickets start at $50. VIP tickets are $125 and include unlimited food and beverages

weekend

SAT 11/09

will be a marching band, free popcorn, face painting, games and music.

• The Nassau Night Market Time: 2pm - 10pm Venue: Market Slope, next to the Straw Market

The street festival highlights Bahamian culture and entrepreneurship through offering entertainment, flavorful foods and precious products. It is a familyfriendly event which seeks to enliven Downtown’s dead hours.

Venue: Hillside House

Join life coach Simmone L Bowe and sing songs of hope and inspiration in the outdoor spaces of Hillside House. Write your message of hope and encouragement to Dorian survivors on the community canvas.

• Hockey Night in

Nassau Time: 7pm - 1am Venue: Travellers West

• Kelly’s Toyland

Opening Time: 12noon - 6pm Venue: Kelly’s House and Home Centre The doors are open to Santa’s workshop.

Meet Santa and Snowbear, Baby Shark and some of his friends. There

Saturday The Second Annual Central Bank Cultural Festival Time: 12noon - 9pm Venue: Central Bank of the Bahamas, upper grounds parking lot The new annual event will feature food, crafts and live music. The aim is to foster a greater appreciation of all forms of art and culture that enrich both the country and its “Orange Economy”, also known as the creative economy. Tickets are $3.

• Disco on da

Terrace Time: 8pm - 1pm Venue: Sapodilla Restaurant

Powerboat P1 is hosting the AquaX Bahamas World Championship in the Bahamas, marking the climax of the 14 event international P1 AquaX season, which consists of established jet ski race series in the United States, mainland Europe and the United Kingdom.

The championship will feature the top 40 professional riders who qualify through performances in national and continental

Editior’s Voice

• Worship in Sacred Spaces Time: 6.30pm

There will be cold Canadian beer, food specials, and a big screen to view the biggest and best hockey teams battle it out on the ice.

SUN 11/10

• Remilda Rose Designs - Spring/ Summer 2020 Collection Showcase Time: 6pm Venue: Atlantis, Paradise Island Under the patronage of Andrea Sweeting, president of Sister Sister Breast Cancer Support Group, Remilda Rose Designs showcases its Spring/Summer 2020 collection under the theme “Warriors, Conquerors, Survivors.” The purpose of the event is three-fold.

Firstly, to honour the brave and resilient Bahamians who are battling or have battled cancer. Secondly, to transform honorees from head to toe. And thirdly, to support the Cancer Society of the Bahamas in its efforts and the Gennie Dean Caring and Sharing Cancer Support Group.

Tickets start at $70.

Call 818-9764 for more information.

20 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

literary lives

Behind the lines Clive Aslet, for many years the editor of Country Life magazine, introduces Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s latest book, “Profiles in Literature” – a seductive volume of an extraordinary array of writers – both well known and not so well known, as well as 10 tall tales from the Bahamas. It is written for addictive readers of both fiction and non-fiction and is startlingly original in concept. ______________________

Sir Christopher Ondaatje reveals the life stories of writers and tall tales from the Bahamas

“Non-fiction writers, we are told, tend to embellish or exaggerate their facts, slightly shifting time or place so as to make a narrative more evocative or more exciting for the reader.

Ondaatje does not indulge in such

wayward devices, though he sometimes uses direct speech to make his effects more immediate.” – Michael Holroyd, The Last Colonial

We have two houses and they are both bulging with books. In recent years, it has been a pleasure to see our children, now of university age, reach down volumes that, at low moments, I have thought of chucking out. They have added more books to the accumulation (collection would be too grand a word). Work as a journalist brings review copies flooding in. Not so long ago, I resolved to clear the piles from the floor by erecting more shelves, and we really do have as many as a family could decently want. Except that those are now full. It is a familiar enough dilemma for people who enjoy books and cannot bear to part with them.

But we have reached capacity. We do not need any more.

And yet, having read “Profiles in Literature”, I realise I shall have to get some – quite a lot, in fact.

For Sir Christopher Ondaatje has written a seductive volume, which has introduced me to some writers I knew but had not read, either in whole or in part – and some whom I had barely heard of, if at all, but must now order immediately. He has chosen an irresistible format: the short essay – and he is a master of the genre. Sir Christopher stands like a fisherman, casting his well-chosen authors like brightly coloured flies over the noses of his readers, hoping that they will rise to the bait and get hooked. Either he is beguiling us with accounts of vivid, often extreme individuals, who may not be widely recognised beyond a relatively small circle of cultish admirers; or he is revealing an aspect of a great master that causes us to think again about a familiar and loved figure. The prose sparkles like a trout stream. What a joy it is.

A joy, because – yes! – this book is written for enjoyment. We live in an age when the poor reader is not always so served. Looking along my shelves, I see books that are sometimes several times the length that their biographical subjects deserve.

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Friday, November 8, 2019

Concision is a neglected virtue – which is surely strange in this era of the sound-bite and supposedly declining attention spans.

The Man of Letters has vanished from the literary scene.

In an increasingly expensive world, literary types cannot earn enough to support themselves; for the fallen state of all forms of print publishing – books, newspapers, magazines – means that fees and royalties have shrunk like the cashmere jumper you accidentally put in a washing-machine set for linens. A generation ago, the serious newspapers carried pieces of general interest, because it was assumed that a proportion of the readership would be pleased for their horizons to be broadened. It is many years since that was the case in Britain, my native land. I salute The Tribune for having given Sir Christopher the hospitality of its pages and maintaining a civilised tradition.

Generally, the internet has not helped this cause.

Here and there, the flame of culture continues to burn; I am endlessly charmed by the former Chief Executive of the Royal Academy Sir Charles Saumarez-Smith’s blog – charmed and amazed: he refreshes it several times a day, sharing the points of visual interest that he happens upon in the course of a richly varied life. Monetising even the best of blogs, though, is not easy (not that Sir Charles cares to do so).

We have returned to the very beginnings of journalism, when the father of the trade, William Cobbett, amassed a fortune – lost when he was imprisoned for seditious libel – not from his copious writing but self-publication, having numerous journals including Hansard. So it is now: the founder of The Huffington Post made millions from selling it in 2013, but her contributors grubbed for a pittance, if that. This is not a complaint; I have never written for The Huffington

“Sir MARK Twain was lauded as “the father of American literature”.

LEWIS Carroll gave the world adventures in “Wonderland”.

Post. There may be a Darwinian principle at work, in which only the fittest – those who most please the public – will survive. Any why not?

Authors whose works do not sell generally deserve to be culled. But the change in publishing means that treats such as “Profiles in

Christopher stands like a fisherman, casting his well-chosen authors like brightly coloured flies over the noses of his readers, hoping that they will rise to the bait and get hooked.”

Literature” are all the more to be savoured for being rare.

Sir Christopher does not come at his task from the perspective of journalism.

Nor yet, thank heaven, academe. Anyone who has the remotest contact with the universities, certainly in Britain, knows that they nurture some pretty etiolated hot house blooms, which would not survive the harsh winds that blow outside a sector supported by the State.

They are particularly to be found in Faculties of English.

Rather than being a journalist or a don, Sir Christopher began his literary career after a quite different one in business. This is one of the striking qualities of this book. His interest in the

often extraordinary people he writes about is not that of the dreamer in an ivory tower: he brings to bear his own experience, gained in the hurly-burly of the commercial world. Since the Romantic period, a certain amount of starving in garrets has been seen as a sine qua non of genius (although the reverse does not apply; many people have starved in garrets who were not geniuses).

Before that, courtier artists like Rubens and Hilliard had no interest in garrets, much less starving in them. Even in the 19th century, Charles Ives founded an insurance company, Borodin was a professor of chemistry, Chekhov was a doctor and Trollope famously introduced the pillar box to the British Isles, starting in Guernsey. Sir Christopher follows in this tradition. His judgments are those of a man who knows the world.

“The word “Oriental” must be used with care these days, but both Christopher Ondaatje and Richard Burton are distinguished as travellers and adventurers who bring to their tales an authentic sense of other cultures, colourful landscapes, and a touch of distinctively Gothic orientalism.” – Margaret Drabble, Birds of Prey

One does not have to read very far in this book to see that the other great passion which he has pursued after leaving business in the 1980s is exploration. The very first essay, indeed, in a sequence that has been ordered chronologically by date of birth, is on Richard Burton, himself a man of many faces, being by turns a geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, diplomat and sensualist. He discovered Lake Tanganyika and fought a furious controversy about the source of the Nile. While Burton belongs to another age, before GPS, mobile

phone signals and regular air travel to far-flung locations, exploration continues to resonate in writers’ psyches; only the area for discovery has changed. As Marina Warner comments apropos the Royal Literary Society’s Ondaatje’s Prize, established to recognise books which best evoke the spirit of place in 2004, ‘the writing of place is one of the liveliest and most varied areas of contemporary literary activity.’

As the physical frontiers of the world contract, we have discovered that we may be least familiar with things close to home – sometimes literally under our feet. Last night, my wife and I dined at the Whitebrook restaurant in Monmouthshire: its chef searches the local sward for mugwort, pennyroyal and other leaves and fungi that evoke a Shakespearean herbal. They were known to our forebears; but like the vocabulary of old dialects, they’ve become terra incognita. This forgotten world has become less familiar than many exotic destinations.

So it is with history. Tall tales of Bahamian rum smugglers and the sensational, unsolved murder of Sir Harry Oakes are another aspect of place; the past is another foreign country to explore.

This is a personal selection, written in a personal manner. Sir Christopher has known some of his subjects, a couple of them being fellow members of the Travellers Club. He has themes – almost obsessions.

Leopards are one. I am still puzzling over the passage from Julia and the Bazooka quoted in the essay on Anna Kavan – is it metaphor, or memory? My mind is haunted by it, either way.

These writers are not always comfortable in their skins, they are not, on the whole, a clubbable lot, they

22 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

SIDNEY Poitier’s parents were poor tomato farmers from Cat Island. He won an Oscar for his performance in “Lilies of the Field” (1963) – the first black man to win for a leading role.

are apt to be defeated by relationships, given to drink and worse (Kavan was a habitual heroin user). In short, they are outsiders.

Sir Christopher has an eye for them, believing that he is an outsider himself.

Brought up in the paradise of pre-Independence Ceylon, as Sri Lanka was then called, he was sent to boarding school in England; he excelled at cricket, and yet was conscious of being different. That sense became general when Ceylon’s status changed in 1948, his parents divorced and his father became bankrupt. He has a sympathy for characters who do not conform to the societies in which they live – a definition which includes many writers. He also has an

eye for Colonials. A special place in his heart for Canadians, like Robert Service and John Glassco, since it was in Canada, where he and his wife lived for over thirty years, that he made his fortune.

All art is struggle, but the writers described in this book are united by having faced colossal odds against success. They often had a rotten start in life.

This could be financial: HG Wells’s shopkeeper father went bankrupt; Mark Twain grew up in a destitute household, after his father’s death, and was dogged by financial chaos throughout his life. Emotional deprivation can be as searing. Anna Kavan would only see her mother for ten minutes

F Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald were the most famous literary couple of the Jazz Age. ERNEST Hemmingway won the Pulitzer in 1953 for “The Old Man and the Sea”.

before dinner; Caroline Blackwood’s aristocratic upbringing was cold. Other writers faced other obstacles along life’s path. The Australian Henry Lawson, growing up in the Outback, went practically deaf from a childhood ear infection; JH Patterson, aged twenty-four, narrowly escaped death from one of a pair of man-eating lions he was determined to shoot, to stop them from disrupting work on a project he was supervising in Africa; Charles Dodgson, alias Lewis Carroll, stammered and could not get on with his peers – though perhaps there are worse fates than that.

Ends might be no better than beginnings. Drink overcame Scott Fitzgerald, Jean Rhys, Blackwood – the list goes on and on.

Often, the literary lives described here are extraordinary – and that is before we have so much as begun the Ten Tall Tales from the Bahamas, with their female pirates masquerading as men. These are off-the-scale people. They broke social taboos, threw sexual conventions to the winds, did everything that got Paris a bad name in Victorian England. Anais Nin seduced her own father. Wells was a sexual predator (as Sir Christopher observes, he foresaw many things that would revolutionise the world but not the coming of feminism.)

Edith Sitwell, in this respect, stands out from the crowd: seduction, for her, never did happen.

We see them in their late years, when the laurels may or may not have come – or if they did come, have since faded; once so glittering.

Dorothy Parker became bitter and drunk. We follow them to the grave. Few burials could have been stranger than Thomas Hardy’s; there, as Sir Christopher notes, something Hardyesque about the possibility of the cat having eaten a vital part of the proceedings. Being so great a traveller, Sir

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Friday, November 8, 2019

marriage. By contrast, we owe it to Vladimir Nabokov’s supportive wife Véra that the drafts of “Lolita” were not destroyed, when the author despaired of finishing the book. If not destroyed, “Go Set a Watchman” – the work that an elderly and frail Harper Lee was prevailed upon to publish in 2015, after so many decades of maintaining she would not seek to repeat the success of “To Kill a Mockingbird” – should perhaps not have appeared. And F Scott Fitzgerald stole one of his wife Zelda’s diaries, pillaging it for material.

Such lives are extreme, not wholly in the control of those living them.

Creation is an extreme activity. It is not something that the great majority of the population have knowledge of. Writing is specially alienating for the person doing it, because of the time that he must spend locked up in a room with paper and pencil, or now screen and keyboard, in front of him. But the well-spring of the process exists somewhere else. In many of these profiles, the writers’ own rackety and dysfunctional existences provided the material. Is the academic the best person to weigh the surviving evidence about these troubled but driven and coruscating individuals? Not always. Sir Christopher’s eye is that of a man who has lived long, travelled widely and done much. What he thinks is worth knowing.

“I had a farm in Africa, at the foot of the Ngong Hills”...so starts Karen Blixen’s famous autobiography “Out of Africa”.

EXPLORER Wilfred Thesiger once wrote: “In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civilization.”

Christopher has often visited the graves – and seen Burton’s mausoleum in Mortlake Cemetery with the door off its hinges. Epitaphs are a fascination. So are the number of books sold (Sir Christopher, after all, made his first fortune from publishing). After 16 years, Leonard Woolf’s “The Village in the Jungle” had sold 2,149 copies, enriching the author to the tune of £63. Zelda Fitzergerald’s “Save Me the Waltz” sold only 1,392 copies. Contrast Somerset Maugham’s “The Razor’s Edge” of 1944, which sold half a million copies in the first week. Agonising over titles is another, perhaps a related preoccupation. “Tomorrow

posterity – was lost. The practice continues, and perhaps rightly so, however galling it may be to the historian. I once shared an office with John Cornforth, who told me that he had just spent several evenings with Sybil, Marchioness of Cholmondeley, and having a ‘good old burn up’ of her brother, the aesthete, politician and homosexual Sir Philip Sassoon’s papers. This was said with particular glee since he knew my interest in the subject, which would now be frustrated forever. Similarly, Lewis Carroll’s private papers were destroyed. Hardy burnt his late wife Emma’s diaries, which detailed the miseries of their

is Another Day”, “Tote the Weary Lode”, “Ba! Ba! Blacksheep”, and “Bugles Sang True” were all considered by Margaret Mitchell before she hit on “Gone With the Wind” – taken from a poem by Ernest Dowson.

It is striking how many times, in the course of these profiles, papers are destroyed, whether by the authors themselves or their families. This was common practice in the nineteenth century; one thinks of Princess Beatrice laboriously transcribing her mother Queen Victoria’s journals so that anything controversial – and much that would have been of intense interest to

• Clive Aslet is a writer on Btitish architecture and was for many years the Editor of Country Life magazine.

In 1997 he was named British Society of Magazine Editor of the Year. In 2014 he published a novel The Birdcage based on the First World War.

Hardback copies of Sir Christopher Ondaatje’s “Profiles in Literature” are now available for purchase for $20 from The Tribune offices on Shirley Street.

24 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019

books • The Witches Are Coming

by Lindy West

From the moment powerful men started falling to the #MeToo movement, the lamentations began: this is feminism gone too far, this is injustice, this is a witch hunt.

In The Witches Are Coming, firebrand author of the New York Times bestselling memoir and now critically acclaimed Hulu TV series Shrill, Lindy West, turns that refrain on its head. You think this is a witch hunt? Fine.

You’ve got one.

In a laugh-out-loud, incisive cultural critique, West extolls the world-changing magic of truth, urging readers to reckon with dark lies in the heart of the American mythos, and unpacking the complicated, and sometimes tragic, politics of not being a white man in the twentyfirst century. She tracks the misogyny and propaganda hidden (or not so hidden) in the media she and her peers devoured growing up, a buffet of distortions, delusions, prejudice, and outright bullsh*t that has allowed white male mediocrity to maintain a death grip on American culture and politics-and that delivered us to this precarious, disorienting moment in history.

West writes, “We were just a hair’s breadth from electing America’s first female president to succeed America’s first black president. We weren’t done, but we were doing it. And then, true to form-like the Balrog’s whip catching Gandalf by his little gray bootie, like the husband in a Lifetime movie hissing, ‘If I can’t have you, no one can’-white American voters shoved an incompetent, racist con man into the White House.”

We cannot understand how we got here-how the land of the free became Trump’s America-without examining the chasm between who we are and who we think we are, without fact-checking the stories

New releases hitting shelves this week we tell ourselves about ourselves and each other. The truth can transform us; there is witchcraft in it. Lindy West turns on the light.

• The Other Windsor Girl: A Novel of Princess Margaret, Royal Rebel

by Georgie Blalock Diana, Catherine, Meghan…glamorous Princess Margaret outdid them

all. Springing into postWorld War II society, and quite naughty and haughty, she lived in a whirlwind of fame and notoriety. Georgie Blalock captures the fascinating, fast-living princess and her “set” as seen through the eyes of one of her ladies-in-waiting.

In dreary, post-war Britain, Princess Margaret captivates everyone with her cutting edge fashion sense and biting

quips. The royal socialite, cigarette holder in one hand, cocktail in the other, sparkles in the company of her glittering entourage of wealthy young aristocrats known as the Margaret Set, but her outrageous lifestyle conflicts with her place as Queen Elizabeth’s younger sister.

Can she be a dutiful princess while still dazzling the world on her own terms?

• I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story

by Anthony Daniels

When Star Wars burst on to the big screen in 1977, an unfailingly polite golden droid called C-3PO captured imaginations around the globe. But C-3PO wasn’t an amazing display of animatronics with a unique and unforgettable voiceover.

Inside the metal costume was an actor named Anthony Daniels.

In this deeply personal memoir, Anthony Daniels recounts his experiences of the epic cinematic adventure that has influenced pop culture for more than 40 years.

For the very first time, he candidly describes his most intimate memories as the only actor to appear in every Star Wars film - from his first meeting with George Lucas to the final, emotional days on the set of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

The Tribune | Weekend |25

Friday, November 8, 2019

history

THE COVETED ‘wings’ of an RAF pilot.

'They also serve who only stand and wait' Forgotten facts | Paul C Aranha

T

hanks to the British Legion Bahamas Branch, the Aranha family was one of the invitees to the Pre-Remembrance Day Military Wreath Laying Ceremony held at the feet of Queen Victoria’s statue in Rawson Square on November 1.

Captain Rick Aranha laid a wreath in memory of his father, Warrant Officer Norman F Aranha, who served in the Royal Air Force as an air gunner on B-24 Liberator bombers, but was not called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. He returned home healthy and well.

It was a bright, sunny day, but guests were seated comfortably under a canvas tent with a prefect view of all that went on. This year the focus was on those who had fought in the skies. I am told that next year will focus on those who went down to the sea, in ships.

The Royal Bahamas Defence Force band provided music and the Governor-General laid the first wreath, but to me the most moving moment was seeing the beautiful

widow of Squadron Leader Lester Brown, in her wheelchair, being pushed by her son and granddaughters.

The distinction of being the first to volunteer goes to Rosemary (Kelly) Appleyard, but as they did in World War I, Bahamians rushed to volunteer to join the fight – on the land, on the sea and in the air. There were so many of them and yet nowhere have I been a to find a complete and accurate list of their names.

Hopefully, Adina Munroe-Charlow, the hard-working chairman of the British Legion Bahamas Branch, will compile and publish such a list before next year’s event, and make it easily available online.

Sitting at the feet of Queen Victoria, I thought about the Bahamians who gave their lives in a fight that took place in so many different theatres of war, so far away from home.

I feel sorrow for each and every one of them but know that their families still feel their loss.

It was gratifying to see that the event also honoured the families who stayed at home and prayed for the safety of their sons and daughters, which brings me to the title of this article, the closing line of a poem by John Milton: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Bahamians, at home, worked tirelessly to support our ‘boys’, and of course ‘girls’. They earned the credit that was given them at this event.

Friday’s event was something of a warmup for Remembrance Day, which includes wreath-laying at the Cenotaph, between the Supreme Court and the Library and, God willing, I will be there too, as I have been for several years. Whatever else we forget, we must not let our heroes, alive or dead, become forgotten.

• For questions and comments, e-mail islandairman@gmail.com

C D S N O A Q returning respect 18 (6) Colossal; 27 22 Margarine ruined E K I N L D W 19 Shut; 20 Evacuee; Friday, November 8, 2019 drapes (6) 21colour Habit; T W D B G X L 24 A pie’s changed (5)22 Tier;

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.

Ac i E B l nmA

● The Target uses words in the main body of Chambers 21st Century Dictionary (1999 edition)

HOW many words of four letters or more can you make from the letters shown here? in making a word, each letter may be used once only. Each must contain the centre letter and there must be at least one nine-letter word. no plurals or verb forms ending in “s”.

TODAY’S TARGET Good 13; very good 20; excellent 27 (or more). Solution tomorrow

call 0907 181 2585 Yesterday’s for today’s target solution *Calls cost 80p per minute plus your telephone company’s network access charge.

Sudoku Answer

BATTLESHIPS CRYPTIC PUZZLE Across 1 May I not purchase a large supporting bracket? (10) 6 It can’t be passed in silence (4) 10 I break bail in order to prove I was elsewhere (5) 11 Make successful attempt to prove beard is false (4,2,3) 12 It seems to me to be the old way of saying it (8) 13 Got down to making a proposal? (5) 15 Ready for fuel he’d ordered (7) 17 A race between two poles and an Arab (7) 19 Shaw is out and out failure (4-3) 21 Ordains an arrangement for smoothing things out (7) 22 He has skill on an organ (5) 24 A compulsory turnout (8) 27 About to be included in a combat plane built to take cargo (9) 28 American lawyer without force or emotion (5) 29 Nips of liquor that ought to stimulate initially (4) 30 Italian city man squashed into a plane (10)

1

2

3

4

10

5

11

12 14 15

16

17

19

22

20

23

24

27

29

30

21

Yesterday’s Easy Solution

Down 1 A meeting of hands to Across: 1 Bacchus, 5 Drake, express approval (4) 8 Albatross, 9 Let, 10 Dash, 2 Lionesses may be 12 Struggle, 14 Larder, 15 Mettle, 17 Fanlight, 18 Grip, 21 Orb, completely quiet (9) 3 Flag over hospital in Dublin 22 Tarantula, 24 Fakir, 25 Embroil.

Down: 1 Braid, 2 Cub, 3 Hate, perhaps (5) 4 Smooth, 5 Disquiet, 6 Alligator, 4 When there’s a change 7 Extreme, 11 Springbok, of plea, men select 13 Register, 14 Lift-off, a jury (7) 16 Charge, 19 Pearl, 20 Snub, 5 Listens out and follows 23 UFO. the recruiting officer’s plea (7) 7 Swiss river heron in distress (5) 8 He can rely on a permanent Yesterday’s Cryptic Solution occupation (4,6) 9 Ken tried clumsily and Across: 1 Crew cut, 5 Tacit, did the job 8 Relations, 9 Rye, 10 Owns, amateurishly (8) 12 Apparent, 14 Sprite, 15 Sortie, 14 Keep arguing - like Mrs 17 Drilling, 18 Myth, 21 Cos, Sprat does (4,3,3) 22 Tarantula, 24 Rests, 16 Every plot, by the way, will 25 Extends. have one (8) Down: 1 Curio, 2 Eel, 3 Cato, 4 Troupe, 5 Testator, 6 Carpentry, 18 Bird, bulb or insect (9) 7 Theatre, 11 Narcissus, 20 It may support 13 Athletes, 14 Sidecar, the board (7) 16 Untrue, 19 Heats, 20 Inst, 21 It’s important to one’s 23 Urn. standing as a rider (7) 23 Rep may get an order (5) 25 Such a river has its ups and downs (5) 26 Assumed, we hear, to give notice (4) Across 1 Utterly Down forsaken (10) 1 Lose 6 7 8 6 Check flow of (4) colour (4) 10 Discourage (5) 2 Fascinated (9) 9 11 Gradual eating 3 Tend in away (9) sickness (5) 12 A subsidiary 4 Fortunately (7) activity (8) 5 Harsh 13 Recurrent shrill 13 theme (5) cry (7) 15 In approximate 7 Distort (5) terms (7) 8 Obviously (10) 17 Control and put 9 Trade (8) 18 to use (7) 14 Realistic (4,2,4) 19 Approve 16 A ranting openly (7) speech (8) 21 Merry (7) 18 Reproducing 22 On many result occasions (5) intended (9) 24 System of 20 Study in 25 physical detail (7) exercises (8) 21 Item of 26 27 Meddlesome (9) clothing (7) 28 Come into 23 Private 28 being (5) teacher (5) 29 Republic of 25 ExpressionIreland (4) less (5) 30 Sign of imminent 26 To cut failure (5,5) down (4)

EASY PUZZLE

FIND where the fleet of ships shown is hidden in the grid. The numbers to the right of and below the grid indicate how many of the squares in that row are filled in with ships or parts of ships. The ships do not touch each other, even diagonally. Some squares have been filled in to start you off.

Solution tomorrow 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9 10

A

4

B

2

C

1

D

3

E

1

F

2

G

1

H

2

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3

J

1 2

3

1

3

0

4

2

M Q Z F P A R W I TAR C TI V I U F 34K m A B T G T Extra letter clu J0907 A G 181 O S 25 (Deduct A J Bthree F minute A each extra clue letter W Y full X solution P Y

THE ALPHABEATER

TARGET 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

23 Sympathy.

S K down: S W 2 Hoisted; 3 Suppose; I D 4 Approximately; 6 Animate; 7 Present; Each gridN I cAn you crack the Alphabeater?

T G number8represents a letter – or black square.

Soothe; 13 Ancient; As in Alphapuzzle, letter of the alphabet 14 Village;every 15 Rescue; A B is used. But you have to complete the grid too!

16 Mascara; 17 Nourish.

K Y use the given letters and black squares below

2

1

2

1 x Battleship

3 x Destroyer

2 x cruiser

4 x submarine

2

the grid to start. the grid is ‘rotationally symmetrical’ – in other words, it looks the same if you turn the page upside down.

Solution tomorrow

targEt

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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*Calls cost 80p per minu your telephone comp network access char

across: Octag MultiplEX impel4 impute 2 emit 38 exit 8 ileum 21 29 12 26 7 Tenuous, 37 20Glove 31 item lieu lilt lime limp limpet lite Scarab, Rope, B 40 mile 4 mill 1 mille 29 millet 2 38 6 Toys, 4 2Flu milt40mite34 8 Inane, down: Razzle, multi multiple MULTIPLEX pile 26 7 28 29 10 28 15 21 4 20 32 29 pill pixel tempi tile till time tulip Jeopardy, Ante 10 uptime 13 16 19 11 37 14 20 10(clue), 37 Acquaint 8 10 1

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34 17 31 15 20 15 8

24 7

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33 21 15 20 18 5

29 20 36 9

Yesterday’s 26 5 12 35 6

7

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31 40Kakuro 26 31 Answer 39 33 4

5

25 16 29 25 21 7 37 30 7

29 33 23 1 26 8

4

6

2

3

4

5

6

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21

22

23

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25

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27

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29

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12 35 29 21 34 40 2

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28

29 27 17 11 31 37

3

28 9

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16 20

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32

11

12

13

14

15

16

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30 31

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33

34 35

36

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19

● Alternatively, for six Extra Letter clues to your mobile, text DXBEAT to 84901. Texts cost £1 plus your usual operator rat

WORD BUILDER Answer the clues so that each word contains the same letters as the previous word, plus or minus one.

Solution tomor

1

1 Insane

2

2 titled woma

3

3 Fields

4

4 Mortified

5

5 chiefs

6

6 shack

7

7 Female pron

The Tribune | Weekend | 27

Friday, November 8, 2019

animals

Bees in my belfry Animal matters | KIM ARANHA

L

ast Friday I wrote an article about bees and their enormous importance.

Funnily enough, I am presently reading a book called “The Beekeeper of Aleppo”

by Christy Lefteri, whose main character is a beekeeper.

I point this out only to say that for the past few days my mind has been on bees, as I had to do quite a bit of research about them.

On Sunday afternoon I was walking past a window in our breezeway when I heard an unfamiliar motor running, quite loudly; it was not a generator, and it could not be a lawnmower because they are not allowed in my community on weekends. I listened carefully and suddenly realised that it was the collective buzzing of literally thousands of bees right outside the window.

I went outside and could see that the soffit had actually fallen open and there were all these bees flying in “formation” rather like patrol helicopters. The buzzing was deafening!

I must say it was a mixture of rather frightening and rather wonderful.

But I thought what a crazy coincidence to have written about bees when unbeknownst to me there was a colony busily at work just a few feet from my desk and the sleeping Chiefie who watches my every word.

I had no idea what to do.

One thing for sure was, under no circumstances was I going to allow them to be killed.

Bees are far too important to our everyday lives to allow that to happen.

But who should I call? I am one of those people that when in doubt puts up a request on Facebook. Within minutes my page was flooded with names and numbers accompanied

by recommendations by my friends.

I had absolutely no idea that there are that many people in Nassau who are beekeepers and was even more surprised to learn there were that many people who cared about conserving the bees and protecting them for harm.

It was actually overwhelming as I scrolled over the suggestions and finally called one that didn’t say they were closed on Sunday. It was a fortuitous choice as I found the nephew of an old Chalks Airline friend of my husband’s: Ian Hutchinson, of Double O Farms. He was very helpful and we agreed that he would come to my house Monday morning.

I went back to check on my new friends who had calmed down significantly; clearly the shock of the soffit breaking

IAN Hutchinson of Double O Farms dressed to remove the bees.

PET OF THE WEEK GENTLE JULIA

By THE BAHAMAS HUMANE SOCIETY

J

ulia’s younger than she looks, about nine or ten months. She was meant to go on one of the earliest airlifts but was unable to travel. She’s quiet, friendly and will warm up to a new person given time. Julia would be good as a yard dog and gets along well with other dogs. With the Christmas season coming up she’d be a good canine presence in your yard. Come in during adoption hours or call 323-5138 for PHOTO/Patricia Vazquez more information. Adoption hours are 11am to 4pm, Monday to Friday, and 10am to 4pm on Saturdays. Julia is looking forward to meeting you. (And don’t be surprised if she tries to sneak onto the next airlift!)

• BHS Raffle tickets are now available. From the Shelter of any board member. The grand prize is $10,000 worth of groceries from Super Value. Get your tickets early!

had been overcome and there were just a few guards flying formation around and around and around; almost hypnotising.

Monday dawned and Mr Hutchinson arrived with all his equipment. After significant investigation he reported back that it was not just a swarm but that we were the proud hosts of a large hive that had taken the bees several months to build.

He explained to me how he would smoke them out and then vacuum them out. Their new home sat up on top of a ladder ready to receive a huge quantity of rather annoyed, buzzing bees who did not appreciate being disturbed.

He further explained that there must be another hive within a 10-minute flight (bee speed) radius because the bees were protecting their hive against usurpers who were trying to steal their honey – fighting warriors; simply fascinating.

Mr Hutchison filled one enormous Tupperware tub of

honey and honeycomb – rich, sweet and golden in colour and simply delicious. Somehow it tastes all the better knowing it was literally created under my own roof.

It was interesting to hear how the queen bee holds together the entire bee family in her hive. Mr Hutchinson told me how she would fly out to find a suitable male to mate with in another hive. The queen can lay as many as 1,500 to 2,000 eggs a day. Can you imagine how very important she is to the preservation of the future of bees in our fragile environment?

After Mr Hutchinson had done his smoking and vacuuming, and delivered our honey to us, he took his leave promising to come back at dusk when all the bees would have gone into their new hutch following their queen.

I went outside around 6pm and could see that there was still some action around their new home, but eventually most of the bees went into the container and they left for a new location.

I was warned that a few bees would be left behind and that they will be flying around for a few days before going off to find a new hive.

Some people request that the remaining bees be sprayed but I really hope this does not become necessary, as I would hate the thought of killing any of these precious and essential contributors to the well-being of our planet.

28 | The Tribune | Weekend

Friday, November 8, 2019