Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)

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Contents 

No. 149 January/February 2018 

76 

42 

EMBARK 

19 Datebook 

Events around the Caribbean in 

January and February, from Bahamas 

Junkanoo to Guyana’s Mashramani 

to Carnival celebrations up and down 

the islands, plus St Lucia’s Nobel 

Laureates Festival, a marathon in 

Haiti, and the world-famous Havana 

Book Fair 

26 Word of Mouth 

It’s Carnival time! Come on a 

panyard lime with Barbara Jenkins, 

experience the thrilling, shapeshifting 

ritual of J’Ouvert in a poem 

by Shivanee Ramlochan, and discover 

Carriacou’s unique Shakespeare mas. 

Meanwhile, Jamaica celebrates its 

musical heritage at Reggae Month 

34 the game 

Superhero moves 

Inspired since childhood by the 

Power Rangers TV show, Jamaican 

taekwondo champ Akino Lindsay 

uses martial arts to change his life 

and inspire other young people in 

Kingston’s toughest communities, 

writes Kellie Magnus 

36 Bookshelf, playlist, and 

screenshots 

This month’s reading, listening, and 

film-watching picks, to keep you 

culturally up-to-date 

IMMERSE 

42 closeup 

Walk tall 

It’s one of the oldest masquerades 

in T&T’s Carnival, brought across 

the Atlantic from West Africa. The 

moko jumbie tradition once seemed 

to be dying away, but in recent 

years a handful of enthusiasts have 

created a moko jumbie revival, 

training hundreds of young people 

in the art of stilt-walking. Ray Funk 

investigates, and explains the power 

of these towering figures 

57 backstory 

How to win the road 

T&T’s Carnival is full of rivalries and 

competitions, and none is more fierce 

than the annual Road March battle. 

Mark Lyndersay traces the history of 

the musical title that reflects the will 

of masqueraders on the street — and 

we dare to share our picks for the top 

ten Road March songs from the 1930s 

to the present day 

72 own words 

“I’m unfinished” 

Tobago-born actor Winston Duke, 

appearing in the eagerly awaited 

Black Panther movie, on his love of 

stories and magical realism, how his 

village childhood shaped his ethos, 

and his love of soca music — as told to 

Caroline Taylor 

ARRIVE 

76 Destination 

Escape to Tobago 

Even at the height of Carnival season, 

Trinidad’s sister island maintains its 

laid-back, tranquil vibe. Need to 

escape from the fetes and frenzy? 

Welcome to Tobago’s beaches and 

bays, forests and waterfalls — a 

natural vitamin shot for the soul 

94 Neighbourhood 

Gustavia, St Barthélemy 

The picturesque capital of St Barts 

took a beating during Hurricane Irma 

— but was soon ready to welcome 

visitors again, to enjoy its Gallic 

charms with a Scandinavian twist 

96 round trip 

Art in the open 

Year-round, across the Caribbean, 

you can experience art in the street, 

in public spaces, out in the open — 

no need to buy a museum ticket. 

Here are murals, monuments, and 

even an impromptu art gallery in 

Port-au-Prince 

ENGAGE 

106 green 

what follows the storm 

In September 2017, Hurricane Maria 

devastated Dominica’s houses, 

businesses, and infrastructure. But the 

10 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

CaribbeanBeat 

An MEP publication 

96 

Editor Nicholas Laughlin 

General manager Halcyon Salazar 

Design artists Kevon Webster & Bridget van Dongen 

Web editor Caroline Taylor 

Editorial assistant Shelly-Ann Inniss 

Business Development Manager, 

Tobago and International 

Evelyn Chung 

T: (868) 684 4409 

E: evelyn@meppublishers.com 

Business Development 

Representative, Trinidad 

Mark-Jason Ramesar 

T: (868) 775-6110 

E: mark@meppublishers.com 

storm also took a toll on the Nature 

Isle’s forests and wildlife — a major 

blow for an economy that depends on 

eco-tourism. Paul Crask reports 

Business Development Manager 

Yuri Chin Choy 

T: (868) 460 0068, 622 3821 

E: yuri@meppublishers.com 

108the deal 

Seaweed for sale 

For St Lucian Johanan Dujon, 

sargassum-covered beaches are’t just a 

problem — they’re an opportunity. As 

Erline Andrews learns, Dujon has his 

eye on a regional market for his Algas 

Organics line of fertilisers 

110 On this day 

A distant light 

A small speck of land at the northern 

end of the Leewards, Sombrero 

Island is known to few — but has a 

surprisngly colourful history. James 

Ferguson tells tales of shipwrecks, 

guano mines, and the 150-year-old 

lighthouse that saved countless sailors’ 

lives in the dangerous Anegada 

Passage 

112 puzzles 

Enjoy our crossword, sudoku, and 

other brain-teasers! 

Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. 

6 Prospect Avenue, Maraval, Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago 

T: (868) 622 3821/5813/6138 • F: (868) 628 0639 

E: caribbean-beat@meppublishers.com 

Website: www.meppublishers.com 

Read and save issues of Caribbean Beat on your smartphone, 

tablet, computer, and favourite digital devices! 

Printed by Solo Printing Inc., Miami, Florida 

Caribbean Beat is published six times a year for Caribbean Airlines by Media & Editorial Projects Ltd. It is also available on 

subscription. Copyright © Caribbean Airlines 2018. All rights reserved. ISSN 1680–6158. No part of this magazine may be 

reproduced in any form whatsoever without the written permission of the publisher. MEP accepts no responsibility for 

content supplied by our advertisers. The views of the advertisers are theirs and do not represent MEP in any way. 

Website: www.caribbean-airlines.com 

118 onboard entertainment 

Music and movies to keep you busy 

in the air 

120 parting shot 

On Union Island, colourful produce 

makes a still life of a vendor‘s stall 

The Caribbean Airlines logo shows a hummingbird in flight. Native to the Caribbean, the hummingbird represents 

flight, travel, vibrancy, and colour. It encompasses the spirit of both the region and Caribbean Airlines. 

WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 11

Cover Stephanie Kanhai 

of the Touch D Sky moko 

jumbie group on the road 

at T&T’s Carnival 2017 

Photo Maria Nunes 

This issue’s contributors include: 

Born in Britain and resident in Dominica since 

2005, Paul Crask (“What follows the storm”, page 

106) is an independent writer, photographer, and 

magazine publisher. He is the author of two Bradt 

travel guides and the creator of Dominica Traveller 

magazine: www.dominicatraveller.com. 

Ray Funk (“Walk tall”, page 42) is a mostly retired 

Alaskan trial judge who has been passionately 

researching Trinidad Carnival arts for two decades. 

He writes regularly for the Trinidad Guardian. 

Barbara Jenkins (“Pan jumbie”, page 26) immerses 

herself in reading and writing, visiting children and 

grandchildren, cooking, tending weeds, and in the 

calm citrine waters of Macqueripe Bay. Her novel De 

Rightest Place will be published in 2018. 

Mark Lyndersay (“How to win the road”, page 55) 

is a Trinidadian photographer and journalist. His 

BitDepth is the longest running newspaper column 

reporting on technology in the country. 

Kellie Magnus (“Superhero moves”, page 34) is a 

Jamaican author who writes primarily for children. 

She also runs the Jamaica Safer Communities 

Programme for Fight for Peace International, 

an NGO that uses martial arts combined with 

education to realise the potential of young people 

in communities affected by violence. 

Attillah Springer (“How to win the road” page 55) 

is a Trinidad-born writer, DJ, and flag woman. She 

is one of the conveners of Say Something, a media 

advocacy group working on issues of gender-based 

violence, and a director of Idakeda, a collective of 

women in her family creating cultural interventions 

for social change. 


A MESSAGE From OUR CEO 

HELLO CARIBBEAN! 

delpixel/shutterstock.com 

Havana, Cuba — Caribbean Airlines’ 

newest destination 

Hello Caribbean, and Happy New Year! 

I am delighted to have joined Caribbean 

Airlines at the end of 2017. Leading this 

passionate team inspires me, as I see 

our tremendous potential to connect the 

Caribbean and beyond. As a company, 

we are looking forward to executing 

the transformation that the airline must 

embrace to compete successfully. 

Caribbean Airlines is an authentic 

Caribbean airline, and we provide a 

genuine Caribbean experience on all our 

services. Our professional teams offer 

you the warmth of the islands both on 

and off the aircraft, and we will continue 

to share Caribbean culture and energy 

with you. 

As the airline which knows the region 

best, our vision is to connect the Caribbean 

by sharing more of it with you, 

and to bring our beautiful islands closer 

together. The airline business is about 

providing the service that our customers 

want, and we have listened to your 

feedback. Based on what you have told 

us, our campaign to connect the region 

more closely begins on 13 January, with 

the launch of service to Havana, Cuba, 

our twentieth destination. 

Caribbean Airlines will fly twice 

weekly from Piarco International Airport 

in Trinidad, every Tuesday and Saturday, 

with easy connections to and from 

Barbados, Grenada, and Guyana. Now 

business, leisure, and other travellers 

can easily connect to Cuba and enjoy 

all that this charming country offers. 

Cuba is the Caribbean’s largest 

island. It is rich in history and culture, with 

a captivating mystique. Vintage cars still 

cruise the streets, and the beautiful old 

buildings of Cuba’s colonial cities evoke 

the feel of a country frozen in time. The 

island is almost eight hundred miles from 

end to end, and it abounds in natural 

beauty, with some of the Caribbean’s 

most dazzling beaches. Cuba’s depth 

and diversity make it one of the world’s 

most fascinating countries. 

Caribbean Airlines is also looking 

inward, with a laser focus on customer 

experience and a view to growing our 

business. To enhance our commercial 

planning, we will concentrate on 

research, route development, and 

developing a schedule based on your 

needs. You can look forward to new and 

exciting developments in key areas as 

2018 unfolds. 

January and February are busy 

months in the Caribbean, and you 

can fly with us to many of the events 

taking place. The Mustique Blues Festival 

runs from 25 to 31 January, at an 

exclusive venue overlooking the majestic 

Caribbean Sea. You can fly with us 

to St Vincent and connect from there. 

Grenada Sailing Week takes place 

from 29 January to 3 February: this 

regatta is becoming increasingly popular, 

and is now a signature event on the 

Caribbean calendar. 

Other events include the Holetown 

Festival in Barbados (11 to 18 

February) and Mashramani in Guyana 

(23 February), which is billed as the 

most colourful festival of the year 

and celebrates Guyana’s becoming a 

Republic on 23 February, 1970. With 

several daily flights to and from Guyana, 

Caribbean Airlines will certainly get you 

there! You can see a detailed Caribbean 

calendar in the Datebook section of this 

magazine. Please take a copy home 

with you, with our compliments. 

At Caribbean Airlines, it is our 

privilege to serve you. Please visit our 

website at www.caribbean-airlines. 

com; become a fan by liking us on 

Facebook at www.facebook.com/ 

caribbeanairlines; and follow us on 

Twitter and Instagram @iflycaribbean. 

Best wishes to you and your families 

for 2018! 

Garvin Medera 

Chief Executive Officer 


datebook 

Your guide to Caribbean events in January and February, from 

Junkanoo in the Bahamas to Carnival across the region 

Don’t miss . . . 

Carnival 

11 to 14 February 

Martinique 

Colour, spontaneity, extravagance, and 

wild energy jam through Carnival parade 

routes across the French Caribbean, 

following weeks of events leading up 

to the big masquerade. Biguine music, 

creole dance moves, and general antics 

will put a spring in your step. 

T photography/shutterstock.com 


datebook 

If you’re in . . . 

JAMAICA 

MIAMI 

St Lucia 

PAUL ATKINSON/shutterstock.com 

Accompong Festival 

6 January 

Marcus Garvey said “a people without 

the knowledge of their past history, 

origin, and culture is like a tree 

without roots.” That isn’t the case 

below the wide-spreading Kindah 

Tree in Accompong, the headquarters 

of the Maroon community in 

St Elizabeth, Jamaica. Every year, 

hundreds of Maroons and non- 

Maroons gather to observe their 

independence from the British, and 

the honoured Kindah Tree is the main 

stage. Storytelling and traditional 

dances go down under this sacred 

mango tree — a symbol of unity. 

Before 1739, Captain Cudjoe, the 

fierce Maroon leader, held important 

meetings and ceremonies there. 

Today, in the spirit of 

remembrance, the abeng horn — 

once used for communication among 

isolated settlements — is blown to 

commence the festivities. Women 

chant and men beat the drums in 

procession towards the tree. Prepare 

for libations of white rum flicked 

into the crowd, to fend off evil spirits 

and bring luck. But what good is a 

rum shower without food? To end 

the ceremony, the crowd gathers for 

a meal of unsalted and unseasoned 

pork with yams. And, of course, a 

sound-system party that continues 

until dawn. 

holbox/shutterstock.com 

Art Deco Weekend 

12 to 14 January 

artdecoweekend.com 

In downtown Miami, skyscrapers 

embrace the horizon, and 

architectural elements from various 

cultural influences abound. But if you 

appreciate the historical phenomenon 

of Art Deco, head over the bay to 

Miami Beach, which boasts one of the 

world’s most celebrated collections 

of Art Deco buildings — described 

as a “modern take on neoclassical, 

one that is equally historic, retro, 

and fabulous.” Over eight hundred 

structures built between 1923 and 

1943 make up the Miami Beach Art 

Deco Historic District — including a 

row of lavishly refurbished, rainbowhued 

hotels with prime views of the 

Atlantic. 

And even if you’re not into the 

architecture, but just want to shake a 

leg and be entertained, the Miami Art 

Deco Weekend programme will keep 

you on your feet. 

“Art Deco Around the World” is 

the 2018 festival’s theme, and over 

150,000 people will be on Ocean 

Drive in Miami Beach for educational 

events organised by the Miami 

Design Preservation League. There’s 

something for everyone — theatre 

shows, Hollywood movie tours, classic 

car shows, dog shows, fashion shows, 

culinary delights, and activities for 

children. Arrive early, as many of the 

events are free. 

Nobel Laureate Festival 

Last two weeks of January 

Venues around St Lucia 

Hear ye, hear ye, all devoted 

followers of Caribbean literature: 

St Lucia’s highly anticipated Nobel 

Laureates Festival has returned, and 

as usual it coincides with the shared 

birthdate of St Lucia’s two luminaries: 

Sir Arthur Lewis and Sir Derek 

Walcott. In 1979, Lewis won the 

Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, 

while Walcott received his Nobel 

Prize in Literature in 1992. A year 

later, a captivating and prestigious 

festival celebrating the achievements 

of these achievers was launched, and 

has been a significant literary affair 

in St Lucia’s calendar ever since. 

Music, theatre, and visual arts 

events always feature on the 

programme, with distinguished 

lectures dedicated to Lewis and 

Walcott being popular highlights. 

Academics and cultural luminaries 

such as the late Professor Rex 

Nettleford from Jamaica, Barbadian 

author George Lamming, Haitian 

filmmaker Raoul Peck, and many 

others have delivered the featured 

address at the annual lectures — 

impressing audiences and forming 

loyal returnees. This is the first year 

of the festival since Walcott’s death in 

2017. Expect the organisers to pull out 

all the stops. 

Event previews by Shelly-Ann Inniss 

courtesy farrar, straus and giroux 


@eldoradorums 

eldorado_rum 

@eldoradorums

datebook 

Jump into January 

New Year’s Day Junkanoo Parade 

Downtown Nassau, Bahamas 

bahamas.com 

Join the “rush” as large groups parade along 

Bay Street in Nassau with elaborate costumes, 

dances, horns, bells, and whistles 

[1 to 2] 

jo Crebbin/shutterstock.com 

The Next Stage Theatre Festival 

Venues around Toronto, Canada 

fringetoronto.com 

The best of the fringe festival performers 

return to the Factory Theatre, giving 

new life to hit shows and artists from 

previous years 

[3 to 14] 

30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 


courtesy bequia mount gay music fest 

Bequia Mount Gay Music Fest 

Venues around Bequia 

bequiamusicfestival.com 

The most anticipated music festival on 

the island is back, featuring a thrilling 

lineup making you groove to the 

blues in a cozy, intimate atmosphere 

[18 to 21] 

Cayman Cookout 

Venues around Grand Cayman 

visitcaymanislands.com 

Tastings, tours, dinners, pairings, 

and unique epicurean experiences 

in a relaxed setting of fun, 

friendship, and barefoot elegance 

[10 to 14] 

Port-au-Prince Half Marathon 

Haiti 

lghmarathon.org 

Shoe drives, fitness expos — and, of 

course, marathon day — unite runners 

from over sixteen countries in the 

Haitian capital 

[20 to 25] 

KSK Imaging/shutterstock.com 

30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 


datebook 

February fever 

Mashramani 

Venues around Georgetown, Guyana 

Guyana’s rich cultural heritage and 

diversity are celebrated on a grand scale 

by people from all walks of life 

[30 Jan to 23 Feb] 

DigiClicks/istock.com 

Antigua Superyacht Challenge 

Off the coast of Antigua 

yachtcharterfleet.com 

Excitement and unpredictability are in the air, as incredible 

yachts vie in four daily races along Antigua’s south coast 

[31 Jan to 4 Feb] 

Started 30 January 

Havana International 

Book Fair 

Havana, Cuba 

Authors, publishers, and avid 

readers gather for an exciting 

festival of poetry, readings, art 

exhibitions, and concerts 

[1 to 11] 

3 14 15 

30 31 30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 


Admiral’s Cup Pro-Am Golf Tournament 

Golf courses in St Kitts 

golfstkittsandnevis.com 

A PGA club professional and three amateurs pair 

up to compete against other teams from golf clubs 

across the US, Canada, UK, and the Caribbean 

[3 to 8] 

COURTESY angostura 

KaiMook Studio 99/shutterstock.com 

Angostura Global Cocktail Challenge 

Trinidad 

angosturaglobalcocktailchallenge.com 

The world’s best bartenders compete to become the House 

of Angostura’s next global ambassador. Skills, charm, 

cocktail knowledge, and unbridled talent will be on show 

[11] 

30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 

12 13 14 15 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 3 

29 30 

31 


word of mouth 

Dispatches from our correspondents around the Caribbean and further afield 

Desperadoes, 2016 Panorama 

champions , rehearsing for 

the finals 

Every night I lie down in mih bed 

Ah hearing a Bass Man in mih head. 

— The Mighty Shadow 

maria nunes 

Pan jumbie 

In T&T, Carnival is the season of 

steelpan music, and the truest 

devotees — like Barbara Jenkins 

— haunt the panyards in the 

weeks before the Panorama 

competition 

A 

bassman. A woman on the 

bass. Tenor man, double 

seconds woman, guitar-pan 

man, cello-pan woman. Engine room. 

Haunting you, pan jumbie, when you lie 

down in your bed, in those last weeks 

before Carnival. 

Christmas come. You not taking 

that on. Itching for New Year’s to hurry 

up. Because. Next is Epiphany. Feast of 

Kings. The royalty of your music world 

come out to play theyself, and you, into 

a frenzied state of distracted joy. 

Gillian B quickens to early summons. 

You concede a Woodbrook 

childhood might have some benefit. 

“Belmont You” already take win for 

Ken Morris, Jason Griffith, Harold 

Saldenah, Dixieland, Burrokeets, 

Wayne Berkeley, Wendell Manwarren, 

David Rudder . . . 

She, camel shawl and Egyptian hat 

— 22 degrees Celsius is winter here — 

and you, off to Phase II. Park easy on the narrow gap between 

modest houses and upscale towers. Next week, week after, is 

way-way down Taylor Street. Walk slow. The ground don’t 

remember your foot yet. You hearing something. Ting. Ting. 

Careful, hesitant notes. Floating beyond. Speed up now. Take 

sharp right. 

Before you, a shallow basin. Staid Fatima College, looming 

One Woodbrook Place frame distant views of Fort George, 

Cumberland Hill, Lady Chancellor. Metal pan racks lie scattered. 

Banners bearing the faded name of last year’s tune. 

Panyard low buzz. Sprinkle of people. The season early still. 

You here for the feeling, the vibe — confirmation that you 

reach where you supposed to be. 

Gillian taking a mental roll call. Look Mackie. Shortsleeved 

shirt, short pants, polished sockless loafers, 

backwards baseball cap. The feller with the walking stick? 

Not here yet. Over early weeks, a gradual gathering. 

Arrivals noted with nods, brief exchanges, the peculiarly 

Trinidadian nonchalant affirmation of a certain class, a 

certain generation, who never doubt they belong, be they 

foreign-based annual Christmas-to-Carnival returnees or 

us, the never-left. 


Early pannists already putting down the tune. Stage side 

of thirtyish eventually swelling to the Carnival hundred. The 

Man, legendary Len “Boogsie” Sharpe, Phase II founder, 

composer, arranger, emerges, circulates, greets. You relish 

this fleeting time. When practice really begins, the tune 

rounding, this gentle energy will be gone. Diluted and distracted, 

amplified and augmented. 

Natasha will be drilling down the sections, mannersing 

them with quiet authority. The Chuckaree boy, the Japanese 

girls, the brother and sister, still in primary school, the Couva 

girl, wee hours heading home, asleep as head hit pillow, waking 

up, doing whole day’s work, coming back, eager to take 

on this. You bear witness to one of the most adventurous steel 

orchestras rehearsing, shaping a tune from scratch to polish. 

“Jump High”. All yours. No questions. No entrance fee. No 

secret handshake. 

Come next week, week after, this yard, every panyard in the 

country, will be brightly lit, bleachers overflowing, bar open, 

t-shirts selling, people drifting in and out. Groupies, floaters, 

musicologists, sightseers, filmmakers. Cognoscenti and ignoranti 

all giving voluble opinion on music choice, arrangement, 

level of pannist skill. By the way, where the bearded Alaskan? 

Pat Bishop, late great pan icon, used to say that Laventille 

would not calm down until her Despers, the Desperadoes 

Steel Orchestra, returns home up Laventille Hill. Now 

nomadic, its pan racks like clean-picked bones of mastodons, 

strewn among razor grass fringing the Foreshore, the band 

temporarily lodged where a recently razed historic church 

stood. In that hallowed space, Despers builds their visceral 

music. Dispossessed, itinerant, defiantly brilliant: sell-out 

performances in international concert halls, eleven Panorama 

titles, latest 2016, “Different Me”. In the belly of this 

kind of rebellious beast, pan was conceived. Fire forging 

hammer with steel. 

Despers beats pan. Into submission. Music exposing scars. 

Telling of pain, insults, prohibitions. Hardship endured and 

overcome. Revelling in the triumphs of recognition, acclaim, 

the fanatical zeal of community supporters. Turfed out again. 

Landowner building a mall. Where to find Despers this year? 

Must call Chantal. 

Night before Prelims, Behind the Bridge relaxes its 

edginess for the season. The navel string of your pan passion 

buried in All Stars. The Blonde Terror, riding partner, 

squeezes her jeep into bare air near Hell Yard. Humanity 

solid in the yard. Crush past Jackie. His sketchbook busy. 

Come Lent, you will lust after another of his panyard scenes 

— players, regulars, bar, food booths, merchandise store, 

Laventille Hills backdrop, moonlight softening precariously 

perched house clusters. Shove forward. Wedge yourself 

between man in muscled merino and woman in shapedefying 

leopard-print leggings. 

Ping, ping, ping-ping-ping-ping. The “Full Extreme” tsunami 

of sound rushes towards you, swallows you alive into its 

tossing depths, invades every orifice, every pore. You are the 

sound and the sound is you. This is what you live for. Why you 

persist in being here. In this complex, crazy, extraordinary 

little island. 


word of mouth 

At Jouvay, it eh matter if you play yourself 

or somebody else. 

Play your dead eighty-year-old granny, 

who had tongue like scorpion pepper, 

two foot like twinned fishtail in Caura River, 

a smile like a butterknife cutting through hot sada. 

Play your living mother, 

who made of more parts glitter than flour, 

who teach you softness have more than enough space 

to leave a cutlass waiting, 

glistening between fat folds, 

ready to chop yuh from a bed of ample waist. 

Play all the dead and all the living in you, 

in yuh shortpants, 

in yuh badjohn drawers, 

in yuh ragged fishnets and curry-gold battyriders, 

in yuh half-top, in yuh no-top, 

breasts swinging under electric-tape nipples, 

panty forgotten in a culvert overflowing with holy water and hell liquor, 

your own perspiration sliding between bodies at play 

like the wetness from your body is purgatory-unction. 

All the 

dead, all 

the living 

Poet Shivanee Ramlochan 

on the mystical, carnal, 

pre-dawn ritual that begins 

T&T’s Carnival 

Illustration by Shalini Seereeram 

Play yuhself. 

Clay yuhself. 

Wine en pointe and wine to the four stations of the cross, 

dutty angel, 

bragadang badting, 

St James soucouyant, 

deep bush douen come to town 

to make a killing in mud and mudder-in-law 

on fresh doubles, after. 

Play like you eh playing in your public servant office on Ash Wednesday, 

calves aching and twitching in sensible slingback heels, 

a pulse in your lower back blossoming 

each time you bend down to file a papers, 

salute a clerk, 

say grace before ashes. 

You know where you are, really. 

Just how you know the clerk is a chantwell, 

the office is a concrete antechamber before the final mas, 

the pavement is a busshead-convergence, 

the parking lot is a gayelle, 

the savannah is a arena where paint and abeer might wash, 

but spirit does linger. 

You eh waiting til next year. 

Where you plant yourself this Jouvay 

is where your spectral, midnight lagahoo rattling she coffin, 

turning wolf 

to woman 

to wolf again. 


word of mouth 

Shakespeare mas in 

Hillsborough 

Bard vs bard 

Paul Crask visits Carriacou and experiences 

the unusual spectacle of Shakespeare mas 

On the morning of Shrove Tuesday, 

people from two villages on the 

diminutive island of Carriacou 

set off on foot towards the main town of 

Hillsborough. One group meanders down 

the hillside from the north, the other from 

the south. 

Some of the men and boys in the 

group are dressed in gaudily patterned 

flowing cloaks and pantaloons, costumes 

that are vaguely reminiscent of 

English medieval court jesters. They also 

wear hand-painted face masks and wield 

wooden sticks. On their slow journey 

to town, they recite passages of Shakespeare’s 

verse and drop into roadside 

rumshops for a fortifying drink or two. 

These incongruous processions are the 

start of one of the most unusual cultural 

customs of the entire Caribbean region, 

Carriacou’s Shakespeare mas. 

Celebrations begin the day before 

at J’Ouvert, the traditional opening 

of Carnival. By the time the sun rises, 

Hillsborough’s Main Street is jampacked 

with revellers. Many arrive over 

the preceding weekend from Grenada, 

filling the Osprey ferry and mail boat, 

then squeezing into any and every free 

corner of the island’s budget hotel rooms. 

J’Ouvert in Hillsborough is bohemian, 

wild, and sometimes downright bizarre. 

It’s also great fun. 

Covering themselves from top to toe 

in thick black engine oil, jab-jabs — a 

name derived from the French patois 

for devil — often sport a pair of horns 

on their head and are loosely fettered 

with chains and shackles. Some jabjabs 

carry animal skulls, or drag them 

around on ropes or in carts. Others 

spend J’Ouvert with a fish or octopus 

tentacles held half in, half out of their 

mouths. For travellers on the morning 

ferry from the luxury resorts of 

Grenada, these devilish figures might 

create a rather unsettling first impression 

of a tranquil little island. 

paul crask 

In stark contrast to the engine oil, 

bright paint in either powder or liquid 

form is daubed on face, body, and 

clothing, and tossed up into the air with 

abandon. The music is loud, the jump-up 

is frenzied, and the rum is constantly 

flowing. Carriacou is an Amerindian 

word meaning “land of reefs,” and 

J’Ouvert morning comes to a fitting close 

with grilled lobster and fish breakfasts, 

all prepared street-side. 

Hillsborough is a small coastal town, 

and the afternoon costume parade fills 

up most of it, by the time it’s completed 

a first circuit of the two thoroughfares. 

It is a colourful, family occasion that 

continues into the evening with spontaneous 

singing, drumming, and the 

kind of string band performances that 

are usually associated with the island’s 

traditional boat launching ceremonies. 

By lunchtime on Carnival Tuesday, 

the two groups of villagers who have 

been making their way down to Hillsborough 

finally meet on Main Street, 

where they face off. Women brandish 

sticks, ring bells, and bang on pots. 

Then battle commences. In turn, men 

from each village square up to each 

other, stick in hand, and begin quoting 

passages from Julius Caesar. If their 

opponent hears a mistake, they receive 

the swift blow of a stick. Fired up with 

village pride and local rum, the contest 

often ends up in a brawl, with sticks and 

punches flying. 

No one seems to have any firm idea 

about how Shakespeare mas came 

about, but the most common theory is 

that English planters of past centuries 

forced it upon their enslaved labourers 

as a form of entertainment. Wherever it 

came from, it has evolved into a unique 

and unusual custom on an island that is 

rich in cultural heritage — including a 

Carnival festival that should be on every 

Caribbean traveller’s bucket list. 


word of mouth 

Catch a fire 

There’s nothing like hearing reggae 

music performed live in the island of 

its birth, says Nazma Muller — and 

February is the month to celebrate 

that cultural heritage 

The year was 1995, and the place was Priory, St Ann. It was 

the opening night of Reggae Sunsplash, and my life would 

be changed forever. 

For five nights I listened, spellbound, to the sonic history of 

the wild child of music — from its birth in the form of mento and 

its growth and evolution, through the decades, to become ska, 

rocksteady, lovers’ rock, and conscious reggae. Thousands of 

devotees, local and foreign, were all united in ecstasy under that 

star-studded sky, as the high priests of reggae blessed us with 

hit after hit. There is something magical about hearing reggae 

performed live in the ganja-perfumed air of Jamaica that cannot 

be described or replicated. It’s as if the very trees and sky hum 

along with this mystical vibration. 

On 24 January, 2008, the then governor-general of Jamaica, 

Professor Sir Kenneth Hall, read an official proclamation declaring 

the month of February as Jamaica’s Reggae Month. It was 

a signal moment in the history of reggae. The time had come 

to analyse and reflect on what reggae had done globally and 

for Jamaica, and for the island that gave the world this most 

beautiful sound to celebrate its pioneers and progenitors. And 

peeterv/istock.com 

February was the ideal month, as two of Jamaica’s 

most revered musical sons — Dennis Brown, the 

Crown Prince of Reggae, and Bob Marley, the 

undisputed King — were born on 1 and 6 February, 

respectively. 

Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture has led the way in 

marketing Reggae Month and making it an international 

phenomenon. Activities in that inaugural 

year, a decade ago, included the hosting of the 

Reggae Academy Awards, the Bob Marley Photographic 

Exhibition, an Africa Unite/Smile Jamaica 

Youth Symposium, the first annual Bob Marley 

Lecture, an African Film Festival, a Reggae Film 

Festival, the annual Irie FM Reggae Music Awards, 

and the Bob Marley Creative Expression Day. 

In 2009, under the theme “Reggae to Di Worl,” 

an NGO called the Jamaica Reggae Industry Association 

(JaRIA) was given the task of coordinating 

events and activities for Reggae Month. That 

year, eleven of Jamaica’s music veterans were 

honoured and celebrated for their contributions, 

including Count Ossie and the Mystic Revelation 

of Rastafari, who were given a Lifetime Achievement 

Award. Pam Hall and Dennis Brown were 

also honoured. Other legends celebrated over the 

years include John Holt, Gregory Isaacs, Nadine 

Sutherland, George Nooks, Sugar Minott, Ernie 

Smith, Pablo Moses, and the Heptones. 

The Reggae Month Committee has always 

emphasised the importance of the reggae music 

industry to Jamaica’s economy. Education is 

crucial also: every year the committee organises 

symposia for high school students in collaboration 

with the Bob Marley Foundation and the Jamaica 

Cultural Development Commission, to improve 

public awareness about the island’s musical 

heritage. The committee also works with the Ministry of Education 

to host seminars with fifth- and sixth-formers to educate 

them about career opportunities available in music, and for 

musicians and stakeholders to learn where reggae music fits into 

the global music industry. 

Most Reggae Month activities are free. And the proceeds of 

events with admission fees go towards buying musical instruments 

for schools, supporting industry players, and setting up a 

music industry foundation. As Reggae Month hits the ten-year 

milestone, the 2018 programme — its details being confirmed 

as this magazine went to press — promises to be spectacular, 

with the Jamaica Tourist Board and the Ministry of Culture 

adding their strength to a planned mega-event, which will no 

doubt bring together some of the biggest names in reggae. And 

maybe some lucky person in the audience will find her life being 

changed — as mine was, all those years ago. n 

For updates on the 2018 Reggae Month programme, 

visit www.jariajamaicamusic.com 


The game 

Superhero 

MOVES 

Jamaican taekwondo champ Akino Lindsay channels the Power 

Rangers to change his life and inspire youth in Kingston’s 

toughest communities. Kellie Magnus finds out more 

Photo by Nickii Kane 

“ 

Who 

doesn’t want to be a superhero?” 

Akino Lindsay, the reigning 

International Sport Kickboxing 

Association (ISKA) World Champion, 

is defending his love for the 

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. 

“That show had me. I liked the suits, the fighting, the action. 

Everything they did was so cool. I wanted to be the black Power 

Ranger.” 

The twenty-one-year-old’s love for the TV show may not 

be surprising, given its popularity in 1990s Jamaica. The liveaction 

superhero series was in heavy rotation, featuring a team 

of teenagers with the ability to morph into Power Rangers with 

superhuman capabilities. 

For Lindsay, the show had a special place in an otherwise 

challenging childhood. He grew up in Drewsland, an economically 

disadvantaged area in Kingston, where his mother raised 

him and his siblings on her own, after his father was killed 

violently when Lindsay was only five years old. 

“Drewsland wasn’t a place for kids,” says Lindsay. “It was 

where my father died, and that put me in a constant state of 

unease. I acted out a lot and got into a lot of trouble. Taekwondo 

literally saved my life. If I hadn’t started taekwondo, I’d be dead 

or in prison.” 

The transition from watching small-screen action to participating 

in real-life martial arts happened when taekwondo 

was introduced at his high school, St George’s College. Initially 

attracted to the flips and kicks he’d seen on television, Lindsay 

fell in love with the sport’s discipline and camaraderie, and 

found in its competitive environment a safe channel for his 

energy, anger, and resentment. 

“Taekwondo is a way of life,” says Lindsay. “The thrill of competition 

pushes me. I want to go all out and give one hundred per 

cent. If somebody does something better than me, I want to do 

it ten times better.” 

There were other moments off the mat that cemented his love 

for the sport. “The best experience I’ve ever had in taekwondo 

was when my first coach, ‘Sir’ Herbert Stewart, carried me out 

for my birthday. He kept calling me son, and that felt good to 

me. I had a male figure in my life looking out for me, and I felt 

well blessed.” 

From his first competition at age seventeen — which 

resulted in a loss he describes as spectacular — Lindsay has 

rolled out an impressive string of performances at the national, 

regional, and international level. He holds the 2017 ISKA 

World Champion title, which he first won in 2015. Last year, 

he also won the Jamaica Taekwondo National Invitational 

and placed second in the US Open ISKA World Martial Arts 

Championship. He’s won gold and silver, respectively, at the 

2014 and 2016 Pan American Championships, and was the 

2014 International Taekwondo Federation World Champion. 

He trains in both the International Taekwondo Federation and 

World Taekwondo Federation disciplines, and enters nearly a 

“If I’m doing something, I want to 

take it all the way” 

dozen local and international championships each year. 

Lindsay competes in both light contact continuous sparring 

and point sparring categories, with a competition schedule that 

can include three or more fights a day for consecutive days. 

“As an athlete, Akino is very dedicated,” says Michael Rose, 

taekwondo black-stripe and long-time friend. “In sparring, he’s 

always excited. I try to emulate him and learn from him. 

“As a fan, if you’ve ever seen him fight, you’d want to do taekwondo,” 

Rose continues. “It’s exciting, dramatic, over the top. 

It’s like watching the Power Rangers. The techniques you’d see 

in the movies are the things he executes. He does all the moves 

that aren’t easy to do, and makes it look fun.” 


Five questions for Akino Lindsay 

What’s your superhero name? 

Shringo, my alter ego. Shringo can block out all 

tiredness and pain. But so far I haven’t needed 

him to show up yet. 

What are your favourite moves? 

A tie. Tornado kick (360-degree turning kick): 

it’s really cool when you execute it properly. 

Reverse turning kick: it’s really hard, but if you 

do it properly you can counter most kicks. 

What do you do for fun? 

Play Pokemon GO, text my girlfriend, play 

football. 

What’s your training routine? 

Taekwondo training for four hours a day, four 

days a week. Run once a week. 

And your biggest fears? 

Planes, elevators, getting old, flying 

cockroaches, and getting kicked in the teeth. 

Lindsay’s ultimate prize is Olympic gold. “If I’m doing 

something, I want to take it all the way,” he says. “It would be 

huge for Jamaica.” Kenneth Edwards, who represented Jamaica 

in taekwondo in the 2012 Olympics, is the only athlete to do so 

to date. Lindsay trains with Edwards on Jamaica’s combined 

martial arts team, and is motivated to increase the recognition 

of Jamaica’s success in the sport. 

But that longstanding dream is now rivalled by a more 

personal project: using his skills and talents to transform 

the lives of young people in circumstances similar to those 

he grew up in. On hiatus from the University of the West Indies 

for a year, Lindsay is currently a coach in the Safer Communities 

Programme, a multi-partner effort to reduce youth violence in six 

volatile communities in Kingston. 

The programme is led by Fight for Peace International, a 

global NGO that uses boxing and martial arts to transform 

young people’s lives. (Full disclosure: I run the Jamaica country 

programme.) The SCP communities are 

like Drewsland in income levels and levels 

of violence, and it’s not hard to see why 

Lindsay sees himself in the faces of his 

young charges. 

“Taekwondo changed my life. It’s 

more than the training and the fancy 

kicks. Now I see it as a way to help other 

people,” he explains. “We’re keeping 

children off the street. We’re giving them 

a family away from family. My most 

important role is to be there for them.” 

Lindsay’s dedication as a coach in the SCP earned him a 

nomination to the Michael Johnson Young Leaders Course, a 

coaching development programme for young coaches around 

the world. The programme is now providing funds and coaching 

support for Lindsay to develop Math Ninjas, an innovative 

approach to integrating math instruction into his taekwondo 

lessons, which Lindsay designed when he recognised many of 

his young athletes needed help with math. 

“I love math and I love taekwondo. I’m fusing the things I 

love to solve a big problem in Jamaica. Getting this right is as 

important to me now as the Olympics.” 

Balancing his commitment to the project with his Olympic 

dreams is a challenge, but one that Lindsay is fully ready to take 

on. “One thing I’ve learned from ISKA is you always have to find 

a way to keep advancing,” he says. The person backing up is the 

person losing. 

“You never, ever stop fighting.” n 


Bookshelf 

The Light in Paint: 50 Years of Watercolours, by Jackie Hinkson 

(202 pp, ISBN 9789768244260) 

“To get the images I wanted 

for this book,” writes Jackie 

Hinkson in his acknowledgements, 

“I had to borrow, 

photograph, and return 

scores of paintings.” No 

more immediate testament 

to Hinkson’s enduring 

reputation as a visual artist 

need be found. If artists 

truly begin to perish when 

their paintings fade into 

obsolescence, The Light in 

Paint proves that Hinkson 

is here to stay. These works 

adorn staterooms and living 

rooms, ampitheatre foyers and art galleries, kitchens and 

embassies: they are lived with, observed, pored over. They 

are, even in the generous cross-section afforded us in this 

book, but a sample of Hinkson’s fifty years of watercolours. 

Unsentimental, devoid of florid self-praise, Hinkson 

is perhaps well known in T&T circles for getting on with 

the business of painting. It is that business on which 

this publication trains its 

eye: apart from a revelatory 

essay by the artist, 

and a sensitively wrought 

contribution from art historian 

and curator Timothy 

Wilcox, the book suffuses us 

in images. 

Ordered both by a basic 

chronology of the artist’s 

life and by movements in 

his career, the pieces in 

The Light in Paint command 

their own subtle and 

magnanimous vocabulary. 

That is, they contain in their 

depictions of seascapes, Carnivals, still lifes, architecture, 

human subjects, and street scenes all they need to make 

their multiple meanings seen. No further essays, reviews, 

or verbal dissections are required. In washes of colour on 

canvas, Hinkson’s The Light in Paint speaks the Caribbean 

world to us all: vibrant, versatile, forever moving between 

darkness and its radiant opposite. 

Grounds for Tenure, by Barbara Lalla 

(University of the West Indies Press, 361 pp, 

ISBN 9789766406219) 

When a mysterious offer of a 

post at an offshore Jamaican 

campus crops up, Candace 

Clarke seizes it. Clinging to 

part-time employment at UWI, 

St Augustine, has long lost 

even a faint shimmer of appeal. 

To the non-academic mind, the 

halls of campuses and the 

trimmed hedges of university 

quadrangles seem like paltry 

settings for real drama: yet 

Grounds for Tenure teems with 

intrigue, fascination, and more than a few outlandish 

professors. Clarke is the narrative lynchpin in this subtle, 

anecdotally seductive novel from Lalla. We do more than 

feel for Candace: we are invited to think alongside her. 

“What really occupied her thoughts was how it was possible 

to word the wind howling Heathcliff’s anguish, and 

whether the letters Man-man inscribed on Miguel Street 

were a sign of his madness or some part of the cause.” 

Into Candace’s mind of novels, nuisances, and novelties 

we go, entering a world of vast imaginations and venial 

sins, spun in Lalla’s gently magnetic prose. 

The Tryst, by Monique Roffey 

(Dodo Ink, 198 pp, ISBN 9780993575860) 

Chaste and virginal? Beware: 

The Tryst might send you 

spiralling straight out of your 

demure cocoon, with riveting 

results. In this new erotic 

novel from the winner of 

the 2013 OCM Bocas Prize 

for Caribbean Literature, 

the stakes for a passion-dry 

marriage’s survival are high. 

Britons Bill and Jane pick 

up Lilah, a woman cloaked 

in intrigue, whose origins 

are far more ancient than the couple know. Lilah, a 

character study nonpareil in archetypal, predatory 

female divinity, captivates in every scene. Roffey draws 

her with bold, unapologetic strokes, revelling in Lilah’s 

capacity to raze tepid domesticities. Ripe segments of 

this novel read as poetic riffs: “In the mirror I sparkled 

and radiated evil. I was lit up by all the loving horrors of 

my deeds.” The Tryst encircles you at the wrist, leading 

you down the garden path of darkly-tinctured pleasure: 

this is ferocious fiction, in any genre. 


Collected Poems, 1975–2015, by John Robert Lee 

(Peepal Tree Press, 212 pp, ISBN 9781845233518) 

In “Line”, written for Derek 

Walcott, the St Lucian poet John 

Robert Lee asks, “When have I 

not measured this land by your 

lines? When have I not tracked 

blue-smoke pits to their riverstone 

roots by your metaphor?” 

Lee’s Collected Poems assembles 

forty years of his own poems 

that lead without calamitous 

disharmony, with the steadying, 

solid weight of attention, to 

the land of St Lucia. Everywhere, light pierces darkness, 

waters trouble ships and souls, “mythology parses into 

facts,” and the verses do their own careful, robustly 

considered mapmaking. What Lee invokes for us is both 

a devotion to the St Lucian landscape and an ardent 

contemplation of what that landscape might resemble, 

if we watered it with deeper, stronger loves. Of the 

love that exists, Lee also writes words that compel us to 

follow: “all that is left us now is careful patience, that 

stubborn heart of love, hope, faith, of the ordering line, 

of the turning word.” 

The Greatest Films: A Poem, by Faizal Deen 

(Mawenzi House, 80 pp, ISBN 9781927494837) 

A powerful anti-hymnal to cultural 

assimilation, The Greatest 

Films explores the brown queer 

body’s survival in a post-9/11 

world. Faizal Deen — author 

of the first Guyanese LGBTQI 

poetry collection, Land Without 

Chocolate — leaps and vaults in 

experimental flourishes while 

never succumbing to careless 

indulgence. Rather, the work in 

The Greatest Films ricochets to 

the percussive power of memory: by summoning movies 

and songs, Deen gifts us a personal world of rich meaning. 

Gliding suggestively and smoothly between real vistas 

and reconstituted dreamscapes, these verses are at their 

best when they startle, unsettle, and prompt reflection in 

the reader. In these worlds of motion and fusion, Edgar 

Mittelholzer brushes up against Christopher Isherwood; 

“raleigh’s guiana dabbles in alchemy”; roots of boyhood 

origin relocate betwixt Guyana, Canada, and India. The 

effects are revivifying: here is a long poem unafraid to 

bare its bold, revisionist face. 

Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor 


playlist 

R.A.W. Angela Hunte (The Hunted Group/ 

Therapist Music) 

Brooklyn-born Angela Hunte 

has receded from her Trinidadian 

roots, and her recent 

inventions and collaborations 

with soca, to rediscover 

her other Caribbean voice as 

a reggae songstress. On her 

debut solo album R.A.W. — 

an acronym for “reasoning 

and words” — she uses the 

sound of roots reggae, dub music, and rockers to convey 

songs of love beyond the traditional pop music schmaltz 

that dominates the global charts. As a Grammy-winning 

songwriter, Hunte knows how to create a memorable 

hook and an earworm that lives beyond a temporary 

listen. With lyrics and production values that resonate 

with a digital native generation, this album sparkles as 

a daring experiment to move Caribbean music forwards. 

Collaborations with reggae star Tarrus Riley on “King 

& Queen” and reggae DJ and producer Taranchyla on 

“Rub Dub” give this album both an island vibe and an 

urban feel that suggest that it has cross-genre appeal 

beyond borders. 

Glass World Rudy Smith Quartet (Stunt Records) 

Trailblazing steelpan jazz 

virtuoso Rudy Smith has 

been fusing the sound of 

the pan with bebop and 

progressive jazz for nearly 

fifty years, premiering the 

sound of native invention 

and “creole imagination” in 

the wider world. Europe has 

been his stomping ground 

for all those years, and with his eleventh full-length 

album Smith serves as a bona fide symbol of music 

excellence. Glass World finds Smith back fronting his 

Danish jazz band, re-inventing the idea of the steelpan 

as a solo instrument for jazz without the feeling of it 

being too avant garde. “Plangent” was the word used by 

a reviewer to describe the sound of the double second 

steelpans used by Smith, but a more apt descriptive 

would be “euphonious.” That tone juxtaposes beautifully 

within the songs, mainly written by his long-time 

collaborator and pianist Ole Matthiessen, to serve up a 

new standard in a diminishing marketplace for unique 

jazz. Traditional jazz is best served with originality, and 

this album delivers. 

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Single Spotlight 

Plaisance Eddy Grant (Ice Records) 

Guyanese singer and songwriter 

Eddy Grant returns 

to his native “land of many 

waters” — and specifically his 

birthplace village of Plaisance 

— to contemplate his life 

and how that place impacted 

his musical and personal 

career. The village’s history 

highlights the story of its 

purchase by sixty-five newly freed Africans in the immediate 

post-emancipation period — one of the first of several 

predominantly African villages in Guyana purchased by 

the formerly enslaved with their savings. In this context 

of real independence, Plaisance represents a return to 

the original unfettered aesthetic of the young Eddy Grant 

who successfully blended rock, pop, R&B, and Caribbean 

music tropes to carve a pioneering international career. 

Using his trademarked Ringbang — more an all-inclusive 

philosophy than a genre — to elucidate this album, the 

songs have a directness unparalleled in Caribbean songcraft. 

The standout track “Now We’re All Together” lets 

Grant’s voice dramatically emote the story of overcoming 

and homecoming. 

Bodyline Olatunji and System32 (self-released) 

With a cheeky stride piano 

introduction, Olatunji 

Yearwood blows the lid off of 

what can be expected in soca 

this year, as the genre and the 

players make a determined 

turn in the direction of global 

appeal. “Shake your bodyline, 

shake your bodyline,” 

the lyrical hook, has Olatunji 

singing and scatting over it like a Cab Calloway clone or, 

more contemporarily, Kid Creole, to drive party folk and 

crowds to the dance floor. Producer System32 has made 

magic with the vocals that spit rapid-fire wordplay in 

pleasing tones. Add the freewheeling jazz aesthetic of a 

Cotton Club big band, and we’re in a new chapter in the 

continuing fusion exercise that has been soca in search of 

the ultimate crossover. A driving rhythm and synth horn 

line says soca, but when that clarinet solo comes in near 

the end, we know we are onto something big that begins 

and ends with a bang. Tadow! 

Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell 


SCREENSHOTS 

Woodpeckers 

Directed by José María Cabral, 2017, 106 minutes 

Love literally knows no bounds in Woodpeckers, an inventive, 

at times enthralling prison drama from the Dominican 

Republic’s José María Cabral. A precocious filmmaker 

(he made his first feature at 

twenty), Cabral — still shy of 

thirty — achieved notice in 

2012 with Check Mate, a slick, 

formulaic thriller. Woodpeckers 

— which has been submitted to 

the upcoming Academy Awards 

for best foreign-language film 

— sees him grappling with 

more interesting material, and 

for the most part wringing 

from it successful results. 

Inspired by true events, Woodpeckers was shot on location 

in adjacent men’s and women’s prisons, a catastrophe 

waiting to happen if ever there was one. Julian (Jean 

Jean, wiry and compellingly intense) is sent to the men’s 

penitentiary after being convicted of a robbery charge. 

Here he encounters an astonishing phenomenon: men 

communicating with women in the yard across the way 

through a form of sign language known as pecker talk, 

the men’s hands when grasping the prison bars mimicking 

woodpeckers grasping a tree branch. 

Deputised by Manaury (Ramón Candelario), a 

convicted murderer temporarily in solitary confinement, 

Jean Jean quickly learns this unique language of love in 

order to trade messages with Manaury’s girlfriend Yanelly 

(a fiery Judith Rodríguez, with 

a hairstyle to match). It isn’t 

long before Jean Jean and 

Yanelly are attracted to one 

another, and the film must 

contrive ways of bringing the 

couple into physical contact 

with each other. It also isn’t 

long before Manaury begins 

to suspect something’s amiss, 

and the lovers’ idyll is in 

jeopardy. 

Woodpeckers has a novel core idea, the director dramatising 

it with the panache it deserves. The attendant 

plotting might still be rather formulaic, but Cabral is able 

to create a tragic denouement of almost Shakespearean 

proportions. And the crafty final shot will make you want 

to watch the film again. 

For more information, visit facebook.com/ 

carpinterosmovie 

Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami 

Directed by Sophie Fiennes, 2017, 115 minutes 

Predictable and conventional 

are not words 

associated with Grace 

Jones. Shot over nearly 

a decade by British 

documentarian Sophie 

Fiennes, Bloodlight and 

Bami is an engrossing 

portrait of the provocative Jamaican disco icon that 

is appropriately neither of those things. Not for the 

uninitiated, the film forgoes the usual trappings of 

the biographical profile (there isn’t a single archival 

photograph or bit of file footage), instead presenting 

an intimate, vérité-style look at the current life of the 

virtually ageless Jones, in locations ranging from Paris to 

Jamaica to New York. 

The unvarnished observational sequences are punctuated 

by polished concert performances, Jones giving 

redoubtable renditions of dance-floor anthems like 

“Slave to the Rhythm” and “Pull Up to the Bumper”. Yet 

it’s in the often-unguarded moments when Jones is out 

of the spotlight that the film attains its power, becoming 

a witness to her tenacity, vulnerability, and simple, 

affecting humanness. 

For more information, visit westendfilms.com 

The West Indies Gang 

Directed by Jean-Claude Barny, 2016, 90 minutes 

Based on actual events, 

The West Indies Gang 

recounts the deeds of 

a group of men from 

the French Antilles — 

victims of poverty and 

racism — who robbed a 

string of post offices in 

Paris in the 1970s. The protagonist, Jimmy (a sympathetic 

Djedje Apali), is a single father to a young daughter. 

When Jimmy returns to mainland France after obtaining 

weapons from a separatist militia in Martinique, the 

gang prepares for its final and most ambitious heist, a 

bank job. 

Sadly, what could have been a bracingly political crime 

thriller flounders amid unreconstructed Blaxploitation 

tropes (a scene where a woman is savagely beaten is 

particularly disturbing) and a literal lack of firepower. 

The film also lacks the courage of its anti-colonial convictions, 

when at the end an incarcerated Jimmy puzzlingly 

declares that “Our struggle isn’t racial, it’s societal.” 

For more information, visit facebook.com/ 

Legangdesantillais 

Reviews by Jonathan Ali 


Immerse 

Ron Burton / hulton archive / getty images 

42 Closeup 

Walk tall 

57 Backstory 

How to win the road 

72 

Own Words 

“I’m unfinished’ 

With ten wins, the late calypsonian Lord KItchener is T&T’s all-time Road March champion

CLOSEUP 

With Port of Spain’s Central 

Bank towers in the background, 

a member of the Keylemanjahro 

School of Arts and Culture shows 

off his stiltwalking skills 


Walk tall 

Towering above the crowds, 

striding majestically or dancing 

in acrobatic defiance of gravity, 

moko jumbies are one of the 

most impressive sights in T&T’s 

Carnival. A performance art 

derived from West Africa, moko 

jumbies once seemed to be a 

dying tradition — but, as 

Ray Funk explains, the efforts 

of an enthusiastic few have 

led in recent years to a bona 

fide moko jumbie revival, with 

hundreds of young people 

learning the art of “getting 

high” on stilts 

Photography by Maria Nunes 


“ 

Are you coming up?” they ask you at classes and workshops all over 

Trinidad. That’s the question — are you joining them up on sticks 

today, or just watching? 

There is a moko jumbie revolution building momentum in T&T, 

with growing numbers of young people — and some parents — learning 

the art of stiltwalking behind this traditional Carnival masquerade. 

Even as other forms of traditional mas seem in decline, young people are taking to 

stilts and striving to touch the sky. 

Almost any public event in Trinidad — from government ceremonies to corporate promotions 

to tourist shows — now has at least a couple of moko jumbies. During Carnival, 

they join every competition and every parade. In the past decade, creativity in costuming 

and growing acrobatic skill have led to more and more enthusiasm from the public. 

A moko jumbie needs to perfect a nimble athleticism. Getting and remaining aloft 

require constantly shifting weight and attention. A graceful dismount is also a necessary 

skill. No wonder the young and limber are drawn to this revelry. 

Like the eager participants in #1000mokos, a group formed by artist Joshua Lue 

Chee Kong and designer Kriston Chen. Since early 2017, they have met every Sunday 

at the Alice Yard arts space in Woodbrook, west Port of Spain. Free classes strive to get 

students up and comfortable on sticks, progressing to increasing heights as they leave 

the yard and walk through the streets to practice in local parks. 

Artist and architect Michael Lee Poy, who works closely with #1000mokos, has 

been smitten with the moko jumbie bug for many years, having previously worked 

with them in Peter Minshall’s mas band and at the Cleveland Art Museum. Lee 

Poy builds all the #1000mokos stilts himself, experimenting with various woods 

and different designs and connectors. For him, moko jumbies are not just about 

individual athleticism and performing tricks, but about creating new possibilities in 

mas narratives. 

Members of the #1000mokos 

group performing in downtown 

Port of Spain 

A moko jumbie needs 

to perfect a nimble 

athleticism. Getting 

and remaining aloft 

require constantly 

shifting weight and 

attention 


But these are the newcomers. Other pioneers have been 

training moko jumbies for decades, in some of Trinidad’s 

poorer communities. In the north, it is Glen de Souza, 

better known as Dragon, who in 1986 founded a cultural yard in 

Cocorite, west of Port of Spain, to offer local kids a place to come 

after school, free from crime and drugs. Initially, Dragon’s focus 

was on dancing and drumming, but he soon noticed it was stilts 

that got the kids excited. As one parent commented, “The kids 

never want to come back to the ground.” 

Over the years, Dragon’s Keylemanjahro School of Arts and 

Culture has trained thousands, and his yard has become the safe 

haven for a generation of young people. Singlehandedly, he is 

the person who really paved the way for many others to take the 

moko jumbie in different directions. 

German photographer Stephan Falke became fascinated with 

Dragon’s work in the mid-1990s, and for seven years he travelled 

to Trinidad from New York City to document it. The resulting 

oversized book, Moko Jumbies: The Dancing Spirits of Trinidad 

(2004), is full of stunning colour photos of the young people who 

answered Dragon’s call. 

Overlapping with Falke’s time, Mexican-American artist 

Laura Anderson Barbata spent five years coming to Dragon’s 

yard to make costumes and help with the band in various ways. 

Singlehandedly, Glen “Dragon” 

de Souza is the person who really 

paved the way for many others to 

take the moko jumbie in different 

directions 

Prior to her arrival, the band wasn’t able to afford any level of 

costuming, and often relied on body paint, especially bright 

reds and blues, to stand out at Carnival. Anderson Barbata’s 

work with the Keylemanjahro band created stunning narratives 

and new possibilities, such as horse jumbies, scarlet ibis, and 

portrayals inspired by the Dogon of Mali. 

A 2007 documentary by German director Harald Rumpf, Up 

and Dancing: The Magical Stilts of Trinidad, features the drama 

of young members of Dragon’s group as they struggle against 

family challenges to perform for Carnival. Keylemanjahro moko 

jumbies have even made an appearance on Sesame Street. All this 

outside support added to the exposure and interest in Dragon’s 

work and in moko jumbies themselves. Over the years, Dragon 

has faced various challenges, but he perseveres. 

In south Trinidad, meanwhile, the moko jumbie catalyst is 

Junior Bisnath of San Fernando. After receiving some initial 

training from Dragon, Bisnath has gone on to train hundreds 

himself with his Kaisokah moko jumbie group, running since 

1995. Kaisokah has an active small group hired for numerous 

corporate or government events. They’ve travelled to St Lucia, 

Zimbabwe, the UK, and Panama to perform and train. Bisnath 

even took a contingent of moko jumbies to the 2006 FIFA World 

Cup competition in Germany, with the Trinidad and Tobago 

national team. 

Last year, Bisnath set his eyes on a new milestone. The 

Guinness Book of World Records includes several stiltwalkers’ 

exploits. In June 2009, a total of 1,908 participants got on stilts 

across the globe, from the US and Canada to Brazil, Russia, and 

Macau, to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Cirque 

du Soleil. And in 2011, 957 primary students in the Netherlands 


smashed the record for most stiltwalkers to walk one hundred 

metres together. 

So the Kaisoca crew issued a call throughout Trinidad and 

Tobago to beat the record. On Sunday 10 September, 2017, they 

assembled over five hundred moko jumbies, including a small 

contingent from Grenada, at Skinner Park in San Fernando. 

Bisnath hopes to make this gathering an annual event, and 

is confident he will break the record soon, given the growing 

numbers of children and adults taking classes. He does hold the 

record, he believes, for the youngest person on stilts: his son at 

eleven months. 

Moko jumbies from the Touch D Sky 

group join the Canboulay Riots 

re-enactment at Piccadilly Greens on 

the Friday before Carnival 


Jhawan Thomas portrays Peter Minshall’s 

controversial moko jumbie king, The 

Dying Swan 

In 2012, Kaisokah members Adrian Young 

and Jonadiah Gonzales started their own 

moko jumbie group, Touch D Sky, based 

in their home village of Tarodale. They were 

joined by British artist Alan Vaughan, who 

had been coming to Trinidad for many years, 

and had designed Young’s king costume, The 

Crow, for Kaisokah earlier that year, placing 

fourth in the national competition. Together, 

they wanted to deepen and extend the 

traditional masquerade art form. Vaughan’s 

designs for the band find their inspiration in 

the richness of Afro-Atlantic culture, and have 

proven consistently stunning. He believes the 

costumes and characters portrayed by the 

moko jumbies should reflect each individual’s 

athletic agility, and also express an aspect of 

their personal qualities. 

In 2015, Touch D Sky’s Stephanie Kanhai 

won the national Carnival Queen title, the 

first moko jumbie ever to do so. Since then, 

the band has become a force at Carnival, 

relocating in the weeks before the festival to 

temporary quarters near the Savannah stage 

at Granderson Lab, an arts incubation space 

run by the founders of Alice Yard. Individual 

Touch D Sky members have increasing 

opportunities to perform around T&T and 

even internationally. Young also leads and 

trains a new youth team, Future Jumbies, 

and he, Vaughan, and other members of 

the band have gone to teach in St Martin, 

Montserrat, and Dominica, to revive and 

strengthen the art in those islands. 

But perhaps the best known individual 

moko jumbie performer in T&T is Jhawhan 

Thomas. He was one of those who grew 

up spending every day at Dragon’s Keylemanjahro 

yard, and eventually helped train 

younger kids. He also joined several dance 

companies and worked in Peter Minshall’s 

mas camp, and later on in designer Brian 

Mac Farlane’s studio. In 2007, in what many 

consider Mac Farlane’s finest Carnival band, 

India, Jhawan portrayed a stunning moko 

jumbie elephant. The following year he 


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won the King of Carnival title for Mac Farlane’s band Earth, 

with an abstract costume called Pandemic Rage, engineered by 

Michael Lee Poy. 

Then in 2016, just a few weeks before Carnival, Minshall — 

Trinidad’s most celebrated mas man — called on Thomas to 

dance a solo moko jumbie king controversially titled The Dying 

Swan: Ras Nijinsky in Drag as Pavlova. Minshall had featured 

various moko jumbies in past bands, and indeed his 1988 band 

was called Jumbie, with both king and queen on stilts. But this 

new Carnival king created a storm in the press and social media: 

Thomas performed costumed as a ballet dancer, all in white, with 

the stilts themselves carved to look like ballet shoes en pointe. 

The Dying Swan is considered a turning point in Russian 

ballet. It is a short piece about the end of life, choreographed in 

1905 for ballerina Anna Pavlova, to a cello solo from composer 

Camille Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals. It became her 

signature piece, which she performed over four thousand times. 

Pavlova’s equally celebrated contemporary, Vaslav Nijinsky, was 

never known to have done The Dying Swan. 

On stage, Thomas performed ballet moves on stilts, imagining 

one of the great male Russian ballet dancers in the most 

famous role of one of his female contemporaries, with the 

addition of Rastafarian dreads, and the transfer of the music to 

steelpan. It was unlike anything ever seen at Trinidad Carnival. 

Filmmaker Christopher Laird’s short film of it is a remarkable 

record of a tradition turned on its head. 

Around the world, stiltwalking has been going on for 

thousands of years, and its origins are shrouded in the 

mists of history. Stiltwalkers are depicted on ancient 

Greek and Pre-Colombian pottery, and reports from Asia and the 

Central American Popol Vuh narrative go far back as well. In some 

places, stilts were simply an efficient mode of transport, especially 

in hilly or swampy terrain. In nineteenth-century France, sheep 

herders used them to keep track of their flocks. From these 

practical uses, stiltwalking became a standard feature in circuses 

and other public entertainments around the globe. 

Caribbean moko jumbies are traced to West African roots that 

stretch back centuries, brought over the Atlantic in slave ships. 

(Or, as some say, the moko jumbies walked across the Atlantic 

following the ships.) The masquerade’s 

very name has West African origins. 

Scholar Robert Nichols has recorded the 

history of moko jumbies across Africa, 

largely in sacred functions, often secret 

societies. They were completely covered 

in masks, hats, and gloves, so their identities 

remained hidden. 

Stiltwalking has 

been going on for 

thousands of years, 

and its origins are 

shrouded in the mists 

of history 

Touch D Sky moko jumbies heading 

through Belmont to the Queen’s Park 

Savannah 


A moko jumbie from the Kaisokah group 

shows off on Port of Spain’s Ariapita 

Avenue 

There are historical reports of moko jumbies 

throughout the Caribbean, and they survive in 

limited numbers in many countries. Nichols 

reports the earliest known Caribbean reference 

at a 1791 Christmas event with “a masked moko 

jumbie roaming the streets accompanied by 

musicians.” In Trinidad, John Cowley notes 

a newspaper report from the 1890s of stilt 

dancers stalking “through the streets to the 

strains of drum and fife.” In 1956, Dan Crowley 

described Trinidad moko jumbies as having 

brightly painted skirts and satin or velvet jackets, 

and peaked hats with feathers — but they 

were “virtually extinct.” And Trinidad’s great 

dancer and choreographer Geoffrey Holder, 

who used moko jumbies in his 1978 Broadway 

musical Timbuktu, recalled: “I will never forget, 

as a child, being frightened and awed by these 

gigantic, masked spectres wandering the 

streets after the parade.” 

In many parts of the Caribbean, moko 

jumbies survive primarily as part of folklore 

Moko jumbies to 

the world 

Like many other element of culture, moko jumbies have followed 

the T&T diaspora around the world. In New York City, a 

few individuals and small groups have performed at Labour Day 

Carnival and related events for decades. In recent years, the primary 

band has been the Brooklyn Jumbies formed in the 1990s 

by Ali Sylvester, inspired by Dragon in Trinidad, and working 

with Najja Codrington from Barbados, who had gone to Senegal 

for moko jumbie training. The Brooklyn Jumbies worked hard to 

develop a batch of dancers from all over the Caribbean diaspora. 

Now that Sylvester has moved to Orlando, Florida, he’s starting 

a new troupe there. They explore both African and Caribbean 

traditions, and have performed and trained in Singapore, Japan, 

China, the UK, and Costa Rica. Not long ago, a contingent went 

with the Something Positive dance troupe to Morocco. 

Laura Anderson Barbata, after her experience in Trinidad, 

sought out the Brooklyn Jumbies, and has been working closely 

with them in a series of projects that have taken them beyond the 

NYC West Indian community. In 2007, Anderson Barbata launched 

the exhibition Jumbie Camp at an art gallery in 

Chelsea in Manhattan. Moko jumbie costumes 

were transformed into sculptures for the show, 

and the Brooklyn Jumbies paraded on the nearby streets. 

The following year, Anderson Barbata and Najja Codrington 

of the Brooklyn Jumbies went to Oaxaca, Mexico, where they 

connected with a traditional stiltwalking group there, Los Zancudos 

de Zaachila. In 2011, when the Occupy Wall Street protests 

were at their height, Anderson Barbata staged her Intervention: 

Wall Street, for which she created giant oversize business suits 

for the Brooklyn Jumbies. Together they rambled through New 

York’s Financial District handing out gold-foil-covered chocolate 

coins, drawing worldwide press attention. 

Another recent project in September 2016, Anderson 

Barbata’s Intervention Indigo was a Carnival-style performance 

that combined dance, music, costuming, procession, and protest. 

Moko jumbies hit the streets of the Bushwick neighbourhood 

of Brooklyn dressed in traditional indigo-dyed fabric, echoing 

African traditions from the Dogon culture. Anderson Barbata has 

also worked closely with choreographer Chris Walker at the University 

of Wisconsin, who had a number of solo pieces on stilts at 

his October 2017 show Unmasked. 

San Fernando’s Kaisokah also has a US branch, founded by 

Trinidadian Jason Edwards, who trained under Junior Bisnath, 

Continued on page 54 


presentations and tourist shows. Beyond Trinidad, 

they currently have a strong presence in the 

Virgin Islands, with Wilfred John of St Croix as 

a missionary in their cause for forty years. John 

runs the Guardians of Culture moko jumbies, who 

appear weekly at local hotels, and made a 2009 

documentary called Mokolution tracing the roots 

of the tradition in the Virgin Islands. John notes 

a long tradition of male jumbies dressing in skirts 

with petticoats or bloomers, which changed in the 

1960s when teacher Ali Paul moved to welcome 

women as jumbies, leading to costumes in other 

styles. John continues to work with schools to get 

more young people to take up the art, exploring 

ever more adventurous choreography. 

Today’s moko jumbie practitioners, in T&T and 

elsewhere, are working not just at preserving cultural 

heritage, but broadening and deepening what 

is possible, from choreography to design. They are 

offering young people, from both under-served 

communities and more middle-class backgrounds, 

opportunities to develop athletic ability and 

artistic skills, while building confidence and selfesteem. 

Junior Bisnath’s motto — painted on the 

side of his home — summarises the ethos: “Say yes 

to life, get high on stilts!” n 

Trinidad, and seeing moko jumbies as part of a 

Caribbean aesthetic that could be universal, Pinheiro 

has been involved in two decades of Carnival 

and other performances, major theatre events, and 

lots of workshops. 

A Keylemanjahro moko jumbie On the other side of the Atlantic, there is little 

ties on his stilts history of moko jumbies at London’s Notting Hill or 

other West Indian Carnival celebrations in Britain, 

but that is gradually changing. Touch D Sky’s popularity 

in T&T has led to an offshoot based in Newcastle-upon- 

and two friends. Since 2010, they have run after-school programmes 

in Brooklyn and Newark, New Jersey. They have participated 

in Kiddies Carnival in Brooklyn (last year, with all the dadian team. They run workshops and now perform with the 

Tyne run by Alan Vaughan, together with some of the Trini- 

girls costumed as butterflies and all the boys as dragonflies) and Elimu Mas Academy for Notting Hill. This year, Vaughan and 

the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. They’ve performed at Adrian Young developed performances working with contemporary 

dancers, an art performance called The Isle Is Full of Noises 

events of all kinds — birthday parties, weddings, political rallies, 

and even the funeral of a prince from Nigeria. 

(based on Shakespeare’s play The Tempest), and, in collaboration 

with choreographer Martin Hylton, the performance work 

The Universoul Circus, which started in 1994 and travels the 

United States, reflects black culture through circus arts. For many My Knowledge Increase, My Memories Reflect, a celebration of 

years, it has featured both limbo dancers and moko jumbies Martin Luther King, Jr, and the Civil Rights Movement. 

from Trinidad, offering perhaps the only full-time professional In 2016, Zak Ové, a British artist of Trinidadian heritage, was 

work available for practitioners. They hold auditions in Trinidad commissioned by the British Museum to build two moko jumbie 

to get the most accomplished from various groups. 

sculptures, seven metres tall, mounted in the museum’s entrance 

Meanwhile, in Toronto, Canada, moko jumbies have featured hall in conjunction with an African art exhibit. It was timed with 

in the work of the Swizzlestick Theatre, formed back in 1997, Notting Hill Carnival, and members of Touch D Sky performed 

growing out of the theatre and performance work of 

at the opening. The sculptures were ultimately chosen for the 

Christopher Pinheiro. Having worked in Minshall’s mas camp in museum’s permanent collection. 


ADVERTISEMENT

snapshot 

There’s no T&T Carnival without music 

— or without competition. From calypso 

monarch to extempo champ, the Carnival 

season is full of opportunities for calypso 

and soca artistes to match their composition 

and performance skills, and rivalries can 

persist for lifetimes. But there’s one musical title 

that reflects the will of ordinary masqueraders, 

and for some performers it’s the ultimate accolade. 

Mark Lyndersay looks back at the eight-decade history of 

the Road March competition — and we share our picks for 

the top ten Road March songs of all time 


On Ash Wednesday 2017, MX 

Prime — the performer formerly 

known as Maximus Dan and 

christened Edghill Thomas — 

along with his production and 

performance team, Ultimate 

Rejects, were announced as the winners of Trinidad 

and Tobago’s Carnival Road March competition. 

Their song, “Full Extreme”, was played 556 

times at competition venues around Port of Spain. 

The second-place winner, Machel Montano’s 

“Your Time Now”, trailed with seventy-two plays. 

The Road March competition isn’t like most 

popularity contests or talent competitions judged 

by the public. Nobody sits at home to make a call 

or send a text. To win the Road March, a composer 

has to write a song that makes people get up 

and dance — to be specific, all the people 

who celebrate T&T’s Carnival every 

year — and keep them on their feet for 

two days of prancing. To stand any 

chance of succeeding, 

the modern 

Road March must 

be the anthem of wining, that rhythmic gyration 

of the waist, often done in concert with a partner 

or two, that found wider international notice in a 

distinctly corrupted form as twerking. 

Each year’s Road March and its contenders are 

consigned to history along with the masqueraders’ 

costumes, and it’s a rare song that earns a 

play on the road after its year of glory. The first 

Road March title was recorded in 1930, Inveigler 

(MacDonald Borel)’s “Captain Cipriani”, and a 

song has won the accolade every year since then, 

even between 1942 and 1945, when Carnival was 

officially suspended during the Second World War. 

There were, of course, enormously popular 

songs before then, songs so entrancing 

that they jumped from band to band in 

an environment that was quite different from the 

mechanised, industrially driven Carnival of today. 

Back then, a Carnival band took to the road with 

its own live music, the earliest form of which 

were long sticks of bamboo rhythmically beaten 

to accompany the chantwell — the singer leading 

the costumed group — who considered life, love, 

politics, and the bacchanal of the barrack yard in 

his composition. 

“The first song sung by almost every band on the 

road was probably ‘Sly Mongoose’,” says Professor 

Gordon Rohlehr, the eminent literary scholar 

with a lifelong personal and academic interest 

in the genesis of calypso. The song came to 

Trinidad and Tobago in 1919, and was 

sung in a tent by Houdini in 1921, 

becoming popular on the road 

in 1923. “It was likely to have 

been a Jamaican folk song, but 

melodies travelled throughout 

the islands and became 

songs with different lyrics and 

Michele Jorsling courtesy ultimate rejects 

The Road March 

competition isn’t 

like most popularity 

contests judged by the 

public. Nobody sits at 

home to make a call 

MX Prime (centre) and Ultimate 

Rejects, 2017 Road March champs 


David Rudder, whose 

“Bahia Girl” won the 1986 

Road March 

mark lyndersay/lyndersaydigital.com 

arrangements. ‘Captain Cipriani’ was most likely a 

melody we know as ‘Ambakaila’.” 

That music would evolve along with Carnival 

itself. Popular chantwells would host visitors to 

their yards as they rehearsed, and eventually a 

small fee was asked, beginning a tradition that 

would eventually become the calypso tent. In 

search of louder rhythms and smoother melodies, 

the bands would beat biscuit tins, paint 

cans, and eventually steel drums, which would 

be shaped and refined to create the modern 

steelpan instrument. 

In parallel, musicians would accompany the 

bands, first bringing small woodwind instruments, 

flutes, clarinets, guitars, and violins. These 

were eventually joined by full-throated brass, 

as saxophones and trumpets provided a path of 

influence for big-band jazz music to flow into the 

calypsonian’s repertoire. 

Railway Douglas (Walter Douglas), who won 

the Road March in 1934 with “After Johnny Drink 

Meh Rum”, was a key personality in the evolution 

of this stage of the calypso as the favoured voice 

of the people. “Inveigler was Railway Douglas’s 

assistant,” explains Rohlehr, “but Douglas thought 

that picong calypsoes were demeaning and a 

throwback to slavery days. He would sing topically 

about social issues and the scandals of the day.” 

Calypso would emerge as a narrative form of 

storytelling and commentary, the structure of the 

words in balance with the melody, even as live 

band music entered a long period of jousting with 

the steelband as the preferred soundtrack to drive 

bands along the parade route. 


After Sparrow won in 

1956, the Road March 

competition belonged to 

him and his career-long 

rival Lord Kitchener for 

the next decade 

Kingsley LYNDERSAY/lyndersaydigital.com 

With eight Road March 

wins over three decades, 

the Mighty Sparrow is tied 

for third place in the overall 

Road March rankings 

“Rum and Coca-Cola”, Lord Invader (Rupert 

Grant)’s 1943 hit, would characterise the sentiments 

of the male calypso fraternity, who chafed 

at the presence of the American military on the 

island and the response of local women to the 

prized “Yankee dollar.” That response to the social 

circumstances of the day would find their apotheosis 

in the Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco)’s 

1956 Road March “Jean and Dinah”, a song he later 

admitted was created as an advertisement for a 

local store that he repurposed into groundbreaking 

social commentary, and the first Calypso King 

crown of his career. 

Sparrow’s emergence was preceded by one of 

the oddest Road Marches of the twentieth century, 

1955’s “The Happy Wanderer”, a German march 

sung by the Obernkirchen Children’s Choir — 

better known by its catchy chorus, “Val-de-ri, 

Val-de-ra.” The song, says Rohlehr, “was larger in 

structure than a traditional calypso and may have 

influenced the form of ‘Jean and Dinah’, which also 

had a long chorus.” This was a very different era 

for the Road March, one in which any song with 

a catchy melody might be popular on the road. 

Advertisements for Tisane de Durbon and Nagib 

Elias’s lumber business were cheerfully sung 

alongside performances by calypsonians. 

It wasn’t until 1976 that the popular “Tourist 

Leggo” by Antiguan Lord Short Shirt would annoy 

calypso’s establishment so much that it would be 

banned from official competitions, beginning an 

unfortunate era of Road March insularity. Since 

then, only performers from T&T have been eligible 

for the competition — though Short Shirt’s song 

went on to win the Antigua and Barbuda Road 

March title. 


His ten Road March titles 

make the late Lord Kitchener 

the all-time champion of the 

competition 

courtesy rca victor 

After Sparrow won in 1956, the Road March 

competition belonged to him and his career-long 

rival Lord Kitchener (Aldwyn Roberts) for the next 

decade — interrupted only by Lord Christo and 

Nap Hepburn, who won a twin competition in 1957 

with “Chicken Chest” and “Doctor Nelson”, by 

Lord Caruso in 1959 with “Run the Gunslingers”, 

and Lord Blakie’s plaintive 1962 “Maria”. 

Sparrow and Kitchener’s second ten-year 

stretch of Road March dominance, starting in 

the 1960s, was interrupted only once by Shadow 

(Aldwyn Bailey)’s 1974 “Bass Man”, but that was a 

change that fundamentally refocused the competition 

on music. The Mighty Shadow was a Tobagoborn 

calypsonian who had been working for years 

to break into the big times. It happened with “Bass 

Man”, which told of a melody gifted to him as he 

was about “to give up calypso and go plant peas in 

Tobago.” That melody, anchored by a “poom pittity 

poom” sung deep from his chest, was nothing less 

than a bass run on a steelpan in a song, anchored 

by a surprisingly funky bass line. 

Shadow — an unabashed fan of Teddy Pendergrass 

who titled one album If Ah Woulda, I Coulda, 

I Shoulda — launched a career of songs anchored 

by soulful beats and empathic, often psychedelic 

lyrics that drifted some distance from the more 

commonplace topics favoured by his calypsonian 

peers. He dropped the traditional calypsonian’s 

superlative soon afterward, shedding a “Mighty” 

that was now demonstrably superfluous. 

Three years later, Calypso Rose (McCartha 


Sandy-Lewis)’s 1977 hit “Tempo” forever ended the 

Sparrow-Kitchener axis with a Road March that 

was all about melody, and a chorus that echoed 

the percussiveness of “Bass Man”. Rose became 

the first female champion of the road, singing 

triumphantly over a music bed that made liberal 

use of modern synthesiser technology. 

Kitchener, who understood music in a particularly 

deep and profound way, would put his stamp 

on the young people’s soca music, by then the 

dominant form in play at Carnival parties and on 

the road, with 1978’s “Sugar Bum Bum”, but would 

have greater success developing complex musical 

ideas for the steelband, most notably with “The 

Bee’s Melody” and “Pan in A Minor”. 

The “revenge” 

Road March 

The story of the Road March after “Bass 

Man” and “Tempo” is a narrative of conflict 

between the traditional calypso art form 

and soca, its funk-influenced derivative, alongside 

the rising importance of the disc jockey as the 

preferred delivery mechanism for the music of the 

road, eventually overwhelming the role of the live 

performing band. 

Soca’s hypnotic beat was cemented as the 

commanding presence in the Road March between 

1977 and 1990, but in 1991 the freshly rechristened 

Superblue — born Austin Lyons, and formerly 

known as Blue Boy — would introduce the lyric-ascommand 

to the road mix with the urgent chorus 

of “Get Something and Wave”. In the twenty-seven 

Shadow’s 1974 Road 

March, “Bass Man”, was 

a game-changer for 

Carnival music 

The Calypso Monarch 

competition once 

required finalists to sing 

two songs for a marking 

system that encouraged 

the performance of a 

“serious” calypso and 

a party number. In 

1974, Sparrow won the 

competition with a pair 

of songs tailor-made 

for the requirements of 

the competition, “We 

Pass that Stage” and 

“Miss Mary”. That year, 

Shadow performed 

“Bass Man” and “I Come 

Out to Play”, two songs 

popular in parties. From 

J’Ouvert on Carnival 

Monday, it was clear 

that masqueraders were 

intent on redressing the 

Calypso Monarch judges’ 

verdict, demanding “Bass 

Man” for two days and 

making Shadow’s vertical 

prance the dance of the 

festival. 

“That wasn’t revenge 

as much as it was 

pure street justice,” 

recalls Gordon Rohlehr. 

“There is an element of 

mischievous fun in the 

Road March.” 



The first woman ever to win a Road 

March title, Calypso Rose has enjoyed 

a long career breaking barriers 

Soca’s hypnotic beat was 

cemented as the commanding 

presence in the Road 

March between 1977 and 

1990 

Frans Schellekens / redferns / getty images 

years since then, the explosive, post-curfew release 

of the song, which followed the attempted coup of 

September 1990, still echoes in soca dance music. 

Younger performers — including Superblue’s 

daughter Fay-Ann Lyons, twice winner of the Road 

March title — have taken that song and its successors 

as the baseline for their own successful songs 

for the road. 

As Blue Boy, Lyons had already registered two 

successive Road March wins in 1980 and 1981 

with “Soca Baptist” and “Ethel” when he changed 

the pace and focus of the Road March forever with 

“Get Something and Wave”. He would infuse that 

formula into three more winners, “Jab Jab”, “Bacchanal 

Time”, and “Signal to Lara”, characterising 

them with sharp chord changes across melodies. 

These were songs with music enough for three 

tunes, eccentric and easy-to-shout lyrics, and a 

profoundly intuitive sense of what makes people 

go crazy at Carnival time. Gordon Rohlehr sees 

a parallel in the relationship between Superblue’s 

interaction with crowds and the long-ago chantwell’s 

management of his Carnival band. 

The Road March as zeitgeist 

There’s an argument to be made that the celebration of 

Carnival on Monday and Tuesday has been influenced 

deeply by the music of each era of its development. The 

shuffling march of the earliest Carnivals proceeded to the 

staccato, almost military beat of bamboo percussion. As the 

music grew louder and more melodic with the entry of the 

steelband, the words of the songs became less of a chant 

and more of a sing-along. The celebratory blast of horns 

from big bands added the miming of brass playing and the 

celebratory raising of arms to mostly sunswept skies. 

In this heated competition, what made one song the 

Road March and the others merely popular? 

The earliest recorded road marches are distinguished 

by a subversive wit and topical humour. Between 1935 and 

1941, the Roaring Lion (Rafael De Leon) won four of the 

six competitions with calypsoes that managed to be both 

bawdy and socially concerned. Lord Kitchener’s return 

from England was formally heralded with “The Road”, a 

song that remains, to this day, the unofficial anthem and 

reference point for summarising the annual street party. It 

was also a gauntlet thrown down to Sparrow, and for the 

next two decades the pair would battle for the attention of 

revellers on the road. 

Kitchener’s melodies were wildly successful on the 

steelpan, and he would increasingly turn his attention to 

that instrument as the decisive interpreter of his compositions, 

with unparalleled success. His last Road March, “Flag 

Woman” in 1976, was both a final coda to the supremacy 

of the steelband as the driving force for music on the 

road, and a paean to the woman charged with bearing 

the band’s standard and clearing a path for the heavy steel 

drums as they rolled through crowded streets. 

The next year, Calypso Rose would win with “Tempo”, a 

song crafted for brass bands, beginning an era that would 

run from 1977 to 1990 — upbeat songs for dancing that 

increasingly abandoned commentary for catchy hook lines 

Continued on page 66 


Meanwhile, as the beat has grown faster, the 

lyrics have largely abandoned narrative for pop 

song hooklines, phrases that can be shouted as 

you leap forward on the tips of your toes, twirling 

a handy cloth over your head. Several popular soca 

hits have lifted chord progressions from well-known 

pop songs and layered them into their music, and 

the Road March winners of the last seven years 

have been influenced by the style and 

structure of international electronic 

dance music (EDM). 

Since the late 1990s, Machel 

Montano has emerged as 

the most successful architect 

of the modern Road 

March, blending an 

understanding of the 

lyric as supporting 

framework for the 

music with a 

master’s touch 

in the production of the final work. Montano has 

won eight of the Road March competitions since 

1997, five of them since 2010. 

In 2018, the traditional calypso tent, once the 

stamp of artistic approval for a calypsonian, has 

shrunk almost into insignificance, subsisting on a 

lifeline of state support. Local radio and the Carnival 

party are now where music is auditioned for 

public consumption, and the range that’s offered 

represents only a fraction of the music actually 

created for the festival. 

The calypsonian now finds himself in the 

position of the chantwell he replaced more than 

a hundred years ago, losing ground in Carnival 

to a more popular music with aggressive, focused 

practitioners. But, as the recent success of Calypso 

Rose in Europe demonstrates, the form still has a 

lot of life to it. The Road March and the creators 

who compose for it once more look to all the music 

that makes people dance — whatever its origins — 

for its influences. 


Currently tied with Sparrow at 

eight Road March wins, Machel 

Montano conceivably has decades 

ahead of him to break Kitchener’s 

record 

and tip-of-the-toes prancing. 

That trend would go to another level in 1991 with a 

resurgent Blue Boy, now singing as Super Blue. His astonishing 

troika of winners, “Get Something and Wave”, “Jab Jab”, and 

“Bacchanal Time”, put down a template for dance-focused 

soca that fundamentally changed the pace and approach of 

composers, arrangers, and musicians who would find the fast 

time and heated pitch of the songs difficult to maintain on 

the road. 

It was here that two things happened in the Road March 

competition. First, the gulf between the songs that got played 

on stage to stoke the bands and the music played on the actual 

road grew wider. Then it became clear to bandleaders that 

the music, now prepared in special “road mix” recordings, was 

more easily played by disc jockeys, who also happened to be 

cheaper than full live bands. 

That opened the door to more multi-tracking, sharper 

cutting on chord changes, and deeper use of electronics in 

creating the songs, just when it became possible for almost 

anyone to create music on their computer at home. 

On its surface, at the level of the lyrics, Road Marches 

became instructions to revellers. “Moving to the left,” sang 

Nigel Lewis. “Hold on to the big truck,” urged Machel Montano. 

“Footsteps . . . on the ground,” demanded the late 

Wayne Rodriguez. 

On a deeper level, this was music that did more 

than invite the listener to get up and dance — it was 

designed to take people already committed to prancing 

to another level of euphoria and excitement. 

It isn’t surprising, then, to find elements of electronic 

dance music (EDM) showing up in recent Road March 

contenders, and to see the influence of dance soca 

bleeding back, as it did in 2014’s “Antenna”, the 

breakout single by Fuse ODG (Richard Abiona). 


Ten for 

the road 

Of the eighty-plus songs that have won the official Road March 

title, some are little remembered, some have become “back-intimes” 

favourites, and a few are considered landmarks — whether 

for their musical qualities or for trends they ushered in. Here are all 

the recorded Road March winners up to 2017 — and our picks* for 

an all-time Road March top ten. 

1930 

Lord Inveigler 

Captain Cipriani 

1931 

King Houdini 

Mr Huggins 

1932 

King Radio 

Tiger Tom Play Tiger Cat 

1933 

King Radio 

Wash Pan Wash 

1934 

Railway Douglas 

After Johnny Drink Me 

Rum 

1935 

Roaring Lion 

Dingolay Oy 

1936 

Roaring Lion 

Advantage Could Never 

Done 

1937 

Roaring Lion 

Netty Netty 

1938 

Roaring Lion 

No Norah Darling 

1939 

King Radio 

Mathilda 

She take meh money and run 

Venezuela . . . With a perfect 

combination of plaintive 

lyrics and jaunty melody, 

King Radio (Norman Span) 

lamented the unfaithfulness 

of a wife or girlfriend who 

stole the cash hidden in his 

mattress and headed for 

the mainland. Nearly eight 

decades later, it remains one 

of the most immediately recognisable 

calypso choruses, 

and not just for Trinbagonians. 

Harry Belafonte’s 1953 

recording became an international 

hit, later covered by 

performers as unlikely as the 

Greatful Dead. Needless to 

say, King Radio never saw a 

cent in royalties. 

1940 

Lord Beginner 

Run Yuh Run 

Philip Sander 

1941 

Roaring Lion 

Whoopsin Whoopsin 

Though there were no official 

Carnival celebrations from 1942 

to 1945, at the height of the Second 

World War, informal “Road 

March” titles are recognised 

for the most popular songs in 

calypso tents in those years. 

1942 

Lord Kitchener 

Lai Fook Lee 

1943 

Lord Invader 

Rum and Coca-Cola 

1944 

King Radio 

Brown Skin Girl 

1945 

Roaring Lion 

All Day All Night, Mary-Ann 

1946 


Jump in the Line 

1947 

King Pharaoh 

Portuguese Dance 

(Vishki Vashki Voo) 

1948 

Lord Melody 

Canaan Barrow 

1949 

Roaring Wonder 

Ramgoat Baptism 

1950 

Mighty Killer 

In a Calabash 

1951 

Mighty Terror 

Tiny Davis 

1953 

Vivian Comma / Spit Fire 

Madeline Oye / Bow Wow 

Wow 

Two separate Road March 

competitions this year produced 

rival winners. 

1952 

Spit Fire 

Post, Post Another Letter 

for Thelma 

1954 

Lord Blakie 

Steel Band Clash 

1955 

Obernkirchen Children’s 

Choir 

The Happy Wanderer 

(German pop song) 

1956 

Mighty Sparrow 

Jean and Dinah 

The greatest calypsonian of all 

time? The Birdie would certainly 

agree. It’s a reign that 

started with a bang in 1956, 

with the song that won him 

both the Calypso King and 

Road March titles. Sixty-two 

years later, “Jean and Dinah” 

is more than a calypso classic 

— it’s a cultural touchstone 

and a symbol of that brash, 

confident era between the end 

of the Second World War and 

Independence in 1962. 

Above all, it tells a story of 

social evolution. Well, the girls 

in town feeling bad, no more 

Yankees in Trinidad . . . As US 

troops withdrew from the 

bases around Port of Spain, a 

surging sentiment of nationalism 

culminated in the general 

elections of September 1956, 

which returned Eric Williams 

of the PNM as premier and 

cleared the path to Independence 

negotiations. But Sparrow 

portrayed this moment 

of change in more personal, 

down-to-earth terms. With 

the Americans out of the 

way, Sparrow and his fellow 

“glamour boys” were “back 

in control” of Port of Spain’s 

nightlife scene. “Jean and 

Dinah, Rosita and Clementina,” 

the good-time girls who 


had reserved their favours 

for the US servicemen, now 

had to make do with local 

trade. In for a penny, in for a 

pound. A tide was turning, in 

personal relations as much 

as in politics, and Sparrow’s 

preening delivery suggested 

who he thought would end up 

on top. 

“Jean and Dinah” was oral 

history and penetrating social 

commentary, cocky and 

risqué, with lyrics deserving 

literary analysis and an unforgettable 

tune: a calypso to 

engage listeners’ wits as much 

as their waists. For most 

Trinbagonians, it’s as familiar 

as the National Anthem, a 

song of similar vintage and 

asserted confidence. And the 

famous last line of the chorus 

— “Sparrow take over now” 

— was an accurate prediction 

of the Birdie’s calypso dominance 

of the coming decades. 

Philip Sander 

1957 

Lord Christo / Nap Hepburn 

Chicken Chest / Doctor 

Nelson 

As in 1953, separate Road 

March competitions produced 

rival winners. 

1958 


Pay As You Earn 

1959 

Lord Caruso 

Run the Gunslingers 

1960 


Mae Mae 

1961 


Royal Jail 

1962 

Lord Blakie 

Maria 

1963 


The Road 

1964 


This Is Mas 

1965 


My Pussin 

1966 


Obeah Wedding 

1967 


Sixty-Seven 

1968 


Miss Tourist 

1969 


Sa Sa Yea 

1970 


Margie 

1971 


Madison Square Garden 

1972 


Drunk and Disorderly 

1973 


Rainorama 

Only once in the past century 

has Carnival’s traditional 

connection with the start of 

Lent been severed. In 1972, 

faced with a polio outbreak, 

the government threatened 

to cancel the festival — then, 

faced with public outcry, 

postponed it from February 

to May, and from the dry to 

the rainy season, so that masqueraders 

were predictably 

drenched. A year later, 

Kitchener’s “Rainorama” 

recounted the drama — and 

won the Grandmaster his 

ninth Road March title. 

The song’s laid-back 

rhythm and sweet melody 

almost disguise the fact that 

“Rainorama” is an uncompromising 

defence of Carnival 

and its place in T&T’s national 

life, a riposte to those “so and 

so hypocrites” who call it an 

unneeded distraction or waste 

of time. This is calypso as 

history lesson and as protest, 

but so seductively composed, 

it allows no resistance. And 

for Kitchener it was such a 

big hit that when he built his 

dream house in Diego Martin, 

on Port of Spain’s western 

outskirts, he named it “Rainorama” 

— proudly declared 

in an illuminated sign on the 

front lawn. 

1974 

Shadow 

Bass Man 

Philip Sander 

It was the song that broke the 

Sparrow/Kitchener monopoly 

on the Road March title. 

I wasn’t even born when 

“Bass Man” won the Road 

March — but, growing up in 

a house with Shadow being 

played constantly, I decided 

early on that he is the greatest 

thing that ever happened to 

music in Trinidad and Tobago. 

Although he’s won the Road 

March title only twice in his 

long career, Shadow’s skill 

at storytelling and the way 

he plays with melody, his 

bizarre vocal range and the 

sweet sadness of his musical 

arrangements, make him 

the most avant-garde street 

philosopher we’ve ever had. 

In “Bass Man”, Shadow 

manages to capture the 

frustration of the calypsonian 

who can’t make a living from 

his art, yet the impetus to create 

is greater than the frustration. 

I don’t know how this thing 

get inside me. Which artist 

doesn’t know that truth? This 

song is the strong foundation 

on which Shadow has created 

an entire universe of feeling 

in his music: a different 

language and energy, a way 

to channel all the pain, all the 

sadness, all those feelings of 

inadequacy into the ability to 

have hope and dance in spite 

of it all. 

Attillah Springer 

1975 


Tribute to Spree Simon 

1976 


Flag Woman 

1977 

Calypso Rose 

Tempo 

Port of Spain too small for the 

Carnival . . . T&T’s capital 

considers itself ground zero 

for the festival, but Calypso 

Rose dared sing this infectious 

tune about heading 

south to San Fernando, and 

took her first Road March 

title. It was history-making: 

for the first time ever, the 

Road March was won by a 

woman, and Rose successfully 

defended the title a year 

later, when she also became 

the first woman ever to 

win the Calypso King title, 

which immediately had to 

be renamed. After Rose, it 

was twenty-one years before 

another woman, Sanelle 

Dempster, won Road March, 


and only two others — Fay- 

Ann Lyons and Patrice 

Roberts (duetting with Machel 

Montano) — have taken the 

title. 

Some say Rose’s Road 

March breakthrough should 

have come a decade earlier, 

with “Fire in Me Wire”. For 

years, rumours have had it 

that the 1966 Road March 

invigilators fudged the 

figures, unready for a woman 

calypsonian to win. Whatever 

the truth, if longevity is the 

best revenge, Rose has come 

out on top, enjoying a huge 

surge of international success 

in recent years with her Far 

From Home album. 

1978 

Calypso Rose 

Come Leh We Jam 

Philip Sander 

1979 

Poser 

A Tell She (Smoke Ah 

Watty) 

1980 

Blue Boy 

Soca Baptist 

Almost any Road March by 

nine-time winner Superblue 

— formerly known as Blue 

Boy — could make a top ten. 

But his first-ever Road March 

does something extraordinary. 

Without a single 

historical reference, Blue tells 

the story of how we masked 

our spiritual traditions in 

our popular artforms, as his 

observation of the Spiritual 

Baptists “bacchanal” brings 

him to the conclusion that the 

ecstatic nature of the doption 

is the same as what happens 

in the soca fete. 

Some loved it for the 

music, and some thought 

it was another example of 

the trivialising of non-mainstream 

modes of worship. 

But if you’ve ever seen or 

heard a gathering of Spiritual 

Baptists on a street corner, or 

observed that moment in an 

Orisa feast when the repetitive 

nature of the drumming 

and the call and response 

of the chants propel some 

dancers into a state of possession, 

then you understand 

that “Soca Baptist” speaks 

deep truths about the ecstatic 

nature of Carnival music. 

When I hear it now, I think 

it is a classically non-Western 

way of not seeing a distinction 

between what is sacred 

and what is profane. Indeed, 

beyond the perception of the 

profanity of jam and wine, 

soca is a spiritual encounter. 

1981 

Blue Boy 

Ethel 

1982 

Penguin 

Deputy 

1983 

Blue Boy 

Rebecca 

1984 


Doh Back Back 

1985 

Crazy 

Soucoyant 

1986 

David Rudder 

Bahia Girl 


In his breakthrough year, 

David Rudder won it all, 

taking the title of Calypso 

Monarch with “The Hammer” 

and both Young King and 

Road March with “Bahia 

Girl”. So simple and pure in 

its sweetness, this is a classic 

Caribbean love song, the 

chipping pace perfect for the 

road. But the secret to why 

“Bahia Girl” is so significant is 

in the last verse: Ile Ife Ile Ife, 

she make me to understand. Ile 

Ife, the mythical home of the 

Yoruba people of Nigeria, is 

the reason Rudder shares so 

much in common with “this 

girl from Bahia.” It’s no accident 

this was the same time 

scholars and spiritual leaders 

of the Orisa community were 

starting to share information 

on shared spiritual retentions 

in Brazil, Trinidad, and Cuba. 

In the post–Black Power 

era, when T&T’s black middle 

class started reconnecting 

with African spiritual forms 

that had been shamed into 

secrecy, music became a way 

to reclaim what was lost. It 

was common to hear stories 

of people “ketching power” 

when Rudder was on stage, 

then ending up in an Orisa 

yard soon after to consult 

with an elder. It terrified 

many and delighted many 

more. Still others missed it 

completely, distracted by the 

infectiousness of the music. 

1987 

Mighty Duke 

Thunder 

1988 

Tambu 

This Party Is It 

1989 

Tambu 

Free Up 


1990 

Tambu 

We Ain’t Going Home 

1991 

Superblue (formerly Blue Boy) 

Get Something and Wave 

1992 

Superblue 

Jab Jab 

1993 

Superblue 

Bacchanal Time 

1994 

Preacher 

Jump and Wave 

1995 

Superblue 

Signal to Lara 

1996 

Nigel Lewis 

Movin’ 

1997 

Machel Montano 

Big Truck 

It was the coming-of-age 

song for the generation of 

Trini xennials: too young to 

remember Black Power, too 

young to attend curfew parties 

in 1990, but old enough 

to remember the disappointment 

of 1989’s World Cup 

football defeat — all defining 

moments in T&T history. The 

popularity of dancehall in 

the 1990s had led to a kind of 

apathy towards mainstream 

soca and calypso. That 

apathy was challenged by 

the advent of Kisskidee 

Karavan, which advanced a 

new frontline of local rapso, 

ragga, and hip-hop artists 

unfraid of articulating their 

reality in their own language, 

and also made you want to 

dance. What Machel Montano 

— who himself had grown up 

with us — was able to do was 

take soca and turn it on its 

head again, pull it away from 

the establishment and open 

the way for a whole new era 


of celebratory defiance. “Big 

Truck”, the first of eight Road 

March titles for Montano 

over the next two decades, 

set the pace and defined a 

generation. The nostalgia 

the song evokes for a time of 

innocence, adventure, and 

experimentation is bittersweet, 

hardened by the cynical 

jump-and-wave formula 

for winning prizes and fete 

money. It remains to be seen 

if the direction soca has been 

going since “Big Truck” is 

what the music needs or what 

the Carnival deserves. 

1998 

Wayne Rodriguez 

Footsteps 

1999 

Sanelle Dempster 

River 


2000 (tie) 

Superblue / Iwer George 

Pump Up / Carnival Come 

Back Again 

2001 

Shadow 

Stranger 

2002 

Naya George 

Trinidad 

2003 

Fay-Ann Lyons 

Display 

2004 

Shurwayne Winchester 

Look de Band Comin’ 

2005 

Shurwayne Winchester 

Dead or Alive 

2006 

Machel Montano and Patrice 

Roberts 

Band of de Year 

2007 


Jumbie 

2008 

Fay-Ann Lyons 

Get On 

2009 

Fay-Ann Lyons 

Meet Superblue 

2010 

JW & Blaze 

Palance 

It was a song that seemed 

to come out of nowhere and 

rampaged over all opposition. 

Radio DJs Jason “JW” 

Williams and Ancil “Blaze” 

Isaacs —the former skinny 

and antic, the latter stocky 

and serious — looked like a 

classic odd couple on stage 

and in the wildly popular 

video (which inexplicably 

featured a man in a Cookie 

Monster costume, a triumphant 

touch of the absurd 

and a reminder that a whole 

generation of young Trinbagonians 

grew up watching 

Sesame Street twice a day on 

the state-owned TV station). 

“Palance” took its title from 

a Trinidadian word meaning 

“have a good time,” a concept 

exhaustively represented in 

our vocabulary. Repeated 

endlessly in the chorus, 

“palance” was the cue for 

fete-goers and masqueraders 

to fling themselves from side 

to side, arms outstretched, en 

masse. It was totally senseless, 

and resistance was futile. 

2011 


Advantage 

2012 


Pump Yuh Flag 

2013 

Superblue 

Fantastic Friday 

2014 


Ministry of Road 

2015 


Like ah Boss 

Philip Sander 

2016 


Waiting on the Stage 

2017 

Ultimate Rejects, featuring 

MX Prime 

Full Extreme 

On the Wednesday before 

Carnival 2017, a building 

caught fire in downtown Port 

of Spain. Pedestrians and 

office workers stopped to gape 

as firetrucks wailed through 

the city. Two blocks to the 

west, another crowd gathered, 

taking part in a company’s 

giveaway game. The speakers 

blared as the flames rose 

higher: the city could bun down, 

we jamming still. Was MX 

Prime — formerly known as 

Maximus Dan and the main 

voice of Ultimate Rejects’ “Full 

Extreme” — poking fun at 

Trinbagonians’ inability to take 

anything seriously? Maybe. 

Undeniably, the song 

was the biggest of last year’s 

season. Like all great Road 

March songs, it captured the 

desires and fears of the people 

in the most straightforward 

language. Ultimate Rejects 

sang the ultimate jammette 

song — a song of defiance 

and also a sad understanding 

that the systems that exist 

in our society are not really 

made to benefit the people 

anyway. We wine as the city 

burns: a prophecy fulfilled. 

I stormed Panorama champs 

All Stars’ band on Carnival 

Tuesday afternoon as they 

chipped through town playing 

their “Full Extreme”. All 

those people, all that rum, 

all that choking in the cloud 

of talcum powder in a sea of 

sailors. It was the most beautiful 

non-J’Ouvert Carnival 

experience I’ve had in years. 

Carnival is the mirror that 

reflects that Trinbagonian 

ability to seek joy and beauty 

even in the worst situations. It 

is as much a blessing as it is a 

curse. 


* So how did we choose our ten standout Road Marches? By the not very scientific method of polling all the members 

of the Caribbean Beat team, plus a handful of the magazine’s past and present music writers. Disagree with our picks? 

Have your say at www.caribbean-beat.com/roadmarch. 


Own words 

“ I’m 

unfinished” 

Tobago-born actor Winston Duke, appearing in the 

upcoming Black Panther movie, on his love of stories, his 

sense of being a work in process, and why returning to T&T 

keeps him grounded — as told to Caroline Taylor 

I 

left Tobago when I was about ten 

years old. My memories of Tobago 

are of running up and down on the 

beach, exploring my neighbourhood 

with friends, and a strong community 

of family. Family that always cooked 

and laughed together, family that supported 

each other, and came over any day they 

chose to. I remember freshly baked bread 

and sweet bread which my cousin, who 

lived about ten miles and four villages away, 

would have her teenage son deliver to us 

via bicycle. I really remember being part 

of something and somewhere — knowing 

I belonged. 

Something in particular which is etched 

in my memory is my village’s annual 

harvest festival. There was nothing, and 

has been nothing in my life ever since, 

that compared to that kind of familial 

and community interaction — my entire 

village cooking and opening their homes 

for others, including complete strangers, 

to freely eat, drink, dance, and converse. 

Then I moved to Brooklyn, New York, 

and the transition for me was incredibly 

hard. It was a huge culture shock. I came 

from an extended family in Tobago that 

easily spans at least two hundred and fifty 

people. So emigrating to a place where 

it’s just your mother and sister and little 

to no support systems was hard. I think I 

retreated deeply within myself. 

Brooklyn wasn’t a safe space for me. I 

remember our first year living at our new 

studio apartment, it was broken into and 

all we had was stolen. I often wanted us 

to come back home, but I also knew it just 

was not the plan. The plan was to build — 

to achieve — to gain something different 

and valuable. 

I wanted to become an actor because 

I love stories and I wanted to be a part of 

telling great stories to as many people as I 

could. I figured out early on that I wanted 

to be a part of stories that reflect the lives of 

people who don’t always get to have a voice. 

My love for storytelling started back 

home in Tobago. I would listen to the 

older people in my village tell folklore 

stories about a gold-toothed donkey that 

they believed was a person who could 

shape-shift. Or of the douens which were 

supposedly the souls of children who died 

before they were christened. Or of this old 

man, Papa Bois, who lived in the forest 

and would protect it from hunters. I would 

always ask for those stories to be told to 

me every time older family and friends 

dropped by our house or restaurant. And 

let me tell you, they loved telling me those 

stories as well. This, I think, created my 

love for the genre of magical realism to 

this day. 

Landing the role of M’Baku in 

Black Panther was incredible. I just 

wanted to get in the room. I told my 

representation to just get me an audition 

and I’d do the rest. I loved [director] Ryan 

Coogler’s work — I remember being 

incredibly moved by Fruitvale Station and 

knowing that’s the kind of storyteller I 

wanted to work with one day. One with a 

clear and distinct voice. 

Being on set was something I never 

experienced before. Working with my 

own personal heroes in that superhero 

setting was something poetic and epic. 

To be able to meet and work alongside 

Angela Bassett, Forest Whittaker, Martin 

Freeman, and Chadwick Boseman, to 

name a few of this incredible ensemble, 

and not end up feeling out of place, was 

something I had only ever dreamed of 

before this movie. The knowledge that I 

was part of something that would allow 

people of colour all over the world to 

see themselves represented was surreal. 

What helped me to stay grounded was 

being careful to constantly check in with 

who M’Baku was — I wanted viewers 

to see a strong and impassioned leader 

willing to do whatever he has to for the 

betterment of his people. 

Hollywood is going through a period 

where a lot of people are advocating for 

inclusion and representation, and I think 

that directly correlates to the opportunities 

I am getting. Also, people are crying 

out for transparency, equality, and equity, 

so it’s a space that is empowering artists 


Kwaku Alston 


©Marvel Studios 2018 

Winston Duke (at centre) as M’Baku in Black Panther 

such as myself — who, perhaps, do not 

fit some of the previously held notions 

of leading male or female actor. I am sixfoot-five, 

two hundred and thirty pounds, 

and I think now is the time when the possibilities 

are higher for me to play people 

with depth. Not just goons and muscle, 

but layered and thinking individuals who 

have complex motivations. 

I figured out early on that I wanted to be a part 

of stories that reflect the lives of people who 

don’t always get to have a voice 

I believe this creates a huge market 

for strong stories that can come from the 

Caribbean — our folklore, our knack for 

great drama and storytelling has its place 

now. We just have to create the work. It’s 

not like it hasn’t been done before — just 

think of Euzhan Palcy and Sidney Poitier 

as zenith examples. We have beautiful 

sub-cultures which can and should be 

explored — our relationship to the sea 

and our fishermen, our mixed, blended 

cultures and the trials that come with 

that, our richly mixed and painful history 

of rebellion, revolution, and discovery 

— all of these stories are present in our 

Caribbean culture, and I would say the 

time is now. The world is “smaller” due to 

the internet and social media. People are 

craving their reflection. 

I would like my career to go into 

writing and producing stories about the 

immigrant experience. I love stories 

about outsiders who, through sheer will, 

create their own path. I would love to 

explore more magical realism, and follow 

my personal mission of depicting people 

who usually don’t get seen or given the 

opportunity to be visible. 

I 

try to return to Tobago at least once 

a year. Most recently I was in T&T 

briefly in the days before Carnival 

2017, but then had to rush back to set 

to complete shooting for Black Panther. 

It never works out perfectly to be there 

for Carnival, but I try every year. I fail 

because Carnival usually falls at one of 

the busiest times of year for me. That said, 

I love coming home. It charges me up. 

There are still a lot of things in process. 

Homes get built by people with their bare 

hands, with their blocks and cement and 

PVC pipes, and things aren’t finished, and 

it always feels like me. I’m in process — 

I’m unfinished. 

Film, and my current life, are all about 

the product and the end result — but, 

to me, it’s the story in the process that 

makes everything worthwhile. So my 

focus tends to stay there, and coming 

home always reminds me of that. It keeps 

me grounded. 

I want to say a big shout-out to Bunji 

Garlin and Machel Montano — because 

I listen to their music almost every day. 

“Buss Head” — I listen to their lyrics of 

artistry, patience, process, and integrity. 

It reminds me that I come from a place 

with beautiful people who create and 

know themselves. It makes me further 

interrogate who I am and why I do what 

I do. n 

Black Panther will be released on 9 February in the UK, and 16 February in 

the US. For a longer version of this interview, visit discovertnt.com 


ARRIVE 

Photostravellers/shutterstock.com 

76 Destination 

Escape to Tobago 

88 Neighbourhood 

Gustavia, 

St Barthélemy 

96 

Round trip 

Art in the open 

Despite the ravages of Hurricane Irma, St Barthélemy is ready to receive visitors

Destination 

The beach is usually a place to relax, but there 

are also options to get your blood racing — like a 

shoreline canter on horseback. As co-founder of the 

Buccoo-based NGO Healing with Horses, Veronika 

Danzer-La Fortune introduces differently-abled 

youngsters to a gentle equine herd for fun and 

therapeutic play 


Carnival season is bacchanal time in T&T. But 

although Tobago has its share of the intense 

action, Trinidad’s smaller sister island still manages 

to hold on to its tranquil vibe year-round. If 

Carnival isn’t your thing, and you’re looking for an 

escape option, Tobago’s lush hills and clear, warm 

waters beckon — as you can see in this photo 

essay. Prepare for a dose of true natural beauty 

piotrandrewsphotography.com 


The numerous small rivers tumbling down 

Tobago’s hillsides create an abundance of 

waterfalls — some of them popular tourist 

spots, others known only to locals. Getting 

to Parlatuvier Falls — near the village of the 

same name on the island’s Leeward Coast 

— requires an arduous scramble over giant 

boulders, but the reward is a pristine pool 

surrounded by emerald green foliage 

marianne s. hosein 


Villas Are Us 

Mahi Mahi & Flamboyant 

Luciana 

Casa La Mancha 

We specialize in seaside villa rentals, so call to let us 

make your sandy dreams come true! 

Tel: (868) 481-5986 / 236-5190 

Gillian@TobagoVillasAreUs.com 

www.tobagovillasareus.com 

a Tobago time...for real 

EXPERIENCE THE UNFORGETTABLE GETAWAY TO 

call for details 

Administrative Office 

78-79 la clave Street, Lange Park, 

Chaguanas, Trinidad 

Tel: (868) 671-9143, 671-0631 

Fax: (868) 665-9236 

your ideal location at 

CROWN POINT, TOBAGO, W.I. 

Tel: (868) 639-8512-3 

Fax: (868) 639-9605 

great 

location 

✓ Airport 

✓ store bay beach 

✓ pigeon point beach 

✓ entertainment & 

nightlife 

tropikistbeachhotelresort@gmail.com • www.tropikist.com 


Tobago has no shortage of pristine blue 

bays — but, for many locals, Pirate’s Bay near 

the island’s northern tip may be the most 

treasured of all. On the outskirts of the village 

of Charlotteville, it’s accessible only by boat or 

footpath, making it an oasis of quiet 

‘Life is always Sweeter at the Sugar Mill Suites, Tobago Plantations’ 

Contact us: (868) 631-1054/639-8000 | E: rentals@tobagoplantations.com 

Or visit our website: www.sugarmilltobago.com 


joanne husain 

Luxury 

Villa Rental 

Experience the Grandeur of 

Old-Fashioned Nostalgia 

Situated on a majestic cliff overlooking Bacolet Beach, Blue Haven 

Hotel combines the ambiance of yesteryear with modern living. 

BLUE HAVEN HOTEL 

Bacolet Bay, Tobago | Tel: 868 660 7400 

E: reservations@bluehavenhotel.com 

www.bluehavenhotel.com 

124 Anthony Charles Crescent, 

Bon Accord 

info@tomasvillas.com 

(868) 765 8602 

www.tomasvillas.com 


Over two hundred and forty bird species 

have been recorded on Tobago — from 

shy manakins to gregarious parrots, 

impressively large tropicbirds to tiny 

hummingbirds, their iridescent plumage 

catching the light as they flit among 

nectar-filled flowers 

DebraLee Wiseberg/istock.com 

ADVERTORIAL 

Barcode 

This Carnival season, Barcode continues to bring premier 

entertainment in our “I Love Soca” series. Every Tuesday, 

from 2 January to 13 February, 2018, Barcode showcases 

the best soca artistes from Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, 

Grenada, St Vincent, and beyond. Situated on the 

Scarborough Waterfront, our bar/club hybrid is unique as 

the island itself. Our newly extended outdoor decking is fully 

covered, and can easily accommodate three hundred persons 

with the extraordinary feel of the southern Atlantic breeze. 

Blue Haven 

Experience the grandeur of old-fashioned nostalgia! 

Situated on a majestic cliff overlooking Bacolet Beach, 

romantic Blue Haven provided the idyllic scenery for several 

golden-age movies. Splendidly refurbished while retaining 

its retro-charm, Blue Haven combines the ambiance and 

atmosphere of “yesterday” with modern living. 

Guys Autozone 

When visiting beautiful Tobago, why not optimise your 

exploring by renting a vehicle from Guys Autozone? What 

can you expect from this family-owned company? We offer 

the most affordable rates on the island and individualised 

packages to suit our diverse customers. Continuously aspiring 

to remain the best in the auto rental industry, we ensure a 

convenient, courteous experience, which adds to our clients’ 

peace of mind. Our mantra, “excellence matters,” speaks for 

itself! 

Island Investments 

Leading real estate and villa rentals, established for over 

thirty years. We are the experts on property ownership and 

vacation home rentals in Tobago. Our standards exceed the 

rest. See us for property or land acquisition and sales with 

personalised, knowledgeable service. 

Peeping Fish 

“Where beach meets street.” The one-stop shop for the 

trendiest local and international brands of swimwear, 

resortwear, footwear, and accessories. Our eclectic mix of 

specially curated pieces celebrates the individuality of the 

adventurous spirit, on or off the beach. 


WE specialize in 

• intimate weddings , 

• every day floral arrangements 

• bridal bouquets 

• coordinating 

• planning/decor 

Gulf City Lowland Mall | Tobago 

(o) 1 868 639 8828/660 8828 | (m) 1 868 360 0179 

eyefordesignflowershop@gmail.com 


Viewed from beach level, the jetty at 

Pigeon Point and its thatched shed may be 

Tobago’s most instantly recognisable and 

most photographed landmark. But from 

high above it’s barely a speck in the broad 

expanse of shallow blue water extending 

all the way out to Buccoo Reef 

tarique eastman 


An Oasis of Serenity 

www.plantationbeachvillas.com 

info@plantationbeachvillas.com 

Tel: (868) 639-9377 

Black Rock, Tobago 

Ideal for Families, 

Reunions and 

Intimate Weddings 

Relax… Rejuvenate… Reconnect 

• Warm friendly service 

• Peaceful cosy rooms 

• Yoga and massage 

• Organic herb gardens 

• World-renowned restaurant 

• Live band on weekends 

Come home to yourself… come home 

to Kariwak… where Tobago begins. 

868 639 8442 

info@kariwak.com 

www.kariwak.com 

@kariwakvillage 

Coco Reef Resort • Magdalena Grand Beach Resort • Mt Irvine Bay Resort 

Tel: 868.631.2626 • E: underseatobagoltd@gmail.com • www.underseatobago.com 

Intimate Tobago Weddings 

create memories in paradise 

Packages include 

* Breathtaking Blooms 

* Unique Venues 

* Outstanding Menus 

* Distinctive Decor 

* Professional Vendors 

www.tobagoflowersonline.com 

(868) 660 7748/395 8330 

Black Rock • Tobago • Tel: 868-639-0361 

www.stonehavenvillas.com 

reservations@stonehavenvillas.com 


As any Tobagonian can tell you, the island’s 

Main Ridge is home to the oldest legally 

protected forest reserve in the world, dating 

to 1776 — an early milestone in the history 

of conservation. The reserve is home to 

hundreds of species of wildlife, and protects 

Tobago’s watershed — and is criss-crossed 

by hiking trails that can take you to the very 

heart of the island’s natural splendour 



Just twenty-five miles long and six wide, 

Tobago can feel bigger than its size on 

the map, thanks to its rugged terrain 

and winding mountain roads 



Among villages of modern concrete 

houses, a few Victorian-era wooden 

gingerbread cottages still survive. Even 

the most modest boast hints of elaborate 

fretwork, and high-pitched roofs 

designed to repel tropical downpours 

chris anderson 


Bambú 

GIFT SHOP 

Rare & exotic arts and crafts 

made in the Caribbean 

Lovely Caribbean wear, collectibles, 

accessories and much more... 

#199 Milford Road, Crown Point, Tobago 

T. 868-639-8133 

E: mariela0767@hotmail.com 

Tobago 

Resort wear 

Coco Reef Resort and Spa 

(868) 631 5244 

Magdalena Grand Beach Resort 

(868) 631 0960 

Tobago Plantaons, Lowlands, Tobago. Tel: 868 660 4411 

Open: Wed to Mon 10am-11pm. Closed on Tuesdays. 

GOOD 

food 

GOOD 

prices 

Cnr Crompstain & Milford Rds, Crown Point, Tobago 

Tel: (868) 639-8660 goodeatstobago 

*Across the road from the ANR International Airport 

Crown Point, Tobago 

Casino/Bar: 868 631-0044/0500 

Jade Cafe: 868 6398361 


Goats — like these, heading home on a 

rural lane — are staple livestock in Tobago. 

They also become the star attraction at 

Easter, when traditional goat-racing brings 

out the island’s competitive instincts 

chris anderson 

ADVERTORIAL 

Shaw Park Complex 

Home to stunning local art and a stellar events team who 

ensure an exceptional and tailored experience for every 

guest. The 5,000-capacity Shaw Park Complex is a modern 

centre for the arts which features both theatre and 

conferencing capabilities. 

Skewers 

One of the island’s gems, Tobago’s number one Arabic 

restaurant, providing a consistently exquisite menu of unique 

Middle Eastern food infused with a local flavour, for over ten 

years. There’s only one Skewers. 100% Halal. 

The Sugar Mill Suites 

Nestled in the unsullied Tobago Plantations Beach & 

Golf Resort, you can choose between our comfortable 

luxurious modern “homes,” our elegant old-fashioned 

condo-style units, and our cozy bungalows. These types of 

accommodation offer you the convenience and excellent 

service you’d expect from a top class-resort. Find out more 

about Sugar Mill Condos, Bungalows, and Villas to better 

accommodate you. 

Tomas Villa 

This luxurious villa, recently renovated, is located in the Bon 

Accord Development, five minutes from the A.N.R. Robinson 

International Airport and the popular beaches of Store Bay 

and Pigeon Point. Restaurants, nightlife, and supermarkets 

are only minutes away. Tobago is known for its green, 

clean, and serene atmosphere. You’ll be enthralled by its 

tranquility, diverse cultures, beautiful beaches, and dive sites. 

Tropikist Beach Hotel & Resort 

Tropikist offers a stunning panoramic view, an ideal location 

close to the airport, plus easy access to beaches, local 

attractions, and activities. Bask in the sun, then enjoy a 

cocktail as the sun sets! Tropikist — your tropical destination. 

Villas Are Us 

We are a small full-service rental agency, offering effortless 

vacations and villas which are among the most beautifully 

appointed and ideally situated on the island. Our caring staff 

is committed to seeing that your every need is met. 



Sunset at Mt Irvine Bay, Tobago’s most 

popular surfing site 

welmoet photography 

Spacious, Comfortable, Rustic Community Lane, 

Tasty local lunches [from $25] 

Mt Pleasant, 

Delicious Fireside Curries 

Tobago 

Well Stocked Bar 

(868) 313 2917 

(868) 298 5249 

Happy Hour Fridays 

See our reviews 

After-work Specials 

on Google Maps, 

10 Minutes from Crown Pt Tripadvisor & Facebook. 

Steak & Seafood Dinners For more information visit 

[from $120] 

www.honeysrestaurants.com 


Little Tobago 

Charlotteville 

Tobago Main Ridge 

Forest Reserve 

Black Rock 

Buccoo Reef 

Speyside 

Pigeon Point 

Store Bay 

Scarborough 

Crown Point 

Caribbean Airlines operates numerous flights each day between 

Trinidad and Tobago 

 

 

Roosserie & Grill PLUS 

Roosserie Chicken 

Pork Chops | Baby Back Ribs 

Garlic Chicken | BBQ Pigtail 

Grilled Fish | Jerk Wings 

Buffalo Wings 

and more 

Located at Pelican Plaza, 

Milford Road, Crown Point, 

Tobago, W.I. 

Tel. (868) 639-8563 

Sister outlets 

ANR Robinson airport 

639 5000 

Shirvan Plaza 

631 1000 


NEIGHBOURHOOD 

cdwheatley/istock.com 

t:mtcurado/istock.com 

Gustavia, 


The postcard-perfect capital of St Barts 

looks like a small French harbour town 

transplanted in the Antilles — with a 

Swedish twist to its Gallic charms 

After the storm 

Although battered by Hurricane 

Irma in September 2017, the 

residents of Gustavia got to work in 

the immediate aftermath, cleaning 

up and rebuilding their town. 

By the end of October, St Barts 

authorities reported that the island 

was ready to receive visitors for 

the traditional start of the tourism 

season in November. 

Streetscape 

Gustavia’s U-shape is determined by the 

contours of its harbour, hemmed in by 

the hills to the east, and watched over 

by three Swedish-era forts. Swedish 

influence is also evident in the town’s 

historic architecture, with its redroofed, 

white-painted stone houses, now 

scrupulously restored. Look out for the 

clock tower on Rue Gambetta, shaped 

like a slightly squat obelisk, with an 

upper-section of blue-painted timber 

— the remnant of a church destroyed 

long ago in a hurricane. The bell, dated 

to 1799, is still rung to mark municipal 

celebrations and other momentous 

events. Another town landmark is a huge 

eighteenth-century anchor discovered 

by accident in 1981, thought to have 

belonged to a ship of the Royal Navy. 

mtcurado/istock.com 


History 

When St Barthélemy was claimed by France in 1648, Le Carénage — the small, 

narrow bay on the island’s west coast, sheltered by volcanic hills — was the natural 

site for a harbour. In 1784, St Barts was ceded by France to Sweden, beginning a nearcentury 

of Scandinavian rule. The Swedes renamed the capital after King Gustav 

III, and declared Gustavia a free port, opening an era of highly profitable trade (and 

smuggling). Repurchased by France in 1878, the island declined into an economic 

backwater until the 1960s, when electricity finally arrived and the construction of 

a small airport encouraged the first tourist resorts. High-end tourism is now the 

mainstay, as St Barts has developed a reputation as a playground of the international 

jet-set, who converge here in their yachts for New Year’s celebrations — when locals 

retreat to their homes, awaiting the return of the low season. 

leonard Zhukovsky/shutterstock.com 

Elvira Sa/shutterstock.com 

Time for a swim 

St Barts’s beaches are deservedly 

famous, and the island’s compact 

size — less than ten square miles — 

means they’re all within easy reach of 

Gustavia. Nearest to hand is popular 

Anse de Grands Galets, better known 

as Shell Beach, just over the hill from 

the harbour and below Fort Karl. (As its 

name suggests, the beach is strewn with 

pink seashells underfoot.) Further out 

along the coast, you can take your pick: 

does your dream beach have trendy bars 

and restaurants like St-Jean on the north 

coast, or do you prefer a more isolated 

locale, like Gouverneur to the south (with 

its view of St Kitts) or rugged Colombier 

at the island’s western tip, accessible 

only by a hiking trail? 

Souvenir 

Given the extremely well-heeled 

demographic of most St Barts visitors, 

it’s no surprise that Gustavia boasts 

some of the Caribbean’s poshest 

boutiques, including branches 

of designer shops from the most 

fashionable Paris streets. You’ll have 

no trouble replacing your Louis Vuitton 

luggage, your Hermès scarf, your 

Cartier necklace. In a somewhat 

less ruinous price range, 

you can also find boutiques 

with locally made jewellery 

and straw hats, and beauty 

products from Ligne St Barth, 

made with indigenous herbs 

and ingredients like mango butter, 

frangipani, and pineapple. 

Fort to fort 

Gustavia is small enough to explore 

by foot in a morning, and the town’s 

three forts make ideal guideposts. 

Start on the eastern side of the harbour 

entrance, where the Quai Jeanne d’Arc 

is overshadowed by the remains of 

Fort Gustav and its almost comical 

lighthouse. From here, you can scope 

out your entire route: south along the 

waterfront to St Bartholemew’s Anglican 

Church, then west to Fort Karl, then 

north again along the harbour to Fort 

Oscar and the Municipal Museum in the 

eighteenth-century Wall House, home 

to everything from historic artifacts 

to natural history specimens and local 

craft. Should your stroll rouse a thirst, 

you’ll have your pick of chic little cafés 

where the atmosphere ranges from 

French to very French. 

Gustavia 

Co-ordinates 

17.9º N 62.9º W 

Sea Level 


Caribbean Airlines operates regular flights to Princess Juliana International 

Airport in Sint Maarten, with connections on other airlines and via ferry to 



Round Trip 

It’s a common sight in Port-au-Prince: 

informal outdoor galleries set up by 

working artists like Baptiste Jonas, who 

displays his paintings in the Petionville 

neighbourhood, hung salon-style on 

a chain-link fence. All are available 

for sale, or simply to catch the eyes of 

passing traffic 


Across the Caribbean, Carnival brings astonishing artistry out into the 

streets. But all year round there are ample opportunities to experience 

art in public spaces, out in the open — en plein air, as a painter might 

say. From murals to monuments, here’s a regional roundup of outdoor 

art that doesn’t require you to set foot in a museum 

Hemis / Alamy Stock Photo 


Born in Ciudad Bolívar, the Venezuelan 

artist Jésus Soto (1923–2005) is 

famous for his interactive Penetrable 

sculptures, in which flexible hanging 

tubes create geometric forms that 

viewers can enter. Like this red sphere, 

which floats along the Francisco 

Fajardo highway in Caracas 

paolo costa/shutterstock.com 


imagebroker/alamystockphoto 

Officially known as the 1763 

Monument, towering above 

Georgetown’s Square of the 

Revolution, this sculpture by 

pioneering Guyanese artist Philip 

Moore (1921–2012) depicts the 

rebel leader Cuffy, mastermind of 

a rebellion against slavery in the 

colony of Berbice. The statue’s 

intricately carved surfaces include 

West African and Amerindian 

symbols of strength and power 


Devised by the Fresh Milk art centre in 2014, the Fresh Stops 

project commissioned six young artists to produce original artworks 

to be incorporated into roadside benches across Barbados. Works 

by Simone Padmore (above) Matthew Clarke (right), Mark King 

(below right), Versia Harris (below), and others put provocative 

imagery literally behind the backs of commuters across the island 

courtesy fresh milk 


COURTESY fresh milk 



A landmark of the 

University of the West 

Indies Mona campus in 

Jamaica, the mural by 

Belgian artist Claude Rahir 

(1937–2007) — completed 

in 1979 — adorns the 

façade of the Assembly 

Hall. Three stories high, 

it depicts the university’s 

eight faculties alongside 

images of children at 

school and at play 


WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 103 

Jeff Greenberg/UIG via Getty Images

On Martinique’s southwest coast, 

the Anse Cafard Slavery Memorial 

is an unforgettable reminder of the 

Caribbean’s tragic past. Created by 

sculptor Laurent Valére in 1998, the 

memorial’s hulking concrete figures 

— each eight feet tall and staring out 

to sea — depict a group of Africans 

drowned nearby in 1830, shackled 

together in the hold of a slave ship. The 

figures’ posture suggests a powerful 

sorrow, while their rough-hewn faces 

project a determination to survive 

hemis/alamy stock photo 


ENGAGE 

arun madisetti/images dominica 

106 Green 

What follows the storm 

108 

The Deal 

Seaweed for sale 

110 

On This Day 

A distant light 

Recent sightings of Dominica’s national bird, the Sisserou parrot, prove that the endangered species survived Hurricane Maria

Green 

WhAT follows 

the storm 

When Hurricane Maria tore through Dominica 

in September 2017, lives were lost, homes 

destroyed, and businesses crippled. But the 

storm also took a toll on forests and wildlife — 

with major implications for an economy that 

depends on eco-tourism. Paul Crask reports 

Photography by Paul Crask 

In the silent, misty morning after the 

hurricane, it both felt and looked 

like the end. With sustained winds 

recorded at 220 miles per hour, and 

gusting off the scale, the devastation 

wreaked by Hurricane Maria was so brutal 

and stark that it brought me to my knees. 

Lush forests were transformed to 

naked hillsides of leafless, skeletal shards 

that were once trees but now looked more 

like ghosts. Some had even had been 

stripped of their bark. Around eighty 

percent of Dominica’s 25,000 homes 

were damaged, with most losing at least 

the roof. Businesses were destroyed and 

wantonly looted, lives had been lost, and 

others were declared missing. A stunned 

silence reigned. 

While the socio-economic and infrastructure 

damage, clean-up, and repair 

became the immediate focus of the collective 

recovery efforts, the effect of the 

storm on the island’s natural heritage was, 

understandably, of secondary concern. 

It was not until the fourth week of the 

aftermath that I happened to hear a local 

radio broadcast discussing the impact of 

the hurricane on nature. 

“Nature takes care of itself,” said one 

expert, urging us not to worry about it 

too much, yet acknowledging that the 

revival of the island’s nature and wildlife 

was important for tourism. Increasingly, 

Dominica’s natural and cultural heritage 

are linked to tourism revenue, rather than 

something that ought to be preserved 

and celebrated in its own right. With 

the advent of destination marketing, 

nature has, rather unfortunately, become 

regarded as an eco-tourism product. 

Dominica’s habitats range from dry 

and littoral woodlands on its coasts to 

cloud forest atop its many volcanic peaks. 

But the predominant habitat, covering 

around eighty percent of the island, is 

rainforest. The island’s rainforest is home 

to a diverse and fragile ecosystem that 

includes around two hundred species of 

fern and rare birds such as the regionally 

endemic rufous-throated solitaire (or 

mountain whistler), four species of hummingbird, 

twelve species of bat, and the 

locally endemic and endangered red-neck 

(Jaco) and imperial (Sisserou) parrots. 

Hiking trails, often developed from 

historic traces used by Kalinago and 

Maroons, weave through this habitat in a 

vast but hidden network, and have become 

a draw for independent travellers with 

a love of the outdoors and unexplored 

places. Waterfalls, countless rivers, crater 

lakes, and one of the densest clusters of 

volcanoes beyond the Pacific Rim have 

earned the Morne Trois Pitons National 

Park UNESCO status, and Dominica 

has long branded itself the Caribbean’s 

“Nature Island.” With most hotels describing 

themselves in some shape or form 

as eco accommodation, and with many 

people employed in the eco-tourism 

service sector, nature has indeed become 

inextricably linked to earnings. 

Nature does take care of itself, 

and, thankfully, there’s been no 

suggestion anyone should interfere 

with its recovery in Dominica. But the 

leaves that were beginning to reappear on 

trees four weeks after the hurricane were 

far from a canopy. And a rainforest really 

needs a canopy. 

Without a full leaf canopy, the forest is 

exposed to full sunlight, and plants that 

are opportunistic and sun-loving will tend 

to occupy the spaces on the forest floor 

that were previously the domain of those 

that prefer the shade, and upon which 

other plants, mammals, reptiles, birds, 

insects, amphibians, and invertebrates 

are dependent. Without a canopy, birds 

such as the two endemic parrot species 

have no natural source of food, and will 

seek fruits elsewhere, usually in gardens 

or citrus plantations. In the weeks following 

the hurricane, people observed the 

Jaco parrot foraging in such places. In late 

November, there was finally a confirmed 

sighting of the Sisserou. Given that it 

exists only in Dominica — and is the 

national bird, appearing on the country’s 

flag — there is real concern that the species 

could be pushed closer to extinction. 

Recent studies of the effect of hurricanes 

on forests have been made in Brazil, 

Jamaica, and Puerto Rico. Conclusions 

are varied, as are estimates of how long it 

takes for a forest to fully recover — ranging 

from fifty to four thousand years. But 


Dominica’s Trafalgar Falls, a popular 

attraction for visitors, before and after 

Hurricane Maria 

in this kind of habitat are dependent on 

animals and birds to disperse seeds. If those 

creatures are not there to do that, or their 

numbers have been adversely impacted, 

new tree growth is reduced, along with 

future food sources. 

From my porch on the western slopes 

of the Morne Anglais volcano, I saw the 

landscape transition from brown to green 

within four weeks of the hurricane and, 

even though I know it is just thin new foliage 

painted over much deeper cracks, I see 

it as a promising beginning, and no longer 

an end. Nature may well recover better 

than its dependent eco-tourism sector, 

Nature may well 

recover better than its 

dependent eco-tourism 

sector, which has been 

very badly hit 

none of the studies followed a hurricane 

as severe as Maria, and even Dominica’s 

own experience after Hurricane David in 

1979 is not really comparable, as David 

was a weaker storm and predominantly 

affected the south of the island. Category 

five (plus) Hurricane Maria tracked 

through the middle of the island, and so 

all habitats were affected. 

Having hiked all over Dominica, and 

written about it for more than ten years, I 

am concerned, but not without hope. I do 

fear for the survival of the Sisserou, but 

I also know how fertile this island is and 

how quickly plants and trees grow. Also 

the sheer number of deep valleys and steep 

mountain slopes means that leeward-facing 

and other slightly more protected sections 

of forest perhaps did not suffer quite as 

much as those that are more exposed. In 

these largely inaccessible habitats, I would 

like to imagine the mountain whistler still 

sings and the Sisserou finds nourishment. 

But around eighty percent of tree species 

which has been very badly hit. It is estimated 

that around fifty per cent of hotels 

in Dominica will require a partial or total 

rebuilding period of a year or more, and 

(unsubstantiated) estimates of the scale of 

migration from the island by people who 

need to find a life and an income elsewhere 

are already quite disturbing. 

As time passes, I am hopeful that the 

shade-loving plants will out-muscle the 

sun-loving opportunists in Dominica, and 

that nature will thrive. But this has to be a 

time for fresh, new, creative thinking, and 

not simply more of the same. “The same” 

doesn’t exist any longer — and, with the 

obvious effects of climate change, more 

extreme weather events like Maria seem 

inevitable. The future is not what it used 

to be. n 


THE DEAL 

Seaweed 

When the beaches of St Lucia 

were inundated with sargassum, 

Johanan Dujon didn’t see a 

problem — he saw an opportunity. 

Under the Algas Organics label, the 

young entrepreneur manufactures 

a sargassum-based fertiliser, and 

his eye is on a regional market. 

Erline Andrews learns more 

Back in 2011, sargassum seaweed — a greenishbrown 

mass of vegetation that usually originates 

from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic — 

began piling up on beaches across the Caribbean. 

It’s not unusual for the seaweed to appear 

seasonally, but scientists speculate that because 

of warmer temperatures due to climate change — plus the effect 

of man-made fertilisers and sewage contaminating the sea — 

quantities grew dramatically, becoming a serious challenge for 

the Caribbean’s tourism and fishing industries, the mainstay of 

many islands. 

In 2014, the seaweed problem reached a peak. Twentyone-year-old 

Johanan Dujon was at a friend’s house when the 

conversation turned — as it likely did at many gatherings in 

St Lucia — to the sargassum, which was clogging the engines of 

fishing vessels, killing fish and crabs, and emanating a sickening 

odour as it rotted on beaches. 

“Her mom was mentioning that seaweed can be used as 

fertiliser, [and asking] why was nobody doing anything about 

it,” Dujon recalls. “That is where the thought came from. If this 

material is coming here and we can make something out of it, 

then we’d be solving two issues. We’d be creating a product that 

we could make money off of, that [also] kept the beaches clean.” 

Dujon, by his account, hadn’t been a brilliant science student. 

After graduating from the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College 

— where he studied literature, Spanish, and business — he was 

a primary school physical education teacher and ran a fishing 

supplies business. But he had the foresight to see an opportunity 

in the sargassum influx, and the drive and the family support to 

carry it out. 

For Sale 

“When I first came up with the idea, I couldn’t sleep. It was 

like a tugging — get up and go try something with the seaweed!” 

says Dujon. “I finally said to my father, Dad, let’s go and collect 

some seaweed to experiment. The average person who said that 

to their parents, their reaction would be, What are you doing? 

His reaction was — he has a pickup that we still use to move the 

products around — he says to me, OK, let’s go. 

“He would go out with me to collect the seaweed. My mom as 

well,” Dujon continues. “We would dry the seaweed in the initial 

instance and try to sell it off in front of supermarkets — and 

nobody bought one bag. Nobody. But . . . the point is the support 

was there from the onset. It’s still there now.” 

Today, Dujon is managing director of Algas Organics, 

which produces a liquid fertiliser — Algas Total Plant 

Tonic — made from sargassum. Dujon came up with the 

product after months of experimenting. He, his family, 

and a small team of part-time employees harvest the sargassum 

from affected coastlines and manufacture bottles of the fertiliser 

with support from international and local public agencies. 

After operating for several years out of the Dujon home, a 

processing plant will formally open later this year, and after 

selling to retailers and corporate clients in St Lucia, Algas has 

begun exporting to Barbados. Dujon hopes eventually to export 

to other countries in the region and beyond, and expand manufacturing 

operations to other parts of the Caribbean affected by 

sargassum. In January 2017, the St Lucia Chamber of Commerce 

named him Young Entrepreneur of the Year. 

Giles Romulus runs the UNDP’s Global Environment Facility 

Small Grants Programme in St Lucia, which helped fund 

Algas’s operations after Dujon agreed to share profits with the 

St Lucia Fisherfolk Cooperative Society, an NGO that represents 

the fishing community. “He got a lot of support,” Romulus 

explains, “and the fact that he’s willing to go into partnership 

with a civil society organisation that can benefit and also 

give him some guidance — that helped. Johanan realised he 

couldn’t do it alone.” 

Romulus points to Microsoft, Dell, and Facebook. “Many of 

the biggest companies in the world started in the university bed- 


Marc Bruxelle/shutterstock.com 

“Being successful as an entrepreneur 

comes from you having the latitude 

to fail,” explains Johanan Dujon 

Courtesy 

Johanan Dujon 

room,” he says. “You start small and you look for opportunities 

for partnerships. [Algas] is an excellent example of a partnership 

that has brought results in a short period of time.” 

Romulus said he hopes the project will grow if another 

injection of funding is approved. In addition to the manufacturing 

plant, he’d like to see Algas set up a research lab. “We 

want expansion beyond sargassum,” he says. “St Lucia has a 

lot of endemic plants that need to be studied. I believe that 

there are chemicals in our plants in the Caribbean that are yet 

untouched.” 

Last year, Dujon was a presenter at the Earth Optimism Summit 

organised by the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. 

The inaugural event was intended to celebrate and share successful 

ideas in environmental protection. Dujon was selected 

after responding to an invitation for submissions, and may have 

been the only representative from the English-speaking Caribbean. 

“We, in all of the environmental challenges that we’re 

faced with, have the opportunity to convert them into profitable 

ventures,” he told the audience. 

He presented test results that show Algas fertiliser performing 

better than the big American brand Miracle-Gro, and touted 

its organic nature. “Our product reduces the need for synthetic 

chemicals, which leach out into our soils and into our waters 

and increases your yield,” he told the summit. “If you match 

innovation with funding, mentorship, technical support, and 

community and environmental conscience, what you’re going to 

get is a revolutionary solution which can stand out at the global 

scale,” he concluded. 

There’ve been other ideas bandied about for making productive 

use of sargassum. A team at the University of the West 

Indies St Augustine campus has experimented with turning it 

into plastic. Barbadian environmental entrepreneur Mark Hill 

has made it into food and particleboard. But Dujon’s project 

seems to be the first to really bear fruit. 

He’s encountered other people who had the idea to convert 

the sargassum into salable fertiliser. “They had the idea but they 

couldn’t do it,” he says. “Entrepreneurship is about risks. I am 

twenty-something. If I leave my job and this doesn’t work, I can 

do something else. Being successful as an entrepreneur comes 

from you having the latitude to fail. If you have a mortgage and 

children and a wife, it’s not OK to fail. The younger you, are the 

easier it should be to take risks.” 

The region needs more venture capitalists, he says, to put 

money into risky but potentially lucrative start-up businesses. 

“Once you have that kind of network, then you would see entrepreneurship 

really take off.” n 


on this day 

A DISTANT 

light 

For such a tiny, remote place, Sombrero 

Island in the Anegada Passage has had 

a surprisingly colourful history — from 

shipwrecks to a guano-inspired international 

incident to the crucial lighthouse that began 

service one hundred and fifty years ago. 

James Ferguson tells its story 

Illustration by Rohan Mitchell 

As dusk fell on the evening of 1 January, 1868, 

Europe-bound ships passing warily through the 

infamous Anegada Passage — the forty-mile 

stretch of water separating the British Virgin 

Islands from the northern tip of the Leewards 

— may have been surprised to see the regular 

and reassuring flashes of a distant lighthouse on their starboard 

side. A white glow appeared directly across the dark water every 

sixty seconds before fading away into the night. Some ships, it 

is said, sounded their sirens in appreciation as they headed out 

of the Caribbean Sea into the Atlantic. Once a dangerous place 

of hidden reefs and unpredictable currents, the Anegada Passage 

was suddenly a great deal safer. 

The site of the beacon was a tiny, arid outcrop at the northernmost 

tip of the Leeward archipelago, one of the most remote 

of the Caribbean’s seven thousand islands and a minuscule 

outpost of the British Empire. Named Sombrero Island because 

it resembled a Mexican hat in shape, this ninety-acre islet had 

no fresh water, almost no vegetation, and a large population of 

lizards and seabirds. It was considered part of the (relatively) 

larger colony of Anguilla and had belonged to Britain since 1714. 

The lighthouse, made of steel girders and shipped across 

the Atlantic from London, was assembled and situated on 

Sombrero’s highest point, forty feet above sea level. An engraving 

of 1875 shows an Eiffel Tower–like construction standing 

on a base, topped by a lantern room. It burned kerosene 

and was operated by a staff of four lighthouse keepers, who 

worked shifts at night to keep the light shining before it was 

extinguished at dawn. 

Sombrero was undeniably isolated, lying thirty-four miles 

northwest of Anguilla, but it had known irregular human 

habitation since the early nineteenth century. A British sailor 

marooned for stealing beer had survived his ordeal by being 

spotted by a passing American ship. It was then discovered 

by British geologists that vast accretions of seabird droppings 

had formed nitrate-rich guano deposits. News of this find 

reached the United States, and in 1856 an American company 

began extracting the fertiliser and exporting it back to the 

plantations of the South. Workers were required for the gruelling 

mining operation, and an exclusively black workforce was 

recruited from neighbouring islands. In its heyday, the operation 

employed two hundred men, accommodated in ramshackle huts 

and reliant on supplies brought from St Martin. As there was no 

port or beach, the guano had to be shovelled into barges which 

then transferred their cargo to boats lying off the island. 

Just like the extraction process, the social situation was 

unsustainable. A violent dispute over wages broke out in August 

1860, and, according to The New York Times, one of the workers 

“hurled a tremendous lump of guano at [a white foreman’s] 

head, crushed his skull with the blow, and left him for dead on 

the ground.” The workers then took over the island, plundering 

the stores, until order was finally restored. Seven years later, 

an international court ruled that the US company had illegally 

occupied the island, and sovereignty — together with the guano 

mine — was restored to Britain. Extraction continued until 

supplies ran out in 1890 and the mine was closed. Little remains 

of this nitrate mini-boom, apart from a few scattered industrial 

ruins, a worker’s tombstone, and the gouged, cratered landscape. 


Little remains of Sombrero Island’s 

nitrate mini-boom, apart from a 

few scattered industrial ruins 

Perhaps understandably for someone who spent thirty-one years 

adrift in the middle of the ocean with only four companions, Sam likes 

to talk. He was part of a team that consisted of a Principal Keeper, two 

assistant keepers and a cook. They would each spend six weeks on 

Sombrero and two weeks leave back on Anguilla. According 

to Sam, those six weeks flew by. Unless you got to 

brooding, that is. “Sometimes it 

could get a little boring if you 

started to think too much” 

. . . For recreation, the keepers 

snorkelled and fished. 

Once Sam saw a large shark 

while snorkelling, which, thankfully, 

was not interested in him. They listened 

to the radio, played cards or dominoes, 

and star-gazed. 

For twenty-two years, the lighthouse keepers had shared the 

island with a fractious community of miners and overseers, 

but now they were left on their own. The lighthouse itself 

was administered by Trinity House in London, the organisation 

charged with UK maritime safety. In 1931, improvements were 

made to its light power and it was given a solid concrete base. This 

proved ineffective, however, when Hurricane Donna smashed 

into Sombrero in September 1960, and damaged it beyond repair. 

It was demolished and replaced by a similar-looking skeletal 

structure mounted on a concrete base, inaugurated in July 1962. 

It was 126 feet high, requiring the keepers to climb 163 steps to 

reach the lantern room at the top. 

The lives of the lighthouse keepers from the 1970s are 

evocatively recreated in an article entitled “Marooned” by Sarah 

Harrison in The Anguillian. Interviewing the recently retired Sam 

Richardson in 2013, she captures the strange, lonely existence 

of those men: 

This way of life was to end, to 

Sam’s regret, in September 2001, 

when a third, automated lighthouse 

was donated to Anguilla’s 

government by Trinity House and 

installed alongside the now disused concrete 

bases of the two previous structures. Looking rather 

like a white space rocket ready for take-off, this fifty-foot 

unmanned facility emits a white flash every ten seconds, powered 

by solar energy. 

Sombrero Island continues to provide a vital maritime 

service, exactly 150 years after the first London-built lighthouse 

began guiding shipping through the feared Anegada Passage. 

Today it is uninhabited, visited occasionally for maintenance 

checks or by divers or ornithologists, who must climb steep 

metal stairs from a dinghy to reach flat ground. The site is eerily 

atmospheric, with crashing waves and the noise of breeding 

boobies and terns filling the air. 

Twenty years ago, in 1998, there were reports that the nowdefunct 

Beal Aerospace company wanted to lease the island 

as a test rocket launch pad — but, thankfully, the plans came 

to nothing. And that will probably remain the case, as one of 

Sombrero’s distinct disadvantages — along with its precipitous 

cliffs and lunar appearance — is the fact that at only forty feet 

above sea level, it is occasionally swamped by large waves during 

storms or hurricanes, leaving only the lighthouse standing 

above water. n 


puzzles 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 

CARIBBEAN CROSSWORD 

Across 

1 This ultra-hot chilli has a sting [8,6] 

9 Magical dexterity [7] 

10 Art style newly acquired [7] 

11 Something other [4] 

12 Borat’s former Soviet Republic [10] 

14 A monument, tall and pointy [7] 

15 Give generously [6] 

18 Apparition [6] 

20 Spartan [7] 

22 Like some rum barrels [5] 

24 Alongside [4] 

25 What was borrowed [4] 

27 Finish [3] 

28 Untruth [3] 

29 Like the dodo bird [7] 

30 Lord Invader’s most famous calypso hit [3,3,4,4] 

9 10 

11 12 

13 

14 15 16 

18 19 20 

21 

22 23 24 25 

26 

27 28 29 

8 

17 

Down 

1 Dominica’s rare national bird [8] 

2 When you miss your alarm [9] 

3 Books have these [4] 

4 Australia’s interior [7] 

5 The place to hear steel music [7] 

6 Softness and fluffiness [10] 

7 Function [5] 

8 Bird droppings make good fertiliser [5] 

13 Scent to ward off mosquitos [10] 

30 

16 Jamaican Akino Lindsay is a champ at this martial art [9] 

17 Blood feud [8] 

19 Blonde child [7] 

20 Historic Miami architectural style [3,4] 

21 Scandinavian prize [5] 

23 Invasive weed [5] 

26 Italian volcano [4] 

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE 

by James Hackett 

There are 10 differences 

between these two pictures. 

How many can you spot? 

Spot the Difference answers 

Boy on stilts has a different shirt; there is more detail in his head-tie; there is a handkerchief in the boy’s pocket; the left-hand stilts have 

grooves; the boy on the ground has a different shirt; there is more grass detail in the right image; the circle on the boy’s cap is bigger on the 

right; the boy’s cap has a different bill on the right; the boy on the right has a bandana on his hand; the shadows are different. 


WORD SEARCH 

artist 

ATHLETIC 

beach 

BEATEN 

Belmont 

Big Truck 

Blue Boy 

current 

Desperadoes 

fern 

FLY 

Gustav 

harbour 

HARVEST 

hills 

hurricane 

Inveigler 

Jean and Dinah 

Kitchener 

lime 

Maroon 

MARTIAL 

moko jumbie 

organic 

PANTHER 

PORT 

road march 

run 

sargassum 

SHELTERED 

sky 

Spice Island 

STILT 

Store Bay 

tent 

track 

J S T O R E B A Y N O O R A M 

E E B H C I N A G R O M C H O 

A N A I H A R B O U R D U A K 

N A R Y G U P A N T H E R R O 

A C T K N T D O T N D R R V J 

N I I S P M R N R E F E E E U 

D R S T A B O U S T N T N S M 

D R T R E M Y P C E V L T T B 

I U C A L L E O H K A E N L I 

N H C E T R H C B I T H E A E 

A H B L A F T T R E S S T I T 

H W I D L I M E A K U L A T R 

N T O Y K I N V E I G L E R A 

S E M U S S A G R A S I B A C 

S P I C E I S L A N D H G M K 

Caribbean Beat Magazine 


Sudoku 

by www.sudoku-puzzle.net 

Fill the empty square with numbers 

from 1 to 9 so that each row, each 

column, and each 3x3 box contains 

all of the numbers from 1 to 9. For 

the mini sudoku use numbers from 

1 to 6. 

Sudoku 9x9 - Puzzle 4 of 5 - Medium 

Medium 9x9 sudoku puzzle 

2 7 1 5 

5 6 

8 6 2 3 

5 2 7 3 6 

8 2 

3 4 8 9 1 

Sudoku 6x6 - Puzzle 3 of 5 - Medium 

Medium 6x6 mini sudoku puzzle 

1 

2 4 

1 

2 5 

If the puzzle you want to do has 

already been filled in, just ask your 

flight attendant for a new copy of the 

magazine! 

1 9 7 5 

7 4 

6 3 5 9 

www.sudoku-puzzles.net 

3 4 

4 6 1 


www.sudoku-puzzle.net 

Solutions 

Caribbean Crossword 

Word Search 

U M A N D C O C A C O L A 

L Z L A C N D T 

N D 28 L I E 29 E X T I N C T 

Sudoku 


Mini Sudoku 

Sudoku 6x6 - Solution 3 of 5 - Medium 

Sudoku 9x9 - Solution 4 of 5 - Medium 

6 4 2 3 5 1 

1 3 5 2 4 6 

6 2 4 7 3 1 8 5 9 

5 1 3 8 9 4 2 7 6 

9 7 8 6 5 2 3 4 1 

J S T O R E B A Y N O O R A M 

E E B H C I N A G R O M C H O 

S 

1 

S 

9 

C 2 O R 3 P I 4 O N 5 P E 6 P P 7 E R 

8 

I V A U A L V G 

L E I G H T 10 N O U V E A U 

1 5 9 2 7 3 4 6 8 

4 8 7 5 1 6 9 2 3 

2 3 6 4 8 9 7 1 5 

3 4 1 9 6 7 5 8 2 

7 9 5 1 2 8 6 3 4 

8 6 2 3 4 5 1 9 7 


S R E B Y S N A 

E 

11 

5 1 3 4 6 2 

2 6 4 1 3 5 

3 5 1 6 2 4 

4 2 6 5 1 3 

O 

14 

L S E 12 K A Z A K H S T A N 

R L 13 C C R I O 

B U E H D 26 E O E 

B E L I S K 15 D O N A 16 T E 

U E T E A 17 

V 

N 

21 

S 

18 

P I R I T 

19 A 

20 U S T E R E 

O O R S K N 

A 23 K E N 24 W I T H 25 O W E D 

R 

30 

E 

27 

O 

22 

A N A I H A R B O U R D U A K 

N A R Y G U P A N T H E R R O 

A C T K N T D O T N D R R V J 

N I I S P M R N R E F E E E U 

D R S T A B O U S T N T N S M 

D R T R E M Y P C E V L T T B 

I U C A L L E O H K A E N L I 

N H C E T R H C B I T H E A E 

S P I C E I S L A N D H G M K 

S E M U S S A G R A S I B A C 

N T O Y K I N V E I G L E R A 

H W I D L I M E A K U L A T R 

A H B L A F T T R E S S T I T 


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Ticket office: 91-92 Avenue of the Republic, 

Georgetown 

Baggage: + 011 592 261 2202 

Suriname 

Airport: Johan Adolf Pengel International 

Reservations & information: + 597 52 0034/0035 

(local); 1 868 625 6200 (Trinidad) 

Ticket Office: Paramaribo Express, N.V. Wagenwegstraat 

36, Paramaribo 

Baggage: + 597 325 437

Destination: 

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737 onboard Entertainment — January/february 

Northbound 

Southbound 

J A N U A R Y 

Spider-Man: Homecoming 

Peter Parker’s attempts to fall back into his normal daily routine 

are threatened by the emergence of a new villain. 

Logan Lucky 

Jimmy Logan leads his siblings, Clyde and Mellie, in an elaborate 

scheme to rob North Carolina’s Charlotte Motor Speedway. 

Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey, Jr • director: Jon Watts • 

sci-fi, action • PG-13 • 130 minutes 

Channing Tatum, Adam Driver, Daniel Craig • director: Steven Soderbergh • 

comedy, drama • PG-13 • 119 minutes 

Northbound 

Southbound 

Marvel’s Thor: Ragnarok 

Thor must race against time to stop Ragnarok — the destruction 

of his world and the end of Asgardian civilisation at the hands 

of the ruthless Hela. 

Murder on the Orient Express 

In the most timeless of whodunits, we follow renowned detective 

Hercule Poirot as he attempts to solve what would become 

one of the most infamous crimes in history. 

F E B R U A R Y 

Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett • director: Taika Waititi • 

sci-fi, action • PG-13 • 130 minutes 

Tom Bateman, Lucy Boynton, Kenneth Branagh • director: Kenneth 

Branagh • drama, thriller • PG-13 • 113 minutes 

Audio Channels 

Channel 5 • The Hits 

Channel 6 • Soft Hits 

Channel 7 • Concert Hall 

Channel 8 • East Indian Fusion 

Channel 9 • Irie Vibes 

Channel 10 • Jazz Sessions 

Channel 11 • Kaiso Kaiso 

Channel 12 • Steelband Jamboree

parting shot 

ISLAND 

bounty 

In Union Island, southernmost part of 

St Vincent and the Grenadines, the centre 

of action is Mulzac Square in the small town 

of Clifton. Piles of fruit and vegetables in 

vendors’ stalls make a series of colourful 

still-life scenes, while the brilliant blue water 

of Clifton Harbour glistens nearby. 

Photography by Nature Picture Library/Alamy

Caribbean Beat — January/February 2018 (#149)

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