Caribbean Beat — January/February 2017 (#143)

January/February 2017
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Contents
No. 143 January/February 2017
49 78
21 Caribbean airlines turns ten
Marking a decade of sharing the
warmth of the islands, with the
Caribbean’s favourite airline. Learn
about anniversary plans, meet some
star CAL employees, and more
EMBARK
23 Datebook
Events around the Caribbean in
January and February, from Chinese
New Year in Suriname to a film
festival in Guadeloupe
32 Word of Mouth
A new museum in Kingston pays
tribute to reggae legend Peter Tosh;
and it’s Carnival season across the
Caribbean!
36 The look
Jamaican furniture line Mara Made
Designs gives elegant new life to
salvaged wood
38 The Game
Are you following the West Indies
blind cricket team? The 2017 World
Cup, hosted once again by India, is
a good time to start, writes Nazma
Muller
42 Bookshelf, playlist, and
screenshots
This month’s reading, listening, and
film-watching picks
IMMERSE
49 snapshots
Carnival is mine
There’s no single, definitive version
of Trinidad and Tobago’s Carnival —
rather, there are as many versions as
there are people who love the annual
festival. For some, Carnival is mas. For
others, it’s music. Some wait all year
for J’Ouvert, others adore Panorama.
There are thousands of different
Carnival stories: here are just a few
68 closeup
Shapeshifter, time traveller
When Vahni Capildeo won the
prestigious Forward Prize for her
poetry, the award merely affirmed
what her readers already knew: the
Trinidad-born writer is a brilliant
complicator of language, stories,
conventions, and boundaries. Andre
Bagoo explains why Capildeo’s
poems are so exhilarating
72 backstory
Forgotten beauty
In the paintings of the nineteenthcentury
British Pre-Raphaelite artists,
one “exotic” face stands out. Fanny
Eaton, born in Jamaica, was a mixedrace
model who found herself, for a
few years, near the heart of Victorian
London’s art world — and was long
forgotten. Judy Raymond tells what’s
known of her story
ARRIVE
78 Escape
Tobago therapy
If your Carnival plan involves a
quiet getaway from the heat
and the action, Tobago might be
just the place you’re looking for.
Caroline Taylor suggests all the ways
Trinidad’s tranquil sister isle can
soothe your spirit
88 neighbourhood
Roseau, Dominica
With its dramatic backdrop of
mountains, narrow and picturesque
streets, and historic architecture,
the capital of the “Nature Isle” has a
distinctive French Creole charm
91 RounD Trip
Carnival planet
The Carnival spirit, celebrated across
the Caribbean, isn’t unique to our
region. In countries and cities across
the world — many of them with a
cross-cultural history — the weeks
and days before Lent are a season of
revelry
106 layover
St John’s, Antigua
Its location near the northern end
of the Leewards makes Antigua an
important hub for Caribbean travel.
Our guide to exploring the island
when time is tight
14 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

CaribbeanBeat
An MEP publication
91
Editor Nicholas Laughlin
General manager Halcyon Salazar
Online marketing Caroline Taylor
Design artists Kevon Webster & Bridget van Dongen
Editorial assistant Shelly-Ann Inniss
Business Development Manager
Trinidad & Tobago
Yuri Chin Choy
T: (868) 460 0068, 622 3821
F: (868) 628 0639
E: yuri@meppublishers.com
Business Development Manager
Caribbean & International
Denise Chin
T: (868) 683 0832
F: (868) 628 0639
E: dchin@meppublishers.com
ENGAGE
108The Deal
Electric Avenues
As the world grows more environmentand
energy-conscious, electric cars
seem like the transport of the future.
And most Caribbean countries offer
ideal conditions for their adoption,
writes Shelly-Ann Inniss
110On this day
The Remains of the Danes
Exactly a century ago, the Kingdom
of Denmark sold its Caribbean
possessions for $25 million to the
United States. Commemorated in the
US Virgin Islands, the anniversary is
little remembered elsewhere — but,
as James Ferguson writes, the story
behind the event reminds us about
the ambitions that drove European
colonisation of our region
112 puzzles
Our crossword and other brainteasers,
to keep your mind busy
during your flight
118 Onboard entertainment
Movie and audio listings, to entertain
you in the air
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 2017. 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
120 parting shot
The historic architecture of the Old
Havana neighbourhood in Cuba’s
capital is an artistic treasure trove
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 15

January/February 2017
Cover A young fancy sailor
at rest during Carnival in
Port of Spain, Trinidad
Photo Abigail Hadeed
FREE
take-home copy
This issue’s contributors include:
Lisa Allen-Agostini (“Before sunrise”, page 54) is a
Trinidadian writer and editor. Her J’Ouvert story “A
Fine Specimen” is published in the anthology
Mothership: Tales from Afrofuturism and Beyond.
Tracy Assing (“I never choose the mas”, page 56)
is a Trinidadian writer, editor, and filmmaker. Her
award-winning documentary The Amerindians is
the first film made from the perspective of Trinidad
and Tobago’s indigenous community.
Andre Bagoo (“Shapeshifter, time traveller”, page
68) is a Trinidadian writer whose second book of
poems, BURN, was published by Shearsman Books and
longlisted for the 2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean
Literature. His third book, Pitch Lake, is forthcoming
from Peepal Tree Press.
Nigel Campbell (“Music in motion”, page 64) is
an entertainment writer, reviewer, and music
businessman based in Trinidad and Tobago, focused
on expanding the appeal of island music globally.
His work is featured in the T&T Guardian and online
at AllAboutJazz.com. He also publishes Jazz in the
Islands magazine, www.jazz.tt.
James Hackett (“Carnival season”, page 34) is an
illustrator and designer from Trinidad and Tobago
who is focused on creating work inspired by tropical
narratives. He is the founder of the Caribbean apparel
brand Lush Kingdom.
Judy Raymond (“Forgotten beauty”, page 64) is a
freelance writer and former editor of Caribbean Beat,
who has written extensively about books, arts, and
politics. Her latest book, The Colour of Shadows, is
a study of the conditions and images of Caribbean
slavery.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 17

A MESSAGE From THE CARIBBEAN AIRLINES TEAM
NEW YEAR, NEW RESOLUTION
Happy New Year to you and your families, and thank you for
choosing Caribbean Airlines!
Last year was a year of transformation, as we focused
on further enhancing the travel experience of all our valued
customers. A new strategic plan was approved, along with
a new mission: Connecting People, Realising Dreams, and a
new vision: to achieve sustained profitability through becoming
the preferred airline serving the Caribbean. Our objectives are
centered around specific themes: We Care, We Connect, We
Create, We Are the Caribbean. We are determined to apply
these themes to our culture and operations, our values, and
every aspect of our activity, both within Caribbean Airlines
and beyond.
This year is a special year for Caribbean Airlines, as we
celebrate our tenth anniversary on 1 January. The journey to
this point has only been possible through the commitment
of our employees and the loyalty of our valued customers.
To mark the occasion, we will be holding a series of events
during the year, which will involve all our key stakeholders.
We are very proud of our major achievements over the
past ten years. They include:
• being named The Caribbean’s Leading Airline at the
Annual World Travel Awards for six consecutive
years
• becoming the first airline in the Caribbean to operate
the ATR-600 series aircraft
• bringing our heavy maintenance and aircraft repairs
in-house, thus saving our shareholders substantial
amounts in hard currency
• expanding our operations to include routes formerly
operated by Air Jamaica
• upgrading our reservations, ticketing, and departure
check-in system to Amadeus, which facilitates
faster and easier web check-in, simpler ways to buy
tickets, and many more benefits to serve you better
As a corporation proudly serving the people of the
Caribbean, we are committed to being a leader in sustainable
business practice and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
In this way, we add significant value to the people and the
governments of Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and the
region.
Our employees are crucial to the success of these CSR
projects, selflessly giving of their time, energy, and expertise.
We have provided assistance to thousands in sport, culture,
and the arts, education, support for medical treatment, and
a range of other charitable initiatives, throughout all the
destinations we serve. We partner with other stakeholders to
implement programmes across the Caribbean and beyond.
In 2017 we will continue to bring consistent value and
superior service to our customers by building on existing
initiatives and adding new ones where identified.
Quite apart from our anniversary celebrations, January
and February are busy months in the Caribbean, and you
can fly Caribbean Airlines to many of the events taking
place. Trinidad and Tobago Carnival, for example, the
world’s greatest street party, is on 27 and 28 February this
year. Grenada’s Sailing Week runs from 30 January to 4
February. In Guyana, Mashramani (“Mash”) is celebrated on
23 February: billed as the most colourful festival of the year,
it celebrates Guyana’s becoming a Republic on 23 February,
1970. The word “Mashramani” originates from an Amerindian
language, and means “celebration of a job well done.” With
several daily flights to and from Guyana, Caribbean Airlines
will certainly get you there! You can see a detailed Caribbean
calendar elsewhere in this magazine.
Caribbean Airlines sincerely values your business. 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 @iflycaribbean.
Thank you again for choosing to travel with us, and best
wishes to you and your families for 2017!
Yours in service,
The Employees of Caribbean Airlines
18 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

CARIBBEAN AIRLINES AT 10
A decade
of warmth
in the skies
In January 2017, Caribbean Airlines marks
its tenth anniversary — a milestone for the
airline’s dedicated staff and passengers.
Erline Andrews finds out what’s in store
for the year ahead, and meets some
of the people who help make CAL the
Caribbean’s favourite airline
Caribbean Airlines literally took off at 12.15 am on
1 January, 2007, with a flight from Piarco International
Airport in Trinidad to Johann Pengel International
Airport in Suriname. And as the company
marks its tenth anniversary, it has reason to
celebrate.
A fleet of five aircraft that made approximately 128 flights per
week to ten destinations has grown to seventeen planes making
more than six hundred flights per week to eighteen destinations
in the Caribbean and North America. Last year, CAL was dubbed
“the Caribbean’s Leading Airline” for the sixth consecutive year
at the 23rd Annual World Travel Awards. The airline also offers
the most flights and seats from the Caribbean into south Florida.
And through sponsorships and employee volunteer efforts,
CAL has woven itself into the social fabric of the region. It
sponsors Trinidad and Tobago’s Invaders Steel Orchestra,
the oldest steelband in the world, and provides air transport
and cargo support for the Organisation for Social Health
Advancement for Guyana, a group of doctors from the United
States travelling to the region to provide health care.
Caribbean Airlines is building on the gains of the last decade,
says Dionne Ligoure, head of corporate communications. The
company is now working on a five-year strategic plan. It has
upgraded its reservations, check-in, ticketing, and e-commerce
services, and will add new regional destinations in 2017. It also has
a new mission statement: “Connecting people, realising dreams.”
“This has been a very interesting time at Caribbean Airlines,”
says Ligoure. “Our focus more than ever is really on delivering a
more enriching and value-added experience for our customers.”
The company will mark the anniversary in various ways
throughout 2017, starting with an interfaith service in the first
week of January at the head office in Piarco. The event will be
accompanied — appropriately — by a fly-pass. Also, a special
tenth anniversary logo — including the hummingbird from
the current logo — will go on planes and promotional items.
(You can see it on the cover of this issue of Caribbean Beat, for
instance.) All customers flying on 1 January, 2017, will receive a
coupon for a discount on a future flight. And Ligoure promises
other surprises are in store for passengers throughout the year.
The company also plans to honour citizens who have
contributed to the development of the region. Caribbean Airlines
wants to send the message that people are its priority, says
Ligoure. “2017 is a special year for Caribbean Airlines,” she adds.
“The journey to this point was really only possible through the
commitment of our employees and the loyalty of our customers.”
20 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

CAL milestones
Some of the airline’s major achievements of the past decade:
January 2007
Began flight operations
with 128 weekly departures
to ten markets, operating
five Boeing 737-800 aircraft
July 2008
Caribbean Airlines completes
the first C-Check on
a Boeing 737-800 aircraft
after moving all heavy maintenance
in-house
September 2009
Launched and inducted
twenty candidates to
undergo the airline’s fouryear
Apprenticeship Engineering
Training Programme
May 2010
Caribbean Airlines begins
servicing routes formerly
operated by Air Jamaica
October 2010
Caribbean Airlines wins
Best Caribbean Airline
2010 at the World Travel
Awards, at Sandals Whitehouse
in Montego Bay,
Jamaica — and goes on
to hold this status for the
next six years
November 2011
Caribbean Airlines welcomes
the arrival of its first ATR
72-600 aircraft, becoming
one of the very first operators
of the new ATR 600
series
December 2012
The Guyana government
grants Caribbean Airlines
flagship carrier status for
Guyana
October 2014
Caribbean Airlines is one of
the first airlines to remove
fuel surcharges on all routes
between North America and
the Caribbean, and within
the Caribbean
July 2015
Caribbean Airlines upgrades
its reservations and airport
check-in system to the
Amadeus Passenger Service
System. The system ushers
in a new era for Caribbean
Airlines and its customers as
part of the airline’s overall
customer-centric strategy
September 2016
The Caribbean Miles Frequent
Flyer Programme,
Jamaica-based 7th Heaven
Awards, and Club Caribbean
are successfully migrated
to Amadeus Loyalty and
Awards Management Solutions
(ALMS). Caribbean
Airlines also moves its Miles
Call Centre in-house
Fold
The first appearance of the
Caribbean Airlines hummingbird
on the cover of Caribbean Beat,
January/February 2007
F
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 21

Powered by people
As head of corporate communications at Caribbean Airlines, Dionne Ligoure
speaks glowingly about growth and improvement in the services the company
offers. And she singles out the character of the approximately 1,600 people
who work for CAL in the region and beyond. “What I am most proud of is
the support and camaraderie when you call on the employees to support
volunteerism,” she explains.
“When a flight attendant can fly through the night, come off a flight, go
home, bathe, change, and put her uniform back on because she is asked to
go to a school to speak and share her professional experience with students,
and she says, ‘No problem,’ those are the moments I am most proud of. It’s
testimony to the fabric of who we are as an airline,” says Ligoure.
Caribbean Airlines managers were asked to choose employees who best
represent the spirit of the company. Here are six snapshots of the people who
create the CAL experience both in the public eye and behind the scenes.
that I am customer-service-driven, always
showing exemplary attitude and providing our
customers with the highest level of customer
service and giving them the ‘warmth of the
Caribbean’ with my smile,” she explains.
Michelle Highly, the company’s senior supervisor of crew
scheduling and control at Piarco, was a volunteer in the schools
programme Ligoure mentions. The Roving Schools Caravan
went to primary and secondary schools in Trinidad and Tobago
over five months in early 2016 to teach students about the
tourism industry, including the professional opportunities it
offers.
Highly finds time to volunteer despite having eighteen
people under her supervision in Trinidad and Jamaica, and
being responsible for scheduling shifts twenty-four hours a
day, seven days a week. She is also serving voluntary stints
on the company’s Job Evaluation and Change Management
committees. “You do not get any time off or anything additional,
other than knowing you are doing something to enhance the
company you love,” Highly says — reason enough for her.
Ian Neil, a customer service agent at JFK International
Airport in New York City, said he’s had so many interesting
experiences over the past decades at Caribbean Airlines and its
predecessor BWIA that he’s often asked why he doesn’t write a
book. He’s worked at several major airports. He’s won multiple
company awards, including the Chairman’s Award for Most
Outstanding Customer Service Agent, and received letters of
commendation from customers. He recalls meeting celebrities,
among them basketball player Shaquille O’Neal and actors
Sinbad and Victoria Rowell.
But he’s putting off the book for now. “During my past
thirty-seven years in the aviation industry, I have not seen
all, nor do I profess to know all — because new experiences,
coupled with the acquisition of ongoing knowledge, continue to
present themselves,” says Neil.
Annette McFarlane, a customer contact and senior
ticketing agent based in Fort Lauderdale, is another employee
of long standing. Her job at CAL is to ensure company policy
and procedures are maintained.
“I am a perfectionist, a dedicated employee, and take
pride in my work,” she says. “One of my greatest strengths is
Andre Smith, a customer service lead agent in
Georgetown, Guyana, is a comparatively new employee,
coming on board in 2010. One of his “greatest memories,” he
said, was having to handle four flights coming in within five
minutes, then having to dispatch three of the flights within
another small window of time. “It was nothing short of a
remarkable effort by all involved,” he says.
“Being naturally service-oriented is a gift I possess, and that
has helped me in my journey thus far,” says Smith. “It gives me
great pleasure knowing that I can assist a first-time traveller who
may be unsure of what is required, or welcome back a returning
guest, whose experience starts with us, the airport team.”
Jenelle Headley came into Caribbean Airlines from BWIA,
and works in the finance department, based in Trinidad. While
with the company, she got her undergraduate and postgraduate
degrees, as well as professional training that she feels
enhanced her life in more ways than one.
“My time with the company has been a learning curve —
not only professionally but personally as well,” Headley says. “I
have had the pleasure of interacting with people not only from
different departments but system-wide, making friends from all
parts of the world.”
Kristy Kanick, legal counsel at Caribbean Airlines since
2012, also speaks of the education and training she received at
the company. She completed four International Air Transport
Association (IATA) law courses and earned an IATA Diploma in
International Air Law with distinction.
“CAL, with its commitment to excellence, continues to be
a dynamic airline to work for,” says Kanick. “The company
comprises teams which are knowledgeable and tireless in their
pursuit of a first-class product. We take pride in our airline and
we acknowledge — individually and as a collective — that we
each play a role which impacts on the customer experience.
Customer satisfaction is indeed what drives us on a daily
basis.”
22 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

A brief history of Caribbean aviation
The first successful airplane flight famously took place on 17 December, 1903 — a feat performed at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina,
by the pioneering aviators the Wright brothers. And just a few years later, the Caribbean also saw its first airplane flight. It was the
beginning of a century of technological progress which saw the islands of the Caribbean archipelago connected to each other and
the rest of the world through the power of flight.
1911
The first airplane flies in Jamaica.
American pilot Jesse Seligman
demonstrates this new technology
to a thousand excited spectators in
a five-minute flight at the Knutsford
Park Racecourse in Kingston
1913
The first airplane lands in Trinidad,
piloted by Frank Boland, but ends in
tragedy when the craft crashes on
landing in the Queen’s Park Savannah
1913
Aviation comes to Guyana, when pilot
George Schmidt flies the first plane
over Georgetown, dropping messages
from the air to the crowds below.
1929
Charles Lindbergh lands a flying
boat in Chaguaramas, northwest
Trinidad, and along with PanAm
starts the first air service to the
island
1929
Airline Cubana de Aviación (or rather
simply Cubana) is founded.
1931
Piarco airport — CAL’s future home
base — opens in Trinidad
1934
KLM flies its first transatlantic flight
from Schipol airport in the Netherlands
to Aruba
1940
British West Indian Airways (BWIA)
begins operations after being
founded in 1939 by New Zealander
Lowell Yerex. The first flight is from
Trinidad to Tobago
1950
BWIA’s first flight to Miami
1960
BWIA flies to London via New York
1963
Air Jamaica is founded. The first flights
to Miami and New York take place
three years later
1913
Military aviation starts in Cuba, with
the creation of the Cuerpo de Aviación
del Ejército de Cuba (CAEC) and a fleet
of just one Curtiss Model FS
1914–18
Many British West Indians volunteer as
airmen during the First World War
1925
The Air Navigation Ordinance in
Guyana opens the way to regular
flights connecting Georgetown with
estates and mining operations in the
vast interior
Trinidadian RAF pilot Ulric Cross
1939–45
Many British West Indians volunteer
for the Royal Air Force during the
Second World War
1967
Guyana Airways Corporation (GAC)
begins operations
1975
BWIA reopens its London route, this
time flying direct from Trinidad and
Tobago
1977
Supersonic flight comes to the Caribbean
when the Concorde makes its first
landing in Barbados
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 23

datebook
Your guide to Caribbean events in January and February, from Chinese
New Year celebrations in Suriname to a film festival in Guadeloupe
©Peeter Viisimaa / istock.com
Don’t miss . . .
Jamaica’s Reggae Month
February
In 2015, Kingston was recognised by UNESCO as a City of Music — no
surprise, as the Jamaican capital is the birthplace of reggae. In February,
Jamaicans celebrate a month-long tribute to the world-shaking genre
through a host of events, including concerts, music awards, symposiums,
film festivals, and exhibitions. Activities to honour the birthdays of Bob
Marley, and the “Crown Prince of Reggae,” Dennis Brown, will also take
centre stage. And check out the new Peter Tosh Museum — see page 32
of this issue.
How to get there? Caribbean
Airlines operates daily flights to
Norman Manley International
Airport in Kingston and
Sangster International
Airport in Montego Bay from
destinations in the Caribbean
and North America
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 25

datebook
If you’re in . . .
Bequia
Guadeloupe
Guyana
Mount Gay Music Fest
Venues around Bequia
19 to 22 January
bequiatourism.com/bequiamusicfest
There’s a special calmness about
Bequia, one of the Grenadines south
of St Vincent. The island air softly
whistles a magical tune that can make
your insides flutter. It’s hypnotic —
drawing people every year to this
exceedingly anticipated music festival,
leaving almost no rooms available in
hotels and mooring many vessels in
Admiralty Bay.
For over fourteen years, the Bequia
courtesy papa machete
FEMI: Festival Régional et
International du Cinéma de
Guadeloupe
Venues around Guadeloupe
27 January to 4 February
lefemi.com
Still from Papa Machete, screened at FEMI 2016
Mashramani
Venues around Guyana
23 February
As the only English-speaking country
in South America, Guyana is no
stranger to being unique. While
some countries have military parades,
air shows, or formal receptions for
Republic Day, Guyana has a different
spin on its festivities, down to the
name: they call it Mashramani, or
simply Mash. It’s a derivative of an
Arawak word describing a type of
festival held by indigenous people to
celebrate a special event.
Pawel Kazmierczak / shutterstock.com
Tourism Association has welcomed
artistes from all over the world to
perform their eclectic hits at the
Mount Gay Music Fest. Past headliners
include Dana Gillespie and the
London Blues Band, the Arturo Tappin
Band, the Elite Steel Orchestra, Edwin
Yearwood, and Bequia blues man,
guitarist, and crowd superstar Toby
Armstrong.
The festival runs for four nights,
but for just one of those — Friday —
the famous Mustique Blues Festival
hops over to Bequia to take over the
programme and thrill the audience
with the best of the blues. The
proceeds from this event go to the
Basil Charles Educational Foundation.
On other festival days, the open-air
live performances create an intimate
and relaxed ambiance, making loyal
music festival fans return each year.
The first four letters in the festival’s
name give you an inkling of its roots.
Originally dedicated to women of film
and organised by women, FEMI was
founded in 1992. It has since evolved
and widened its scope, embracing
Caribbean and international cinema
in all its diversity.
Guadeloupe’s annual film
celebration offers programmes such
as FEMI Youth, which allows students
from kindergarten to university
to experience the atmosphere of
an international festival and meet
industry professionals. No one is
excluded: a selection of films is also
taken into prisons, under the initiative
of FEMI in the Walls.
The 2017 programme includes
over sixty local films, regional and
international features, shorts, and
documentaries, and often previously
unscreened works. If you’d like to
delve deeper into the world of the
cinema, workshops and masterclasses
are also available. Running on a low
budget? Enjoy free screenings during
all sessions at the Bibliothèque du
Lamentin at FEMI in the City. Past
guests of honour have included
celebrated filmmaker Euzhan Palcy
and actors Angela Bassett and Danny
Glover.
Fetes, concerts, calypso
competitions, steelpan, soca, a
chutney monarch competition, and
other cultural presentations are all on
the Mash calendar. Sounds familiar,
doesn’t it? And following Guyana’s
fiftieth anniversary of Independence
last year, a new event was announced
for the Mash lineup: a calypso caravan
travelling through communities and
drawing neighbours together.
The highlight, though, is the
costume parade in Georgetown. Spicy
costumes join vibrant floats sponsored
by corporate Guyana and government
agencies, bearing nation-building
mottos. This year’s Mashramini theme
includes “greater unity” — wining
down to soca, steelpan, and chutney
music seems like a great way to start.
Event previews by Shelly-Ann Inniss
amanda richards courtesy Guyana tourism authority
26 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Crafted Richer. Aged Deeper.
theeldoradorum.com
@eldoradorums
#eldoradorum
PLEASE ENJOY EL DORADO RESPONSIBLY

datebook
Jet into January
The Rudman Trust © SDO Wifredo Lam, courtesy tate modern
Wilfredo Lam
retrospective
Tate Modern, London
There’s still time to catch
this major exhibition
of the iconic Cuban
artist, which opened last
September. The show
includes The Sombre
Malembo, God of the
Crossroads (1943), at left
[14 September 2016 to 8
January 2017]
Yury Zap / shutterstock.com
Orchid Society Show
Fort Lauderdale
flos.org
You’ll find beautiful exhibits, artwork,
and live entertainment at this elegant
“Galaxy of Orchids”
[20 to 22 January]
Started 14 September 30 01
30 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 1
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
The Caribbean is home to one of the Best
Fertility Centres in the World
The heart of fertility care
You don’t have to travel far to receive some the best fertility services in the world. Barbados Fertility Centre provides a range
of IVF treatment options at competitive prices using state-of-the-art equipment and a highly skilled, internationally trained
If you are a couple yearning to start a family, or a single woman planning for your future, talk to us, we have a highly successful
IVF programme that can meet your needs.
We offer:
Barbados Fertility Centre…Dedicated to Fertility…Committed to Results
BarBados: 1-246-435-7467 Seaston House, Hastings, Christ Church
Trinidad: 1-868-222-7771-3 St. Augustine Private Hospital, 4 Austin Street, St. Augustine
Email: contact@barbadosivf.com Website: www.barbadosivf.com
Join us on Facebook and Twitter
for fertillity updates
28 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

St Barth Fun Cup
St Jean Beach, Saint Barthélemy
Windsurf lovers ride the waves at this
international competition featuring
pros and amateurs
[24 to 30 January]
Chinese New Year
Paramaribo, Suriname
Ring in the Year of the
Rooster by enjoying
traditional Chinese food,
culture, handicraft,
and performances in
Suriname’s capital
[28 January]
redstone / shutterstock.com
Grenada Sailing Week
grenadasailingweek.com
Increasingly competitive,
entertaining, and evergrowing
in popularity,
with new racing courses
and classes
[30 January to 4 February]
Ends 4 February
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 30 01 02 0
16 17 18 19
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 29

datebook
Fun in February
Maricao Coffee Harvest Festival
Johnny Arbona Stadium, Puerto Rico
Barista competitions, coffee-tasting, dancing, food
exhibits, and heaps of coffee-inspired items mark
the end of coffee season
[10 to 12 February]
Miami International Map Fair
History Miami Museum
historymiami.org/mapfair
Whether you’re an expert collector
or merely curious, you can immerse
yourself in the world of antique
maps, rare books, and atlases
[4 to 5 February]
Havana International Book Fair
Havana and other cities around Cuba
The Caribbean’s biggest celebration of literature includes
readings, discussions, events for children, and a vast display
of books from around the world
[10 to 17 February]
pingebat / 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
30 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Holetown Festival
St James, Barbados
This commemoration of the arrival of the first British settlers in
Barbados combines history lessons with vintage cars, dance shows, tuk
bands, and gospel concerts on the island’s west coast
[12 to 19 February]
dario ward courtesy holetown festival
Rum Cay Day Festival
Milo Butler Heritage Park, Rum Cay,
the Bahamas
This all-day signature event in one
of the lesser-known Bahama Islands
includes cultural entertainment, rakeand-scrape
bands, and games for the
entire family
[24 February]
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
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 31

word of mouth
Dispatches from our correspondents around the Caribbean and further afield
House of Tosh
Three decades after the violent death
of Peter Tosh, a new Kingston museum
remembers the legacy of the reggae
superstar. David Katz pays a visit
The opening of the Peter Tosh Museum in
Kingston marks a milestone for reggae
fans, and provides additional impetus for
devotees to visit the Jamaican capital. Housed in
the Pulse complex on Trafalgar Road, the museum
celebrates the life and work of the reggae firebrand,
who was born in 1944, rose to prominence during
the 1960s alongside Bob Marley in the Wailers, and
subsequently achieved greater fame as a solo artist.
The most censorious of the Wailers, Tosh cowrote
their militant anthem, “Get Up, Stand Up”,
and demanded the decriminalisation of marijuana
in his 1976 epic, “Legalise It”. Tosh’s second
album, Equal Rights, contained pertinent calls for
social justice, and after haranguing the leaders of
Jamaica’s two main political parties at the One
Love Peace Concert in 1978, he was signed to the
Rolling Stones’ label, yielding wider international
exposure. His music remained uncompromising,
vociferously attacking Apartheid and questioning
the stratification of Jamaican society, while “Bukin-Hamm
Palace” and “Nothing But Love” were
pioneering forays into disco reggae. Then the 1987
release No Nuclear War became Tosh’s swansong,
as he was tragically murdered that same year.
There is a timeless quality to much of Tosh’s work,
and he had an obvious influence on noteworthy
dancehall stars such as Luciano, Garnett Silk,
Anthony B, and Bushman, with Sean Paul and
Christopher Martin among the many contemporary
artists to cover his work. He has also been venerated
by Jamaica’s former finance minister, Omar Davies,
and US President Barack Obama even referenced his lyrics in a university essay
— all of which points to the need for a Peter Tosh Museum.
The project was spearheaded by Kingsley Cooper, whose Pulse agency
represents some of the Caribbean’s most famous models. Cooper produced
Tosh’s final concert, and has spent the last fifteen years doing the necessary
groundwork to create the museum in conjunction with the Peter Tosh Estate
(headed by the singer’s youngest daughter, Niambe), along with Tosh’s widow,
Marlene Brown, who collectively provided most of the memorabilia on display.
Despite its relatively small size, the museum has been tastefully arranged,
conveying a lot of contextual information in a small space, with illuminating
passages on Tosh’s childhood, his time with the Wailers, and his gravitation
to the Rastafari faith, as well as the life-changing car crash that resulted in
the death of his girlfriend Evonne in 1973. The solo years of the 1970s and
80s are given ample room, and the circumstances of his murder are relayed
with sensitivity. Fans will be delighted by items such as the original golden
microphones given to Tosh by Mick Jagger and the legendary “M16 guitar”
gifted by an American fan. There are also several other guitars and souvenirs of
his first tours in Africa, as well as evocative painted portraits, one of which was
done by fellow singer Junior Moore.
The official opening of the museum last October was attended by some
of the island’s most prominent businessmen and politicians of all stripes —
somewhat ironically, given Tosh’s predilection for the chastisement of the
ruling class, but it is highly significant that no lesser figure than Prime Minister
Andrew Holness presided over the opening itself, proof that the Jamaican
government takes the legacy of Peter Tosh very seriously. A related UWI
symposium highlighted his importance, and a gala concert saw Chronixx,
Luciano, Tarrus Riley, and Tosh’s son Andrew revisit his work with original
backing band Word, Sound, and Power, reunited for the first time in decades.
Kingsley Cooper says the museum is likely to expand, but in its present
form, the Peter Tosh Museum already constitutes a fine counterpart to the
nearby Bob Marley Museum — both worth visiting as Jamaica celebrates
Reggae Month in February. n
32 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Illustration by James Hackett
It’s that time of year: across the Caribbean, in islands large
and small, in hectic cities and small villages, the Carnival
spirit is taking hold, through music, masquerade, and more.
In some countries, the pre-Lenten festival season runs for
weeks or even months, and this year it climaxes on 27 and
28 February, Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
It’s that time of year: across the Caribbean, in islands large
and small, in hectic cities and small villages, the Carnival
spirit is taking hold, through music, masquerade, and more.
In some countries, the pre-Lenten festival season runs for
weeks or even months, and this year it climaxes on 27 and
28 February, Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
34 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

ADVERTORIAL
Ethnic-inspired elegance
House of Jaipur offers a stylish
fusion of Eastern culture and
Caribbean lifestyle
Welcome to the destination where culture echoes,
tradition speaks and beauty enthrals!
House of Jaipur prides itself on being one of
the few showrooms in the Caribbean that embrace
the fusion of Eastern culture into the Caribbean lifestyle.
The migration of Indian indentured labourers to the West Indies
in 1845 brought not only a new labour force to assist in the
economic development of the Caribbean, but also a new people
with a new culture, a new lifestyle, and new traditions.
House of Jaipur opened its doors fifteen years ago in Trinidad,
introducing the concept of an ethnic-inspired lifestyle focusing
on fashion and fashion accessories, fabrics, textiles, home
décor, and handicrafts. Skillfully created by artisans in India, all
our merchandise is carefully selected and specially designed for
House of Jaipur, reflecting the exquisite craftsmanship handed
down through generations. Our “ethnic-inspired” resort wear
line, launched in 2013, is specially designed by us to reflect the
style and flair of the Caribbean woman and masterfully created
by artisans in India, who specialise in this type of beading and
embroideries.
Pop in and enjoy our Indian Tea Room, where clients can delight
themselves in a cup of Indian “chai” and indulge in delicious
Indian appetizers
made daily by our
in-house chef.
With a second
boutique recently
having opened
on the West Coast
of Barbados at
the Limegrove
Lifestyle Centre,
House of Jaipur invites
you to enjoy
the multicultural
diversity of our island
lifestyle!
www.houseofjaipur.com

the look
Wood
for life
Jamaican furniture line Mara Made
Designs gives salvaged wood
an elegant and environmentally
friendly twist
Photography courtesy Mara Made Designs
After years of working in the corporate
world, Tamara Harding kissed her nineto-five
job goodbye, to delve into her
creative talents. The inspiring Jamaican creator
brought together her love of working with tools,
design, and helping the environment to launch
the furniture line Mara Made Designs. Her
organic and fascinating pieces are all made
from salvaged wood which Harding “brings
back to life” with the utmost elegance. She
combines them with stained glass, metal, and
wicker, making wonderful yet functional works
of art. Her motto “no wood left behind” has
also pushed her to create wearable art, such as
necklaces and cuffs. Harding’s unending passion
will next continue with an exploration of streetwear
and an expansion of her home and kitchen line, to be
exported worldwide.
Alia Michèle Orane
style.aliamichele.com
From top: Entrance Table, Black
Root Table, Guinep Table
For more information, email contact@MaraMadeDesigns.
com or look for MaraMadeDesigns on Facebook
36 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

THE GAME
Beyond
another
boundary
Come January 2017, the West Indies cricket team
will head off to India to contest the T20 World
Cup, alongside players from around the globe.
Wait, you haven’t heard about this tournament?
Maybe it’s time you started following blind
cricket. Nazma Muller learns more
Illustration by Shalini Seereeram
For blind (or visually
impaired) cricket lovers in
the Caribbean, the idea of
representing the West Indies
team was for many years
just a fantasy, a whimsical
daydream they indulged in whenever they
listened to matches on the radio. As for
wearing the famous maroon kit in a World
Cup for blind players — well, few dared to
even imagine such a thing could one day
exist. You see, before 2003, blind cricket
wasn’t even played in the Caribbean.
The sport offers camaraderie and a
chance to compete on equal terms for
blind and partially sighted people. It
not only boosts the self-confidence of
players, but in countries such as England,
where it receives the financial support
and technical expertise of the England
and Wales Cricket Board, batsmen
like Hassan Khan are stars — as much
as Nasser Hussein, former captain of
the main England team, once was. In
Pakistan, the national blind cricket team
is paid monthly, like professionals.
But in the fourteen years since two
England blind players came to Barbados
to introduce the West Indies to the game,
and encourage them to become part of
the global blind cricket community, it
has caught on quickly, and a regional
tournament now attracts players from
across the Caribbean. By 2005, national
teams were formed in Barbados, Jamaica,
Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and the
Windward Islands, and the following year
the first regional blind cricket competition
was organised. It has since been held
annually, except in 2012, when the teams
decided to focus their time and resources
on taking part in the first T20 blind
cricket World Cup in India. They ended
up placing fifth.
India will once again be the host
country for the second T20 World
Cup for the blind, which runs from
28 January to 12 February, 2017. And
seventeen (very happy) young men have
been selected to “rep” the Windies this
time around. The tournament, of which
former India captain Rahul Dravid is the
brand ambassador, will see eight other
Test-playing countries taking part —
Australia, Bangladesh, England, India,
New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and
Sri Lanka — along with Nepal.
Blind cricket was first played in 1922
in Melbourne, Australia, when two
factory workers put rocks in a tin can
and began to play a crude version of what
has evolved into a sport with its own
rules and equipment. The game took
hold so quickly and deeply in the state of
Victoria that the Victorian Blind Cricket
Association was founded the same year.
The world’s first sports ground and
clubhouse for blind people were built at
Kooyong, Melbourne, in 1928, and are
still used today as the home of the VBCA.
The game was then introduced to other
states in Australia, where it was played
during lunchtime at workshops where
vision-impaired people were employed.
It soon spread across the globe to other
cricket-playing countries. It has been
played in England and Wales since the
1940s, when it was started mainly to
cater for injured servicemen coming
home from the Second World War. The
founding members of British Blind Sport
(BBS) were cricketers.
All players must be registered as blind
or partially sighted. Of the eleven players
in the team, at least four must be totally
blind. Various rules have been adapted to
allow blind and partially sighted people to
compete on equal terms — for example,
the wicket is larger, so partially sighted
players can see it clearly. The pitch is
made of concrete, and measures the same
38 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Blind cricket was first played
in 1922 in Melbourne,
Australia, when two factory
workers put rocks in a tin
can and began to play a
crude version of the game
length and width as that used in sighted
cricket. The boundaries are measured
forty metres in a circle around the pitch,
and indicated by a white line with orange
“witches’ hats” at intervals.
Bowling is done under-arm, and the
ball is made of plastic and filled with
metal washers, so that it rattles, giving
blind batsmen and fielders a chance to
hear it coming at them. The ball must
bounce at least twice before the crease
of a totally blind batsman, but must not
be rolling, and at least once before the
crease of a partially sighted batsman. A
totally blind batsman is given one chance
before being given out LBW, and cannot
be stumped. The bowler must ask the
batsman if he is ready before beginning
his run-up, and must shout “play” as he
releases the ball. The sweep shot is the
most popular stroke, since it maximises
the batsman’s chance of hitting the ball.
The game has been governed by the
World Blind Cricket Council since 1996.
So far, four blind World Cups have been
held: the first was in Delhi, India, in
1998; the second in Chennai, India, in
2002; the third in Islamabad, Pakistan, in
2006. In 2012, the first blind World Cup
in the T20 format was held in Bangalore,
India. Incidentally, India has won all the
formats of the game: the First T20 World
Cup in 2012, the ODI World Cup in 2014,
and the T20 Asia Cup in January 2016.
The West Indies team first took part in
the ODI World Cup in 2006 in Pakistan,
where they placed fifth. “Of course we
are looking to improve our track record,”
says Bhawani Persad, administrator for
regional operations of the West Indies
Cricket Council for the Blind and Visually
Impaired. “We face the same challenges
as [sighted] West Indies cricket . . . the
small size of our populations is key.
England has different teams, they have
county cricket, their population is very
big, and they have enough teams to
have inter-team competitions. We have
a regional competition which is held
annually.” Funding remains a perennial
problem, and national teams have been
known to miss out on the regional
tournament because they can’t find
corporate sponsors to pay for plane
tickets or their kits.
But one achievement for West
Indies blind cricket of which Persaud is
particularly proud is the participation
of the French Antilles. “West Indies’
conventional teams haven’t touched these
areas yet, but we have,” he points out.
It’s another example of how blind cricket
goes beyond a boundary. n
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 39

Bookshelf
The Colour of Shadows, by Judy Raymond
(Caribbean Studies Press, 200 pp, ISBN 9781626325197)
Nineteenth-century artist Richard Bridgens’s illustrations may not adorn the genteel
sitting rooms and foyers of stately Caribbean mansions, but they occupy a cultural
and historical mantel that is arguably even more important. These sketches and
studies strive to accurately depict plantation life in Trinidad, and are themselves
the products of a plantation owner. If this makes them a peculiar puzzlement, then
much the same could be said of Bridgens himself, whose motives often seemed to
be at cross-purposes, and who lived an enigmatic, contradictory life.
Judy Raymond’s presentation of Bridgens, and his impact on chronicling Caribbean
slavery, vaults past the merely biographical: The Colour of Shadows illuminates not
only Bridgens’s life, but that of the enslaved Africans he drew. Quietly yet forcefully
debunking the notion that Trinidadian slavery was milder than that of other islands,
Raymond draws on the incriminating wealth of documentation from slave registers
and reports made to the Protector of Slaves. Both these sources, and the visual
realities of Bridgens’s drawings, put paid to the notion that French planters were
inclined to greater acts of kindness, leniency, or compassion.
In this and other ways, The Colour of Shadows is incriminating without being
accusatory. All charges levelled against the guilty are beyond disputation; Raymond
is more interested in revealing the microstructure of daily slave resistance, in the
several conjoined forces that led to each of Bridgens’s pencil-strokes, than she is in
pointing fingers. “In every possible way, sugar was a cruel master,” Raymond writes,
showing the reader that, though Bridgens was deeply complicit in the suffering of
the enslaved, he was also curiously motivated to portray African life in Trinidad —
creating an archive that would outlast him, and educate generations past his death.
Measures of Expatriation, by Vahni Capildeo
(Carcanet Press, 95 pp, ISBN 9781784101688)
Winner of the 2016 Forward
Prize for Best Collection,
Vahni Capildeo’s new poems
chart skeletal transit maps
across the globe, taking
the routes of the most
frequently dispossessed to
get to where they need to
go. Measures of Expatriation
is not only the province
of the embodied narrator
in several of these poems,
who closely resembles the
Trinidadian author herself. The poems also speak in
tongues of queerness, brownness, blackness, chronic
illness, and disability, recounting futile quests for
medicine, the indignity of immigration interrogations,
the burden of often being the only Othered figure in
the room. All through its seven measures, each one a
bursting suitcase of complicated signifiers, the poet
explores home: how to get back to it, how to make
peace with it, how to invent it when it exists at no fixed
compass points.
New Worlds, Old Ways: Speculative Tales
from the Caribbean, edited by Karen Lord
(Peekash Press, 145 pp, ISBN 9781845233365)
Speculative fiction readers
and writers alike know it: the
future is closer than we think.
For generations, tales of the
weird, fantastic, and terrifying
have made landfall in foreign
countries, their origins striped
and stippled with the sounds,
smells, and soucouyants of the
Caribbean. New Worlds, Old
Ways aims to root the legacy
of science fiction and fantasy
writing more reassuringly in
home ground. These are stories of terrorized citizens
seeking innovations under a police state, of ancestral
beginnings butting up against the grim realities of
climate change and exile. They announce that Caribbean
speculative writing is here to stay. Overseen with a
generous yet judicious eye by Barbadian editor Karen
Lord, the anthology unites fresh voices in fiction from
Trinidad to Bermuda, presenting stories of mayhem,
mischief, and mas-making, from beneath the widebrimmed
hats of modern day Midnight Robbers.
42 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

No Safeguards, by H. Nigel Thomas (Guernica
Editions, 375 pp, ISBN 9781550719840)
H. Nigel Thomas’s No Safeguards
confronts the chained spectres
of homegrown secrecy, seen
through the eyes of two
brothers who contend with
their gayness while growing
up. Caribbean respectability
politics clash against the
brothers’ desires to live on
their own terms, prompting
frank and forthright musings
on the nature of selfhood, of
stifling theology, of the bitterly
inevitable yet dogged quest for personal happiness.
Thomas, who was born in St Vincent and is based in
Canada, wields his narration with all the vulnerability of an
open bruise: through the intertwined perspectives of Jay
and Paul, several communities clash and converge, each
desperately doing what they believe is right. Between
Montreal and St Vincent lies the emotional freight of
many worlds: Thomas reveals them to us, showing in
sensitive prose that return journeys, in either direction,
often cost their weight in bribes, guilt, and Hail Marys.
Columbus, the Moor, by Charles Matz (House
of Nehesi, 104 pp, ISBN 9780996224215)
Intrepid explorer or savager of
the Caribbean’s First Peoples:
depending on which history
books you read, Christopher
Columbus means different
things to different tribes.
Columbus, the Moor is a
genre-bending, multilingual
approach to mapping the
very stars in the sky, and the
motions of the tides, during
Columbus’s advent in the West
Indies. Written in English,
Spanish, French, and Italian, Matz’s focus on the cultural
collisions and devastations of 1492 are decidedly poetic,
an interpretive and lyrically lavish fusion of fact and
speculation. At once an existential dilemma, a truthseeking
mission, and a treatise on madness and the sea’s
infinite caprice, Columbus, the Moor sings a shanty of
curious inventiveness, infusing an old, violent history
with unexpected colour and consideration. Whether
you respect Columbus or revile him, this slender yet
imaginative poem-drama will have you consider his
journey from startling, inquisitive shores.
Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 43

playlist
Double Take Elan Trotman’s Tropicality
(Island Muzik Productions)
“First impressions are the most
lasting” is a popular proverb
that makes the case for a grand
debut to cement a perfect
memory. Well, certainly not this
time, as Barbadian saxophonist
Elan Trotman has recast
a number of his previously
released songs from his many
years as a recording artist, and given them a second look
— a double take, if you will. He’s refreshed the sound
and arrangements of his Caribbean-rhythm-infused
smooth jazz to make them shine through — to Caribbean
ears at least — with the positioning of the steelpan in a
more forward position. His vocals on Bill Withers’s classic
“Lovely Day” are direct, and make you smile at the simple
charm of this song. “Tradewinds” is the antithesis to a dull
day in the tropics: lilting and easy to dance to. His band
of fellow Berklee College of Music alumni, Tropicality, has
the musical chops to make this new impression far from
diminished.
Family Tree Grégory Privat Trio
(ACT Music)
In his new album, Martiniquan
pianist Grégory Privat reveals
the subtle links between the
Caribbean trove of rhythms
and melodies and the grand
vocabulary of jazz. Supported
this time by bassist Linley Marthe,
originally from Mauritius, and
fellow Martiniquan Tilo Bertholo
on drums, Privat with his fluid playing centres the idea
that the roots of jazz are firmly planted in the Caribbean
creole culture that was present at its genesis. The music
finds inspiration in the beguine, bèlè, and gwoka of his
native Martinique and Guadeloupe. Bassist and drummer
Marthe and Bertholo, despite their creole backgrounds,
evince the African DNA of the New World rhythms that
a Caribbean perspective has produced. Privat is a fine
musician with solid classical and jazz training, who on
this album finds the core impulse of a iconoclast to
dynamically paint anew the heritage and beauty of jazz
that is found in these Antilles.
44 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Single Spotlight
What Can We Do Again? John John, featuring
a_phake
Trinidadian neo-soul singer John
John has successfully taken on
one challenge for a number of
Caribbean musicians: to write
and sing a song that addresses
issues that are larger than our
Caribbean space, including
the wider Americas, but still
remaining relevant to our
instant circumstance. The question asked in the title of
this powerful single — “What Can We Do Again?” — is
made after observation of the desperation of black
souls in the Americas. “We prayed for all these years /
We wasted all these tears,” is a lament of keen scrutiny
from an impatient generation. The song asks a hard
question, and gives one solution: unify. Co-producer and
co-writer a_phake (Ravi Maharaj) strips down the song
with bare accompaniment on a guitar passing through an
echo reverb, to add a haunting dimension to the lyric. It
challenges past actions and questions current biases that
have plagued people of colour in the Americas for some
time, one in need of answers.
All Because You Love Me Stephen John
Love songs don’t get more
universal than this. Universal in
the sense that this praise song
addresses more than feelings
of love between people, but
speaks to that relationship
with God that has John and his
collaborators “walking, smiling,
dancing, singing.” A funky bass
ostinato creates a hypnotic groove that carries John’s
velvety voice — so reminiscent of R&B crooner Maxwell —
along on a even pace, so that the message is not hidden
by the rhythmic effervescence so popular in modern praise
and worship music. The production is modern, and looks
to an audience that understands less is sometimes more.
Spoken-word verses and a fabulous bridge vocal by Derron
Sandy, Diamonique Roy, and Faith Otey address the subject
of love in terms that speak to Caribbean people, and in
the timbre and accent that suggest this single can bridge
regions and can make plain the non-discriminatory way we
love, we walk, we dance, and we sing.
Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
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E:mail: steelpansite@inspiredproductsstore.com
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 45

SCREENSHOTS
I Am Not Your Negro
Directed by Raoul Peck, 2016, 93 minutes
Raoul Peck is not one to shy away from tackling major
historical figures in his films. Both Patrice Lumumba and
Jean-Bertrand Aristide have been subjects of his camera’s
unflinching gaze, and he’s just
now wrapping up a drama
about the young Karl Marx.
His current film, I Am Not Your
Negro, sees Peck — Haiti’s most
celebrated (and provocative)
director — attempting to get to
grips with James Baldwin, the
United States’ most celebrated
(and provocative) black writer:
a perfect artistic match.
I Am Not Your Negro has its origins in a book about
various civil rights leaders that Baldwin — most famous
for The Fire Next Time, his incendiary 1963 treatise on
race and racism in the US — began working on in 1979,
called Remember This House. He died after making only
thirty pages of notes, and the manuscript was eventually
entrusted to Peck by the writer’s estate.
Spurning conventions of the biographical documentary
such as chronological storytelling and interviews, and instead
exclusively employing archival footage and Baldwin’s words
(intoned with an almost mournful authority by Samuel L.
Jackson), Peck has constructed a stirringly complex visual
essay. The film masterfully delineates the social, political,
and cultural strands — the
movies of a certain Caribbean
actor named Sidney Poitier
are key — that came together
in the creation of a towering
intellectual, as much as it paints
a resonant portrait of the
African-American experience.
The greatest achievement of
I Am Not Your Negro, however,
is its indirect exhortation to the
viewer to return to and re-engage with James Baldwin’s
work — his books, essays, speeches, and interviews, as
potent and as necessary today as they ever were. As Peck
himself instructed the audience at the world premiere of
the film last September at the Toronto International Film
Festival: “Go back to Baldwin.”
For more information, visit velvet-film.com
The House on Coco Road
Directed by Damani Baker, 2016, 79 minutes
More than thirty
years after its tragic
conclusion, the Grenada
Revolution remains an
unresolved affair, many
of its stories still untold.
Packing upwards of half
a century of history into
its slender running time, The House on Coco Road, while
having no pretensions to being a definitive account, is a
welcome, if at times idealised, addition to the annals of
that eventful era.
The documentary takes as its starting point the
experience of its director, Damani Baker, whose mother
Fannie Haughton — a former assistant to civil rights icon
Angela Davis — moved her family from California to
Grenada in 1983 to join the island’s socialist experiment.
Baker then dials back to the family’s beginnings in
the segregated American South, impressively juggling
home-movie footage, archival material, vérité footage,
and interviews to create a testimony to the pioneering
activism of a succession of black women. Meshell
Ndegeocello’s redoubtable score rounds out a moving
experience.
For more information, visit facebook.com/
thehouseoncocoroad
Jeffrey
Directed by Yanillys Perez, 2016, 78 minutes
An affecting portrait of
stolen childhood and
life below the poverty
line is painted in Jeffrey,
the debut feature by the
Dominican Republic’s
Yanillys Perez. Jeffrey
(Joselito de la Cruz) — a non-actor playing a dramatised
version of his actual self — is a twelve-year-old in Santo
Domingo who is made to quit school to help support his
family. Earning a meagre living on the streets washing
windshields, he wants to become a reggaeton singer,
and his dogged attempts to find success give the film its
narrative impetus.
Her filmmaking style a world away from the slick
triumphalism of something like Slumdog Millionaire,
Perez works modestly in what could be called a Caribbean
neorealist mode, unfussily observing her memorable
protagonist and those around him as they go about the
remarkably unremarkable business of survival. And while
Jeffrey ends with Jeffrey’s future very much uncertain,
the film offers the salutary reminder that poverty does
not necessarily negate love.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/
FilmJeffrey
Reviews by Jonathan Ali
46 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

immerse
edison boodoosingh
49 Snapshots
Carnival is mine
68 Closeup
Shapeshifter, time
traveller
72 Backstory
Forgotten beauty
Trinidad and Tobago’s national instrument, the steelpan, takes centre stage in the Panorama competition during Carnival season

SNAPSHOTS
TeamDWP Studios By Dwayne Watkins
48 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Carnival
is mine
There are as many versions of
Carnival as there are people who
love Trinidad and Tobago’s annual
festival. For some, Carnival is music.
For others, it’s mas. Some live for
fetes. Others consider J’Ouvert their
true New Year’s Day. Some love to be
at the heart of the bacchanal. Some
prefer to spectate, from near or far.
There are many ways to celebrate
the season, and many thousands of
Carnival stories to be told. Here are
just a few of them
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 49

Family of steel
During the Carnival season, large steel
orchestras dominate the national Panorama
competition, but year-round, the spirit of
musical innovation is also kept alive by smaller
ensembles, like the Laventille-based Codrington
Pan Family. Israel McLeod learns more
courtesy codrington family
The talented Codringtons: from left, Kareem, Karen (mother) Kizzi, Khari, Kamau, Keisha, Cary (father), and Kaijah
50 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

At twenty-five years old, Khari Codrington is the manager
of one of Trinidad and Tobago’s most versatile and
melodic steelpan ensembles. Over the past eighteen
years, the Codrington Pan Family has become synonymous with
excellence and professionalism in music. Whether winning local
music festivals consecutively, performing live before royalty, or
creating history in 2015 as the first musicians to showcase the
steelpan at the South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas,
the Codrington family’s impact on the steelpan fraternity has been
nothing short of outstanding — especially considering the size of
the ensemble.
It’s a hot and busy day in Port of Spain as I meet Khari. It
is already mid-October, and many of T&T’s steel orchestras
have begun preparing for the musical war ahead. Who will win
the 2017 National Panorama Competition, just a few months
away? “Will it be you?” I ask Khari, after debating with him the
view that having a sponsor makes a significant impact on one’s
standing in the competition. “Who knows,” he chuckles, then
adds, “We’ve made it this far.” It is a stark reality that, in the
midst of all their achievements to date, the Codringtons still
remain an unsponsored band.
While the family’s early years were spent in Tunapuna,
along Trinidad’s East-West Corridor, the Codringtons consider
themselves to be a product of the creative hub of Laventille. “The
steelpan, but plenty of passion and charisma. My mom or dad
would keep the timing for each of us, and that portion of the
pavement would become our stage. Even then, music was not
only what groomed us, but fed us, basically.”
Khari recalls how that pavement spot was where their first
and only corporate sponsor to date, SWMCOL — the Trinidad
and Tobago Solid Waste Management Company — laid eyes
upon them. “It was cruise ship season, so on this particular
day we were really busy. Tourists and Christmas shoppers
were plentiful, but among them stood Ray Brathwaite” —
then SWMCOL’s executive chairman. “Initially, it was he who
approached my dad and asked to have a word with him. Dad
politely acknowledged him, but never did speak with him that
day — he was mindful of the negative comments that some
passers-by would make.” Khari explains: “For what it is worth
today, none of those comments about us being exploited as
children affected us, because we not only enjoyed performing
but also we understood that, as a family, it was necessary to stick
together and use our talents to further ourselves.”
The Codringtons’ dedication and charisma was what caught
the attention of Brathwaite, who supported the expansion of the
band between 2006 and 2009, during his tenure at SWMCOL.
With that additional fiscal support, the Codrington Pan Family
were able to diversify their efforts. For some of the siblings, like
“As children,” says Khari Codrington, “we not only enjoyed
performing but also we understood that, as a family, it was
necessary to stick together”
Hills”, as the area east of downtown Port of Spain is also fondly
known, is a vibrant part of the country’s social and cultural fabric.
For generations, this community has consistently birthed and
inspired icons in the fields of fashion, theatre, dance, literature,
and — most undoubtedly — music. More specifically, you cannot
talk about the hills of Laventille without referring to the origins
and growth of the steelpan — the only musical instrument to have
been invented in the twentieth century, as all Trinidadians know.
Laventille is the home of numerous globally renowned steelbands:
Desperadoes, Highlanders, Blue Diamonds, Tokyo, Sun Valley,
and Laventille Sound Specialists. And last, but certainly not least,
Laventille is also home to this talented group of young men and
women, guided by Khari Codrington.
We have actually chosen the current Desperadoes panyard
on Frederick Street as the location for our interview. Apart
from being accessible, it allows us to enjoy the rehearsal of
the Despers youth band. I ask Khari about the Codrington Pan
Family’s early days as performers. He begins by saying that
music has always been important to him and his siblings.
“When we began in 1999,” he says, “it was our dad together
with mom and the first four children — Kareem, Kaijah, Keisha,
and myself. We would set up lower down on Frederick Street
— in front of Sun Tings Souvenir Shoppe — and take turns at
playing the tenor pan. That is how we started — with only one
brothers Kareem and Kaijah, it meant completing the advanced
steelpan tuning course at the University of Trinidad and Tobago,
and putting those skills and knowledge to use daily. For others,
like Khari and his sister Keisha, it thrust them further into the
practical and academic worlds of teaching as well as arranging
and composing music for the steelpan. One of their most
successful compositions to date saw the band take first place
at the 2013 Pan Is Beautiful competition, seven points ahead
of seasoned competitors like Renegades, Caribbean Airlines
Invaders, and Exodus.
The Codrington Pan Family began competing as a small
conventional band in the National Panorama Competition.
However, the burden of managing an unsponsored steel
orchestra became increasingly heavy, and in 2015 the family
decided to withdraw from the competition and instead assist
other unsponsored steelbands to participate. This provided
the opportunity for Khari and Keisha to broaden their skill
sets as steelpan arrangers. So for the past four years Khari
has been contracted as the musical director and arranger for
the C&B Crowncordians Steel Orchestra from Bon Accord,
Tobago. During that time, the youth-based band made it to the
Panorama semi-finals, and also made significant strides in the
Tobago Panorama competition. Meanwhile, Keisha has served
as the arranger for the Gonzales Sheikers for the past two years.
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courtesy codrington family
The siblings are not the only ones to have tasted success at
Panorama, however, as their father Cary has the distinction of
being the only arranger to take the Birdsong Steel Orchestra to
a national Panorama final.
As the Desperadoes Youth Orchestra wraps up its rehearsal,
we conclude by discussing the Codrington family’s plans for the
next two years. Khari mentions that his ensemble will continue
to be “the first point of interaction with the steelpan,” for the
thousands of visitors entering Trinidad for Carnival through the
port facilities on Wrightson Road. “It’s not just about giving a
performance,” he says, “but creating a memorable experience
as the mecca of steelpan.”
Beyond Carnival, the group is also focused on releasing
original steelpan compositions for consideration by the local
and international film industry. Kareem and Kaijah will continue
to supply steelpans to various orchestras regionally, while
Khari and Keisha will delve deeper into creating exclusive
recording opportunities for live instruments — with the steelpan
remaining at the heart of their ambitions.
Find out more about the Codrington Pan Family via
their Facebook page: www.facebook.com/cpanfamily
52 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Before sunrise
In the darkness before the sun rises on
Carnival Monday morning, in the upsidedown
world of J’Ouvert, is a special kind
of freedom, writes Lisa Allen-Agostini
The pre-dawn air is kissed with dew. Your mother wouldn’t
approve of you out here, bareheaded, at this hour, and
bathing yourself in cold, slick mud, to boot. You’ll catch
your death, she’d say. But there it is: you are here, wearing a ragged
t-shirt and your shortest shorts, barely decent and already halfdrunk
on rum and the wildness in the air.
Of that wildness there’s plenty: this is J’Ouvert in Port of
Spain. It’s the official start of the two days of Carnival. You’re on
a street in the city meeting up with your band, recreating a ritual
hundreds of years old. J’Ouvert is not just the start of Carnival.
It is, by some accounts, an utter reversal of everything that is
true of the ordinary world by day. Decent people behaving badly,
wearing costumes that point fingers at authority, mocking their
own decency by their dress and manner.
Is that so-and-so wining down to the ground in a pair of
thongs and high heels? And who is that in the ballerina’s tutu
smeared with engine grease? Is that a man, a woman, or what?
And how do they get those wire and papier mâché horns to stay
on their heads?
But few people ask that sort of question at J’Ouvert. They are
far too busy slathering mud or paint or cocoa or grease on their
own bodies or someone else’s to care what their neighbour is
doing or wearing.
There are exceptions, of course. In the darkness of one
J’Ouvert morning I saw a tall, stern-faced man who looked out of
place in the old lady’s wig and nightie he wore. He was standing
alone in the crowd of masqueraders dancing by the band’s
massive music truck. I couldn’t help myself. I had to walk up to
him and take a wine. By the time the sun was hot, we were both
covered in various colours of body paint mixed with whatever
substances had coated the other bands we passed through that
morning, rivers flowing together to form one massive flood of
dirty, ecstatic masqueraders.
If Carnival is colour, J’Ouvert is its darker twin. The
masquerades on these same streets later this day may be
fanciful and pretty, idealistic, covered in feathers and sequins
and rainbows. The mas for J’Ouvert, on the other hand, is often
dirty and mocking. You’ll find here the jab molassie — molasses
devils, invoking the spirits of enslaved people who died in the
sugar coppers on plantations named Tranquillity, Woodbrook,
Peru, which are now part of this bustling city. You’ll find the
54 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

TeamDWP Studios By Dwayne Watkins
odd Dame Lorraine, a mas played by a man wearing a woman’s
dress, obscenely padded in a slave’s parody of the European
masters’ wives. You’ll find the tradition of old mas, where
ordinary folks compete to stage elaborate puns to accuse priest
and politician alike, or just to make a good bad joke. Imagine a
man with a chamber pot in one hand and a sign in the other, and
the sign reads “Po’ me one.”
Increasingly you’ll find abstractions: Mud Mas, Red Devils,
Yellow Devils, Cocoa Devils, and so on, bands of mas players
in no real costume but simple t-shirts and shorts splattered in
whatever unguent it is they are “playing” this year.
J’Ouvert is the beating heart of Carnival because of the
anonymity the darkness lends. In this darkness is the ability to
be anyone or no one.
When the sun comes creeping up over Laventille to wash the
city in gold, we are renewed. We stumble home, hose ourselves
off, rest muscles sore from chipping for miles in the morning
dew. Carnival has begun. A few hours later we will be back,
chipping again in the hot sun, dutifully wearing our brilliant,
happy daytime costumes. A smear of black engine oil behind one
ear is the only sign that we had ever been anything else.
But though J’Ouvert is fleeting, it may well stay with you.
Remember the tall man in the old lady’s wig and night? Reader,
I married him.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 55

“I never choose
the mas”
Tracy Sankar-Charleau, who explores the
spiritual roots of folklore through mas
performance, on being “chosen” by her
characters — as told to Tracy Assing
Every traditional mas character is alive. Every traditional
mas person, whether they want to look at it that way or not,
from moko jumbies straight down to a fancy sailor, they all
have to deal in the spiritual aspect of it. You have a fancy sailor
turn around and tell you, you can’t just do so and put on a costume
and say you dance a dance like that — you have to be on a high.
And, as I tell people, is not an alcohol high, it’s a whole different
thing. Traditional mas has a level of spiritualism in it, and each
character, each person, knows how to be.
We take on that character, whether it be for an hour or for
the whole day. This is not just jump in a costume and palance
yuh backside. This is awakening something when you need it to
do something for you. For me, really and truly, the La Diablesse
was on a whole different level. I am the vessel and I have to do
whatever it is she tell me to do.
I’ve been playing mas for the last ten years with my mom.
I started off with her. That didn’t happen until my thirties. I
was doing photography work with her band, helping with her
workshops. But then I became an individual performer — next
year will make it four years. From there it just took off
We are from an artistic family. My mom was a draughtswoman
and also a seamstress. That was her job at home. We were
always making something. Is she give us the courage to just start
we own, so to speak. My sister, she does stuff with her, they are
joined together. But I branched off on my own, because I decided
to deal more with the folklore aspects of it, the spiritual aspect of
it, and the part it plays within the whole persona of the mas. They
do the Dame Lorraine. I play the Dame Lorraine, the fancy jab,
the jab molassie, and in 2015 for the first time I brought out the
La Diablesse. So in all it’s four characters I play. 2017 will make
it five. I giving them my version of a burrokeet. This time I will
be the one dancing the horse.
I was bored with the Dame Lorraine. It’s a cool character. It’s
my mother. I am a little more out there. I’m a little more brackish
and a little more loud and outgoing. When my mother realised I
56 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

maria nunes
wanted to play the jab, and this was something I was pondering
in my brain for years, she told me, “No, behave yourself. That
ain’t for you. You sure you could blow fire?” Steups. Boy, nobody
never teach me, I went and put kerosene in my mouth. It burn
like hell! I do my own thing and after that it take off in less than
a week. That was it. Second skin. I had a ball with it and then I
realise I hadda make this my own.
I get bored a lot. I am always trying to figure out, yeah, this
very macabre way to fit with the traditional, but then sometimes
you want to put a little twist onto it and you want to do something
a little more refreshing.
“I was bored with the Dame
Lorraine. It’s my mother. I am a
little more out there”
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 57

maria nunes
I never choose the mas. The mas choose me. It speaks to you.
So you can’t just think that at the end of the day, you put on a
costume. It doh work like that. You awakening something. And
for me the folklore starts from somewhere. All stories have a
beginning, and when it hands down through generations it takes
on different faces and different meanings for everybody.
I like to lacouray myself. I like to showcase myself — but who
doesn’t? On a normal, average, basic day I keep to myself. I try to
The birth of La Diablesse
After several years of portraying a traditional Dame Lorraine in her mother
June Sankar’s well-known band, Tracy Sankar-Charleau began an exploration
of other mas and folklore traditions through individual performance.
At Carnival 2015, she debuted a new character, La Diablesse, based on the
notorious cow-footed temptress of T&T folklore. But Sankar’s La Diablesse
also incorporates elements of the Haitian voudou deity Erzulie Freda,
embodying both love and sorrow, and borrowing some visual iconography
from the Roman Catholic Madonna. Photographer Maria Nunes recalls the
impact on Sankar’s audience: “The whole of Victoria Square erupted. People
were truly gasping.”
Sankar’s vivid portrayal took on a new intensity after the death of her
husband in October 2015, killed during an attempted robbery. They had
been married for nearly two decades, and had four children. Just a few
months later, Sankar’s 2016 mas portrayal channeled her sense of loss and
rage into a searing and powerful performance that stunned audiences who
had grown accustomed to nostalgically pretty “traditional” mas characters.
stay away from people. I have friends, but sometimes they don’t
even see me for months. I prefer to keep on the down-low, but
when it’s time for me to pop up, I get to be me. I get to show you
for a change, look at how it supposed to be done.
What happens when I am playing the La Diablesse, I am
trying to come out of it. I am always crying, I am always
sorrowful. I cannot always not be who I am. This is the woman
herself. This is the Lady of Sorrows. It come like I am living out
the whole entire thing.
I still express myself in my photography, but
this is more fun. I like to be able to feel things.
I like to touch it. With my mas I get to touch it,
I get to actually bring something to life. I get to
bring it out to you, and you can literally come
up, touch it, smell it, see me, embrace it. It’s
like reading a story and that’s all it is, it’s all up
here in your imagination — but wouldn’t it be
wonderful if it could literally manifest itself and
materialise in front you? I get to do that. I get to
take the stories that we all have and make them
into something where it’s a fascination even for
the oldest of the old.
58 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

antony scully courtesy maria nunes
60 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

“My Carnival no
longer starts
or finishes”
Photographer Maria Nunes, celebrated
for her avid documentation of traditional
mas and steelpan, on her earliest Carnival
memories, her first encounter with
masqueraders from behind the camera, and
how Carnival has become her life — as told
to Nicholas Laughlin
One of my earliest childhood memories is seeing jabs in
Mayaro at Carnival time. I was maybe six, seven, eight
years old. It’s an indistinct memory — I can’t tell you
what they looked like — but it’s something that stayed with me:
these men playing jab, going house to house in Mayaro, and the
surprise element.
But my first truly formed, deep impression of Carnival was
that the year of [Peter Minshall’s Carnival King] The Sacred and
the Profane — that was 1982 — my father took me to the Kings
and Queens finals in the Savannah on Dimanche Gras. And I was
mesmerised by The Sacred and the Profane, and [masquerader]
Peter Samuel bringing the costume over all the photographers
at the edge of the stage. It’s a distinct memory. The way it was
set up then, the photographers were all down below the stage.
I remember the power of how he came on the stage. And he
moved those wings and brought the whole costume over the
photographers. My father never took me to Kings and Queens
prior to that, and I have no idea why he took me that year. And
after that, he died in June 1982.
My interest in photography was formed by a childhood of
having family holidays in Mayaro and Tobago documented and
put in an album every year. At university, I bought myself a
Pentax K1000 camera, which was a great first camera in the days
of film. I started to become really passionate about photography
when I was working at the St Andrew’s Golf Club [north of Port of
Spain], where I was the general manager. The lands around the
golf club are untouched forest, and on hikes I was struck by the
beauty of the interior of the forest. I had the club’s camera, and
that’s when I started to seamlessly take photographs.
Then at Carnival 2007 I spent Monday at a friend’s office on
Carlos Street [in Woodbrook, west Port of Spain]. We were there
just liming, eating, drinking, and I heard these whips cracking
outside. I thought, what is this? And I went outside to see jab jabs
beating up one another on Carlos Street. I was just mesmerised.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 61

“He stuck out his tongue as if to
say, Ah give yuh that”: the photograph
of a grease-covered jab
molassie that Maria Nunes recalls
in her interview
To this day it reminds me that what I now take for granted,
someday somebody sees for the first time. I ran for my camera,
and those were my first photos in Carnival.
Because of that, I went out exploring the streets, and took
my first photographs of traditional jab molassies — the black
car-grease ones — on the corner of Ariapita Avenue and French
Street. I’ll never forget it, because there was this one man in total
car grease, and I was glued to him. He had these horns that were
like two cones. I’ve come to understand that people sense when
you’ve zeroed in on them with your camera, even though they
haven’t seen you yet. And that sense that passes between two
people, I experienced for the first time that day. As he passed me,
he turned around to give me a look, with a laugh, and he stuck
out his tongue as if to say, Ah give yuh that. He was fully aware,
I realised, that I had not moved my gaze from him.
So that was the beginning. And around that time my path
crossed with [photographer] Abigail Hadeed, and we must have
spoken about my experience that Carnival. Because the big
A lens for mas
After years of working as a teacher, golfer, and golf club
manager, Maria Nunes found a childhood fascination
with photos turning into a professional interest. For
the past decade, a major portion of her work has been
devoted to documenting traditional performance
traditions within Trinidad Carnival, from the blue devils
of Paramin to individual performers like Tracy Sankar-
Charleau (interviewed on page 56). Her already immense
archive — Nunes says she has at least thirty hard drives
full of still images and video — includes all aspects of arts
and culture, but Carnival remains an obsession, and her
images are among the most widely shared and discussed
by contemporary mas aficionados.
moment for me was that Abigail invited
me the following year, in 2008, to go
with her into downtown Port of Spain
on Carnival Tuesday. That was what
permanently changed my life. I don’t
say that lightly. Whatever scales were
on my eyes got peeled off, in a hurry.
I experienced the heart of east Port of
Spain in a whole different way, and sailor
mas for the first time in any significant
way. The people that I got to know then, I
still know today. It was an introduction to
a world, thanks to Abigail. And it proved
to be such a big, big world.
When I took the plunge in 2010 —
after twenty years of a normal salaried life — into professional
photography, I knew I had to have a website. That was the first
way I started sharing my photography — I would share a link
on Facebook and people would go to the website and comment
on the galleries. I got a lot of encouraging feedback. And it went
from there.
maria nunes
My exploration of blue devils continually fascinates me. I
could never get tired of photographing that expression.
The first time I photographed moko jumbies on a
Carnival Saturday at Junior Carnival, that blew my mind. And I’m
developing a relationship with Ronald Alfred’s jab jab band [based
in Carapichaima, central Trinidad]. I’m always seeking an elusive
photograph of the essence of that art of the whip in motion.
How to convey it to people so they can hear the whip crack in
the photo? Or the dance of the sailor? Those are the things I seek
after. When I’m deep in the moment with a jab jab, with a moko
jumbie, with a blue devil, is when I think I am most immersed in
what I am doing.
I want the performer to see how beautiful and amazing they
are. In the photos, they see aspects of their performance they
aren’t even aware of.
From that first year I went into Port of Spain with Abigail, I
remember feeling this terrible sadness at the end of Carnival. I
wanted it to keep on going. Every year when Carnival ends, I
feel I just want a little more time. It’s all crammed into such a
concentrated period of time — I’m going day, night, day, night,
for two weeks. But I also know that’s part of what it’s all about,
and if there was more room to breathe, it wouldn’t be the same.
It used to be I felt this terrible sadness. Now it’s just a continuum,
because the relationships I have built with the people I have
photographed, so many of whom are truly now my friends,
are year-long relationships. So my Carnival no longer starts or
finishes. It’s now my life.
62 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

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maria nunes
64 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Music in motion
The steelpan is Trinidad and Tobago’s
musical gift to the world, and its apotheosis is
the National Panorama Competition. For
Nigel Campbell, Panorama’s “little rebellion”
is about much more than the music
I
am a steelpan fan. Not necessarily an overt steelpan junkie,
but I appreciate the music born here in Trinidad and Tobago,
and the sound that makes that original music. This is ours, and
once a year, we can all participate in a festival celebrating that
sound and reminding those who are sensitive to the subliminal
signs of what researcher Kim Johnson calls “the audacity of the
creole imagination.” The annual Panorama competition is more
than music: it is history and individual biography, it is sociology
and science, rhythm and motion. It is tonic and elixir for Carnival.
It is fun. I become a “people observer,” trying to create stories out
of the snippets of overheard conversations, and the sights and
sounds of this organised chaos we call Trinidad Carnival.
First things first: Carnival is not a spectator sport, but a
participatory event, or a series of participatory events: soca fetes,
pre-dawn J’Ouvert, costume masquerade, soca and calypso
competitions, and Panorama. Panorama finals, a celebration of
and a competition among the best steelbands nationally, happens
in the Queen’s Park Savannah in Port of Spain — the Big Yard, as
we refer to it locally — on the Saturday night before Carnival. It
includes bands from all over the two islands, performing eightminute
arrangements of calypso and soca tunes.
Panorama finals are the end of a series of gatherings that
awaken a spirit anybody can partake of. The best introduction
is a panyard crawl in the weeks before Carnival, to sample
the sounds and sights of that urban space where late-night
practice makes for a blending of musical dexterity and wilful
determination. As in the FIFA World Cup, there are just a few
winners in the history of Panorama, but that hasn’t stopped
bands from all corners of the islands from competing for the idea
of Panorama champion. Arguments about “who play better,” and
“who had more excitement in the pan,” and “that is not a tune for
Panorama” resonate for months after Carnival is over. Panorama
is more than music.
Panorama is music in motion. The motion of the players
rocking and grooving to the sound and rhythm of the engine
room, the percussive centre of the steelband. The motion of
the fans dancing to this music, percolating at a clip rhythm that
guarantees body and tempo should become one. Dancing is
inevitable. Dancing in time with the music, more so. Chipping
(slow, steady sliding steps as you move forward with the bands),
wining (sexy and suggestive gyrating of the hips, preferably with
a partner), and jumping up (vertical with hands in the air, and in
time with the music) are the dances of Carnival and the dances
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 65

edison boodoosingh
2017 Panorama highlights
30 January to 7 February preliminary judging in panyards and communities across Trinidad and Tobago
12 February National Panorama Semi-Finals, Queen’s Park Savannah, Port of Spain
23 February National Panorama Finals, small steelbands, Skinner Park, San Fernando
25 February National Panorama Finals, medium and large steelbands, Queen’s Park Savannah
inspired by pan music. Shoes, then, become mandatory. Slippers
may work, but if pedicures are important, sneakers are better.
When you consider that the early Panorama preliminaries
in the 1960s were judged “on the move” — with steelbands
in racks being pushed on wheels by partisan supporters from
the community — you may question whether we have gone
backwards or away from our Caribbean instinct to move. Now
we have bands being judged in static formation on a stage, facing
one direction, orchestra-like, in defiance of the urge to jump
up. What ends are we serving, a
European ideal of conformity or a
Caribbean reality of participation,
joy, and movement? I guess the
answer can be better considered
depending on where you are seeing
and hearing the Panorama. For we
do have a couple of options: the
drag or the stands.
The real action takes place on the drag, a strip of tarmac that
wends its way in and out of the Savannah, passing in front of the
Grand Stand, an evolution of the old horse racing grandstand.
(The original was demolished in 2006 to be rebuilt as a clone in
2011). That original pavilion for the Sport of Kings birthed a sister
stand, the North Stand, which has become the playground of and
a magnet for the imitative “mimic men” of the middle classes,
pretenders looking to become one with the people. Between the
drag and the North Stand, you can sense what an atmosphere of
true liberation — and libation — the Panorama can be.
The North Stand is the fun place to be if you’re liming in
For me, Panorama is a
rekindling of hope that we
are masters of our domain
the stands. A cacophony of rhythmic iron-clanging, handdrumming,
and bottle-and-spoon-beating makes for a noisy
air of communal spirit. Rum rules, and the idea of the primacy
of music is slowly giving way to the idea of a new kind of
hedonism that travel writers casually describe as a selling point
for Caribbean people.
All this pleasure becomes evident when you’re on the
drag. From this vantage point, you can hear every band do a
final practice performance of its competition tune, and it’s all
free. Restriction and freedom are
two opposites that have shaped
Trinidad’s history. At Panorama,
on the drag, they live side by side.
Panorama, to some, is the
apotheosis of the steelband.
To others, it reflects a growing
decay of the communal spirit
associated with the movement and
a movement. Commercialism and a kind of redundancy have
eaten away at some of the appeal of Panorama. But for me, it
is a rekindling of hope that we are masters of our domain, not
necessarily conforming to the dictates of the gatekeepers who
rule media and creative enterprises. It is our little rebellion.
Our fantasy that for a day, after many days and nights in those
panyards, those crucibles of creativity and sweat and fire, we
as a nation can make something that will last the test of time.
It is also our chaotic and fervent and rhythmic moment when
time stands still, literally — when we can all move as one to the
beat. n
66 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

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closeup
Shapeshifter,
time traveller
When poet Vahni Capildeo won the UK’s prestigious Forward Prize
in September 2016, it was the third year in a row that a Caribbeanborn
writer took one of the poetry world’s highest honours. For
Capildeo, it was an affirmation of a career spent subverting the idea
of simple journeys, as Andre Bagoo explains
“
When my name was announced, it
was as if time split and there was
a parallel universe in which some
other, ‘real’ poet was receiving the
award,” says Vahni Capildeo. She
is speaking about the moment last
September when she was announced as the winner of the 2016
Forward Prize for Best Collection. “Aren’t many writers afflicted
with a feeling of being not quite real?”
Time travel, parallel universes, epistemological conundrums
— it’s fitting these fall freely off the tongue of a poet of boundless
talent, skill, and imagination, whose lines mesmerise us, show
us miracles.
Capildeo was born in Trinidad in 1973 and left for Britain in
1991. Her poetry argues that both details are at once significant
and insignificant: people do not cross boundaries; they carry
worlds within. From her first book to her most recent — starting
with No Traveller Returns and right up to her Forward-winning
Measures of Expatriation — Capildeo has invited readers to reject
the idea of simple journeys. The result is a body of work that is
now gaining greater international attention. Just weeks after
winning the Forward, Capildeo’s book was also shortlisted for
the T.S. Eliot Prize, another major honour, previously won by
Nobel laureate Derek Walcott.
Praise has come also from critics and colleagues. “Capildeo
prods us to re-imagine how words live, and what they do to
our sense of whatever we call reality,” says Edward Baugh, the
distinguished Jamaican poet and literary scholar. And Indian
poet and editor Vivek Narayanan remarks on Capildeo’s breadth
of interests and references. “What always impresses me about
Caribbean culture and literature is its profound need and ability
to reinvent the world,” Narayanan says. “Take nothing for
granted, but taking all materials to hand. Vahni does that, but in
her own completely unique way — Dante, the Nordic myths, Old
English, Trinidadian folklore, Hindu iconology all come together
and are transformed.”
“Vahni was making verses from the time she could hardly
write,” says her mother Leila Capildeo, in an interview at the
house in Federation Park, Port of Spain, where Capildeo spent
her early years. (The very name of the residential district
evokes memories of the Caribbean’s failed flirtation with a postcolonial
political union.) Her father, Devendranath Capildeo,
was a children’s poet. Her grandfather was Simbhoonath
Capildeo, the elder brother of Rudranath Capildeo, a major
figure in T&T’s Independence-era politics. Capildeo’s uncle,
Crisen Bissoondath, married Sati Naipaul, a sister of V.S.
Naipaul, the Nobel laureate. And her cousin Neil Bissoondath
is a novelist.
68 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Hayley Madden for The Poetry Society
Capildeo studied first at Dunross Prep School (where a school
magazine published some of her early poems) then at St Joseph’s
Convent in Port of Spain. “I was very eager to learn, and I wasn’t
getting pushed,” she says. “That can be quite frustrating as a child.
I was envious of my brother Kavi, who was at St Mary’s College.
He was under a lot of pressure there, getting pushed.”
She would later read English language and literature at
Oxford University, where she was involved in a serious car
accident in March 1994. On her way to hand in a Shakespeare
essay, she was knocked over and suffered head injuries. But
she survived — and thrived. (She got a first.) Capildeo later
pursued a DPhil in Old Norse on a Rhodes scholarship, seeing
parallels between medieval Scandinavia and its colonies, and
modern-day regions with asymmetrical power relations with
a “mainland” territory. After graduating, Capildeo became a
research assistant at the Oxford English Dictionary, delving
deep into the roots of language.
Capildeo’s books remind us that words inhabit the present,
manifest the past, and are deployed in poems that are, by
definition, open to future readers. In these feats of timetravel,
language is our home.
“She liked to sing, she did a lot of music, piano, classical
guitar,” says her mother Leila, a former national scholar who
also writes. “It came to the point where she could just take up
an instrument and play it. Except the violin. I couldn’t find a
teacher for that.”
Something of this virtuosity is apparent in Capildeo’s poetry,
particularly her prose poems. They implicitly argue that the
idea of writing a poem halfway across the page is relatively new.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 69

“I have always been
moved by poems that have
the compendiousness of
novels,” Capildeo says
Adrian Pope, courtesy the Forward Arts Foundation
Oral histories, stories, and poetic works do not depend on such
margins. And why can’t prose, they ask, be put in service of
poetry?
Yet Capildeo’s books do not have the air of theoretical
treatises. They come alive as perspectives, times, and places
shift. The prose poems draw attention to themselves, as if to
remind us every now and again that this chunk of text should
not be limited. Consider the moment from “A Book of Hours:
From Aidoneus to Zeus”, a poem in Undraining Sea, when a man
encounters a presence:
Then, standing in the corridor that lacks any intruder, the
man on
his day off screams
He screams
screams realising he will see it again.
The line breaks and use of punctuation (lack of full stop;
capitalisation of the next line) draw attention to the fact that this
is poetic language being disrupted, like the man’s perception
is interrupted. The poet at once transcends and re-affirms the
medium; just as a filmmaker might leave in subtle reminders of
craft and magic.
And Capildeo’s poems sometimes work like films, even if
she does not aim to let us see characters as a film might. The
narration is part of a sequence. Elements are presented one
after the other, and the relationship between them (or lack
thereof) is what creates something, does something to readers
cinematographically.
Like mid-twentieth-century American poets such as James
Wright, Capildeo is concerned with deep image, though she
pushes that concept to even more dynamic moorings. Here are
deep songs, deep films, deep dances, deep Carnival mas bands.
The poet revels in this mental imagery, sometimes for lyrical
purposes, at other times to scorch. The result is far from difficult;
it is successful. The innards of the stage are laid bare. We travel
across terrains, experience the psychogeography of bedrooms
and cities alike. And each poem is its own animal. A reader is
free to make and repurpose what the poet has presented. In fact,
nothing more is expected.
The political within everyday situations forms another key
strand in all of Capildeo’s books, starting with the opening
poem of her debut, No Traveller Returns. In “Amulet”, a
conversation between voices shows up what might be called
micro-aggressions. The very first line, “That’s an unusual pendant
you are wearing,” is a statement loaded with judgments and
therefore appropriations. We recognise this conversation: it might
be banal banter at a reception or a party. Yet we are given room
to fill in the gaps, to invest questions of gender, race, economic
status, work hierarchy, educational background, and more. When
the wearer of the amulet declares a desire to sleep for two full
70 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

months, this is not just a shutting down of the conversation, but a
changing of the playing field. We are invited to think of different
realms, to dream of dreaming.
Another important poem in her first book is “In Cunaripo”, an
example of how narrative in Capildeo’s poetry is often inflected.
Animals — in this case, caimans — irrupt within the confines
of what is being described, not to re-enforce the arbitrary
distinction between animal and human, but to do the opposite.
The caimans are in character.
And while Capildeo can be described as a poet of globalisation,
this is just one strand in a diverse body of concerns.
“Pin them down at your peril,” remarked Forward Prize
founder William Sieghart, on Capildeo’s book and the work of
the other poets honoured last year. In a blog piece for the UK
Guardian, Sieghart recalled hearing Capideo read from her work
at the Royal Festival Hall in London on the night the prize was
announced. “She spoke as if addressing an invisible hawk,”
he wrote. “She told us the idea for her poem, ‘Handfast’, was
inspired by a hunting glove belonging to Henry VIII, that most
dominant of English kings. Hawks are Ted Hughes territory. A
glove? No, Capildeo . . . was throwing down a gauntlet.”
Capildeo troubles the nation, place, education, fauna, and
even how we process day and night as individuals. She embodies
what D.H. Lawrence meant when he said, “the essential quality
of poetry is that it makes a new effort of attention, and ‘discovers’
a new world within the known world.”
Her latest book is an amplification of many of the themes
apparent in Capildeo’s previous works. “Measures of Expatriation
was my attempt to go both wide in place and deep in time, the
way we do in our lives,” Capildeo says. “We do not see our own
width and depth the same way if we are following ‘a character’ in
a film or book, or the ‘voice’ of a single, shorter poem. I tried to
create a series of imaginative extensions and portals.”
Vahni Capildeo’s books
No Traveller Returns (Salt, 2003)
Person Animal Figure (Landfill, 2005)
Undraining Sea (Egg Box, 2009)
Dark and Unaccustomed Words (Egg Box, 2011)
Utter (Peepal Tree Press, 2013)
Simple Complex Shapes (Shearsman, 2015)
Measures of Expatriation (Carcanet, 2016)
The book, she explains, was written over six years, and
arguably has the same kind of impact a novel might. “I have
always been moved by poems that have the compendiousness
of novels,” Capildeo says. “Most years, I set myself an exercise
of reading a long poem or series of connected works aloud over
a number of days, beginning every day religiously with a portion
of the poem, before breakfast or human contact or anything
else, in that vulnerable gap when the mind is engaged in both its
night and daytime states. There are moments in this process of
reading that feel unbearable.”
In her poems, layers of meaning create dazzling whirlpools:
what Vivek Narayanan refers to as “the working and reworking
of grammar, in its flow or its sudden arrest, through absence,
or through, often, a kind of semic overloading.” In “A Book of
Hours: From Aidoneus to Zeus”, “amber” begins as a name,
but then becomes colour, texture, signal. In “Winter to Winter”,
structures and systems of naming suggest the complexity of
overlapping layers of personality. Cardinal points, literary
devices, verbs, colours, situations, imperatives are used as
markers simultaneously.
The effect of all of this is poetry that is impossible to box. “I
shed forms like a shapeshifter shedding skins,” Capildeo says.
Readers be warned, then fly in. n
Adrian Pope, courtesy the Forward Arts Foundation
Opposite page Vahni Capildeo
at the 2016 Forward Prize
ceremony
Left The three winners of the
2016 Forward Prizes: Sasha
Dugdale (Best Single Poem),
Tiphanie Yanique (Best First
Collection), and Capildeo (Best
Collection)
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 71

BACKSTORY
Forgotten
beauty
Among the works of the nineteenthcentury
British Pre-Raphaelite artists, one
mysterious face recurs, and stands out
for its “exotic” beauty. It belonged to the
artists’ model Fanny Eaton, a mixed-race
Jamaican woman who found herself for
a time at the heart of London’s Victorian
art world. As Judy Raymond writes,
relatively little is known about her life
— but her image survives in some of the
world’s most famous museums
When Fanny Eaton died in
west London on March 4,
1924, her memories were
already lost to senility. She
had worked as a cleaner,
a seamstress, and a cook,
and raised most of her ten children on her own after
being widowed in her forties.
But the life of this brown-skinned old lady full of
years, though often modest, had been a remarkable
one in other ways. By the time she died at eightynine,
Eaton must have had an English accent for
decades, and blended into the London workingclass
milieu in which she lived. But she was born
in the parish of St Andrew, eastern Jamaica, on
23 June, 1835 — less than a year after emancipation.
Her mother, Matilda Foster, may have been a
domestic servant, on an estate or in a town, or even
a field labourer on a sugar plantation before she gave
birth to Fanny at seventeen. Matilda and her own
mother, Bathsheba, had formerly been enslaved.
Fanny Matilda Eaton, unlike her mother
and grandmother, was of mixed race. She was
described as a mulatto — that is, half black and half
white — so her father may have been a white estate
owner or manager, or possibly a British soldier, James Entwistle or Antwistle,
Fanny’s original surname. He died in Jamaica aged only twenty, but perhaps
it was he who funded Matilda and their daughter’s voyage to London, for
somehow they found their way there in the 1840s. In London, they settled into
working-class life in St Pancras. Matilda, a laundress, later married, as did
Fanny, in 1857, aged twenty-two: her husband, James Eaton, nineteen, was a
hansom-cab driver, and they had ten children between 1858 and 1879.
Since she was sixteen, Fanny had worked as a charlady, or cleaner, but
she had another way of making money, a way that allowed her to sit quietly
for hours, away from the drudgery of her cleaning work and of running her
small, crowded home. Her thick, kinky hair and “exotic” mixed-race features
made her an irresistible model for artists, some of them still famous today as
members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. As a result, her likeness hangs
today in the galleries at Tate Britain, in the British Museum, the Yale Centre
for British Art, and the Princeton Museum of Art, among others.
For Eaton was a favourite model among the artists who had been members
of the Brotherhood — and no wonder: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, one of its
leaders, described her in a letter to fellow artist Ford Madox Brown, written
when Eaton was thirty, as having “a very fine head and figure — a good deal
of Janey.” This was Janey Morris, the first, quintessential Pre-Raphaelite
“stunner.” Founded in 1848, the Brotherhood had an ideal that they sought out:
they had found her first in Jane Burden, who was tall, dark, and sturdy, with
a mass of curly hair, a firm jaw, strongly drawn brows, and bee-stung lips. At
nineteen, in 1859, she married the designer and writer William Morris, though
she and Rossetti later became lovers.
72 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Mrs Fanny Eaton (c.1859; chalk on paper),
by Walter Fryer Stocks
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 73

For Rossetti to have likened Fanny Eaton to
Morris shows that Fanny too must have been
thought a considerable beauty among the group.
Eaton’s fine but strong features, thick, massy
curls, and her grave, sometimes even careworn
expression fitted in perfectly with the Pre-
Raphaelite type (though her air of melancholy may
have been due to the preferred mood of the artists
as much as to her everyday life as the workingclass
mother of ten.) Many images of Eaton show
a resemblance to Jane, and in them she wears her
hair drawn low over her forehead, as they liked to
portray the latter.
Certainly they painted and drew Eaton often
enough. Yet a blog post about Eaton written in 2012
described her as “the forgotten stunner,” and there
have been suggestions that she has been sidelined
owing to her race. But that didn’t stop her being
painted in the first place, or from being included
in some of the best-known and the most beautiful
paintings and drawings of the period. The Pre-
Raphaelites, like many artists, were not confined
by many social conventions: class, religion, and
ethnic differences meant little to them. (Rossetti
himself was the child of Italian immigrants, and
lived out of wedlock with the model and artist
Lizzie Siddal for years.) The Pre-Raphaelites have
also fallen from favour in recent decades, after a
revival in the 1970s, but interest in them is now
growing again among art historians. More portraits
of Fanny Eaton are being discovered, acquired,
admired, and written about, along with details of
her life, thanks to the growing recognition that she
was one of their important models.
Another reason Eaton may have previously been less well known than
other Pre-Raphaelite muses was that she was not, as far as is known,
romantically involved with any of the artists, or caught up in any
of the ensuing scandals. The copper-haired Siddal, for instance — an artist
herself, whose patron was the critic John Ruskin — is best known for catching
pneumonia while posing as the drowned Ophelia for John Everett Millais in
1852. She may have suffered from tuberculosis, and died — of an overdose of
laudanum, possibly intentional — in 1862. Rossetti, who had eventually married
her in 1860 after a long, tempestuous relationship, famously exhumed her to
retrieve a book of unpublished poems he had buried with her. Fanny Eaton
featured in no such outlandish incidents.
During her engagement, Janey Burden, the daughter of a stableman and
a domestic servant, was hastily educated to be a suitable wife for Morris, a
gentleman — they had met while he was at university in Oxford. Other models
were less fortunate. Eaton went from being charlady to dressmaker. Other
Pre-Raphaelite muses were working-class too — Siddal began as a milliner’s
assistant — and worked as models to supplement their income. Some were
actresses or prostitutes; some were gypsies. So class was no deterrent when
it came to the Pre-Raphaelites’ choice of models. But although Eaton could
sit for the painters, she would not have had the time, even if she wanted, to
socialise or dally romantically with them. By the time she began modeling, she
was already married and a mother.
Class was no deterrent
when it came to the Pre-
Raphaelites’ choice of
models. But although
Eaton could sit for the
painters, she would
not have had the time
to socialise or dally
romantically with them
74 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Fanny Eaton’s thick,
kinky hair and
“exotic” mixed-race
features made her
an irresistible model
for artists, some of
them still famous
today as members of
the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood
Opposite page The Mother of Moses (1860;
oil on canvas), by Simeon Solomon
Right Head of Mrs Eaton (1861; oil on paper
laid to linen), by Joanna Boyce Wells
Women are hugely important in the
Pre-Raphaelite oeuvre, and not merely
as muses: they are often at the heart of
paintings, stately, statuesque, unsmiling,
mysterious, mystical. For these artists,
a woman of another race, or, more
intriguing still, a mixture of races, might
have possessed these alluring qualities even more
abundantly; and as much as any of their other
models, Eaton symbolised the ideal of female
beauty and fascination. They were preoccupied
with “the Other,” depicting familiar scenes from
unexpected angles and featuring characters rarely
focused on.
The Pre-Raphaelites also combined visual
realism with a nostalgia for medieval painting and
literature, and painted many biblical stories and
archaic and classical myths; hence the women in
them were often ethnically ambiguous (in his letter
about Eaton, Rossetti explained that she was “not
Hindoo . . . but mulatto”). So for them Eaton’s racial
mixture may well have been an added attraction.
Among their other models and muses were the
Greek painter Maria Zambaco, lover of Edward
Burne-Jones, and Keomi Gray, the gypsy mistress
of Frederick Sandys. The latter is said to have
used Fanny as the original model for his Morgan
Le Fay — evil enchantress and half-sister of King Arthur — but eventually
replaced her head with Gray’s. The Pre-Raphaelites also used Eaton in Arabic
and biblical scenes. Like other artists of the era, they sometimes also painted
people with traditionally African looks: black people figure widely in their
paintings, as in other Victorian art, sometimes chosen in order to stand out,
sometimes blending into a crowd scene. The Pre-Raphaelites differ, however,
in also using non-white models like Eaton to depict figures of ideal beauty.
The first known sketches featuring Fanny were made in 1859, by Simeon
Solomon, already noted for his draughtsmanship at nineteen. He may have
met Eaton by chance, as he lived not far from her. Sometimes he even used her
as a model while changing her gender in his drawings. He made pencil studies
of her as the basis for a painting of Moses’ mother, shown at the 1860 Royal
Academy Exhibition. Thus, as well as finished paintings, there are also many
drawings of Fanny, often with her hair unbound and realistically textured.
The portrayal of her as Moses’ mother is especially interesting because of its
reference to slavery, with a mixed-race West Indian depicted as an Israelite
woman enslaved in Egypt.
Solomon’s sister Rebecca, by contrast, painted Eaton as an Indian ayah
in A Young Teacher, in which the nursemaid is being “taught” by the child she
looks after (an innocent-seeming painting which nevertheless seems to take
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 75

The Beloved (1865–66; oil on canvas), by
Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Fanny Eaton is the
third bridesmaid from left, her face half
visible behind the bride
a colonialist viewpoint). Solomon’s friend Albert
Moore used Eaton as The Mother of Sisera, a biblical
character who has already died in battle; the 1861
painting shows her waiting patiently but in vain
for her son’s return, a figure of pathos and anxiety.
Eaton also appears in Millais’s Old Testament
painting Jephthah (1867). She was sketched by
Rossetti, and in his painting The Beloved (1865),
now in Tate Britain, she is among the bridesmaids,
at the centre, behind the bride.
And probably the most beautiful and impressive
image of this once-forgotten model is a portrait
by a forgotten painter, Joanna Boyce Wells. The
sister of another Pre-Raphaelite artist, George
Boyce, Wells studied in Paris and showed at
the Royal Academy, was praised by Ruskin and
called “wonderfully gifted” by Rossetti, but died
at twenty-nine. Her painting is said to be a study
for the head of a Libyan (that is, African) Sibyl
(a prophetess of classical times) or of Zenobia,
a Syrian warrior queen of antiquity — Wells
apparently planned to use Eaton in full-length
paintings of both. Previously referred
to as Head of a Mulatto Woman, the
picture is now known as Head of Mrs
Eaton. Seen in profile, she is regal and
dignified, her shoulders wrapped in
fine draperies and with jewels looped
through her luxuriant hair.
But a recently discovered study by
Walter Fryer Stocks looks most like a
portrait of Fanny Eaton as herself. The
little-known Stocks was the same age
as Simeon Solomon, and might have
attended the same life-drawing classes
for which Eaton sat. In this sketch in
black, red, and white chalk, the woman
he drew, though young, is watchful and tired, with shadows under her eyes;
it dates from 1859, when Eaton was twenty-four, but she looks older than her
years (by then she would have been married with a small daughter, and her
second child perhaps on the way).
Eaton also modelled for painting classes at the Royal Academy between
July 1860 and January 1879. After that, she may have been too busy — at
least nine of her ten children, six daughters and four sons, had been born by
that time. Or perhaps by then she looked too careworn, owing to her hard life;
or she may have moved away. Her husband died in 1881, when she was fortyfive,
leaving her to raise seven of their children; the youngest, Frank, was just
two. She never remarried. Little more is known of the life she led between
the peaceful interludes of sitting to artists and the more glamorous moments
when pictures of her went on show.
In her sixties, Eaton lived on the Isle of Wight, working as a cook for a
wine merchant’s family. Two of her daughters had followed her by becoming
seamstresses, and two were servants; but one, Miriam, was briefly a sculptor’s
assistant. By 1911, Eaton was living with another daughter, Julia Powell, and
her family in Hammersmith, west London, and she died in nearby Acton.
Fanny Eaton has been saved from obscurity by the images of her that hang
in some of the world’s great galleries, depicting heroines and famous beauties.
But sadly, despite their numerous foreign settings, none depicts her against the
West Indian landscapes among which she was born. n
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ARRIVE
PHB.cz (Richard Semik) / shutterstock.com
72 Escape
Tobago therapy
82 Neighbourhood
Roseau, Dominica
85
Round Trip
Carnival planet
98 Layover
St John’s, Antigua
Don’t underestimate the recuperative power of Tobago’s gorgeous beaches

ESCAPE
Tobago therapy
It’s Carnival time! And the heart of the action is the
place to be — unless, instead of non-stop partying,
what you’re looking for is a quiet retreat. In that
case, the place to be might just be Trinidad’s sister
isle, says Caroline Taylor
PHB.cz (Richard Semik) / shutterstock.com
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The serene bay at the fishing village of Parlatuvier
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caristock
Paddleboarding at Pigeon Point
You may be forgiven for thinking that Carnival is an ever-present phenomenon in both Trinidad
and Tobago at this time of year. But what if you’re a local or an international visitor who’s not
really into Carnival? What if you’d much prefer to escape and recharge on the open water,
under a waterfall, on a beach, or immersing yourself in culinary and cultural explorations? Then
perhaps you’re best served avoiding Trinidad altogether — and giving yourself the gift of a
Tobago escape. Your spirit will surely thank you.
By the water
Let’s start with the low-hanging fruit. This is for the beach bums.
And beach bumming is a fully legitimate option in Tobago. Folks
who love to fill their lungs with sea air, work on their tans (or
snooze in the shade), and enjoy some leisurely swimming and
snorkelling are unlikely to want for more.
The two staples around Crown Point, Tobago’s bustling
southwestern hub, are Pigeon Point and Store Bay. The water
at both beaches — like many bays on the island’s leeward
coast — is generally calm, sheltered, and great for swimming.
You’ll also enjoy the convenience of these beaches’ plentiful
amenities, like eateries, craft shopping, parking, watersports
operators, changing facilities, and bathrooms — even if you
sacrifice a bit of the peace and quiet you’ll get further afield.
Popular glass-bottom boat tours to Buccoo Reef and the Nylon
Pool also leave from here. But an invigorating alternative for
strong swimmers is to paddleboard or kayak to the Nylon Pool
instead.
Now, those are the two go-to beaches in Tobago’s tourist
centre. But there are many, many other beaches around the
island which deserve your beach-bumming attention. If you’d
prefer more quiet and privacy, you’ll want to venture up the
Caribbean coast to gems like Englishman’s Bay, Parlatuvier,
Castara, Bloody Bay, or Charlotteville. Canoe, Back, and
Stonehaven Bays — still in the southwest, but much less
frequented — are also solid options. At Buccoo Bay, you also
have the opportunity to not just enjoy the beach and great
swimming, but to ride on a swimming horse. If you could be
convinced that would be amazing, make sure to check out Being
with Horses. Last but not least, divers and birders will certainly
want to head to Speyside — but more on that later.
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Under the water
Altin Osmanaj / shutterstock.com
On the water
Water babies and watersports fanatics will find no shortage of
activities to take on in Tobago, especially at this time of year.
The dry season means cooler, drier weather with bright blue
skies and strong breezes — manna from heaven for those into
wind sports like windsurfing and kitesurfing. Sailing enthusiasts
also have the Tobago Carnival Regatta to look forward to in
mid-February — that is, if they wouldn’t prefer to cruise up the
leeward coast on a catamaran like the Island Girl. In addition
to being relaxing and decadent, those sailing tours make stops
at stunning beaches like Cotton Bay that are only (or mostly)
accessible by sea.
But that’s not all there is: we’re talking an extravaganza of
kayaking, kiteboarding, paddleboarding, snorkelling, stand-uppaddling,
and surfing. Even if you’ve never tried any of these
before, but they sound like a blast, this is a perfect time to learn,
as lessons are also readily available.
If you happen to be on the island around the new moon, there’s
one special experience you’ll want to consider. Conditions then
will be perfect for you to do a bioluminescence tour in Bon
Accord Lagoon. Phytoplankton in the water emit flashes of light
to produce a bluish glow as you paddle through on your board or
kayak. Stand Up Paddle offer tours.
And while it doesn’t involve a watersport — apart from
swimming and snorkelling — those who love the water and
coral reefs will want to make sure they get up north to Speyside.
Glass-bottom boat tours out to Angel Reef depart at least once
a day from Batteaux Bay, and there are also tours to the birding
paradise of Little Tobago island. Angel Reef is perhaps the most
abundant of the island’s many offshore reef systems, so a mustsee
for those who’d like to get a look at Tobago’s rich marine
ecosystem.
Ever wanted to learn to dive? Or perhaps
you’ve already learned, and have been
meaning to upgrade your certification?
Then Tobago is the perfect holiday
location for you, with some of the
Caribbean’s best dive sites. And that’s
no hyperbole. The island’s nutrient-rich
waters nurture an abundance of diverse
aquatic life in offshore reef systems and
strategically sunk shipwrecks. A few
hundred species of coral — including
what’s reported to be the largest living
brain coral in the world — plus reef
fish, manta rays, and sharks are among
the main draws. Off Speyside, in the
northeast, this is also the time of year
when you might be lucky enough to spot
an elusive whale shark. But whatever
your level of ability, there’s a range of dive
experiences to suit you. If you’re ready
to take the plunge, make contact with a
PADI/SSI-certified diver operator through the Association of
Tobago Dive Operators (ATDO).
Falling water
Two of Tobago’s tallest and most dramatic waterfalls are Argyle
(near Roxborough), and Highland (near Mason Hall). There’s
a gentle hike to Argyle, the taller and more visited of the two,
but what you save in strength en route can be spent climbing
to the top of the falls’ three tiers, some 450 feet high. Your
reward, other than bragging rights? Three levels also means
three refreshing pools to enjoy on the way back down. The trek
to Highland waterfall is more challenging, but equally worth
it. Highland is also a good option for those who love roads less
travelled, as you’re unlikely to find many other visitors. So:
here’s to all-natural, high-intensity waterfall massage jets.
Black Rock
Buccoo Reef
Pigeon Point
Store Bay
Crown Point
Charlotteville
TOBAGO
Scarborough
Little Tobago
Speyside
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Opposite page Tobago’s
mangrove wetlands are
a refuge for wildlife
This page The hike to
Argyle Falls includes the
chance to cool off in
three freshwater pools
©DebraLeeWiseberg / istock.com
Foodie escapes
You could actually skip all the sun, sea, and sand stuff altogether
and just — well, eat. Tobago food is divine, especially if you don’t
limit yourself to any particular niche.
For a thoroughly local experience, stop in at roadside eateries
and beach bars, and chow down on Tobago’s signature dishes,
like crab-and-dumpling, oil down, bake-and-buljol, or any of
the delicious fresh fish that comes straight from the sea. What’s
more, there’s a range of fine-dining establishments serving up
international and fusion cuisine, local dishes, or regional fare —
even tapas. You’ll have a particularly wide variety of options in
the southwest (Crown Point, Black Rock, and Lowlands), with
many fine restaurants attached to popular resorts. And luckily,
at a healthy number of them, sites steeped in history or beautiful
ocean views are an aperitif.
We’ve also got some recommendations for the dessert
course: make sure to sample some premium chocolate made
from locally grown cocoa at the Tobago Cocoa Estate. Free
samples are a benefit of touring the estate, but bars are also
available for sale across the island. You might also want to try
some local specialties: benne balls, toolom, paw-paw balls,
tamarind balls, sugar cake, cashew cake, cassava pone . . . Just
take care with your teeth!
Birds and other natural encounters
Other than diving and turtle-watching (typically from March
through September, though you might be able to catch some
early nesters around now), birding is one of the most popular and
rewarding eco activities in Tobago. There are over two hundred
recorded bird species on the island, including bananaquits,
boobies, cocricos (one of T&T’s two national birds), frigatebirds,
hummingbirds, rufous-tailed jacamars, kiskidees, bluebacked
manikins, blue-crowned motmots, pelicans, tanagers,
tropicbirds (which nest in Little Tobago from December to July),
woodpeckers, and many others.
Two of the best spots for bird-watchers are Little Tobago
island, and the central Main Ridge Forest Reserve — which
is also the oldest protected rainforest reserve in the western
hemisphere (designated in 1776). Other rewarding sites include
the Adventure Farm and Nature Reserve, a twelve-acre property
in Arnos Vale — where birds swoop in for feedings at the ring
of a bell — the Grafton Caledonia Wildlife Bird Sanctuary,
with daily bird feedings, and the recently opened Corbin Local
Wildlife Park. This flagship project of the International Natural
Forestry Foundation (INFF) occupies twenty acres in the hills
near Mason Hall, and incorporates captive breeding areas for
rescued animals and threatened species.
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Martin Mecnarowski / shutterstock.com
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Tobago’s Main Ridge is home to
over two hundred bird species,
like this parrot, swooping down
on an immortelle tree
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Fort King George is one of the
best preserved of Tobago’s historic
sites — and enjoys some of
the most impressive views
©DebraLeeWiseberg / istock.com
The historic view
Historic sites are not only boons for heritage buffs — many also
offer the most breathtaking views in the island, often out over
the Caribbean Sea. In the hills above Scarborough, just over 450
feet above sea level, head up to Fort King George — the most
impressive of Tobago’s forts, and perhaps the best preserved of
the island’s historic sites. Here you’ll find the Tobago Museum,
housed inside the old guard barracks, which displays relics
from the island’s ancient and colonial past, including First
Peoples artefacts, maps, photographs, and military memorabilia.
Keeping company with the museum are cannon, a military
cemetery, the old chapel and cellblock, and stunning views of
Scarborough, Bacolet, and up the windward coast.
Other forts that boast relaxing sea views include Fort Bennett
(overlooking Stonehaven Bay), Fort James (overlooking Great
Courland Bay), Fort Milford (overlooking Store Bay), and Granby
Point (overlooking Barbados and Pinfold Bays).
But old military sites aren’t the only spots laying claim to
picture-postcard views. Among my favourites is the view of
Parlatuvier Bay as you drive north along the Northside Road (on
the leeward coast). Further north, near Charlotteville, there’s
Flagstaff Hill. This was once a Second World War American
military lookout and radio tower. It has an appropriately
panoramic view, encompassing Charlotteville, the St Giles
Islands, and further south along the leeward coast. n
Caribbean Airlines operates numerous daily flights to
Arthur N.R. Robinson International Airport in Tobago
from Trinidad, with connections to other Caribbean
and North American destinations.
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NEIGHBOURHOOD
richard goldberg / shutterstock.com
Roseau,
Dominica
The picturesque capital of the “Nature
Isle” retains a small-town French Creole
atmosphere, with its historic architecture,
dense grid of streets, and the backdrop of
Dominica’s spectacular mountains
History
The earliest known community on this site, at the mouth
of the Roseau River, was a Kalinago (or Carib) village
called Sairi. Long overlooked by European colonising
powers, the island of Dominica was permanently settled
by the French in 1690, who chose the Kalinago village as
their headquarters, and renamed it for the reeds growing
along the river. Under French and, after 1763, British
control, Roseau was laid out in a neat grid of streets, with
the Old Market as the original centre.
Though the city’s built-up area has spread into nearby
suburbs — like Newtown to the south and Goodwill
to the north — Roseau remains relatively compact,
sandwiched between the Caribbean Sea and the foothills
of Dominica’s dramatic mountainous interior.
steve bennett / uncommoncaribbean.com
Thirsty?
Near the Roseau waterfront, the eccentric Ruins Rock
Café is definitely not your typical bar or rumshop. First
of all, the location: literally in the ruins of a burned-out
historic building, now roofed against the elements. Then
there’s the drinks: not just the usual tropical cocktails,
but a hair-raising, palate-bracing menu of locally distilled
bush rums, with flavours ranging from the relatively
straightforward — cinnamon, ginger — to exotics like
sea grape, to others that sound like you should drink
them only on a serious dare: grasshopper, centipede,
snake. Safer, but in its own way no less deadly, is the
famous rum punch.
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Streetscape
French Creole influence dominates Roseau’s traditional
architecture — steep-pitched roofs, intricate wooden
fretwork, shuttered jalousie windows, shady verandahs and
arcades. A handful of British Georgian-inspired buildings
are also scattered throughout the historic centre, alongside
modern structures of all descriptions, some borrowing
traditional decorative elements. Though central Roseau is laid
out on a more or less regular grid, the narrow streets and tiny
blocks can give the impression of a labyrinth, with surprises
round every corner. It is notoriously easy for visitors to get
lost, especially in the area known as the French Quarter. The
Old Market, now a pedestrianised square, is still the city’s
central point, marked by a red-painted cross.
Just west of central Roseau, the dense warren of streets
gives way to the Botanical Gardens, founded in 1890, and
long considered one of the Caribbean’s finest. Apart from
the collection of trees and other plants from across the
tropical world, this is the headquarters for the conservation
programme protecting Dominica’s two rare endemic parrot
species, the sisserou and the jacko.
Co-ordinates
15.3º N 61.4º W
Sea level
Roseau
DOMINICA
Venturing out
As befits the capital of the Caribbean’s “Nature Isle”, Roseau is surrounded
by green — a backdrop of precipitous hills and mountains. Less than five
miles from the centre of the city are the twin Trafalgar Falls, with cold and hot
cascades (the latter volcanically heated) plunging side by side. There’s a hiking
trail, a viewing platform for photos, and natural rock pools for swimming and
splashing.
Or, heading south instead of west, a five-mile drive will take you to the
village of Scotts Head, near Dominica’s southern tip — gateway to the
Soufrière–Scotts Head Marine Reserve, one of the Caribbean’s most famous
dive sites. A dive, snorkel, or swim over Champagne Reef is one of Dominica’s
unmissable experiences. Vents in the sea floor release a continuous fizz of
volcanic gases, heating the water to bathtub temperature and creating a
natural Jacuzzi effect.
Holger Wulschlaeger / shutterstock.com
The Rhys tour
The writer Jean Rhys — born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams — may be
Dominica’s most celebrated child of the soil, even though she left the island at
the age of seventeen and spent her life elsewhere. Her childhood Roseau home,
a wooden house on the corner of Independence Street and Cork Street, still
stands, slightly battered-looking. Elsewhere in the city, you can visit St George’s
Anglican Church, where Rhys was christened, and the site of the convent school
near the Roman Catholic cathedral which Rhys attended (and described in her
novel Wide Sargasso Sea).
arun madisetti / images dominica
Caribbean Airlines operates regular flights to V.C. Bird
International Airport in Antigua, with connections on other
airlines to Dominica
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Advertorial
The Bahamas
Home to the one and only
Junkanoo Carnival
T
he debate on the merits of Bahamas Junkanoo
Carnival goes on, but the positives can’t be
denied! The inaugural Bahamas Junkanoo
Carnival in May 2015 was a huge success,
and brought smiles of joy to many a sceptic. Thousands
of people flocked to our beautiful Bahama shores to
participate in the newest cultural extravaganza in the
region. An estimated ninety thousand revellers from the Family Islands of The
Bahamas, several countries in the Caribbean, the Americas, and places as farflung
as the UK, Europe, Australia, and China converged at Clifford Park for a
smorgasbord of culture, creativity, and cuisine. And they weren’t disappointed —
in fact, the word is that this “new kid on the block” event exceeded all expectations
and created a thirst for more.
Thousands of people flocked to our beautiful
Bahama shores to participate in the newest
cultural extravaganza in the region
Mandated by Prime Minister Perry Christie to produce an epic festival which
would redound to the benefit of Bahamian entrepreneurs, young cultural ambassadors,
and fledgling artistes, Chairman of the Bahamas Festival Commission Paul
Major, his Chief Executive Officer Roscoe Dames, and the other Commissioners
worked really hard to put together an unforgettable experience for all to enjoy.
Of course, the Commission was fully aware of the daunting task ahead — but
the excitement of Bahamians having their own Carnival was too enticing, and numerous
persons from New Providence and many of our Family Islands flocked to
be involved in costume production, cultural presentations, and gourmet creations
to tantalise the tastebuds of the world.
An essential and irreplaceable
ingredient of Bahamas Junkanoo
Carnival is the unique infusion of the
indomitable Junkanoo spirit, culture,
and drive of our dedicated, devoted,
and experienced Junkanoos into the
unadulterated passion, abandon, and
free-spiritedness of lyrical latitude and
prancing in the streets. The combination
is electrifying! But you’ll experience
it for yourself only if you join us for the
Carnival Kick-Off in Freeport, Grand
Bahama, in April and the grand finale
in Nassau in early May.
While wending your way back home
with strains of melodious Music Masters
in your head, you’ll also be saying
Bahamas Junkanoo Carnival really got
it going on!
Come, see for yourself: “Bahamas
got carnival too! Oh yeah!”
For further information, please visit
bahamasjunkanoocarnival.com
or bahamas.com
Written by Elaine Monica Davis
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ROUND TRIP
T photography / Shutterstock.com
Carnival
planet
The pre-Lenten Carnival season,
celebrated across the Caribbean, isn’t
unique to our region. Carnival is a
global phenomenon, with festivities at
this time of year on five continents —
and usually in countries and cities with
a “creole” cross-cultural history
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
It’s the world’s biggest Carnival — with
over two million revellers on the streets —
and probably the most famous. Carnival is
celebrated in cities across Brazil, but the
most spectacular of them all is in Rio, the
former capital. And the centre of attention is
the Sambadrome, a canyon-like parade route
lined with spectators gathered to watch the
energetically choreographed procession of
the samba schools, escorting gigantic floats
with historical and political themes.
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Massimo Calmonte (www.massimocalmonte.it) / GETTY IMAGES
Venice, Italy
Distinctive masks hand-made from glass or porcelain give Carnival celebrations
in Italy’s city of canals an eerie atmosphere, in keeping with the winter fogs that
swirl in from the Adriatic Sea. Venice’s long history as a crossroads of trade
between Europe and Asia inspires elaborate costumes that blend medieval
and Renaissance touches with fantastic visual elements. Traditional mask
styles suggest a range of traditional characters: such as the Plague Doctor with
his long nose, or Pantalone, Colombina, and Arlecchino from the Commedia
dell’arte, or the ghostly, stark-white volto.
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MIC DAX
Mindelo, Cape Verde
Off the west coast of Africa, the island nation of Cape Verde shares a history
of Portuguese colonisation with Brazil and Goa — and the annual Carnival is
a close cousin as well. The traditional centre is the port city of Mindelo, where
tens of thousands of revellers gather for samba-inspired music, and costumes
that range from pretty feather-and-sequin creations to head-to-toe layers of
paint, mud, or oil, recalling J’Ouvert celebrations across the Atlantic in the
Caribbean.
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Dinodia Photo / PASSAGE / GETTY
Goa, India
A Portuguese colony on India’s west coast for over four centuries, the state
of Goa has a unique hybrid culture, exemplified by the annual Carnival
celebrations, centred in Panjim. Presided over by King Momo, a deity of revelry,
Goa Carnival began in the eighteenth century. Troupes of masqueraders
accompany floats through the streets, ending with a famous red-and-black
dance. Meanwhile, in the state’s rural districts, Catholic families celebrate the
pre-Lenten “farewell to the flesh” with music, feasting, and house-to-house
processions.
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Binche, Belgium
Near the border with France, the Belgian town of Binche is home to one
of Europe’s most distinctive Carnivals, where hundreds of local men
don identical costumes of wax masks, striped linen suits, and wooden
clogs to represent the character of Gilles. Dancing to the beat of drums,
the Gilles carry bunches of twigs, said to ward off evil. After assembling
at the town hall, the Gilles trade their masks for towering headdresses
of ostrich plumes, and throw oranges into the crowds of spectators —
tokens of good luck.

Weskerbe / Shutterstock.com
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Cape Town, South Africa
Unlike most other Carnivals profiled here, Cape Town’s Minstrel Carnival
falls not in the days before Lent, but at the start of the New Year, on
2 January. With its heart in the Bo-Kaap neighbourhood (or Malay Quarter)
at the foot of Signal Hill, the Minstrel Carnival began during the era of slavery
and evolved over two centuries into a commemoration of Cape Town’s
creole culture, reinvigorated after the end of Apartheid. Like traditional
minstrel characters in Trinidad Carnival, Cape Town’s minstrel troupes were
influenced by nineteenth-century minstrel bands from the United States
— subverting a racist tradition and transforming it into a celebration of the
mixed-race “Cape Coloured” community and its perseverance.

Rapport / GALLO IMAGES / GETTY
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gary yim / Shutterstock.com
Oruro, Bolivia
Long before the modern Carnival, the city of Oruro in the Bolivian Andes
was a centre of religious pilgrimage for indigenous peoples. Officially banned
by Spanish colonisers in the seventeenth century, the annual Itu festival was
continued by indigenous locals under the guise of a Catholic ceremony on the
feast of Candlemas. Today’s Carnival retains these religious elements — and
also reflects the region’s dominant industry, silver mining — paying homage to
the Virgen del Socavón, the Virgin of the Mineshaft, patroness of miners. Dozens
of traditional dances include the Diablada, whose performers wear alarming
devil costumes with bulging eyes.
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Siouxsnapp / Shutterstock.com
New Orleans, United States
Mardi Gras festivities in Louisiana — then a French colony — date back to
1699, predating the founding of New Orleans. Opening on 6 January, the
Mardi Gras season includes weeks of masked balls and parades, culminating
on Fat Tuesday itself. Spectators vie for “throws,” trinkets like beads and
wooden coins, flung into the crowds by revellers riding on decorated floats.
Another distinctive element: “tribes” of Mardi Gras Indians from New Orleans’
black communities, in costumes influenced by Native Americans, performing
traditional dances and songs — cousins of Trinidad Carnival’s fancy Indians. n
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LAYOVER
Eric Baker / shutterstock.com
At just over one hundred square miles, and famous for its reputed 365 beaches — one for
each day of the year — Antigua is both a popular holiday destination, home to some of
the Caribbean’s most luxurious resorts, and a common hub for intra-regional travellers.
It’s also just small enough for you to get out of the airport on a long layover and enjoy a
taste of the landscape and culture, before you board your connecting flight.
courtesy cecIlia’s cafe
Near the northern end of the Leeward Islands,
Antigua is a frequent hub for Caribbean travel. Our
guide to exploring the island when time is tight
The nice thing about island
airports: sometimes there’s a beach
practically on the terminal doorstep.
Like Dutchman’s Bay, a few minutes’
drive from V.C. Bird International
Airport, where the popular Cecilia’s
Café offers not just delicious food
and drink, but a changing room
with showers, where you can slip
into and out of your bathing suit.
Why spend hours inside the airport
when you could be having a swim?
Or, with a whole afternoon to while away, head
into the capital, St John’s, and to Redcliffe Quay,
where a cluster of historic Georgian buildings on
the waterfront have been converted to restaurants
and quaint shops offering local goods. Lunch and a
spot of shopping? Why not?
courtesy key properties
Alessandro Lai / shutterstock.com
History buff? Also within easy
reach of the airport are the
restored windmills of Betty’s Hope
plantation, now run as a museum.
The interpretive centre tells the
story of the island’s sugar industry,
run for centuries using the labour
of enslaved Africans. Also in the
vicinity: the historic churches of
St Peter and St George.
ATGImages / Shutterstock.com
A Saturday morning in St John’s before
your afternoon flight? Head to Market
Street, where Saturday vendors offer
everything from famously sweet
Antigua black pineapples to homegrown
herbs, souvenirs, and tasty
street food. It’s a chance to pick up
some bargains and some local gossip
at the same time.
A day to spare on a business trip?
Head out of St John’s to English
Harbour on Antigua’s south coast,
and explore a historic site that was
once the main Royal Navy base in the
West Indies. Alongside the Nelson’s
Dockyard Museum buildings, you’ll
find a yachting marina, restaurants,
and nightspots. Where better to taste
the Antiguan rum that once helped
Britannia rule the waves?
Lawrence Roberg / shutterstock.com
106 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

engage
courtesy megapower barbados
100
The Deal
Electric avenues
102
On This Day
The remains of the Danes
Barbados leads the Caribbean region in adopting environmentally friendly electric vehicles
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 107

THE DEAL
Electric
avenues
Around the world, entrepreneurs
are investing in electric cars as the
transport of the future. But are
they taking off in the Caribbean?
Shelly-Ann Inniss investigates
Photograph by Nerhuz / Shutterstock.com
Some of my fondest childhood
memories involve cars.
My father and I used to play
a game called “guess that
car” — down to the year of
the vehicle. I wanted my own
car very badly, so my parents bought me
several toy versions. What I really desired
was a remote-controlled car, but that was
an extravagance my parents didn’t indulge.
Luckily, in my adult years, technology
has exponentially evolved. Now those
remote-controlled cars have morphed
into full-fledged stylish, economical, fast,
smart, road-worthy electric vehicles —
minus the remote and with a much bigger
battery — and they seem ideal for the
Caribbean, due to the size of our islands
and our abundant renewable energy
resources, like sunlight.
Pure or one-hundred-per-cent electric
vehicles (EVs) are powered by energy
stored in their rechargeable batteries, or
other energy storage devices. Fundamentally,
engines, gas tanks, oil filters, and tail
pipes are non-existent in these vehicles,
108 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

which makes EVs one of the cleanest
forms of transport. No more changing
of gears, either. With electricity comes
acceleration, and it’s instant, smooth, and
exhilarating.
Some people have “range anxiety,”
and worry about running out of battery
power before reaching their destination
— but the drive range of an average
EV is approximately one hundred miles
on a single charge. Given the average
mileage on daily commutes and the size
of most Caribbean islands, a full charge
may last up to three days. It also costs
less to recharge than to fill up at the gas
pump, and the added value is that there’s
little maintenance cost over the lifetime
of the vehicle — the only servicing these
vehicles need is tyre alignment, changing
the wipers, and new batteries every
six to eight years. Some Caribbean
drivers have already become early
adopters of these cars, and it’s
possible they won’t even check
their rear-view mirrors to see what
the old internal combustion engine
vehicle is up to.
In 2009, Cayman Automotive
pioneered the presence of EVs in
the Caribbean. They also fostered
EV rentals as a tourism product in
the Cayman Islands. From there, the rest
of the Caribbean gradually took interest,
thus leading to the first-ever Caribbean
International Electric Auto show in 2012,
hosted in Cayman. Almost like passing
the baton in a relay, other islands began
running with the idea, researching and
putting measures in place to introduce
these vehicles. Today you’ll also
find EVs in Aruba, Trinidad, Grenada,
St Vincent, Montserrat, Cuba, Bermuda,
St Lucia, Guyana, and the Bahamas. And
currently leading the way, with over 160
privately owned EVs, is Barbados. At
the 2015 Caricom energy conference, it
was announced that Barbados is ranked
sixth in the world in percentage of EVs
relative to total vehicles in the country.
Barbados is just 166 square miles,
hence making an encounter with an EV,
or one of the thirty-nine available charging
stations, almost inevitable. Joanna
Edghill, managing director of Megapower,
believes Barbados and the islands
of the OECS don’t have an argument for
Electric vehicles seem ideal
for the Caribbean, due to the
size of our islands and our
abundant renewable energy
resources, like sunlight
hybrid vehicles — a cross between an EV
and a gas-fuelled vehicle — like larger
countries. Megapower is Barbados’s only
specialist EV garage, and is considered
an infrastructure expert, over and above
EVs — especially with their advanced
solar carports. Their concept is to offset
the charging of EVs with renewable
energy: the net effect is to pump sufficient
solar power into the grid to offset pulling
electricity from it. The solar energy generated
using this method can reduce your
electricity bill or reward you with credits.
Grenada Electricity Services Ltd
(Grenlec), in partnership with Megapower
and supported by the Grenada government,
embarked on an EV pilot project in
September 2015, to obtain relevant data
on the use of EVs in their local environment.
Preliminary data show savings
of fifty per cent of the cost of gas. And
although the power plant that generates
electricity does produce emissions, EVs
operate at a much higher efficiency, and
therefore produce fewer pollutants than
gas-powered vehicles.
Towards the shift to sustainable
transport, other governments are
actively encouraging EVs as a
viable option, either waiving the import
duty and VAT, or reducing motor vehicle
taxes. According to Edghill, the Barbados
government has even purchased two
Nissan Leaf EVs as part of a pilot
project. Five years after its introduction,
the Leaf became the world’s bestselling
pure EV by surpassing two hundred
thousand vehicles in December 2015. In
Barbados, the cost of a brand new Leaf
ranges from US$30,000 to US$33,000.
On the other side of the track, Trinidad
and Tobago may be a “backmarker” with
EVs, thanks to subsidised gas. T&T’s
National Gas Company also recently
invested TT$150 million in compressed
natural gas (CNG) infrastructure: the construction
of CNG stations, the conversion
of vehicles to CNG, and public education
and marketing. With over eight hundred
thousand licensed vehicles on Trinidad
and Tobago’s roads, approximately four
thousand are CNG vehicles — including
thirty-five buses owned by the Public
Transport Service Corporation. So EVs
may be not be a high priority on the T&T
government’s agenda at the moment —
but the Trinidad-based company Smart
Energy believes that CNG vehicles will
soon be surpassed by EVs.
Smart Energy CEO Ian Smart is
adamant that renewable technology is the
way of the future. His company launched
EVs in Trinidad by introducing
the Tesla. Costing upwards of
US$100,000, these are sleek, highend,
luxurious EVs with advanced
features like auto-pilot, automatic
software updates, and other innovative
technology. “I’m not sure
the world fully recognised what
Tesla meant when they said their
cars are full robots that can drive
themselves,” says Kurt Valley, a
sales executive at Smart Energy.
He compared this world-changing development
to when the Internet was first
designed and people didn’t know what it
could lead to.
At present, EVs are making a parade
lap, as people become more aware of
their environmental benefits. Since the
Paris Agreement on climate change has
become international law — putting caps
on global emissions and establishing
guidelines for international collaboration
— it’s probable there’ll soon be a greater
demand for EVs. Here in the Caribbean,
Caricom continues to develop policies
for sustainable transport. And with
government support — and perhaps the
incorporation of EVs as public service
vehicles — there’s a strong chance that
within the next decade these vehicles will
be widespread in our region, gradually
pushing old-fashioned internal combustion
vehicles to the back of the lot. It
certainly seems like EVs are in the fast
lane, driving towards a brighter, cleaner
future. n
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 109

on this day
The remains
of the Danes
The Danish West Indies? It’s a part
of Caribbean history that’s little
remembered today. James Ferguson
explains how and why the Kingdom
of Denmark got into the colonisation
business — and sold its
Caribbean possessions to the
United States, exactly a
century ago
Illustration by Rohan Mitchell
The Caribbean, as we know, is a part of the world with a long,
complex, and quite often unpleasant colonial history. We
also know who the main colonial powers were, and which
islands and mainland territories they controlled. They
were, of course, Spain (first to arrive on the scene, courtesy
of an Italian navigator named Columbus), England
(before union with Scotland created Britain), France, and the Netherlands.
These four European nations accounted for the vast majority of Caribbean
colonisation, and their West Indian assets changed hands at a regular rate
during three centuries of superpower rivalry played out in the region.
But there were other, less known, colonisers. Sweden owned the
island of St Barthélemy from 1784 to 1898, while colonists from the
now-disappeared Duchy of Courland (in present-day Latvia) had a
precarious toehold in Tobago for five years before surrendering
to the Dutch (who, in turn, relinquished the island to English
forces). And then there were the Knights of Malta (or, to
give them their full title, Sovereign Military Hospitaller
Order of St John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta),
who between 1651 and 1665 ran St Barth, St Kitts, St Croix,
and St Martin. This religious and chivalrous order, born out
of the medieval crusading tradition and allied to early French
colonisers, understandably favoured islands named after saints.
110 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Among the also-rans of Caribbean
colonialism was another unlikely
European contender, but this one had
greater staying power than those above.
From 1672 until 1917, a small part of the
Caribbean — the Virgin Islands — was
ruled by another Scandinavian nation,
Denmark, until in January of that year,
exactly one hundred years ago, the Danes
decided to sell up and move on.
Back in the seventeenth century,
though, every self-respecting European
country wanted a tropical colony, mainly
because domestic demand for sugar
was seemingly insatiable, and the best
way to ensure supply was to establish
sugarcane plantations and import
what they produced. The problem for
Denmark, however, was that most of
the Caribbean was already colonised.
Several exploratory missions
ended in failure, but the
Danes persevered, and in May
1672 founded a settlement
on the island of St Thomas,
dislodging a small contingent
of Dutch traders (or pirates).
To ensure the commercial
viability of the venture, King
Christian V had formed the
Danish West India Company in
1671, a state-backed business
that would manage the settlement and
its plantations. It very nearly collapsed
even before it had started. Of the 190
people on board the frigate Færøe, which
sailed from Denmark — twelve officials,
116 company “employees” and sixty-two
released criminals and ex-prostitutes —
only 104 made it, seventy-seven dying
en route and nine escaping. Another
seventy-five died within a year, leaving
just twenty-nine souls in the colony.
From this unpromising start, the
Danish venture not only survived,
but even began to expand. In 1675
the neighbouring island of St John was
annexed (the third territory, St Croix,
would be purchased from the French
in 1733, bringing the entire area of the
three-island group to 133.73 square miles).
But life was still precarious, with frequent
pirate raids and inadequate manpower
to make the plantation system viable.
The solution was slavery, and the Danes
initially leased part of St Thomas to a
slaving company based in Brandenburg
(later Prussia), but in 1693 confiscated all
the company’s assets and began importing
slaves from Danish trading posts on the
west coast of Africa, principally presentday
Ghana. This initiated the classic
“triangular trade” system, practised by
other European powers: manufactured
European goods were sent to Africa, where
they were exchanged for slaves, who were
brought to the Caribbean to produce sugar
that was then shipped back to Europe.
The heyday of Denmark’s Caribbean
empire was probably at the end of the
eighteenth century, when St Croix’s
dynamic sugar industry depended on some
twenty thousand enslaved Africans. The
two-thousand-strong white population
consisted of many European nationalities,
Back in the seventeenth century,
every self-respecting European
country wanted a tropical colony,
mainly because domestic demand
for sugar was seemingly insatiable
and English was more widely spoken
than Danish. But after a series of slave
revolts was met with harsh repression,
the French Revolutionary Wars resulted
in the British occupying St Thomas
for a year from 1801. The subsequent
upheaval of the Napoleonic Wars led to
another period of British occupation, with
St Thomas and St Croix ruled from
London between 1807 and 1815.
These events ended the distinctively
Danish identity of the islands. Some
aspects of Scandinavian culture might
have survived in architecture and food,
but new settlers, particularly after the
abolition of slavery in 1848, included
indentured Indian plantation workers
and others who made St Croix more
cosmopolitan. St Thomas, meanwhile,
was almost a British colony, with its
bustling free port — “the emporium of the
Antilles” — home to the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company. Abolition, however, had
effectively crippled the sugar industry,
already under pressure from European
beet production. Exports and prices
plummeted, while the formerly enslaved
were forced to work for a pittance as
“free” labourers.
What had started as a dream of cheap
sugar and prosperity now turned into an
economic nightmare, where the Danish
government was subsidising its failing
and rebellious colonies. Eager to cut its
losses, Denmark entered into negotiations
with the United States over the islands’
sovereignty in 1867. Several agreements
were reached and then abandoned, but
the Americans’ desire to increase their
presence in the region (Puerto Rico had
been acquired from Spain in 1898) was
matched by Denmark’s wish to withdraw
gracefully.
The tipping point came with the
First World War and the
sinking by Germany of the
Lusitania in May 1915. The
US administration was fearful
that Germany could use the
Danish Virgin Islands as a
base for submarine operations
in the Caribbean and Atlantic.
Secretary of State Robert
Lansing made his feelings
clear to the Danish authorities:
if they were unwilling to
agree to a peaceful transition, the US
would simply occupy the territories. Not
surprisingly, a deal was quickly struck.
Signed by President Woodrow Wilson
on 16 January, 1917, the agreement came
into force three months later, with the
transfer to Denmark of US$25 million
in gold coin (nearly US$550 million in
current value). Five days later, the United
States declared war on Germany.
So began a new chapter in the history
of what were now the US Virgin Islands,
whose people are technically American
citizens but cannot vote in presidential
elections. Support for independence is
minimal, even though poverty remains
stubbornly prevalent. But with the advent
of the mass tourism industry, financial
services, and a growing high-tech sector,
the worst days of these islands are long
in the past. And Denmark, today a model
of liberal European values, can now also
forget its less than glorious foray into
empire-building. n
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 111

puzzles
Puzzle grid.pdf 1 11/15/16 12:34 PM
1 2 3 4 5
CARIBBEAN CROSSWORD
Across
1 Style of Victorian art, influenced by the Middle
Ages
8 Rastafarian hair [5]
10 Pre-Lenten Tuesday [5,4]
11 Disguise [10]
12 Info, for your computer [4]
14 In short supply [5]
15 Best kind of tuna? [8]
18 Dominican parrot [8]
19 Beloved of Cupid, according to the myth [6]
22 A home for eggs [4]
24 Three-sided [10]
26 Gentle giants who never forget [9]
27 Begin [5]
28 With a see-through keel?
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
6 7
8 9 10
11 12
13
14 15 16
17
18 19 20
21
22 23 24
25
26 27
Down
2 Man-powered carts [9]
3 Large terrier [8]
4 Most tender cut of meat [4]
5 Latin earth [5]
6 Finds fault [6]
7 Houdini did this [6]
9 Flattened [8]
10 Stallion’s mate [4]
13 Pork links [8]
16 Fancy word for “swing” [9]
17 Turn to open [8]
28
18 “Return to _______” [6]
20 White herons [6]
21 Mushroom tops [4]
23 Stainless metal [5]
25 Not that, but ______ [4]
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
by James Hackett
There are 10 differences between these two pictures. How many can you spot?
Spot the Difference answers
Woman’s visor has a pattern; there are different details between the steelpan sticks; bandanna on the left has a pattern; woman’s top has
different details; hair shape is slightly different; pan notes are aligned differently; there is an earring on the woman to the right; background
is different; skirts are different colours; woman on the right has knuckle details.
112 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

WORD SEARCH
aircraft
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Denmark
dhalpuri
dollar
electric
emporium
fuel
J’Ouvert
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Kingston
La Diablesse
Main Ridge
Mashramani
model
Moses
Nylon Pool
painter
Panorama
poet
reed
reef
samba
sci-fi
soca
tamarind
Trafalgar Falls
tuk
Victorian
Wailers
Caribbean Beat Magazine
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.
If the puzzle you want to do has
already been filled in, just ask your
flight attendant for a new copy of the
magazine!
Sudoku 9x9 - Puzzle 2 of 5 - Hard
Hard 9x9 sudoku puzzle
5 2
5 2 1 8
6 2 9
5 1 3 7
2 8
4 6 8 9
2 8 3
3 7 4 1
9 1
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
Sudoku 6x6 - Puzzle 1 of 5 - Hard
Easy 6x6 mini sudoku puzzle
3 5
4
3 1
4 3
1 2
6
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
www.sudoku-puzzle.net
Solutions
Caribbean Crossword
Word Search
L A S S B O T T O M E D
R E I O T S
L E P H A N T S 27 S T A R T
D T 25 T K P E L E
Sudoku
Mini Sudoku
Sudoku 6x6 - Solution 1 of 5 - Hard
Sudoku 9x9 - Solution 2 of 5 - Hard
Answers.pdf 1 11/15/16 12:34 PM
3 6 2 5 4 1
4 5 1 2 3 6
3 7 9 8 6 5 1 2 4
5 2 4 3 9 1 8 6 7
8 6 1 2 7 4 9 5 3
9 5 8 4 1 3 2 7 6
2 3 6 9 5 7 4 1 8
1 4 7 6 8 2 3 9 5
7 1 2 5 4 8 6 3 9
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
4 9 5 1 3 6 7 8 2
6 8 3 7 2 9 5 4 1
T R A F A L G A R F A L L S M
C H A M P A G N E T U K B E A
O J E A N R H Y S Q E W U M S
D A T F U E L E C T R I C P H
B
6
E 23 S T 24 T R I A N G U L A R
2 3 6 4 1 5
1 4 5 6 2 3
6 1 4 3 5 2
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
5 2 3 1 6 4
8
L
P
1
R
2
E R A P H 3 A E 4 L I 5 T E
I I O E E
7
O C K S
9 M
10 A R D I G R A S
A K Q A E N R C
M
11
R I A V I C T O R I A N C O R
I R M D W V J B N S L D O R A
N C A O A M R Y Y O E E O I M
G R R L I O A F L C W N S U A
T A I L L D E I O A A M A M N
O F N A E E P A N O R A M A I
S
14
S
18
A S Q U E R A D E 12 D A T A
E H A E A S
13 P
P A R S E 15 A L B A C 16 O R E
W H 17 D E U S
I S S E R O U P
19 S Y C H E
20
E D O 21 C A I G
G
28
E
26
N
22
L A D I A B L E S S E S T E I
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
Word search grid.pdf 1 11/29/16 1:27 PM
T R A F A L G A R F A L L S M
C H A M P A G N E T U K B E A
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
O J E A N R H Y S Q E W U M S
D A T F U E L E C T R I C P H
R I A V I C T O R I A N C O R
I R M D W V J B N S L D O R A
N C A O A M R Y Y O E E O I M
G R R L I O A F L C W N S U A
T A I L L D E I O A A M A M N
O F N A E E P A N O R A M A I
N T D R R L P M P R D R B R S
K I N G S T O N O P I K A E C
U J O U V E R T O S O D T E I
D H A L P U R I L O E E G D F
L A D I A B L E S S E S T E I
D H A L P U R I L O E E G D F
U J O U V E R T O S O D T E I
K I N G S T O N O P I K A E C
N T D R R L P M P R D R B R S
Caribbean Beat Magazine
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 113
Caribbean Beat Magazine
Word Search answers.pdf 1 11/29/16 1:30 PM

81% (2016 year-to-date: 7 December)

Caribbean Airlines
/
Across the World
CARIBBEAN
Trinidad Head Office
Airport: Piarco International
Reservations & information:
+ 868 625 7200 (local)
Ticket offices: Nicholas Towers,
Independence Square, Port of Spain;
Golden Grove Road, Piarco;
Carlton Centre, San Fernando
Baggage: + 868 669 3000 Ext 7513/4
Antigua
Airport: VC Bird International
Reservations & information:
+ 800 744 2225 (toll free)
Ticketing: VC Bird International Airport
Hours: Mon – Fri 8 am – 4 pm
Baggage: + 268-480-5705 Tues, Thurs, Fri, Sun,
or + 268 462 0528 Mon, Wed, Sat.
Hours: Mon – Fri 4 am – 10 pm
Barbados
Airport: Grantley Adams International
Reservations & information: 1 246 429 5929 /
1 800 744 2225 (toll free)
City Ticket Office: 1st Floor Norman Centre Building,
Broad Street, Bridgetown, Barbados
Ticket office hours: 6 am – 10 am & 11 am –
7 pm daily
Flight Information: + 1 800 744 2225
Baggage: + 1 246 428 1650/1 or + 1 246 428 7101
ext. 4628
Grenada
Airport: Maurice Bishop International
Reservations & Information:
1 800 744 2225 (toll free)
Ticketing: Maurice Bishop International Main
Terminal
Baggage: + 473 439 0681
Jamaica (Kingston)
Airport: Norman Manley International
Reservations & information: + 800 523 5585 (International);
1 888 359 2475 (Local)
City Ticket Office: 128 Old Hope Road, Kingston 6
Hours: Mon-Fri 7.30 am – 5.30 pm,
Saturdays 10 am – 4 pm
Airport Ticket Office: Norman Manley Airport
Counter #1
Hours: 3.30 am – 8 pm daily
Baggage: + 876 924 8500
Jamaica (Montego Bay)
Airport: Sangster International
Reservations & information:
+ 800 744 2225 (toll free)
Ticketing at check-in counter:
8.30 am – 6 pm daily
Baggage: + 876 363 6433
Nassau
Airport: Lynden Pindling International
Terminal: Concourse 2
Reservations & information: + 1 242 377 3300
(local)
Airport Ticket Office: Terminal A-East Departure
Hours: Flight days – Sat, Mon, Thurs 10 am – 4 pm
Non-flight days – Tues, Wed, Fri 10 am – 4 pm
Flight Information: + 1 242 377 3300 (local)
Baggage: + 1 242 377 7035 Ext 255
9 am – 5 pm daily
St Maarten
Airport: Princess Juliana International
Reservations & information: + 1721 546 7660/7661
(local)
Ticket office: PJIA Departure Concourse
Baggage: + 1721 546 7660/3
Hours: Mon – Fri 9 am – 5 pm / Sat 9 am – 6 pm
St Lucia
Airport: George F L Charles
Reservations & information: 1 800 744 2225
Ticket office: George F.L. Charles Airport
Ticket office hours: 10 am – 4 pm
Baggage contact number: 1 758 452 2789
or 1 758 451 7269
Tobago
Airport: ANR Robinson International
Reservations & information: + 868 660 7200 (local)
Ticket office: ANR Robinson International Airport
Baggage: + 639 0595 / 631 8023
Flight information: + 868 669 3000
NORTH AMERICA
Fort Lauderdale
Airport: Hollywood Fort Lauderdale International
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225
(toll free)
Ticketing: Terminal 4 – departures level (during
flight check-in ONLY – 7 am to 6 pm)
Baggage: + 954 359 4487
Miami
Airport: Miami International
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225
(toll free)
Ticketing: South Terminal J – departures level (during
flight check-in ONLY – 11.30 am to 3.00 pm);
Baggage: + 305 869 3795
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Airport: Orlando International
Reservations & information:
+ 800 920 4225 (toll free)
Ticketing: Terminal A – departures level
(during flight check-in ONLY – Mon/Fri 10:30 am –
1.30 pm Tue/Thur 12.30 pm – 3.30 pm)
Baggage: + 407 825 3482
New York
Airport: John F Kennedy International
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225
(toll free)
Ticketing: Concourse B, Terminal 4, JFK
International – open 24 hours (situated at departures,
4th floor)
Baggage: + 718 360 8930
Toronto
Airport: Lester B Pearson International
Reservations & information: + 800 920 4225
(toll free)
Ticket office: Terminal 3
Ticketing available daily at check-in counters
422 and 423. Available 3 hours prior to
departure times
Baggage: + 905 672 9991
SOUTH AMERICA
Caracas
Airport: Simón Bolívar International
Reservations & information:
+ 58 212 3552880
Ticketing: Simón Bolívar International Level 2 –
East Sector
Hours: 7 am – 11 pm
City Ticket Office: Sabana Grande Boulevard,
Building “Galerias Bolivar”, 1st Floor, office 11-A,
Caracas, Distrito Capital
+ 58 212 762 4389 / 762 0231
Baggage: + 58 424 1065937
Guyana
Airport: Cheddi Jagan International
Reservations & information: + 800 744 2225
(toll free)
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)
Baggage: + 597 325 437

737 onboard Entertainment — JANUARY/FEBRUARY
Northbound
Southbound
J A N U A R Y
Queen of Katwe
A young girl from the streets of rural Uganda is introduced to
the game of chess and cultivates a dream of becoming an international
chess champion.
The Hollars
When John Hollar returns to his hometown as his mother needs
brain surgery, he attempts to straddle the line between his old
life and his current one.
David Oyelowo, Lupita Nyong’o, Madina Nalwanga • director: Mira Nair •
drama • PG • 124 minutes
Sharlto Copley, Charlie Day, Richard Jenkins • director: John Krasinski •
comedy, family • PG-13 • 89 minutes
Northbound
Southbound
Pete’s Dragon
An orphaned boy named Pete embarks on an adventure with his
best friend Elliot, who just happens to be a dragon.
Bryce Dallas Howard, Karl Urban, Oona Laurence • director: David Lowery •
fantasy, adventure • PG-13 • 102 minutes
Central Intelligence
When a fast-talking accountant reconnects with an old high
school acquaintance, he finds himself drawn into a world of
shootouts and espionage.
Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Amy Ryan • director: Rawson Marshall
Thurber • comedy, adventure • PG-13 • 107 minutes
F E B R U A R Y
Audio Channels
Channel 5 • The Hits
Channel 7 • Concert Hall
Channel 9 • Irie Vibes
Channel 11 • Calypso
Channel 6 • Soft Hits
Channel 8 • East Indian Fusion
Channel 10 • Jazz Sessions
Channel 12 • Steelband Jamboree

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parting shot
This old
house
One of the treasures of Cuba’s capital is the
concentration of historic architecture in Old Havana,
reflecting five centuries of evolving style and taste —
boasting everything from colonial baroque to early
twentieth-century Art Deco, and ranging from the
picturesquely crumbling to the meticulously restored.
Photography by jedamus / Shutterstock.com
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