Caribbean Beat — September/October 2017 (#147)

Is your Lady Luck
a princess?
Princess Hotels and Casinos
Belize
Ramada Belize City Princess Hotel
Princess Belize City Casino
Princess Freezone Hotel and Casino
Next Night Club – San Ignacio
Elite Night Club – Belize City
Princess San Ignacio Casino
Dominican Republic
Ramada Santo Domingo Princess Hotel
Princess Santo Domingo Casino
Guatemala
Guyana
Ramada Georgetown Princess Hotel
Princess Georgetown Casino
Princess Cinemas and Arcade
Next Night Club – Georgetown
Nicaragua
Princess Nicaragua Casino
Next Night Club – Managua
Panama
Sercotel Panama Princess Hotel
Princess Casino
Saint Maarten
Princess Coliseum Casino
Princess Tropicana Casino
Suriname
Ramada Paramaribo Princess Hotel
Princess Suriname Casino
Princess Paramaribo Casino
Trinidad
Princess Movietowne – Port of Spain
Princess Price Plaza – Chaguanas
Southpark Princess – San Fernando
Next Night Club – San Fernando
HOTELS &
CASINOS
Guatemala Princess Casino –
Galerias Prima
Princess Port de Plaisance Hotel
and Casino
www.worldofprincess.com
Play responsibly

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Contents
No. 147 September/October 2017
36
40
EMBARK
19 Datebook
Events around the Caribbean in
September and October, from Diwali
in Guyana to the World Creole Music
Festival in Dominica
26 Word of Mouth
Hook, line, sinker: a fishing
tournament in Antigua means equal
parts exhilaration and exhaustion,
and a one-off public holiday
commemorates the First Peoples and
indigenous heritage of Trinidad and
Tobago
32 Bookshelf, playlist, and
screenshots
This month’s reading, listening, and
film-watching picks, to keep you
culturally up-to-date
36 Cookup
best of brew
Coffee grown in the Caribbean is
some of the world’s finest. Pricey
Blue Mountain coffee from Jamaica’s
high elevations is celebrated by
connoisseurs — but can locals
actually afford it? And what can
Trinidad and Tobago’s farmers learn
from Jamaica as they seek to revive
their own coffee production? Franka
Philip talks to the experts about the
present state and future prospects
for the business of coffee beans
IMMERSE
40 snapshot
Stories like ours
His passion for film started when he
was growing up in Barbados. It led
Jason Jeffers to make the awardwinning
short documentary Papa
Machete, and to found the Third
Horizon Caribbean Film Festival in
Miami. What these initiatives have
in common, he tells Nailah Folami
Imoja, is a dedication to telling
Caribbean stories and changing the
way the world imagines our islands
44 Q&A
“I let the tides tug me along”
With his debut book Make Us All
Islands shortlisted for a prestigious
Forward Prize, BVI poet Richard
Georges is the latest Caribbean
writer to make a splash beyond
home shores. He talks to Shivanee
Ramlochan about the special
challenges of writing from a small
place
46 backstory
A voice for all
As head of the Association of
Caribbean States, appointed in 2016,
St Lucian June Soomer keeps regional
integration high on the agenda. She
tells Shelly-Ann Inniss how her career
as historian and diplomat prepared
her for this trailblazing new role
ARRIVE
50 Escape
One destination, 32 islands
Near the southern end of the
Antillean chain, St Vincent and the
Grenadines is one country made up
of thirty-two islands. Welcome to
the charms of Caribbean Airlines’
latest destination — from the clear
turquoise water of the Tobago
Cays to St Vincent’s volcanic black
beaches, to the gingerbread cottages
of Mustique and the boat-builders of
Bequia
58 neighbourhood
Lethem, Guyana
Far from Georgetown and the Atlantic
coast, Guyana’s raffish border town
is a gateway to neighbouring Brazil
— and to the adventures of the
Rupununi, with its rolling savannahs,
misty mountains, forests, birds, and
beasts
60 travellers’ tales
An archipelago diary
The islands of the Aegean Sea are
the original archipelago, which
has lent its name to scatterings of
islands everywhere else in the world.
Under the baking summer sun, Philip
Sander explores the Cyclades, from
picturesque hill villages to ancient
ruins to glistening bays, and feels
oddly at home
10 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

CaribbeanBeat
An MEP publication
50
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
Yuri Chin Choy
T: (868) 460 0068, 622 3821
F: (868) 628 0639
E: yuri@meppublishers.com
Business Development Manager
Tobago
Evelyn Chung
T: (868) 684 4409
F: (868) 628 0639
E: evelyn@meppublishers.com
ENGAGE
68 Green
Redonda rescue
Tiny Redonda, with its steep and
barren cliffs, is home to colonies of
seabirds, rare lizards found nowhere
else — and, until recently, hordes of
invasive goats and rats. But a new
restoration project aims to return
Redona to its original inhabitants.
Erline Andrews learns more
70On this day
The Lüders affair
One hundred and twenty years ago,
a minor dispute in Port-au-Prince
escalated into an international
incident, with the German navy
threatening to bombard the city.
James Ferguson remembers this
episode in the long history of foreign
powers meddling in Haiti’s affairs
72 puzzles
Our crossword, word search, and
other brain-teasers
78 Onboard entertainment
Keep yourself entertained in the
air, with new and classic movies and
eight audio channels
Halcyon Salazar
T: (868) 622 3821
F: (868) 628 0639
E: hsalazar@meppublishers.com
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
80 parting shot
Puerto Rico’s Cueva Ventana offers
visitors a stunning natural view of
the Arecibo valley
The Caribbean Airlines logo shows a hummingbird in flight. Native to the Caribbean, the hummingbird represents
flight, travel, vibrancy, and colour. It encompasses the spirit of both the region and Caribbean Airlines.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 11

AdvertoriAl
Gareth Jenkins and Petrice Jones, lead actors in Play the Devil
Challenging yet exciting times
ahead for Caribbean film
When the trinidad+tobago film festival (ttff)
began in 2006, few local films were being
made and there wasn’t much of an audience
for Caribbean cinema. But the recent
trajectory of local features with international appeal
suggests things are changing.
Films such as God Loves the Fighter, Play the Devil,
and The Cutlass have all played to sold-out audiences
during the ttff, won awards for best T&T film, and have
gone on to successfully screen in other parts of the
world. The latest two narrative features to have their
Caribbean premieres at ttff/17 — Green Days by the
River (Michael Mooleedhar, T&T, 2017) and Moko Jumbie
(Vashti Anderson, T&T/USA, 2017) — are expected to perform
similarly.
There are a number of organisations working to support
the development of a Caribbean film industry, including
the University of the West Indies film programme,
FilmTT, and of course the ttff, presented by Flow, whose
annual exhibition of films takes place in September.
With a mission to facilitate the growth of Caribbean
cinema, the festival is currently taking stock of what
has been achieved and its next critical steps. Following
feedback from its stakeholders, the festival has already
begun to provide training in script development and will
continue with training workshops during this year’s
festival, from 19 to 26 September. A day of panels and
presentations to support co-productions is also carded,
as well as a focus on women in film.
The 2016 ttff team
The recent trajectory of local
features with international appeal
suggests things are changing
Christian James and Michael Mooleedhar,
the producer and director of Green Days by the River
As an increasing number of quality local films are being
produced, despite limited funding, there’s much to be
excited about for Caribbean film.

This issue’s contributors include:
Cover Bequia‘s colourful
coconut boats
Photo mauritius images
GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo
Erline Andrews (“Redonda rescue”, page 68) is an
award-winning journalist with almost two decades
of experience in the field. Her work has appeared
in publications in Trinidad and Tobago and the US,
including the Chicago Tribune and the Christian
Science Monitor magazine.
James Ferguson (“The Lüders affair”, page 70)
is a UK-based writer and editor, and longtime
contributor to Caribbean Beat. He is the proprietor
of Signal Books.
Nailah Folami Imoja (“Stories like ours”, page 40)
is an award-winning Barbadian-British writer and
educator whose favourite aspect of Barbados is its
people. Her novellas include Colourblind, To Protect
& Serve, and Fantasy Fulfilled, and are available via
www.smashwords.com.
From an initial background in finance, Shelly-Ann
Inniss (“A voice for all”, page 46) decided to
explore her love for writing and media. A Trinidadbased
Barbadian writer and editorial assistant at
Caribbean Beat, she is an explorer and adventureseeker
at heart.
Franka Philip (“Best of brew”, page 36) is a
Trinidadian journalist who is deeply passionate
about food and food issues. She is features editor
for the Trinidad Guardian.
Shivanee Ramlochan (“I let the tides tug me along”,
page 44) is a Trinidadian poet and arts reporter,
and Bookshelf editor for Caribbean Beat. She also
writes about books for the NGC Bocas Lit Fest and
Paper Based Bookshop, Trinidad and Tobago’s
oldest independent Caribbean specialty bookseller.
She is the deputy editor of The Caribbean Review
of Books.
ADVERTORIAL
“Thank you for calling 211...”
This is the courteous service offered by the competent
staff of the 211 Contact Centre in Tobago, as they
disseminate accurate information to residents and
visitors of the twin island nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
Tobago Information Technology Limited (TITL) manages
and operates the 211 Contact Centre. TITL is a “special
purpose company” of the Tobago House of Assembly
(THA), staffed by over seventy specially trained personnel.
TITL’s mission is to facilitate the increase of digital opportunities
that will improve the socioeconomic development
of Tobago and Trinidad through the use of information and
communication technology (ICT).
By simply dialing a three-digit number, 211, the centre
provides Tobago residents and visitors with information on
the nine divisions of the THA, other government services,
as well as directory services for businesses throughout
Tobago and Trinidad, by extension. TITL also provides
twenty-four-hour access to emergency service providers
(TTPS, TTFS, TEMA, and TEMS), as well as facilitating
a free Emergency Medical Alert System (EMAS) for the
elderly and differently-abled citizens.
Calls to 211 can be made from anywhere in T&T.
TITL’s growing database is capable of providing customer
insights, and callers can expect a call-back on information
not readily available. Call centre services such as telephone
surveys and telemarketing are also conducted. Information
on the Tobago Jazz Experience, Tobago Heritage
Festival, Easter goat races, and other festivals is readily
available.
Other TITL Services include:
• The Employment Exchange Bureau (EXB) is easily accessed
via its website www.tobagojobs.gov.tt and
represents the commitment of the THA to provide a
synergy between employers and jobseekers, particularly
in Tobago.
• The IT literacy and community walk-in computer programs
offers free Internet access and computer literacy
training to residents as young as five years, facilitating
human resource capital development in Tobago.
• Professional IT Certifications and Tertiary programs
• Video call conferencing
• Medical and legal transcription
TITL can be contacted by calling 211
or 1 (868) 635 1941.
Next time you’re in Tobago
and need information on
“Anything Tobago,”
remember to call
211.
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 13

A MESSAGE From THE CARIBBEAN AIRLINES TEAM
At Caribbean Airlines, it is our privilege to serve you. We are
committed to providing safe, reliable, value-added service
throughout our nineteen-destination network.
As part of our mission to enhance your travel experience,
our city ticket office located on the mezzanine
floor of the Parkade Building, at the corner of Queen and
Richmond Streets in Port of Spain, Trinidad, has been outfitted
with state of the art ticketing
kiosks. Now you have the choice
of conducting business without
having to join the traditional line.
You may use the kiosks to conduct
all transactions that are currently
available on the Caribbean Airlines
website. It is our vision to eventually
place kiosks in hotel lobbies,
malls, and other high-traffic areas
for your easy access and convenience.
Be assured that the kiosks
are secure, as special software is
used which limits browsing to the
Caribbean Airlines website.
Earlier this year, RBC and Caribbean
Airlines signed an agreement
to renew our ten-year partnership.
This milestone in our successful
relationship represents another
example of our commitment to our
customers and to the communities
we serve. As companies with a
distinguished legacy in the Caribbean
and with a strong presence and representation globally,
RBC and Caribbean Airlines appreciate the importance
of partnership and of continuously innovating to deliver value.
The signing of the agreement paved the way for the
launch of the new RBC Caribbean Airlines Visa Platinum
credit card. The new card gives you greater choice and
opens a world of opportunity with additional benefits like
travel insurance and concierge services to make your travel
experience more convenient and enjoyable.
Our business is rapidly evolving, with technology and the
changing needs of our customers driving the pace of that
evolution. It calls for us to be a different type of airline: to be
agile, bold, courageous, and flexible, to forge strong and lasting
partnerships, and to be innovative.
As a business, we keep asking ourselves what’s next:
what do our customers want and what do they need. And
we are constantly challenging ourselves to deliver the right
products and services and a differentiated experience that
gives you the convenience, the choice, and the freedom that
you want.
As we continue to celebrate our tenth anniversary this
year, there will be more exciting developments. Look out for
special promotions in the months of September and October,
which will enable you to travel to destinations throughout
our network.
Some popular upcoming events include the annual Labour
Day Parade in New York, which takes place on 4 September.
Caribbean culture and history are
celebrated in the weeks leading
up to this lively street party along
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn.
From 9 to 13 October, Grenada
will be abuzz with activity when
the Caribbean Tourism Organistion
hosts the annual State of
the Industry Conference (SOTIC).
At this event, Caribbean tourism
policy-makers, public and private
sector partners, and travel professionals
gather to discuss issues,
and identify solutions and ways to
keep the region competitive, which
benefits our tourism industry.
Please check the Datebook
section of the magazine for a
full list of upcoming events for
September and October, and
take your complimentary copy
of Caribbean Beat with you.
Visit our website at www.caribbean-airlines.com, become
a fan by liking us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/
caribbeanairlines and follow us on Twitter and Instagram
@iflycaribbean.
Thank you for choosing Caribbean Airlines — we value
your business and look forward to serving you throughout
our network.
Yours in service,
The Employees of Caribbean Airlines
14 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Destination:
The RBC® Caribbean Airlines Visa ‡ Platinum personal and business credit
cards are everything you need. With Caribbean Miles and exclusive travel
benefits, it’s your perfect travel partner.
Start your journey. Apply now at rbc.com/miles-platinum.
The RBC ® Caribbean Airlines Visa ‡ Platinum credit cards are available to nationals of Trinidad and Tobago only
® / Trademark(s) of Royal Bank of Canada. Used under licence. ‡ Trademark(s) are the property of their respective owner(s).

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datebook
Your guide to Caribbean events in September and October,
from Carnivals to food festivals
amanda richards
Don’t miss . . .
Diwali
19 October
Guyana
Tiny deyas twinkle in the night. Their small rays bring hope
and positivity, as Mother Lakshmi, the goddess of light and
prosperity, is venerated and celebrated. It’s Diwali — also
known as Deepavali and Divali in other parts of the world
— the Hindu festival of light. In Guyana, families come
together, saying prayers in front of the Lakshmi murti
before illuminating the first deya. Sweets are shared as a
form of goodwill, and rangoli — intricate artworks made
from coloured rice, sand, or powder — are designed on
the floor. Don’t miss the motorcade held by the Guyana
Hindu Sabha, where impressive illuminated floats pass
through the streets to the sounds of tassa drums, bhajans,
and chowtals. Temples across the country also compete to
win the award for the best lit and decorated float. And
everyone is welcome. Of course, Diwali is also celebrated
in Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, and other Caribbean
countries with Hindu communities.
How to get there? Caribbean Airlines operates daily
flights to Cheddi Jagan International Airport in
Guyana, Piarco International Airport in Trinidad, and
Johann Pengel International Airport in Suriname from
destinations in the Caribbean and North America
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 19

datebook
If you’re in . . .
NEW YORK CITY
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
DOMINICA
Anika Photography courtesy WIADCA
Labour Day West Indian
Carnival
4 September
Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn
wiadcacarnival.org
It doesn’t matter how far you roam,
elements of home inevitably bubble
inside you. In New York City, the
first Caribbean Carnival was held in
the streets of Harlem in the 1940s.
If you guessed it was organised by
a Trinidadian, you’re right. Later on
came the annual West Indian Carnival
in the home of the Caribbean’s North
American diaspora: Brooklyn. Its
legacy has continued for fifty years,
with an ever-growing turnout on
Eastern Parkway.
Over two million participants
combine their voices and waistlines,
singing and jamming to top soca
hits. Don’t be surprised to see seniors
wining down low, commemorating
the milestone and paying homage
to their heritage. And the work of
the West Indian Carnival Association
goes beyond the magnificent parade:
it also presents college scholarships
and organises cultural workshops and
networking events.
Five treasured days of festivities
lead up to the finale. Music trucks,
food, and colourful costumes fill the
parkway. Be sure to indulge in the
gastronomic treats from almost every
island in the Caribbean. And don’t
forget your flag and earplugs!
mark lyndersay courtesy queen’s hall
Patrons of Queen’s Hall
Honour Performance
21 October
Queen’s Hall, Port of Spain
Music is like food. It provides
sustenance, changes moods, and
allows us to travel to places we’ve
never been. It digs deep, touching
parts of the soul not easily accessed.
The marriage of beautiful melodies to
well-crafted lyrics inspires, heightens
consciousness, and enables many a
reverie. Music is art. And art is power.
Over the years, rapso groups
3Canal and musical arranger Pelham
Goddard have created musical
landmarks in their homeland, Trinidad
and Tobago. In 1997, 3Canal made
a pivotal turn in Trinidad’s Carnival
music with their hit song “Blue”. In
1999, “Talk Yuh Talk” became “an
anthem for the dispossessed and
voiceless.” Meanwhile, Goddard’s
repertoire includes over thirteen
Road March songs, leading to wins
for David Rudder, Calypso Rose, and
Superblue. Now these outstanding
careers are being celebrated at the
Patrons of Queen’s Hall 2017 Honour
Performance.
The Patrons are an NGO promoting
the development of theatre arts in
T&T. The proceeds from the event
go towards recognising artistes
and artistic events in the country’s
theatrical history. So this is more
more than just a show: it’s about the
preservation of legacies.
World Creole Music Festival
27 to 29 October
Windsor Park
dominicafestivals.com
Have you heard of the festival that
never sleeps? Dominica, the otherwise
quiet nature-rich isle in the north
Leewards, annually attracts over
ten thousand people to its World
Creole Music Festival, the highlight
of International Creole Month every
October.
At the heart of Dominica’s culture
is its French-based Creole language,
widely spoken. The World Creole
Music Festival showcases Dominica’s
heritage with a strong focus on
fusions of other genres with Creole
forms. Kompa from Haiti, zouk
from Guadeloupe and Martinique,
soukous from West Africa, zydeco
from Louisiana, and Dominica’s own
bouyon will blend with soca, calypso,
dancehall, and other popular genres.
This year, for three pulsating
nights, the star-studded performers
will include the Zouk All Stars,
singer Orlane from Réunion in the
Indian Ocean, Francky Vincent from
Guadeloupe, Stéphane Ravor from
Martinique, and Bunji Garlin and Fay-
Ann Lyons from T&T. Even if you’ve
never uttered a word of Creole, you’ll
leave with an enhanced vocabulary —
who knows, you might even be able
to recite the chorus of a song.
Event previews by Shelly-Ann Inniss
Emily Eriksson/shutterstock.com
20 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

SURINAME
Maroon Day
10 October
Venues around Suriname
With its mix of ancestries and languages from four
continents, Suriname may be the most ethnically diverse
country in the Caribbean region. In this complicated
spectrum of heritages, Suriname’s Maroons stand out,
for their historical resilience as much as their rich, visually
distinctive culture.
As elsewhere in the Caribbean, the name “Maroon”
signifies the descendants of enslaved Africans who
managed to escape plantation bondage, finding refuge in
remote regions of Suriname’s interior. In 1760, unable to
subjugate the Maroons despite the advantage of superior
numbers and weaponry, the Dutch colonial authorities
signed a peace treaty granting the Maroons autonomy.
Over generations, they formed communities adapted to
life in the forest, where numerous rivers serve as highways
for trade and, when necessary, escape routes. Drawing on
memory of their ancestral life in west and central Africa,
and learning from the survival techniques of Suriname’s
indigenous peoples, the Maroons evolved into a series of
independent tribes, like the Saramaca, the Ndjuka, and the
Kwinti. Today, they make up almost a fifth of the country’s
population.
After Independence from the Netherlands in 1975,
and even through the brutal days of the Surinamese
civil war in the 1980s and 90s, the Maroons maintained
a strong sense of identity and devotion to their way of
life. Official recognition of their importance in Suriname’s
history and development came as recently as 2011, when
the first Maroon Day was recognised as a national public
holiday.
Maroon Day is an opportunity to contemplate the
resourcefulness and courage of those ancestors who took
freedom in their own hands, and to celebrate Maroon
art — especially renowned for textiles and wood-carving
— as well as music, dance, and food. And the rest of the
year, one of the best places to experience Maroon culture
is the town of Moengo, which — under the leadership
of Ndjuka artist Marcel Pinas — has become a creative
epicentre, with everything from a sculpture park to a
school of performing arts.
Ariadne Van Zandbergen
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 21

datebook
Sweet September
Antigua Warriors Cup International
Soccer Tournament
Upcoming young football stars take to the field as
they compete for the coveted trophy
[27 August to 10 September]
Johnny Jno-Baptiste
clifton li
Toronto International Film Festival
TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto
tiff.net
Film-lovers enjoy premieres and screenings of some of the
year’s best films from around the world
[7 to 17 September]
Started 27 August
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
Relax… Rejuvenate… Reconnect
• Warm friendly service
• Peaceful cosy rooms
• Yoga and massage
• Organic herb gardens
• World-renowned restaurant
• Live band on weekends
Come home to yourself… come home
to Kariwak… where Tobago begins.
· flip flops · swimwear ·
· surf accesssories ·
• rash guards · clothes ·
AND MUCH MORE
Where beach meets street
868 639 8442
info@kariwak.com
www.kariwak.com
@kariwakvillage
D’Colosseum Mall
Crown Point, Tobago
Tel: 639-8666
Shoppes@Westcity
Canaan, Tobago
Tel: 631-0263
12 Mucurapo Rd
St. James,
Trinidad
Prime Real Estate | Villa Rentals
30 Shirvan Road, Shirvan, Tobago
T: (868) 639-0929, 9297, 9901
M: (868) 680-8628 or (868) 496-3544
E: infoislreal@gmail.com | W: www.islreal.com
Tobago
Resort wear
Coco Reef Resort and Spa
(868) 631 5244
Magdalena Grand Beach Resort
(868) 631 0960
22 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Curaçao PRIDE
Venues around Curaçao
curacaopride.com
Rainbow flags fly high along Queen Emma Bridge, embracing five
days of non-stop celebration by the LGBT community
[27 September to 1 October]
Sunset Jazz in Frederiksted
St Croix, US Virgin Islands
Unwind to various forms of jazz against
a backdrop of palm trees, playful waves,
golden sand, and a gorgeous sunset
[15 September]
OlegDoroshin/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 3101
02 0
16 17 18 19
GOOD
food
GOOD
prices
Bambú
GIFT SHOP
Cnr Crompstain & Milford Rds, Crown Point, Tobago
Tel: (868) 639-8660 goodeatstobago
Rare & exotic arts and crafts
made in the Caribbean
Lovely Caribbean wear, collectibles,
accessories and much more...
#199 Milford Road, Crown Point, Tobago
T. 868-639-8133
E: mariela0767@hotmail.com
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 23

datebook
Obsessed
with October
Miami Carnival
Venues around Miami
miamibrowardcarnival.com
The Miami heat gets kicked up a notch with
J’Ouvert, pan competitions, and parades to rival
other Caribbean Carnivals
[8 October]
Fotoluminate LLC/shutterstock.com
Pure Grenada Dive Fest
Grenada and Carriacou
Ready to take the plunge?
Free beach dives, underwater
photography competitions, and a
day exploring the wrecks are some
of the adventures on offer
[11 to 14 October]
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
24 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

courtesy festival of speeed 2016
Carriacou Corn Festival
Footprints Behind the Sand resort
Roast corn, corn soup, and corn bread
are usual suspects. Discover lots more
scrumptious possibilities of the locally
grown staple
[29 October]
Festival of Speed
Bushy Park, Barbados
bushyparkbarbados.com
Fuel your need for speed in a vibrant
atmosphere with vehicles from around
the world, stuntmen, Formula One World
Champion Driver Jenson Button, and a
spectacular show of twister aerobatics
[14 October]
Jamaica Food and
Drink Festival
Venues around Kingston
jafoodanddrink.com
Enlighten your senses with
culinary mastery and tasteful
vibes at this highly anticipated
— and delicious — affair
[21 to 29 October]
Family Business/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
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 25

word of mouth
Dispatches from our correspondents around the Caribbean and further afield
istock.com/byrond
The line of
victory
Vicky James feels the exhilaration of
the struggle at Antigua’s Francis Nunes Jr
Memorial Fishing Tournament
It’s 3.30 am and my alarm is blaring. I groggily turn it off and force myself
to get out of bed. I don’t bother showering — I know it’s going to be a hot,
sweaty day. I put on some jean shorts and an old t-shirt and jump in the car
for the ride down to English Harbour.
It’s still dark when we get there. We park up and make our way to the boat
that’s been waiting since last night. The captain slept on the boat and the rest
of the crew is already on board. We start getting ready for the 6 am start of
the tournament.
The sun is now rising as we and the other boats leaving from English
Harbour make our way to our favourite fishing spot — nearly thirty miles
offshore. At exactly 6 o’clock, our lines hit the water. Another Francis Nunes Jr
Memorial Fishing Tournament — named for one of Antigua’s most avid sports
fishermen, who died in 2008 — has begun.
If you’ve never been sports fishing, it’s an experience not for the faint of
heart. Hours and hours in the hot sun, trolling back and forth along the bank
where the Antiguan land shelf drops into the deep
blue sea. Hours of boredom, watching the lines jerk
and shiver, waiting, waiting . . . until snap! The line
jumps and the reel starts to scream. It’s a strike!
The crew jump up and pull in all the lines except
the one that’s hooked the fish. The captain choses a
crew member to take the line. Since it’s a competition,
there are rules in place. Only one person can
set the hook and reel in the fish, but help is allowed
to bring the rod to the angler, so as I seat myself in
the fighting chair, it’s handed to me with the reel
still screaming while the line lets out.
It’s a good size fish. We’re not sure what — we’re
hoping for a kingfish or wahoo. I adjust the drag on
the reel so the line slows and the screaming stops.
I pull hard on the rod. The tip lifts above my head
and I quickly let it fall to waist height, reeling frantically
as I do so. I have to remember to guide the
line on to the reel so it doesn’t tangle.
I repeat the motion, and again, and again. My
arms and shoulders are starting to burn, but I’m
getting line back on the reel. Zing! And the fish has
taken back all the line I’d managed to reel in. It’s
exhausting, but so exhilarating.
Eventually, after an hour, the fish is tiring. It still
has some fight, though, and out behind the boat it
jumps, trying to throw the hook. It’s a beautiful
dolphin fish (also known as mahi-mahi). Its colours
flash yellow and green as it jumps again, trying its
best to escape. But victory is mine as I get it close
enough to land on the boat.
We return to the club with a few fish caught.
My dolphin is nearly thirty pounds, but none of
our crew wins any prizes this year. Doesn’t matter,
though, we have had an amazing day at the tournament.
And back on the dock there’s better to come,
as a seafood festival is underway. There’s a lot to
sample, with fresh fish, lobster, conch, and other
seafood on sale, not to mention copious amounts of
beer and rum to wash everything down.
I’m sunburned and tired, but as I lime and chat
with all my friends, I’m already looking forward to
the 2017 event, scheduled for 23 September.
For more information on the 2017 Francis
Nunes Jr Memorial Fishing Tournament,
visit www.antiguabarbudasportsfishing.
com
26 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

word of mouth
edison boodoosingh
First
comes first
Nixon Nelson explains the
significance of Trinidad and Tobago’s
long-overdue indigenous heritage
holiday in October
The earliest known Trinidadian is an individual
known as Banwari Man. That’s the name given
by archaeologists to the skeleton found in 1969 at
Banwari Trace in south Trinidad, buried in a shell midden
and dated to around 3,400 BC. That far back, it’s possible
Trinidad was still connected to Venezuela by a land bridge
across the Gulf of Paria. So the human history of Trinidad
began even before it was an island.
Most Trinidadians today still use the old anthropological
term “Amerindians” to refer to these indigenous First
Peoples. For several thousand years they lived in communities
across the island whose names are still in use, like
Mucurapo and Chaguaramas, Chaguanas and Arima.
They had complex social systems, trade links with the
South American mainland and with the Antilles to the
north — the geographical location of Trinidad would
28 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

have made it a kind of transport hub connecting continent
and archipelago — and a rich culture. Trinidad was “Amerindian”
territory for several thousand years, and by comparison
the five centuries since the arrival of other peoples from
across the Atlantic, in the persons of Christopher Columbus
and his crew, are a blip on the historical timescale. The island
was called Iere for far longer than it’s been called Trinidad.
For all that, the average citizen of T&T remains largely
ignorant of this aspect of the country’s past. At school, we’re
taught a distorted and simplified version of history, involving
“peaceful” Arawaks and “warlike” Caribs who were almost
completely “wiped out” by the aggression of Spanish conquistadors
and by disease — leaving only a small, isolated
remnant in the foothills of the Northern Range near Arima,
the Santa Rosa Carib Community.
In the past decade and a half, there’s been a small but
growing movement to rewrite this misleading old narrative,
led by members of the Santa Rosa Community themselves.
We’ve been reminded that historical records identify multiple
indigenous groups — not just “Arawaks” and “Caribs” —
flourishing in Trinidad up to the seventeenth century. Far
from being “wiped out,” their descendants went underground,
as it were, adopting new names and adapting to changing
circumstances in the first decades of Spanish colonisation,
intermarrying with new arrivals to the island — an untold
number of Trinidadians have indigenous ancestry, and most
don’t know it — but quietly preserving their history, culture,
and deep knowledge of Trinidad’s natural environment.
These unfamiliar facts have been explored in creative
forms by artists like the writer and filmmaker Tracy Assing,
and documented by scholars like the American anthropologist
Maximilian Forte. Meanwhile, the voices of the Santa
Rosa Community have grown ever louder, demanding that
Trinidad and Tobago’s indigenous history be recognised
for its place at the heart of the country’s national story. It’s
a campaign that was only helped by the discovery of an
indigenous burial site during restoration work on the Red
House, seat of Parliament in Port of Spain. The symbolism
couldn’t be more clear: the structure representing T&T’s
sovereignty and democracy has indigenous remains in its
literal foundations.
For centuries, the Roman Catholic festival of Santa Rosa
in late August has been adopted by the Carib community as
a celebration of their own heritage, and in recent years it’s
been the start of a weeks-long commemoration of indigenous
history. And in 2017, for the first time, there will be a special
national public holiday in recognition of the First Peoples’
overlooked contribution to the development of modern
Trinidad and Tobago, on 13 October.
Some members of the Santa Rosa Community have questioned
the value of a single one-off day of commemoration
after centuries of deliberate amnesia. But the community as a
whole has welcomed the gesture, and issued a “homecoming
call,” inviting citizens to participate and make the indigenous
heritage holiday a truly national event. Simply having the
holiday declared, after extensive lobbying, is an achievement,
to be sure. But just as surely, it’s only the beginning. n
Shop #11
Ellerslie Plaza
1 (868) 622 2524
wetswimweartt@gmail.com
Mon - Sat • 10am - 6pm
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 29

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Bookshelf
Hadriana in All My Dreams, by René Depestre, translated by Kaiama L. Glover (Akashic Books, 256 pp,
ISBN 9781617756191)
Here is a novel about Haitian zombies,
originally published in French in 1988,
that has witnessed a revival of its own.
Kaiama L. Glover’s robust, inventive
English translation brings the reader
a bounty of words to reference carnal
delights. In Hadriana in All My Dreams
the flesh may be departed, but the
spirits within these pages are rosy,
robust, and more than a little racy.
The year is 1938. Fair Hadriana Siloé,
beloved by all in the southern Haitian
village of Jacmel, perishes the moment
she utters her wedding vows. The jewel
of Jacmel loses no power in death,
however: her wedding fete morphs
into a funerary fiesta. Yet even as the
lush, baroque bacchanal of wedding
guests turned wake-goers parades in
the streets, Hadriana skips the grave for a less interred
incarnation. Transformed into a zombie by a nefarious
predator, she must contend with the forces of nature and
the cruel passage of time in her quest for peace, freedom
from persecution, and the possibility
of posthumous true love.
Depestre, a grandfather of Haitian
literature, spins a sensuous romp
that serves up equal helpings of
the historically contemplative and
the handsomely entertaining. In the
watchful eyes of our narrator, “figures
sculpted from the purest marble and
figurines of rotten wood had come
together to dance, sing, drink rum, and
refuse death, kicking up the dust on
my village square, which, in the midst
of this general masquerade, took itself
for the cosmic stage of the universe.”
Hadriana in All My Dreams opens
its narrative palm cheekily, cleverly, to
reveal the kernel-truth of Jacmelian
life, of a resurrected beauty’s power
beyond pulchritude. It’s a story that contains its own
universe, tucked irresistibly into an evening’s riotous, ruddycheeked
read . . . suitable for sneaking into weddings and
funerals alike.
Make Us All Islands, by Richard Georges
(Shearsman Books, 86 pp, ISBN 9781848615274)
Shortlisted for the 2017
Felix Dennis Forward Prize
for Best First Collection,
the poems in Make Us All
Islands come to the page
garlanded in sargassum,
singing the depths of the
sea. Richard Georges, a
Trinidad-born British Virgin
Islander, brings us legacies
of his islands in salt, slavery,
and silence. He achieves
this enviable quietude
in verse by summoning
watchful spaces around
ancestral trauma, colonial cannibalisms, and modern-day
machinery. In these swells of quietness, shorn of poetic
ego, “No / body lies still as a stone / for the groping sea.”
The ocean, we are reminded, is everywhere. So too is
the human capacity to survive, to struggle for the shore
in deep currents. Georges takes us into tidal pools and
submarine catacombs, guiding our eyes to everything the
sea keeps. These poems are as valuable and watchful as
lighthouses dotting the Caribbean coastal chain.
Rock | Salt | Stone, by Rosamond S. King
(Nightboat Books, 120 pp, ISBN 9781937658618)
The black queer woman’s
body rises from the broken
places and the play-spaces
made lyrically active in
these poems. From the
“smirk-faced girl in the
mirror” to a primordial,
self-resurrecting goddess
with “a sun setting on her
eye,” King’s first collection
of poems introduces us to
the future as female, as
transcendent and wickedly,
wildly subversive. Soucouyants stalk these pages, aligned
with market women, mistresses, and Madonnas of murky
character. Rock | Salt | Stone heralds them without apology,
wielding verse with the fertile clarity of a creator
fashioning her world, using the clay, blood, and spiritual
arsenal of an incendiary poetics. Not only are these
poems not here to ask permission for their meanings,
they also aren’t demure: untamed and untrammeled,
King’s debut in verse is pepper-laced seasoning for the
Caribbean poetry pot.
32 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Trinidad Noir: The Classics, edited by Earl
Lovelace and Robert Antoni (Akashic Books, 256
pp, ISBN 9781617754357)
Trinidad and Tobago has always
done noir writing its own way.
Think less hardboiled, more
heated. The first installment of
Trinidad Noir (2008) revealed a
dark, incessant heart beating
beneath the public and private
carapaces of contemporary
T&T. This second offering
delivers nineteen stories from
a cadre of writers, the majority
of whom emerged as established
voices in the republic’s
march towards Independence.
Classic or not, none of these stories is more Trinidadian
than the other. From Lovelace’s own “Joebell and
America”, which captivatingly wheels and deals in the
diminishing luck of a big-time gambler, to the heartshattering
finality of an East Indian labourer’s toil in “The
Quiet Peasant” by Harold Sonny Ladoo, these stories sing
of a fractured, fascinating land.
History of West Indies Cricket Through
Calypsoes, by Nasser Khan (212 pp, ISBN
9789769570368)
Assembled with as much
attention to precise detail as a
scientific study, Nasser Khan’s
ode to the odes beyond our
boundaries is a labour of love
and a marvel of research.
Documenting, with full lyrics
and attributions, over two
hundred calypsoes about
cricket between 1926 and
2016, this book spreads a recognition
of the Caribbean’s
own beautiful game to the edges of every known pitch.
Sorting songs by celebrations, calamities, paeans to
particular players, rallying calls, sharp satires, and more,
History of West Indies Cricket Through Calypsoes is a
serenade all its own. From Mighty Lingo to Machel Montano,
Alison Hinds to Atilla the Hun, cricket champions
will thrill to the news that there’s a ditty for nearly every
scenario: win, lose, draw, and more. For every player and
stadium-going pundit who despairs that the future of
Windies cricket is bleak, here’s a songbook of the sport
that’s worth rallying around.
Reviews by Shivanee Ramlochan, Bookshelf editor
ADVERTORIAL
Tobago student wins Eric Williams
essay competition
Safiya Moore of Bishop’s High School Tobago
is the most recent winner of the
Eric Williams School Bags Essay Competition.
Open to all lower and upper sixth
form (CAPE or equivalent) students in the
seventeen English-speaking countries of the
Caribbean, the competition was organised
by The Eric Williams Memorial Collection
(EWMC).
The “School Bags” essay competition was
named after a statement by late scholarstatesman
Eric Williams, who led the Government
of Trinidad and Tobago for a quarter
century until his death in 1981. On 30 August,
1962, the eve of his country’s Independence
from Britain, he famously exhorted: “You, the
children, yours is the great responsibility to
educate your parents . . . you carry the future
of [the Nation] in your school bags.”
“I consider myself a global citizen who
just happened to be born in Trinidad and Tobago,”
says Moore. “I attended the Lambeau
Anglican Primary School and Bishop’s High
School, Tobago. Throughout my primary and
secondary education I participated in cocurricular
activities, particularly the performing
arts. However, I simultaneously honed an
interest in the literary arts.”
Moore’s winning essay was published by
the Trinidad Express newspaper and online by
CARICOM Today. The full text can be found
at www.today.caricom.org/wp-content/
uploads/Eric_Williams_Schools_Bay_
Essay_Competition_winner.docx
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 33

playlist
Pan Roots Culture Kareem Thompson
(self-released)
Brooklyn-born pannist
Kareem Thompson revels in
his Trinidadian heritage on
his debut album as a leader
away from his band K.I.T.
Caribbean Connection, fully
exploring more complex jazz
harmonies. The continued
fusion of Caribbean rhythms
and melodic phrases makes
the listener recognise Thompson’s roots, and he has not
strayed too far from those early cultural influences. The
title track with its percussive voicing gives credence to the
idea that steelpan jazz is wide open to further evolution,
as those sonic cues that define the sub-genre are subtly
pushed aside for an exploration of the broader range
of harmonies and rhythms. “The Sun Will Shine Today”
is a standout track that has the players on this album
skilfully soloing. With five out of seven tracks composed
by Thompson, this album is a showcase for a rising talent
in pan jazz, hopeful to maintain the Caribbean variation
of jazz music in the Americas.
Electro Sax Elan Trotman (Island Muzik
Productions)
Bajan saxman Elan Trotman
keeps churning out new
albums at a rapid pace, as if
to suggest the uptake of his
new music is effective and
guaranteed to be popular.
With this, his seventh fulllength
album since 2001,
he keeps evolving his style
around his smooth jazz base
to eke out new niches. Utilising the electronic dance
music drum elements so popular in recent times, Electro
Sax redefines what is possible with Caribbean music.
Aware that this album will “definitely ruffle feathers”
for its modern production aesthetic — he assembled a
creative team of up-and-coming producers, all Berklee
College of Music alumni: Spardakis, P-Nut, Dr O, and Da
Troof — Trotman is persevering in his push to promote
the tropicality elements along with just great music for
dancing. Debut single “Island Gyal” percolates with a sexy
reggae vibe, keeping hope alive that this experiment in
EDM fusion remains grounded in his Bajan roots.
Cé Biguine! Charlie Halloran (Twerk-o-Phonic)
This album represents, in the
twenty-first century, a kind
of harking back to the music
and technology of a bygone
era. New Orleans trombonist
Charlie Halloran and his band
have recorded an album of
orchestrated biguine — the
music of the French Antilles
created in the early twentieth
century as a creole stew of Afro-Caribbean and
European musical tropes — straight to 78 rpm acetate
disc master, to create a modern artefact of music history.
Pops and clicks like an old vinyl record give this recording
a nostalgic ambience, while the music has a quality that
makes you want to grab a partner and dance the night
away under tropical stars. It eschews the kitsch of 1950s
American tourist views of the Antilles as a playground,
for a re-awakening of the musical distinctiveness and
inventiveness of the creole musician. Novelty aside, this
album is a keepsake for listeners wanting to understand
the Caribbean’s role in the evolution of jazz. Jazz, then
and now, is rewarded.
Single Spotlight
Say Yeah/Baila Mami Preedy/Nailah Blackman
(Anson Productions)
Riddim is king in both dancehall
and soca music in the
Caribbean. Multiple songs
sharing the identical musical
accompaniment would be
a nightmare for a modern
copyright lawyer seeking
originality, but here in the
Caribbean it is the fortunate
fate of the music producer,
who can milk as much life out of a song as can earn
multiples in royalties and airplay. We like it so! “Parallel
Riddim” producer Anson Soverall shares his music with
fellow Trinidadians soca artist Preedy (“Say Yeah”) and
rising star Nailah Blackman (“Baila Mami”), for a pair of
songs with a smooth modern dancehall vibe, exploring
parallel emotions that never intersect or mix. Simply, this
is a groove mover with lyrics that address love, regret, and
second chances (“Say Yeah”), and lust, excitement, and
naïve hedonism (“Baila Mami”) — both destined to make
you dance close to a partner.
Reviews by Nigel A. Campbell
34 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

SCREENSHOTS
Moko Jumbie
Directed by Vashti Anderson, 2017, 93 minutes
The farther we get from where we once were, the more we
yearn for that place and those we associate with it. Forget
that we weren’t actually born there, or that the souls we
most identify with the place no longer walk its earth. Passports
may tell us we are citizens of
a particular country, but what are
such dictates when stacked against
the affinities of the heart? What if
home is elsewhere?
Such anxieties of being and
belonging thread their way
through Moko Jumbie, the first
feature by Vashti Anderson, a
Wisconsin-born, New York-based
filmmaker, the daughter of a
Trinidadian mother and a father from the United States.
A supernatural search for the self as well as a tremulous,
moonlit romance, Moko Jumbie is both haunting and
haunted, a palpably realised fever-dream of a film.
At the film’s centre is Asha (Vanna Vee Girod), a young
British woman of Trinidadian parentage and Indian
ethnicity. A “Paki” in England, Asha is, with her studied
goth persona, no less an outsider in Trinidad, where she
arrives in the summer of 1990. Staying with her watchful
aunt Mary (Sharda Maharaj) on the family’s run-down
coconut estate, Asha realises that all isn’t as it seems here,
including her enigmatic uncle Jagessar (a scene-stealing
Dinesh Maharaj).
Along comes Roger (Jeremy
Thomas), a pan-playing, crabcatching
neighbour, one of “them
Africans” in Mary’s phrase. Insouciant
in his manner, with a cutlass
trailing from his hand, Roger
instantly catches Asha’s eye. The
youngsters begin a secret affair.
In lesser hands such a setup
might have been steered towards
more obvious ends, but Anderson
— buoyed by Shlomo Godder’s lambent cinematography
— elegantly sidesteps the ordinary, imbuing her heartfelt
island love letter with visual wonder, lyrical depth, and an
invigorating sense of the fantastic. This is a glimmering,
memorable film.
For more information, visit mokojumbiethefilm.com
Sambá
Directed by Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia
Guzmán, 2017, 90 minutes
From their first feature,
Cochochi (2007), to
their acclaimed drama
Sand Dollars (2014), the
directing duo of Israel
Cárdenas and Laura
Amelia Guzmán have
inched their films away from a loosely plotted, quasidocumentary
form towards a more narratively traditional
style. Sambá is the apotheosis of this development.
Deported from the United States, Cisco (Algenis Perez
Soto) takes to fighting for money on Santo Domingo’s
streets. He catches the eye of the Italian Nichi (Ettore
D’Alessandro, the film’s writer), a once-promising pugilist
who sees coaching Cisco as a shortcut to erasing his
debts. Add a romantic interest, Luna (Laura Gómez), and
a subplot featuring Cisco’s estranged son Leury (Ricardo
Ariel Toribio), and Sambá hits most of the boxing
picture’s storytelling beats (there’s even a Rocky-style
training montage). A winsomely melancholic tone, however,
saves Sambá from clichéd triumphalism — except
in its final moments, when Cárdenas and Guzmán wisely
give in to convention.
For more information, visit facebook.com/sambafilm
The Watchman
Directed by Alejandro Andújar, 2017, 87 minutes
Ugly events unfold in
beautiful surroundings in
The Watchman, Alejandro
Andújar’s patiently
observed debut feature,
about class exploitation
and the insuperable
divide between races in the Dominican Republic.
Once a fisherman, Juan (Héctor Aníbal) now makes
a lonely living as caretaker of a beach house owned
by Don Victor (Archie López). Victor’s feckless son, Rich
(Yasser Michelén), shows up unannounced one day for a
short holiday with friends: parasitic lothario Alex (Héctor
Medina), naïve village girl Karen (Julietta Rodríguez),
and coy, wealthy neighbour Belissa (Paula Ferry). The
elements are in place for an increasingly tense and
eventually explosive chamber piece.
Unlike The Maid or The Second Mother — recent Latin
American cinematic portraits of domestic servitude — The
Watchman isn’t interested in subverting the master-servant
relationship, which adds an element of dourness to
the proceedings. Aníbal gives a grimly stolid performance
to match, Juan helpless and humiliated to the bitter end.
For more information, visit facebook.com/
elhombrequecuida
Reviews by Jonathan Ali
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 35

cookup
amenic181/shutterstock.com
Best
of
brew
The Caribbean region produces some of
the world’s most celebrated coffee —
like Jamaican Blue Mountain. But can
locals afford the pricey beans? And will
efforts to revive the coffee industry in
Trinidad similarly pay off? Franka Philip
investigates
36 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

In Japan, a cup of Blue Mountain
coffee can retail for US$8 a cup.
Ironically, this means the average
Jamaican can’t afford their own
premium coffee
So many people say they can’t start their day
properly until they drink a cup of strong coffee. In
the Caribbean, where several countries can boast
about producing world-class coffee, it should be
easy to get a decent cup of joe.
Across the region, there’s been a proliferation
of coffee shops offering a cuppa and free wi-fi. In Trinidad
and Tobago, for example, global coffee chain Starbucks has
established four outlets over the last year. Add those to the
many branches of the local coffee chain Rituals, and it would
be easy to assume that a coffee culture is taking hold in the
nation. But do those chains actually sell the best local or
regional coffee?
In short, the answer is no. Starbucks sells Jamaican Blue Mountain
coffee in the United States, Canada, and online. In Puerto Rico,
Starbucks sells locally sourced coffee, but it’s not available in other
parts of the Caribbean.
Coffee bloggers consistently rate coffee from Puerto Rico,
Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Jamaica very
highly. I’m not the biggest coffee drinker myself, but I’ve been
introduced to a variety of coffees by connoisseur friends, and
Jamaican Blue Mountain strikes me as extremely well balanced
and enjoyable.
According to the World Atlas of Coffee, only “coffees grown
between 900 and 1,500 metres [in elevation] in the parishes of
St Andrew, St Thomas, Portland, and St Mary can be referred
to as Jamaica Blue Mountain.” Jamaicans speak with great
pride about their national coffee, and a leading evangelist is
Norman Grant, managing director and CEO of the Mavis Bank
Coffee Factory. Grant is known as “Dr Coffee”, and he has over
thirty-five years’ experience in the business. He is internationally
certified and has worked at every level in Mavis Bank. After
speaking with Grant and listening to his interviews online, it’s
clear that maintaining quality — from the bean to the cup — is
central to their success.
“Our farmers take care of their crops. Quality is what has
allowed Jamaica coffee to be at the top,” Grant tells me. In an
online interview, he explains that farmers are encouraged to
get the coffee to the factory within six hours of picking, and the
processing begins almost immediately. Another fundamental
element is managing pests and diseases.
“Our bean, the arabica typica, allows certain characteristics
to come out, but at the same time it is susceptible to certain diseases,”
he explains. “The Jamaica Coffee Board does research to
ensure that the nutrition element is good and that we’re fertilising
in a timely fashion — part of quality and healthy coffee is to
ensure the plant is being fed right.”
Mavis Bank produces the Jablum brand, most of which is
exported to places like Japan, the US, and Europe (you can also
buy it at the airport in Kingston). Jablum has exclusive deals with
high-end outlets like Harvey Nichols in London. In Japan, a cup
of the coffee can retail for US$8 a cup. Ironically, this means the
average Jamaican can’t afford their own premium coffee. And,
according to the Global Voices website, Jamaicans drink a lot of
tea and (gasp!) imported coffee.
In this industry that brings in up to US$35 million a year for
Jamaica, the farmers and producers are well rewarded. “Our
coffee has always been in high demand. The supply has lingered
behind the demand, and has helped to keep prices robust,’ Grant
says. “The prices fluctuate, but our prices are substantially
higher than what others get.”
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 37

Caribbean coffee exports in metric tons, 2015/16
Cuba
6,000
Jamaica
1,260
Source: International Coffee Organisation
Haiti
21,000
Dominican
Republic
24,000
Trinidad
and Tobago
720
Things are not as rosy at the other end of the Caribbean,
where the Trinidad and Tobago coffee industry is in
decline. Some of the factors contributing to this are high
labour costs, farm inefficiency, ageing farmers, and the
inability of the sector to attract young people. This is in contrast
to the cocoa industry, which is battling against similar odds but
enjoying something of a renaissance. While T&T’s cocoa has a
history of excellence, and is used by the world’s leading chocolate
makers, it’s not the same for the country’s coffee.
“The local coffee industry is practically dead,” says lifelong
coffee farmer Sham Rampersad. “The prices that were paid to
the farmers by the Cocoa and Coffee Industry Board over recent
years were not viable for the investments made by the farmers
to upkeep this long-term business venture.”
Rampersad’s grandparents owned cocoa and coffee estates,
and his parents were buying agents for the national coffee board
for many years. These familial bonds have engendered his
love and passion for cocoa and coffee, he explains. The south
Trinidad farmer belongs to the Cocoa and Coffee Marketing
Co-operative Society Ltd (CCMCSL), an organisation that seeks
the interests of cocoa and coffee producers.
“The volume of coffee beans purchased is declining rapidly.
To increase production, the stigma of being a farmer has to
change,” Rampersad says. “[We need] an education drive to
show a successful business model. That has to capture the
youthful entrepreneurs with the objective of showing that cocoa
and coffee farming is a business that could change the community
in which you live.”
Trinidad’s coffee isn’t awful, but it’s definitely not as well balanced
as Jamaican Blue Mountain. However, many locals swear
by long-established brands like Hong Wing and Chief, and are
comforted by the familiarity of the taste.
“Our coffee beans are called robusta, whereas the Jamaican
Blue Mountain coffee beans are arabica,” Rampersad says.
“Both are different in planting material, taste, and price. As the
name says, our variety is a more robust plant, and a taste which
all locals have grown accustomed to.”
Robusta beans have a higher caffeine content, and this means
the coffee they produce is more bitter. One way
to counteract this is to pay more attention to the
roasting process. This is the belief of Hanson Harribans,
who along with his wife Shalimar is behind
the Trinidad-based online artisan coffee retailer
Roastel.
In an interview with a local newspaper, Harribans
explained that it’s difficult to get an even roast
from robusta beans, and most local roasters tend to
burn the bean in the process. But “you could apply
a modern approach to it, a different roast profile,
and combine that with different ways of brewing
the coffee, and you could acquire a really nice taste
from the robusta,” he says.
Like Sham Rampersad, Harribans and his wife
are from coffee families. He acknowledges the
difficulties facing the coffee sector, and says they
have used creative strategies to come up with a
premium product. It seems to be working. More
T&T restaurants and small coffee shops are stocking Roastel
coffee. Their Harmony blend, a mix of local and imported beans
introduced in 2016, has been well received.
“We have achieved tremendous range with this flavour
profile by delicately contrasting a lightly roasted Peruvian bean
with a dark roasted Rio Claro robusta,” Harribans says on his
blog Coffee Corner. “With the aim of using as much local content
as we can, we’re moving full steam ahead in our journey to
provide fresh, premium coffee and to create a new-wave coffee
culture in our lovely T&T.”
Robusta beans have a higher
caffeine content, and this means
the coffee they produce is more
bitter. One way to counteract this
is to pay more attention to the
roasting process
Bringing the coffee sector back to life is the mission for Rampersad
and his colleagues in the CCMCSL. They are working
with T&T’s Ministry of Labour to establish small co-operatives
in coffee-growing areas. The CCMCSL has streamlined the
method of coffee processing and packaging, and they are finding
markets in which to sell the coffee on behalf of the farmers. “We
can help them develop the value-added products, and it is our
aim to eventually provide all the hotels and guest houses with
ground coffee,” says Rampersad. “This is a much better way of
operating, because the farmers in their own co-operatives will
get a better price for their coffee.”
These forward-looking approaches to revitalising the coffee
industry are a good place to start if Trinidad coffee is eventually
going to be a player on the world stage. n
38 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Immerse
courtesy third horizon
40 Snapshot
Stories like ours
44 Q&A
“I let the tides tug me
along”
46 Backstory
A voice for all
The Professor, star of Jason Jeffers’s film Papa Machete

SNAPSHOT
Stories
like ours
As a twelve-year-old in Barbados, Jason Jeffers was
given a book about Alfred Hitchcock, starting a lifelong
fascination with film. With his award-winning short
documentary Papa Machete, he set out to tell the kind
of Caribbean story that doesn’t make it into mainstream
narratives. And, as he explains to Nailah Folami Imoja,
the same objective drives the Third Horizon Film Festival,
which Jeffers founded in Miami last year: to change the
image of the Caribbean in the popular imagination
Photography courtesy Third Horizon
40 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

“
Caribbean history is more important now, in these times when
we are dealing with Brexit and Trump and the concept of
diversity, than ever before,” says filmmaker Jason Jeffers.
“There is nowhere more diverse than the Caribbean. If you
want to investigate diversity, the Caribbean, as a laboratory,
can provide profound insight into what the modern world is
dealing with.”
Jeffers is clearly passionate about his role in exploring diversity and sharing
his discoveries, through film and music, with others.“I recognise the need
to educate my audience about the art, music, and film of the Caribbean,” he
adds. “There is a need to re-educate people’s definition of the Caribbean — to
recreate the popular imagination.”
At the age of thirty-seven, Jeffers is doing just that, with an award-winning
and internationally celebrated short film, Papa Machete (co-written with Keisha
Rae Witherspoon), under his belt, along with production credits for two
other recognised shorts, Swimming in Your Skin Again and Dolfun.
Born in Canada to Barbadian Margaret and Montserratian Hugh (now
deceased), Jeffers moved to Barbados at the age of three. He received his
primary, secondary, and tertiary education there, studying law, information
technology, and English literature at the Barbados Community College. “I’ve
always had this strong sense of justice, so I thought for a minute that I would
be a lawyer,” he says, “but then I felt I could find more justice through the
pen than in the courtroom. So I went to Florida International University and
studied journalism for three years.”
“Part of our initiative is to
change the narrative of
movies so that Caribbean
people, particularly
children, can see
themselves on screen,”
says Jason Jeffers
Opposite page Still from Papa Machete
Below Jason Jeffers
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 41

From Papa Machete
After an internship with Rolling Stone magazine
— quite a coup, given he was still in his first year
at university — and a brief stint as a freelancer,
Jeffers got a job as a reporter for The Sun Post,
a weekly newspaper covering Miami Beach. “I
wasn’t there very long, but through that job, I
became a great observer of life,” Jeffers notes.
“It was very difficult. I didn’t enjoy it, but it’s one
of the best things that ever happened to me. It
made me comfortable speaking to anyone. It gave
muscles to my curiosity, and so many ideas based
on events and characters I met — so many stories
to tell.” He shakes his head and laughs, distracted
for a moment by fleeting memories.
Jeffers’s interest in filmmaking began when, age
twelve, he received a book about Alfred Hitchcock.
“I was fascinated by film, and from that time it was
the only thing I really wanted to do,” he recalls.
“I was always into music, writing, telling stories.
Filmmaking is just an extension of that expression.”
It was at a turning point in his life — five years after graduating from FIU,
freshly laid off from his newspaper job, and about to return to Barbados — that
Jeffers’s first love reasserted its presence. “I came across a cell phone video of
the Professor fencing” — that’s Alfred Avril, one of the last practitioners of the
tradiaitonal Haitian martial art of machete fencing — “and I knew immediately I had
to make the movie. Given the importance of the Haitian Revolution to Caribbean
and world history, I realised this story needed to be told and that my company, Third
Horizon” — originally a small record label created to produce his music — “needed
to be resurrected so I could tell it. I put every dollar into the venture. Everyone on
the team contributed. I sold my furniture, maxed out my credit cards. My anxiety
“There’s a certain audacity that Caribbean
people have,” says Jeffers. “It’s an instinct.
We needed it to survive what we came
through historically”
was . . .” He raises his left hand above his head to indicate how high.
“I remember thinking, many times, ‘This is the stupidest thing you’ve
ever done. This is ridiculous.’ But that didn’t stop me. It was at once the most
important and yet the most foolish thing I’d ever done. A nothing ventured,
nothing gained kind of situation.”
Despite doubts, Jeffers persevered. “That is one of my character traits, to
aim big. To just do what I have to do to get where I want to be. I think that
comes from my upbringing — some nurture, some nature,” he adds with
a chuckle. “There’s a certain audacity that Caribbean people have. It’s an
instinct. We needed it to survive what we came through historically.”
The result was Papa Machete, a ten-minute documentary about Avril. After
the film was made came the difficult task of finding ways to promote it. So
Jeffers set his sights on international film festivals.
42 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

“Before the film took off, we got rejected so many times. It was disheartening,”
he admits. “Our first submission was to Sundance. At that time, it was a
little different and was called The Professor. After that, we re-edited the film.
It still got rejected again and again. It was on 4 July, 2014, with fireworks in
the sky, that I got a call telling me the film had been accepted to the Toronto
International Film Festival. My joy was surreal.” Jeffers’s beaming smile at the
memory is testimony to that.
Since then, Papa Machete has played at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015,
and at more than thirty other film festivals on every continent, most recently
winning an award at the Zanzibar Film Festival. “One of the most heartening
things is that Papa Machete has played all those festivals and is now online,
and has had more than one million views. This means people are having to
reconsider their views of Haiti — what it is, was, and can be.”
Jeffers notes that he found lessons in the many rejections he received
before the critical acclaim. “I learned there was just not enough context
for stories like ours. Because of their perception of Haiti, the western world
expected and wanted to see Haiti shown in a different light, while we see
it as a place of great power and legacy. As we travelled the world attending
film festivals, we realised we were often the only Caribbean people in the
room, and that there seemed to be a very narrow definition of a Caribbean
person or experience.”
A rapt audience at the 2016
Third Horizon Caribbean
Film Festival
aimed to — in Jeffers’s words — “build bridges
from Miami back to the Caribbean.” During the
four-day festival, Third Horizon seeks to “edutain”
participants by telling a story through the programming
as well as showing movies. “At the
heart of the festival is our programming,” Jeffers
says. “Last year, we got a write-up in Filmmaker
Magazine, which was great, because it was our first
year and the industry in the Caribbean is still in its
infancy.
“That is part of our challenge,” he explains.
“There is not lots to draw on when it comes to
showing our own stories to those outside the diaspora.
It means we’ve had to be creative in planning
the festival with such a limited pool. We’ve found
space for African film and Indian film as they relate
to the Caribbean experience. We’ve also drawn
from the French- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.”
These days, between planning the 2017 festival,
Jeffers is working with Borscht Group — a collective
which has been instrumental in exploring
the real Miami on screen — on a film
directed by Jeffers’s Third Horizon
collaborator Keisha Rae Witherspoon,
and set in a Miami fifty years in the
future. “It’s speculative fiction, examining
the effects of global warming
and rising sea levels on life and death
in Miami.”
And as much as he views himself as
a Caribbean man, it is clear Jeffers is
very much at home in Miami. “It’s such
a Caribbean city — a city built largely
by Bahamian labourers — and it’s a
point of entry for so many Caribbean
nationals coming to this country,” he
says. “It’s the meeting point for filmmakers
in the Caribbean and filmmakers
in Hollywood or New York. With
this festival, we’re aiming to highlight
the Caribbean from the perspective of
Caribbean people and create opportunities
for Caribbean artists.” n
Out of this recognition was born the Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival:
an annual festival of Caribbean film based in Miami, spearheaded by
Jeffers and a collective of other creatives with Caribbean roots.
“The idea had been conceptualised years before, but the Miami
community recognised the importance of stories like ours and spoke loudly,
letting us know the festival is needed now,” Jeffers says. “Part of our initiative
is to change the narrative of movies so that Caribbean people, particularly
children, can see themselves on screen. My main area of interest is popular
entertainment. Everything begins in the imagination, so if we don’t see ourselves
adventuring and conquering those who oppress us in those imagined
realms, how can we hope to conquer our challenges in real life?”
With the inaugural Third Horizon Caribbean Film Festival in September
2016, Jeffers and his team, in partnership with the Caribbean Film Academy,
The 2017 Third Horizon Caribbean Film
Festival runs from 28 September to
1 October at venues around
Miami. For more information, visit
thirdhorizonfilmfestival.com
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 43

Q&A
“I let the
tides tug
me along”
The
BVI poet Richard Georges, whose debut book
Make Us All Islands is shortlisted for a 2017
Forward Prize, talks to Shivanee Ramlochan
about grounding his poems in his home island,
and the challenges of writing from a small place
Photography courtesy Mark Gellineau
These poems speak compellingly
about British Virgin Islander history
on land and at sea. From what
emotional terrain do you draw the
foundations of your work? Where do
you set your horizons in poetry?
I think, especially with this work, there
was an intense desire to put those remarkable
narratives and experiences in a place
outside of memory and little-read history
titles. I really wanted to commit them to
verse, as a way — perhaps a contradictory
way — to make them real. As a fledgling
writer, I saw all this history, all this landscape,
and all this water sort of carrying on
on its own, outside of the consciousness of
the wider region, and completely outside
of the experience of the non-islander. In a
way, I guess you could say that my writing
it is a sort of profane exercise, as I’ve
abstracted and mythologised things that
are very real already.
As far as my poetic horizons go, I try to
let the tides tug me along, and trust that
they will take me where I’m meant to go. I
thought I’d write a book of poems and then
move on to spend some time experimenting
with fiction, but poems seem to keep
coming. I think I have to trust that.
Make Us All Islands resists oppression
with a tender ferocity, such as in
“Blue Runner”: “we must learn again
/ . . . how to pull the thin / shimmering
spears from our throats.” Where do
you channel the quiet vigilance that
dwells in this collection?
It’s funny that you mention vigilance,
as the motto of the British Virgin Islands
is the Latin word vigilate or “be vigilant.”
I can’t say that was an overtly conscious
motivation of mine, and I am always
wary of messages that call for things
like cultural revivals and draw lines
around national identities, but as I
wrote I often returned to the rituals and
practices that located us here
as Virgin Islanders. That
is the space where poems
like “Blue Runner”, “Bushing
the Pit”, “Boiling Bush” and
others came from, in a spirit
of documenting those rituals
of ours and how those rituals
are a quiet resistance of the
insidious orders of colonialism,
patriarchy, capitalism.
BVI is often overlooked in celebrations
of Caribbean literature.
What is needed for clearer focus on
underwritten spaces in our islands?
The answer to this is twofold. While
BV Islanders have been writing at least
for the last hundred years, that writing
has hardly ever left our shores. Several
of our local writers, for various reasons,
self-publish their books, which makes
it less likely for anyone outside the BVI
to read them. So the first part of the
answer is that writers in the BVI have to
look outward, have to publish through
regional and international platforms
that are listening for new voices, and put
their work through the rigours of those
processes. We have to travel to literature
festivals and book fairs in the Caribbean
and make the effort to become part of the
greater chorus of the region. We have to
look beyond the BVI as our audience in
order to do that.
The second aspect might be that once
those sorts of things are happening in the
smaller spaces of the Caribbean — say,
Bermuda, Turks and Caicos, St Vincent,
and the like — it may take some effort on
the part of festival directors, editors, and
publishers to reach out to emerging writers
in those spaces. For my own part, that is
one of the reasons David Knight, Jr, and I
founded Moko, and I can point to my own
developing career as a template for what
is possible in writing from a small place. n
Born in Trinidad in 1982, Richard Georges grew
up the British Virgin Islands, where he lives
in Tortola. He teaches at the H. Lavity Stoutt
Community College, and is co-editor of the
online literature and art journal Moko. His book
of poems Make Us All Islands, published in early
2017 (and reviewed in this issue of Caribbean
Beat, page 32), is shortlisted for the Felix
Dennis Prize for Best First Collection, part of the
UK-based Forward Prizes for Poetry. His second
book, Giant, will be published in 2018.
44 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 45

BACKSTORY
A voice
for all
Photography by Damien Luk Pat courtesy ACS
When St Lucian June
Soomer was named head
of the Association of
Caribbean States in 2016,
she became one of the
Caribbean’s most influential
leaders. Shelly-Ann Inniss
finds out how Soomer’s
past career as a historian
prepared her for this new
role creating history
If you scan a boardroom, platform, or
summit, her hair stands out. Not only is her
bun quite tall, sometimes it’s the only mass
of hair among the shaved or low haircuts
worn by the men in her presence. Addressing
an audience of press personnel, she speaks
slowly, with authority and precision. Outspoken,
intelligent, confident — that might be your initial
impression. You’d never guess that Her Excellency
Dr June Soomer is one of the shyest people you’ll
ever come across.
Throughout her life, she’s been a world-changer,
paving the way with many firsts, as she hiked
up the stepping-stones to where she’s currently
stationed as secretary-general of the Association
of Caribbean States (ACS). Soomer is the first
woman to head the organisation, and despite being
an introvert, she projects herself out of “necessity,”
she says, to get the job done. In fact, when the nomination
came for the position of secretary-general,
Intense focus and determination were
instilled in June Soomer from very
young. What the average person might
view as a significant accomplishment,
she sees as just the next step
Soomer was already personally acquainted with
every prime minister and opposition leader among
the ACS countries.
In one word, Soomer describes herself as
“aware.” Growing up in St Lucia, her family was
poor. Nevertheless, her mother made sure her
family never suffered. Soomer is the seventh of
eight siblings. Intense focus and determination
were instilled in her from very young, adding to her
inquisitive nature. What the average person might
view as a significant accomplishment, she sees as
just the next step.
Soomer was the first woman to graduate from
the Cave Hill campus of the University of the
West Indies with a PhD in history, in the early
1990s; then the first women to serve as a CARI-
COM ambassador for St Lucia. In 2016, she was
appointed the first woman secretary-general of the
ACS, a four-year position; and in August this year
she started a term of office as the chair of the UWI
Open Campus Council. Simultaneously straddling
two desks doesn’t inhibit this modern-day
Renaissance woman. She’s also an author, amateur
fashion designer, baker, and devoted cheerleader
for her staff and colleagues. But being an aunt to
her numerous nieces and nephews is her favourite
role. How does she juggle her professional
obligations, cook, enjoy her hobbies, balance her
personal life, plus get a minimum of six hours
sleep? “You find the time to do what’s important to
you,” she says.
46 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 47

The Association of Caribbean States
Member states: Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados,
Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic,
El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica,
Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent
and the Grenadines, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela
Associate members: Aruba, Curaçao, France (on behalf of
French Guiana and St Barthélemy), Guadeloupe, Martinique, the
Netherlands (on behalf of Bonaire, Eustatius, and Saba), St Martin,
Sint Maarten, Turks and Caicos
As secretary-general, Soomer is responsible
for the development and maintenance
of political relations and co-operation
among ACS member and associate member states.
Additionally, she’s expected to strengthen the
institution and collaboration efforts between the
ACS and third parties. Leading her diligent team of
thirty-two, she strategically and efficiently navigates
her charted course, to the best of her ability.
The ACS was founded in 1994, with the intention
of promoting dialogue, co-operation, and
co-ordination among all Caribbean countries.
Fast-forward twenty-three years: it now has
twenty-five member states, eleven associate
member states, twenty-seven observer states, and
the support of CARICOM and other international
bodies. The ACS unites approximately 285 million
people in the Caribbean region.
“Small countries sometimes feel lost in big
arrangements, not understanding that everybody
has a voice,” Soomer says. “The ACS gives
everybody that voice. We function in bigger
organisations like the United Nations, and people
recognise that we have a vote, although we are
small nations. But it is a vote, and it is recognised
globally.” So in her first year on the job, she set out
to revitalise the ACS.
One of the things Soomer believes the ACS
was designed to do, but hasn’t, is ensure that
every regional organisation works to maximise
resources and bring the best benefits to the
Caibbean. “I think that a lot of countries are oversaturated
with regional integration, so they prefer
to put their efforts into things that they recognise
more, instead of investing in possibilities,” she
says. Soomer believes the reason the ACS is a good
example of co-operation is because it’s so different.
“I think my job is harder because I have to
work with the diversity that I have. I must also look
at the differences and ensure that the policies that
are placed in the countries are what the countries
want, because they are different. I want all of the
regional associations and organisations to meet
and map out for the region’s success. That’s the
best thing I can do.”
Of her many visits to the member and associated
states, Belize resonates most. She was appointed
secretary-general at the Intercessional Summit
of CARICOM leaders there, but that isn’t why.
Soomer believes Belize has tremendous expertise:
in home-grown policies, their ability to include the
population in decision-making, their focus on the
environment, and on sustainable living. “We aspire
to be a ‘united states,’ and if we go to Belize, we
will better understand who we are. Our countries
have so much more to offer. If only we realised our
models haven’t done us justice,” she says.
Soomer has the power to ensure the ACS
has world-class technical workers and proper
co-ordination across its various portfolios. But
how is her success really measured? Will the ACS
be considered successful when average citizens
feel the benefits in their lives? When disaster risk
factors are reduced and properly managed? Or if
Soomer is sometimes
challenged by disrespect,
which she brushes off. “I
am aware that I carry the
weight of women from the
past and women to come”
trade, transport, tourism, and Caribbean Sea initiatives
can function and be sustained efficiently and
effectively using the region’s resources?
Cricket is in Soomer’s bones. She watches it,
analyses it, and also writes about it. Her dream job
is to one day run the West Indies Cricket Board.
But her truest passion is history, and that’s what
she aims to create. Like other powerful women,
Soomer is sometimes challenged by disrespect,
which she brushes off, pressing forward. “I am
aware that I carry the weight of women from the
past and women to come. If I don’t do this job
well, people will say, we always knew that women
couldn’t do it,” Soomer explains. And she rebukes
such a possibility. If she ever writes a book on
women and careers, she’ll title it Upgraded — the
true metaphor for her life. n
48 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

ARRIVE
mbrand85/shutterstock.com
50 Escape
One destination,
32 islands
58 Neighbourhood
Lethem, Guyana
60
Travellers’ Tales
An archipelago diary
Bridge to adventure in the hills of St Vincent

ESCAPE
One destination,
32 islands
Caribbean Airlines’ newest destination, St Vincent and the
Grenadines, is a miniature archipelago unto itself, with
thirty-two islands, small and smaller, scattered down the
Antillean chain. Each has its own personality, but they
share an effortless charm and a natural beauty — as you’ll
see in the following pages
50 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Protected by a marine park, the
uninhabited Tobago Cays and nearby
Horseshoe Reef, in the southern
Grenadines, are a paradise of
shallow turquoise water, accessible
only by boat
jonathan palmer/mustique airways
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 51

In the hills above St Vincent’s
Mesopotamia Valley — surrounded
by rainforest, 1,500 feet up — the
Montreal Gardens owe their lushness
to fertile volcanic soil
kay wilson
52 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

For generations fishing was the
mainstay of Bequia, and the island is
home to master boat-builders — who
nowadays also craft intricately detailed
model vessels, practically seaworthy
Michael DeFreitas Caribbean / Alamy Stock Photo
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St VINCENT
Kingstown
BEQUIA
MUSTIQUE
CANOUAN
MAYREAU
Tobago Cays
UNION
Carriacou
Petite Martinique
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In a chain of islands with no shortage
of stunning beaches, Mayreau’s Salt
Whistle Bay may be the most gorgeous
of them all, with its powdery
white sand and warm, clear water in
a heavenly shade of blue
jonathan palmer/mustique airways
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 55

Privately owned Mustique,
dotted with colourful villas and
cottages, has long been a retreat
for the international jet set
kay wilson
56 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

kay wilson
St Vincent’s volcanic geology
means that its windward
coast is scattered with natural
black-sand beaches
Caribbean Airlines operates regular flights to Argyle International Airport in St Vincent, with connections by ferry to
the Grenadine islands
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 57

NEIGHBOURHOOD
pete oxford
Lethem, Guyana
Two hundred and sixty miles from Guyana’s
Atlantic coast, the border town of Lethem
has a raffish frontier charm — and serves as
the gateway to the Rupununi Savannah and
neighbouring Brazil
Streetscape
Sprawling across a small triangle
between the Takutu River, the airstrip,
and the Rupununi Road, Lethem has no
obvious centre and few major landmarks.
Red laterite earth and the vast Rupununi
sky may be the distinctive feature of
this small town of simple dwellings and
cashew trees, increasingly interspersed
with guesthouses and modest hotels,
eateries, and general goods stores
stocked with Brazilian products.
Portuguese is almost as common as
English, and watering-holes are as likely
to serve Brazilian Nova Schin beer as
Guyanese Banks. On Lethem’s northeastern
outskirts are the rodeo grounds,
home of the famous Easter Rodeo that
draws numerous vacqueiros — cowboys
— from near and far, to show off their
skills with bucking broncos and lariats.
History
Pre-dated by several Amerindian villages in the
vicinity and by the nearby Jesuit mission of
St Ignatius, the settlement of Lethem — named
for a former governor of British Guiana — began
in the early twentieth century as a border post
on the eastern bank of the Takutu River, which
serves as Guyana’s boundary with Brazil. By the
time of Guyanese independence in 1966, Lethem
boasted a district commissioner’s headquarters,
police station, and dirt airstrip.
In January 1969, Lethem was the epicentre of
the Rupununi Uprising, a short-lived but violent
rebellion by a small group of Rupununi ranchers
against the government in Georgetown. Five
policemen were killed before soldiers flown in
from the coast restored order. For most of the
following two decades, Lethem remained a
sleepy village, until in the late 1980s a dirt road
was carved through the forests and savannahs
of central Guyana, connecting Lethem to
Georgetown by land.
The road increased the number of travellers
between Guyana and Brazil — mostly
prospectors, tradesmen, and a few tourists —
until in 2009 a bridge across the Takutu became
the first land link between the neighbouring
countries. The bridge plus a gradual increase in
eco-tourism has brought a small population boom
to Lethem in the past decade.
pete oxford
58 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

pete oxford
amanda richards
Shelter
For many years the Savannah Inn, run by the
redoubtable Mrs Khan, was the favoured choice
of tourists passing through Lethem, for its airconditioned
bungalow rooms and location beside
the airstrip. Its newest competition is the recently
opened Rupununi Eco Hotel, which can organise
various tours and expeditions for visitors.
Savannah life
In Lethem, you have only to walk for a few
minutes in any direction to find yourself in the
open savannah, an astonishing country of red
laterite earth broken by palm-lined creeks,
sandpaper trees, anthills, and the blue Kanuku
Mountains looming. Even a day-trip by 4x4 vehicle
is enough to give you a sense of the Rupununi, a
region that whispers adventure. Start with an early morning visit to Moco-
Moco Falls (above), and a plunge into a bracingly cold river pool, and follow
that with an excursion to the Amerindian village of Nappi in the Kanuku
foothills, home of the community-run Maipaima Eco-Lodge. Further afield
are the cattle ranches at Karanambu and Dadanawa, both of which host ecotourists,
and the positively sybaritic Rock View Lodge at Annai. They all offer
ample opportunity to encounter wildlife, explore the Rupununi’s rivers and
forests, and generally immerse yourself in a landscape of vast horizons.
Across the border
In the days before the Takutu Bridge, travellers to Brazil needed to cross the
river by boat to the town of Bonfím, Lethem’s immediate neighbor to the
west. Beyond Bonfím, a whole continent awaits you. A rather good highway
through the magnificent savannah leads you to the natural first stop: Boa
Vista, a planned city laid out with broad boulevards, museums, monuments
(below), and a modernist cathedral. And after Boa Vista — Manaus, the great
city in the middle of the Amazon?
pete oxford
Co-ordinates
3.4º N 59.8º W
Elevation approx. 260 feet
Guyana
Lethem
ANDRE DIB/shutterstock.com
Caribbean Airlines operates daily flights to Cheddi Jagan International
Airport in Georgetown, Guyana, with connections to Lethem
on Trans Guyana Airways or by road
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 59

travellers’ tales
The Portara, what remains of a
2,500-year-old temple, towers above
the main town on Naxos
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An
archipelago
diary
In the blazing heat of summer,
Philip Sander sets off to explore the
Greek islands of the Aegean Sea — the
original archipelago that lent its name
to every other scattering of islands.
Here are pages from the journal of a
week in the Cyclades
vivooo/shutterstock.com
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 61

Left A quiet street in Chalki
Right The slopes of Naxos are covered
with terraced fields and orchards
Leoks/shutterstock.com
Monday
Homer described it as “wine-dark,” an epithet classical scholars
still puzzle over. But from the open deck of the ferry, the water
of the Aegean is anything but dark: it is an intense, luminous
blue, seeming almost to be lit from deep below. It is a sea-blue
unlike any I’ve ever seen, enticing as a siren’s call. I almost want
to taste it.
Not long out of Athens’s port of Piraeus, we can already see
the first islands of the archipelago. The archipelago, the original
one. Archipelago, in Greek, means “chief sea,” an early name
for the Aegean. Only later did it come to refer to the hundreds
of islands interrupting the waves between Greece and Turkey
The journey to Naxos takes five
hours, and the ferry, the size of a
small cruise ship, is amply provided
with air-conditioned lounges
— and then by metaphorical extension to chains and clusters
of islands everywhere in the world. Thousands of miles from
my own native archipelago, the Antilles, I feel unsurprisingly
at home.
The journey to Naxos takes five hours, and the ferry, the size
of a small cruise ship, is amply provided with air-conditioned
lounges, cafés, and bars. I prefer to sit out on deck, for the views
over a sea as smooth as glass, while brown and green islands
pass by on the horizon.
Eventually one of those distant islands turns into our
destination: Naxos. I see the mountain peaks, then a smudge that
becomes the white houses of the port and capital, known locally
as Chora. As the ferry draws closer, the first astonishment: on
a rocky islet above the harbour, joined to the main island by a
causeway, is a great rectangular frame of marble, twenty-six
feet high and almost twenty wide. The Portara is the surviving
doorway of a now ruined temple, begun around 530 BC and
never quite completed. Two and a half millennia later, it still
welcomes travellers to Naxos.
In the early evening we explore the town, built around a
steep, small hill topped by a Venetian castle, the Kastro. The
streets are narrow and labyrinthine, and many of them are in fact
staircases. As we ascend, at a sharp turn an elderly lady calls out
from her kitchen. Are we visitors, and where do we come from?
She lived in Athens for many years, she tells us, then retired back
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RAndre/shutterstock.comi
to Naxos, where she grew up. Can we guess how old she is? Not
seventy, not even eighty. Ninety-six! Here is her identity card
to prove it. And before we go on we must have sweets from her
kitchen, which she hands round in a Christmas tin.
At the highest part of the Kastro, through the Venetian
walls, past the Catholic cathedral and the museum, is a terrace
with the best view in town. Below are little churches gathered
around a square, gardens, the tiled rooftops of old houses, then
the harbour, then a long stretch of beach. Behind and above,
the hills to the south-east are dotted with villages, and Mt Zas
towers above all.
Tuesday
The village of Chalki, at the geographical centre of Naxos, boasts
not just two tavernas but an art gallery, a distillery of kitron (a
potent lemon-flavoured liqueur), and a ceramics workshop. We
duck into all of them before we follow an alley that turns into
a rough path as the houses peter out, and we find ourselves
ascending a hillside past enclosed fields, stone-walled pastures,
groves of olive and fig. The view opens behind us: terraced
slopes, churches and monasteries, a fertile green where a stream
flows at the bottom of the valley.
Halfway up, in the shade of a small church there is a fountain
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The village of Oia clings to the ridge
of Santorini’s volcanic caldera
Thomas Bresenhuber/shutterstock.com
bearing water piped from mountain springs, cold and tasty.
Pomegranates hang ripening from one tree and mulberries
fall uneaten from another. Ahead is a conical hill topped by a
ruined Venetian castle — Naxos and the surrounding islands
of the Cyclades were Venetian territories for centuries, and the
remains of fortresses are found on every strategic peak. The
midday sun grows intense as we walk up through pastureland,
and the dry, hot air is fragrant with wild thyme and oregano.
At the pass below the castle we see our next stop: the village
of Ano Potamia in the valley ahead. As we descend towards the
river, the vegetation grows lush, the trees laden with fruit. We
have lunch at a taverna beside an orchard of cherries and plums,
figs and apricots.
The afternoon is loud with cicadas as we climb the final hill to
reach the day’s destination. Goats in their stone-walled pen chew
meditatively, wondering who would choose to hike in the blazing
heat. The hillside fields redouble their aromatic exertions, and
our lungs are full of the scent of herbs. The path is a rough jumble
of stones bordered by thorny hedges. High above, white gashes
on the sides of the mountains reveal the marble quarries for
which Naxos has been famous since ancient times.
A signpost points us to our goal. On the hillside, beside an
outcropping of weathered marble, the broken kouros has lain for
2,500 years, exposed to the sun and the rain.
A kouros is a sculpture of a standing nude youth, life-size
or larger — a common genre among the Archaic and Ancient
Greeks, often found in temples and sanctuaries of the god Apollo.
They press their arms to their sides, are usually depicted taking
a step forwards, and have enigmatic smiles. Naxian marble was
a favoured medium, and ancient sculptors often journeyed to the
quarry not just to select an appropriate block of stone but to do
the preliminary carving on site.
On Naxos, archaeologists have found three unfinished kouroi
among the quarries — damaged at an early stage of sculpting, and
abandoned where they lay, so the theory goes. This kouros on the
hillside has broken legs, perhaps the result of a careless accident
as the semi-carved marble was shifted to begin the arduous
journey downhill. Nearby, closer to the village of Flerio and
sheltered among orchards, a second kouros lies broken mid-shin.
The bus back to Chora is only ten minutes late. It drops us
off providentially outside an old-fashioned shop crammed with
cheeses, herbs, and dried fruit. A bag of dates, dried on their
stems, are just the snack to restore our energy after the day’s
long walk in the hills. That, and a lingering dip in the shimmering
blue water of the bay a hop away from our hotel.
Wednesday
Another ferry ride is a chance to read up on the Cyclades, which
up to now have been an empty patch in my mental geography.
The name of this group of islands comes from the Greek word
for “around” — because they cluster in a jagged oval around
sacred Delos, supposed birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. Naxos
is the largest of the group, around the size of Barbados, but with
a population of just nineteen thousand.
64 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Greece
Athens
Mykonos
Delos
Paros
Naxos
Amorgos
Milos
Santorini
With a common history and culture, similar landscapes
and architecture, the Cyclades nonetheless preserve their
distinctions. Andros, nearest to the mainland, is mountainous
and well-watered. Ios has long been favoured by hedonistic
young backpackers, though nudism is now officially banned
on its beaches. Milos is where the celebrated Venus de Milo
sculpture was found, and Amorgos is known for a remote
monastery built into the side of a cliff. Most famous nowadays
are Mykonos and Santorini, among the most popular tourist
destinations on the planet.
Santorini is also famous for its volcano, which rumbles
away at the centre of a great caldera, formed in a catastrophic
eruption 3,600 years ago. One of the largest volcanic events
in recorded history, it’s thought to have contributed to the
decline of the Minoan civilisation, triggering a tsunami and
the failure of crops after clouds of ash blocked the sun.
You get a centre-stage view of this huge geological theatre
as you arrive by boat into the drowned caldera, nearly eight
miles long by four wide. Nine-hundred-foot sheer cliffs rise
from the deep water, and the island’s chief settlements perch
atop this vertiginous ridge.
Endlessly depicted in magazines and postcards, Santorini
is probably the place you visualise when you think of a Greek
island. The view of whitewashed houses and brilliant blue
domes clinging to the cliffside in the village of Oia is the sight
people journey great distances to see for themselves. It’s
gorgeous — until you turn back to the narrow main street
and find it jammed with hundreds of heat-stunned tourists.
It’s the same in Fira, the capital, a few miles away along
the caldera edge. Walking back through the centre of town to
our hotel after dinner feels like joining a long, slow-moving
queue. Finally, past the bus station, the crowds thin, and then
we hear the jaunty strains of traditional Greek music wafting
over a wall.
Peering over, I see three musicians with stringed
instruments and a breathless but enthusiastic chain of
dancers in street clothes. Some sort of party?
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A typical sight in the village of Lefkes
on Paros: whitewashed walls, blue
door, profusion of bougainvillea
Kite_rin/shutterstock.com
There is a gate in the wall, it stands wide open, and it seems
natural to slip in and join the small throng of people admiring
the dancers. Eventually a grinning woman comes round with a
box of ice cream cones — we have stormed someone’s party, but
we’re offered a treat anyway. It’s a group of local schoolteachers,
it turns out, celebrating the end of the term, tipsy and merry.
Friday
Another ferry, another island. As we dock in Paros, for no reason
I can explain, I feel a distinctly satisfying sense of having finally
got to the right place. As we walk along the waterfront to our
hotel at the end of the harbour bay, the blue-green water winks
and beckons.
Fifteen minutes later, having dropped my bag in my room and
quick-changed into my trunks, I’m wading in. It isn’t the prettiest
beach in the world, and the shore is rocky underfoot, but twenty
feet out the pebbles and sea grass give way to sand, and the
water is the perfect temperature: cool enough to refresh, warm
enough to encourage indefinite lingering. It’s seven o’clock and
the sun is far from setting.
A few hours later, in the cool of evening, the little town is
bustling, restaurants and shops lit up along Agora Street, though
a few paces down any side alley there is silence and soft shadow.
Saturday
In the hills of Paros, Lefkes may be the perfect Cycladic village.
Houses cluster along a ridge, with regulation blue doors and
shutters. Caper bushes spring from stone walls. The plateia or
village square is paved with marble. In a grove of olives we pick
up the old Byzantine road, paved centuries ago and still in use, at
least by hikers. As in Naxos, wild herbs perfume the air — here,
sage dominates.
We can see the sea in the near distance as we descend to
Prodromos — another picture-perfect village where tending
profuse arbours of purple bougainvillea seems to be the
municipal hobby. A café at a narrow intersection offers the
respite of an espresso freddo, the Greek take on iced coffee,
swizzled to a state of creaminess without added milk.
But the sea is calling. There is one more slope to climb, then
it’s downhill through a small pine forest to the bay of Piso Lavadi.
Three or four tavernas line the quayside, small boats bob at
anchor, and the beach is busy but not crowded with frolicking
families, and a spaniel intent on the impossible task of catching
a minute fish. I go to the water like a homecoming.
It’s our last day in the Cyclades, and tomorrow we take the
ferry back to Athens.
But in some other life I haven’t yet lived, that ferry ticket gets
torn up. n
Caribbean Airlines operates daily flights from destinations
across the Caribbean to Miami and New York
City, with connections on other airlines to Athens
66 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

ENGAGE
Martin Michael Rudlof/shutterstock.com
68 Green
Redonda rescue
70
On This Day
The Lüders affair
Redonda is a prime nesting site for brown boobies and other seabirds

Green
Redonda
rescue
Ameiva atrata is a ground
lizard endemic to Redonda
Tiny, isolated Redonda is a haven for
seabirds and home to rare species of lizard —
whose numbers have dwindled because of
the depradations of invasive rats and goats.
A new restoration project aims to turn back
the clock, Erline Andrews writes
Photography courtesy Jenny Daltry/Fauna and Flora International
The dwarf geckos of Redonda,
Sphaerodactylus sp, are among
the rarest creatures on earth.
About an inch long, on average,
with translucent brown skin
spotted white and bulging eyes, they can
be found only on the one-mile stretch
of mountainous island that Columbus
mistakingly thought was round — hence
his name for it: Santa María de la Redonda.
Today, uninhabited Redonda in the Leeward
Islands is part of Antigua and Barbuda,
though it’s closer to St Kitts and Nevis.
Researchers think the geckos meet
the criteria to be on the list of critically
endangered species. Their numbers were
reduced by the destruction of their habitat
by invasive species — rats and goats —
brought to the island more than a century
ago by humans. But now people are racing
to reverse the damage and save the dwarf
gecko and two other lizard species endemic
to Redonda. A ground lizard, Ameiva atrata,
long, glossy black, and described as fearlessly
inquisitive by researchers, is listed
as critically endangered. And a tree lizard,
Anolis nubilis, which has few trees left to
climb and actually lives mainly between
the rocks of the almost barren island, is for
the time being listed as stable.
Redonda is also the nesting place for
hundreds of seabirds. According to a 2012
survey, more than fifty per cent of masked
boobies — the largest booby species,
distinguished by a dark grey face that contrasts
with a mostly white body — in the
Lesser Antilles nest on Redonda. And more
than twenty per cent of the breeding pairs
of the region’s brown boobies — large,
long-billed birds with a white, feathered
bib extending from chest to belly — use
Redonda, along with twelve per cent of
magnificent frigate birds.
68 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Two animal species have apparently
already disappeared from the island: the
burrowing owl and a skink (another kind
of lizard) that was endemic to Redonda.
“I’ll never get to see all sorts of wonderful
animals because the previous generations
didn’t care, they didn’t take action,” says
conservation biologist Jenny Daltry, one of
the key forces behind the Redonda Restoration
Programme. “I don’t think we have the
right to let these go without making some
effort.”
Daltry works for UK-based Fauna and
Flora International. The oldest global conservation
organisation, FFI has restored
twenty-four islands in the Caribbean,
including protectorates of Barbados,
St Lucia, and Anguilla.
Daltry first came to Antigua and
Barbuda in 1995, to help save the Antiguan
racer, a venomless snake endemic to the
country that was on the brink of extinction.
Only about fifty remained on uninhabited
Great Bird Island. The
Antiguan Racer Project
proved successful, and
grew into the Offshore
Islands Conservation Programme,
which worked
to save the wildlife and
vegetation on fifteen
islands in the Antigua and
Barbuda chain.
The Caribbean region has one of
the highest rates of species extinction,
Daltry pointed out in a 2015 presentation.
She traces the problem back to when
Europeans first came to the region. Rats
stowed away on ships. Goats were brought
to Redonda to provide meat and milk for
miners who lived there between 1860 and
the First World War, extracting guano.
Elsewhere in the region, mongooses were
brought from Asia to deal with the rats, but
turned into pests themselves.
“Some people would say, why are
people from England getting involved in
this? Well, actually a lot of problems you
have — the rats, the goats, and the mongooses
— to be honest, it was the English
people that brought these things here,”
explains Daltry. “As an English person, I
have a responsibility to try and help.”
Invasive species are also a problem in
inhabited areas, but uninhabited islands
promise long-term success in providing a
safe haven for wildlife. “What is exciting
about some of those little offshore islands
is that you can actually turn back the clock
and help wildlife recover,” says Daltry.
When researchers visited
Redonda in 2012 to do a
feasibility study, they estimated
a rat population of around 5,500. Individual
rats live only about a year, but they
reproduce relentlessly.
In the stomachs of rat specimens,
researchers found plant, bird, egg, and
lizard remains. Demonstrating the extent
to which rats consume anything in their
path, they were also found to have ingested
goat droppings — and other rats. If rats
caught in traps weren’t retrieved quickly
enough, researchers would find them
partially eaten.
“Those rats over there were so intelligent,”
says Antiguan ecologist Shanna
Challenger, who heads the Redonda programme.
“They would work in teams. I’ve
Uninhabited islands promise long-term
success in providing a safe haven for
wildlife. “You can actually turn back the
clock,” says biologist Jenny Daltry
seen two of them — one would distract the
bird and the other would roll the egg from
underneath it.”
To put together the feasibility study and
spearhead the rat eradication, the Redonda
team recruited Elizabeth “Biz” Bell, an
ecologist from New Zealand. “Invasive rats
have caused mass extinctions of spectacular
creatures around the world,” says Bell.
“New Zealand is one of those places, and
this is why we started developing these
techniques to remove invasive species and
spread that technology around the world to
help other countries.”
The intricate rat eradication process
was laid out in the 2012 feasibility report.
Fund-raising took years. The mission,
which cost an estimated US$700,000,
brought together an impressive coalition,
including Antigua and Barbuda government
agencies, the local conservation
NGO Environmental Awareness Group,
Caribbean Helicopters Ltd — helicopters
are the only way to access Redonda — and
the British Mountaineering Council, who
helped lay rat poison around the island’s
steep cliffs. UK charities the Darwin
Initiative, the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation, and the Taurus Foundation
provided funding.
The rat eradication began in January
2017 and was wrapped up by March.
Around the same time, the sixty-five or
so goats on the island, who were starving
because of a lack of vegetation they helped
decimate, were corralled and carefully
airlifted to the mainland.
It will be months before Redonda can
be declared rat-free. The island has to be
regularly monitored over the next few
years to make sure the rats are gone and
to see how the wildlife and vegetation
rebound.
“They’ve already started to notice some
recovery in the bird population,” says Antiguan
marine biologist Ruleo Camacho,
another member of the restoration team.
“Based on the recovery
rates we’ve seen on some
of the other islands where
we’ve done rat eradications,
bird life responds
pretty quickly. You get
quite a rapid recovery,
not only in the number
of birds but also in the
diversity of bird species.”
Colin Donihue is one of a team of biologists
from Massachusetts who volunteered
to help monitor the lizard population over
the next few years. “The problem is, a lot
the islands are small, and that means the
species on them are pretty vulnerable,” he
says. “Severe weather or invasive species
can easily wipe out an entire population
on an island . . . When you lose a species
that’s only on an island, you end up losing
real richness and diversity.”
Public education is an important part
of maintaining the restored islands, says
Daltry. “When I first went to Antigua I
spoke to a school class, and I said, ‘Where
do wildlife live?’ And they said, ‘Oh, in
Africa.’ Because they’d only seen naturalistic
programmes about Africa and the lions
and elephants,” she says.
“But there’s so many wonderful animals
just under their noses,” she added.
“They may not be as big, but they’re still
very special and unique and important in
their own way.” n
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 69

on this day
The Lüders
affair
One hundred and twenty years
ago, an apparently trivial police
matter in Port-au-Prince involving a
half-German businessman
evolved into an international
crisis, with German warships
threatening to bombard the
Haitian capital. It is a littleremembered
incident in the
shameful history of foreign powers
meddling in Haiti’s affairs, writes
James Ferguson, foreshadowing the
US occupation less than two decades later
Illustration by Rohan Mitchell
For much of the more than two centuries since
its declaration of independence on 1 January,
1804, Haiti has been the victim of both foreign
intervention and neglect. It took until 1862 for the
United States, no doubt fearful of the example set
by Haiti’s slave revolution to its own Southern
states, to recognise the republic’s independence. Over the
next century, the US would meddle in its unstable neighbour’s
affairs, engaging in gunboat diplomacy to intimidate Haitian governments,
culminating in a military occupation from 1915 to 1934. “Haiti
is a public nuisance at our door,” said Alvey A. Adee, perennial US Assistant
Secretary of State from 1886 to 1924. Even in the final decade of the
last century and the first of this, US troops were sent into Haiti (in 1994 and
2004), first to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power and then to
airlift him out of a coup.
70 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

Nor were the French, the former colonial masters of Saint-
Domingue, much friendlier to the Haiti that replaced it. In 1825,
still furious at the loss of its lucrative plantation colony and with
warships ready to attack, France demanded 150 million francs
in compensation for “lost” slaves and property from the civil
war–devastated republic, reducing the debt to 90 million francs
in 1838, to be paid over thirty years. This was the equivalent
of US$21 billion in current terms. It was not until 1947 that all
associated interest and fees were paid off, and by then Haiti was
poverty-stricken and bankrupt. In 1915 — the year of the US
invasion — it was estimated that eighty per cent of the government’s
budget went on servicing the debt.
If this seems vindictive, then consider the events that followed
the arrest in Port-au-Prince on 21 September, 1897 — 120
years ago — of one Emile Lüders. As his surname suggests,
Lüders was of German parentage: his father was from Hamburg
and his mother Haitian, and
though born in Haiti, he retained
German citizenship. On that day,
he was at his business, the Écuries
Centrales (Central Stables) in
the bustling city centre, when
the police arrived. They were
looking for his employee Dorléus
Présumé, suspected of theft, who
happened to be washing a coach
outside the stables. From upstairs,
Lüders heard Présumé shouting and rushed down to help him.
In the ensuing altercation, Lüders allegedly struck a policeman,
and both he and Présumé were arrested.
In what seems like an unusually speedy process of justice,
both men were sentenced to a month’s imprisonment by the
Police Tribunal that same day. Perhaps foolishly, Lüders decided
to appeal to the Correctional Tribune. It was then that it was
discovered that his temper had already got him into trouble — he
had been jailed for six days in 1894 for assaulting a soldier. The
sentence was changed to one year’s imprisonment.
This news was transmitted to the German chargé d’affaires,
Count von Schwerin, whose main task was to oversee the
welfare of a community of about two hundred Germans, mostly
coffee traders. He demanded Lüders’s immediate release as
well as the firing of the police officers involved. When the US
minister Powell also insisted that Lüders should be set free, the
issue swiftly reached the desk of President Tirésias Simon Sam.
For perhaps understandable reasons, Sam duly gave in, and on
22 October Lüders left Haiti for Hamburg.
All might have thought that was the end of the story, but
Count von Schwerin had other ideas. He had alerted
Berlin to the mistreatment of a German national and
requested military support. On 6 December, two German warships,
SMS Charlotte and SMS Stein, dropped anchor in the bay of
Port-au-Prince. The Charlotte’s Captain Thiele was rowed over to
a jetty, where he presented a written ultimatum to be delivered to
Perhaps the Germans would
never have opened fire, fearful
of an international incident,
but who was to know?
President Sam. It demanded $20,000 in compensation for Lüders,
his safe passage back to Haiti, a formal apology to the German
government, a twenty-one gun salute to the German flag and —
most cruelly — a reception in honour of Count von Schwerin. Sam
was given four hours to agree. Otherwise the German warships,
armed with powerful canonry, would open fire on the capital and
the presidential palace, just a few blocks away from the waterfront.
A white flag was to be raised over the palace if President Sam
wished to capitulate.
Which he did. There is a longstanding belief in staunchly
patriotic Haiti that the citizenry was prepared to resist the
German attack, but this would have been foolish. The Haitians
were outgunned, the city a potential tinder box of wooden
houses and narrow streets. Perhaps the Germans would never
have opened fire, fearful of an international incident, but who
was to know? In the event, the money was paid, the apology
issued, Lüders reappeared, and
von Schwerin, in full diplomatic
dress, attended the reception at
the palace, drily described by
Powell as “an unpleasant affair.”
It was certainly an unpleasant
exercise in extortion and
humiliation, which seems to have
been overlooked by the US, the
self-appointed policeman of the
Caribbean at that time. The sense
of powerlessness and shame was deeply felt in Haiti, and anger
was directed at the president. Michael Largey recounts in his
excellent book Vodou Nation how the editor of the Haitian newspaper
L’Impartial published a notice after the event:
You are invited to attend the funeral of young Haiti, cruelly
assassinated by President Tirésias Augustin Simon Sam. The
funeral procession will leave the mortuary, located at the
National Palace, to give itself to the court of Berlin. Port-au-
Prince, 6 December 1897.
This seems a little unfair to Sam, who is generally thought to
have done a good job in the eighteen months he was in power
before the “Lüders affair.” He never really recovered, and
resigned before his six-year term was up. He spent many of his
remaining years in exile.
But at least he fared better than his cousin, Vilbrun
Guillaume Sam, elected president in March 1915. He unwisely
ordered the execution of 167 political prisoners, many from
among the capital’s wealthy elite. A furious mob burst into the
French embassy, where he was hiding, and literally tore him
apart. American warships just happened to be anchored in the
harbour, and President Woodrow Wilson, fearful of a hostile
Germany taking advantage of the chaos, ordered the Marines
ashore. It was the beginning of the nineteen-year occupation
that led to fifteen thousand Haitian dead and a sense of resentment
that still lingers today. n
WWW.CARIBBEAN-AIRLINES.COM 71

puzzles
1 2 3 4 5 6
CARIBBEAN CROSSWORD
Across
1 A scattering of islands [11]
5 Rainbow shape [3]
7 Excite [6]
9 A city in Canada, but also a garden in St Vincent [8]
11 Bar of gold [5]
12 Yolky drink [6]
14 Your uncle’s wife [4]
15 These tiny Grenadines share a name with Trinidad’s
sister isle [6,4]
18 Brazilian cowboys [10]
19 Book page [4]
22 Sculptor’s material, perhaps?
24 Prickly bush [5]
26 From the US [8]
27 Spanish grocery [6]
28 Sphere [3]
29 Pretty Caribbean house trim [11]
7 8 9
10
11 12
13
14 15 16
17
18 19 20
21
22 23 24
25
26 27
28 29
Down
1 Type of coffee [7]
2 Maps within maps [6]
3 On the way [5]
4 Ultraconservative religious sect [8]
5 Space [4]
6 Temperature measure [7]
8 No artificial chemicals [8]
10 TV controller [6]
13 Red soil of Guyana’s Rupununi (need a hint? see page 58) [8]
16 Portuguese islands in the Atlantic [6]
17 Managing a gallery collection [8]
18 St Vincent’s is named La Soufrière [7]
20 Moving ahead, also a major international poetry prize [7]
21 Soak up [6]
23 Grey matter [5]
25 A “doing” word [4]
SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
by James Hackett
There are 11 differences
between these two pictures.
How many can you spot?
Spot the Difference answers
Ram’s eyes are closed in one of the images; Sita’s eyes are closed in one of the images; the background shapes are different; Sita’s earring
is different; detail around Sita’s lips is different; there is different detailing on the sari; you can see finger lines on the image of Ram on the
left; there is more definition on Ram’s arm on the left; Sita’s clothing is different; Ram’s clothing near his chest has different colours; the
bowstring is a different colour.
72 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

WORD SEARCH
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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 3 of 5 - Very Easy
Medium 9x9 sudoku puzzle
8 9 7 3
7 5
1 3 2 8
3 5 2 4 8
6 5
2 6 9 8 1
8 4 5 7
5 2
9 2 1 4
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
Sudoku 6x6 - Puzzle 2 of 5 - Medium
Hard 6x6 mini sudoku puzzle
2
6 4
3 4 6
5 6 1
1 2
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
www.sudoku-puzzle.net
Solutions
Caribbean Crossword
Word Search
R B 29 G I N G E R B R E A D
N R N I R R
Sudoku
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
Mini Sudoku
Sudoku 6x6 - Solution 2 of 5 - Medium
Sudoku 9x9 - Solution 3 of 5 - Very Easy
6 4 3 1 2 5
1 5 2 6 3 4
6 8 2 9 5 7 4 3 1
7 4 3 1 8 6 9 2 5
9 5 1 3 4 2 8 7 6
S A L T W H I S T L E B A Y O
A I B R U P U N U N I G D G R
A
1
R C H I
2
1 3 7 5 2 4 6 8 9
8 6 9 7 1 3 2 5 4
4 2 5 6 9 8 3 1 7
2 1 8 4 6 5 7 9 3
5 7 4 8 3 9 1 6 2
3 9 6 2 7 1 5 4 8
www.sudoku-puzzles.net
P E L 3 A G 4 O
5 A R 6
C
R N L R R E
A
7
R 8 O U S E 9 M O N T R E A L
3 1 4 2 5 6
5 2 6 3 4 1
2 6 5 4 1 3
4 3 1 5 6 2
B R E 10 R N H A S
I
11
A
14
V
18
N G O T 12 E G G N O G I
M E R I C A N 27 B O D E G A
C A S M D L
13 U
U N T 15 T O B 16 A G O C A Y S
I 17 C T Z X T
A C Q U I E R O S L
19 E A F
20
O S R R 21 A R O
C 25 V T R S S T W
L 22 M A R 23 B L E 24 B R I A R
O
28
A
26
N M O R E D O N D A N E I O G
T H G N E H A I T I T A P A A
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R G N O W M S S N A A M O G I
I N B D N A I A T B L I M R S
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T U B O L E T H E M S D E Y A
F P E E A V T A K U T U N S U
A S O V A S Q C O Y R O O N N
R U R M A N T N R O I R A E O
Caribbean Beat Magazine
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737 onboard Entertainment — SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER
Northbound
Southbound
© 2017 Disney Enterprises, Inc.
Going in Style
When their pension funds become a corporate casualty, three
lifelong friends decide to risk it all and knock off the very bank
that absconded with their money.
The LEGO Batman Movie
In order to save Gotham City from the Joker’s hostile takeover,
LEGO Batman has to drop his lone vigilante thing, try to work
with others, and learn to lighten up.
S E P T E M B E R
Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Alan Arkin • director: Zach Braff • comedy
• PG-13 • 96 minutes
Zach Galifianakis, Rosario Dawson, Will Arnett • director: Chris McKay •
animation, action • PG • 104 minutes
Northbound
Southbound
O C T O B E R
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Captain Jack Sparrow is pursued by old rival Captain Salazar and
a crew of deadly ghosts who escape from the Devil’s Triangle,
determined to kill every pirate at sea.
Johnny Depp, Javier Bardem, Brenton Thwaites • directors: Joachim
Rønning and Espen Sandberg • action, adventure • PG-13 • 128 minutes
The Princess Diaries
A shy San Francisco teenager is stunned when, out of the blue,
she discovers she’s a real-life princess.
Anne Hathaway, Hector Elizondo, Julie Andrews • director: Garry Marshall •
comedy • G • 115 minutes
Audio Channels
Channel 5 • The Hits
Channel 7 • Concert Hall
Channel 9 • Irie Vibes
Channel 11 • Kaiso Kaiso
Channel 6 • Soft Hits
Channel 8 • East Indian Fusion
Channel 10 • Jazz Sessions
Channel 12 • Steelband Jamboree

parting shot
A cave with
a view
High above the valley of Puerto Rico’s Rio
Grande de Arecibo, a system of caves in the
limestone cliffs serves as a home for a colony
of bats — and gives intrepid visitors the treat
of a spectacular view. A fifteen-minute hike
uphill from the PR-10 highway and a flashlit
scramble past stalactites and stalagmites
brings you to the mouth of the Cueva Ventana,
the Cave Window — and a vista of green hills
and fields all the way to the horizon.
Photography by Max Sawa/shutterstock.com
80 WWW.CARIBBEAN-BEAT.COM

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2017
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