thepancollective

en el tiempo de las mariposas

I recently finished reading En el Tiempo de las Mariposas by Julia Alvarez.  Ms. Alvarez's parents were members of the underground resistance in the Dominican Republic during the final years of the infamous Trujillo dictatorship.  The Mirabal sisters, Patria, Minerva and Maria Teresa — known as "las Mariposas" or the Butterflies — were leading figures in that resistance, and were ambushed and murdered by Trujillo's henchmen in late 1960. Their martyrdom has made them icons of freedom in the Dominican Republic.

Alvarez's book is a fictional account of the lives of las Mariposas, told variously from their own points of view and from the perspective of their surviving sister Dedé, who was not actively involved in the resistance movement.  Dedé is still alive and oversees the operations of the Mirabal Museum in her hometown of Ojo de Agua.  (Here's a recent( September 2006) article about Dedé, if you are interested, and can read Spanish.)

I thoroughly enjoyed En el Tiempo de las Mariposas, and it aroused my interest in the troubled political history of the Dominican Republic in a way that an academic work of non-fiction probably would not have.  The story of these women's bravery, their struggle for the liberation of their country and the principles of freedom is inspiring.

But the part of the book that has stuck with me most is the epilogue, the musings attributed to Dedé, the survivor, but maybe more representative of the opinions and feelings of Julia Alvarez, the author.  Dedé reflects on the 30 or so years since Trujillo's regime fell (he was assassinated just a few months after Las Mariposas were killed).  Since then, she says (and I paraphrase), Dominicans have been free to choose their own bad leaders.  The country has become a vacation hotspot for "gringos", and free trade zones, where poor Dominicans provide cheap labour to produce consumer goods for the global market, have proliferated.  Meanwhile the gaps between rich and poor in the D.R. continue to grow, and Dedé remarks in passing on the lavish and luxurious lifestyles enjoyed by some of her friends and family.  It is from her perspective as survivor that Dedé is able to see the aftermath of the resistance, to look back (and to try to look forward) on the path that her country is on, and to ponder, "Was this really what the struggle was about? Are these the freedoms that my sisters fought for, is this the liberation that they died for?" 

These are the sorts of questions that perhaps have resonance with many Caribbean people in these early years of the new millenium, now that the labour struggles of the 1930s and the bold moves towards independence from the 1960s have entered the abstract domain of "History".  As I look around my own country, I'm not quite sure what the answers are, but I am grateful to Ms. Alvarez for provoking me to think about it, for the questions are certainly worth asking.

Edited to add: El Bohio Dominicano is a wonderful "visual archive of the Dominican Republic", which includes a feature gallery on the Mirabal Sisters.

blog control

A story in today's Nation Newspaper (unfortunately, I couldn't find the article itself on their website) reports that the Deputy Prime Minister Mia Mottley is calling for "popular electronic outlets [like blogs] for citizens to air their views" to have a "framework of accountability". 

[The Deputy PM] spoke too, of "blogs"—online postings of individuals' views and comments to which surfers on the Internet can respond—which, because of the technology, could not be regulated.

"[Blogs] will marginalise our existence as parliaments and will cause disrespect, not just for the rule of law, but for the institutions that are required to keep our societies safe," she said.

There is certainly room for much discussion (and, I think, some cause for concern) about Ms. Mottley's remarks and the positions she is expressing.  I find her statements especially interesting considering that she is one of the leading lights of a political party that recently took steps to establish their own blog. If nothing else, her comments go to show that, for better or for worse, people in high places are really beginning to take this "blog" thing seriously.

(quotes taken from the article, Regulate call-in shows, says Mottley, by Albert Brandford, in the July 19, 2006 Midweek Nation)

everybody get down if you feel me

Robyn Rihanna Fenty is Barbados's biggest musical export since... well, since forever.  In the past year or so, the 18 year old R&B/pop singer has made major strides in the showbiz world — her achievements have included platinum selling albums, chart topping singles all over the world, lucrative endorsement deals, music-industry awards, and acting roles on TV and in film.  Despite reading about all these things in the local press, I don't think that I really twigged to just how big our homegirl was, until I made a trip to Europe and saw her face, larger than life and twice as lovely, on billboards and posters and TV screens all over the place.  It was then that I realised that Rihanna had really hit the big time.

The first time I heard of Robyn Fenty (before she was Rihanna) was a couple of years ago; she had just won a secondary school pageant, and there was a small story about her win, accompanied by a picture.  I remember thinking, Oh, she's pretty, and turning the page. Then a few months later, she was "discovered" by an American record-producer in Barbados on vacation, and she became the talk of the town, and arguably the most famous Barbadian in the world right now.

Not all the local comments on her sudden rise to fame and fortune have been positive.  I've heard deprecating remarks that have seemed to me to be motivated by nothing more than a bad case of the Bajan equivalent of Tall Poppy Syndrome.  (People can be too bad-minded and grudgeful, though.) And I think she's had to learn pretty quickly that being in the public eye, being a bona fide celebrity, seems to mean that you are fair game for all kinds of criticism, constructive and otherwise.

As for me, I'm pleased as punch by Rihanna's stardom.  I get a kick out of seeing her face on billboards and websites and magazine covers.  I think it's fabulous that a little Bajan girl from out Westbury side is a big deal in England and Switzerland and Australia and Japan.  I love that every bio and every story that I've ever seen or read about her mentions that she is from Barbados, and many refer to her Bajan accent. I am delighted that she is often referred to as charming, well-spoken, polite (as we Bajans would say, she got real broughtupcy!).  I am not a big fan of the particular brand of pop music that she delivers, and I am quite cynical about the whole Hollywood-type celebrity thing, but I don't begrudge Miss Rihanna her success; indeed I wish her plenty more of it, and all good things.

(Pictures courtesy of Def Jam's official Rihanna site.)

the parish behind god's back

I just finished reading The Parish Behind God's Back : The Changing Culture of Rural Barbados, a book about life in (as you can guess from the title) rural Barbados, specifically life in St. Lucy, Barbados' northernmost parish.  Written by American anthropologists George Gmelch and Sharon Bonn Gmelch from Union College, the book was written partly to fill the need for "an up-to-date ethnography of an eastern Caribbean culture" for students in the authors' anthropology courses.  The Gmelches have brought students to Barbados since 1983 (I'm not sure if the trips continue today), they've stayed with host families in St. Lucy and other northern parishes, and the book draws extensively on their experiences and research during these field trips.

The book has been praised as "sensitive", "appreciative", "lively" and "well-written"; and in my view, these accolades are well-deserved.  What I liked the most about the book is that it portrayed a Barbados I could recognise as the island I live on, not a Barbados as perceived by a couple of foreigners from a university in the States. It doesn't portray Barbados, or Barbadians, as exotic or backward or foreign.  The Gmelches take the country and the people on their own terms and write about them with respect, with affection, with honesty.  And the book they've produced is a good one, very accessible and highly readable.  Even the appendix and the annotations at the end are interesting.

The Gmelches, George in particular, have written several other articles and books about Barbados and Barbadians, among them Double Passage : The Lives of Caribbean Migrants Abroad and Back Home and, more recently, Behind the Smile : The Working Lives of Caribbean Tourism, both of which have already been added to my (ever-expanding!) Amazon wishlist.

(Cross-posted at gallimaufry.)

desperate houselives

I have a thing for old buildings.  The older the better.  The more derelict they are, the more dilapidated and run-down and ramshackle they are, the fonder I feel towards them.  I extend my affection equally to stately coral edifices and modest wooden houses.  I love the features of these older buildings, whether two-foot-thick walls made from solid hand-cut coral blocks or flaking shingles; cool, broad verandahs or tiny galleries with geometric railings; the sturdy balanced proportions of Georgian great houses or the neat symmetry, on a smaller scale, of chattel houses.  I find them so much preferable to the characterless concrete bungalows and ostentatious multi-story monstrosities that dot the landscape now.  But it must be more than an appreciation of traditional Bajan architecture that moves me so, that causes me to feel a sudden rush of tenderness toward these abandoned structures.  I think it's that I imagine them when they were more than just old houses. I imagine them with shutters opened wide to let in fresh breezes, with curtains hanging in the windows, with carefully tended gardens, with the smell of food coming from the kitchen, with the sound of footsteps in the passages, and voices in the rooms.  I imagine them when they were cared for, when they were lived in, when they were homes.   And I wish that I could restore them, not just reconstruct the architectural characteristics and the structural integrity, but restore them in a less tangible way, save them, bring them back to life, fill them with love again.  Hopefully some day with some house, that wish will come true.

go, barbados

The Barbados Horticultural Society has once again won gold at the Royal Horticultural Society's annual Chelsea Flower Show in London, England.  Their exhibit, entitled "Go Barbados", had a Cricket World Cup 2007 theme, and used a variety of tropical foliage and flowers, all home-grown in Barbados, to portray the World Cup's final match, which will be held in Barbados at Kensington Oval.

This is the BHS's 13th Gold Medal in 19 years of competing at the flower show with the reputation of being the biggest and best in the world.  I've seen some of their award-winning exhibits in reproduction here, and they are truly beautiful; photographs can't do them justice.  The dedication and enthusiasm of the Society's members in preparing for the show — growing the flowers, designing the display, organising the logistics of transporting everything to England and getting it all set up in time —  is inspiring.  They are certainly deserving of congratulations.

Congratulations also to Barbados Flower Arranging Society, members of whom were awarded the only Gold Medal presented in the first session of the Floral Arrangement competition.   The Flower show website features a photograph of their prize-winning display.

11-plus

Monday was Common Entrance Exam day in Barbados.  Primary school students take the Common Entrance Exam (CEE), also known as the 11-plus exam, to determine what secondary school they will be attending.  Based on their results in the exam (which consists of Math and English tests delivered over the course of about half a day) they will either qualify for one of the islands older, more prestigious secondary institutions, or one of the newer, rather poorly regarded schools or somewhere in between.

The Common Entrance exam is a big deal. Children and their teachers and parents spend months preparing for it.  Extra lessons and special tuition are the norm.  Coming up to 11-plus time, there are TV programmes (11 and Ready is one I remember) designed to help students improve their test scores, and special newspaper inserts with mock test questions and specimen answers.  In the weeks before the test, it's not uncommon for parents to start feeding their children a lot of fish, because fish is supposed to be "brain-food".  On the day of the exam itself, you'll see crowds of anxious parents outside the secondary schools that double as testing centres with their children, checking that their pencils are sharp, that they have enough erasers, that they have clean fresh handkerchiefs (to wipe the sweat and tears the examination will provoke?), and plying them with sandwiches and Shirley biscuits and juice to make sure that they've eaten enough that they don't start to get "bad feels" in the exam room.  And the parents will hang around the school for the entire three or four hours of the test, waiting for the children to emerge, to ask anxiously "How it was?  It went okay? How you think you did?"  The newspapers on the next day will feature pages of pictures of children and parents and teachers before and after the exams.  And when the results come out, there will be literally day after day after day of articles about the "top students", celebrating the boys and girls who managed to achieve test scores high enough to get them to the "best" schools, to Harrison College or Queen's College or Combermere. It's a big deal.

There has been much debate among educators and policy makers about the use of the Common Entrance Exam as an assessment scheme.  I can't claim any sort of expertise in the field, but I do feel that it must be hard on little kids, 10 and 11 years old, to be under such pressure.  You hear the stories of kids who get so nervous that they start to cry, or have asthma attacks or wet themselves in the exam rooms.  I knew a girl who got so worked up about her 11-plus that she was given tranquilisers to calm her down; they calmed her down so much that she fell asleep over her exam paper, didn't answer a single question. 

To a child that age, it can probably feel like your entire future is hanging in the balance.  (I can only speculate, because fortunately the results of my own Common Entrance Exam was largely irrelevant to my educational future at the time.) Will your marks elevate to one of the good schools or will they condemn you forever to one of the other schools, one of the schools for the dunces and the hard-heads? It must feel a bit like the rest of your life hinges on those few hours in an exam room, that the results on that test will reveal whether you are fated to be a success or a failure.  And you're only eleven years old!  That's got to be tough.

I don't know whether the Common Entrance is or isn't the best way to test proficiency.  I do know that when I see the students after the exams, some looking happy and confident, some relieved, some on the brink of tears, I hope that someone is there to reassure them (especially the ones on the brink of tears) that their destinies are not determined by their test scores, to let them know that they love them, to give them a big hug and a kiss, and maybe to treat them to some ice-cream afterwards.

(Photo courtesy of UNICEF.)

the nature isle

I made the resolution a couple of years ago, after a disappointing holiday visit to Canada, to begin taking my vacations in other Caribbean countries instead of in North America.  Until then, the only other Caribbean country I'd been to on a pleasure (i.e. not work-related) trip was Puerto Rico.  And as most Caribbean readers might guess, that was a shopping trip, not really a vacation getaway.  All these fantastic destinations, the stuff of cold-country residents' dreams, just a hop, skip and jump away, and I'd only been to one of them.  That's a bit shameful, isn't it?

So last year, I went on a three-day holiday to St. Lucia, all organised by a travel agent.  This year, I thought I'd try planning my vacation myself, a five-day trip to Dominica.  I just got back, and it was wonderful!  Activities began just as soon as we got there, and every day things just got better and better and better.  I had myself a fabulous time, and Dominica is an incredibly beautiful place.  It's the kind of beauty that you can't really appreciate by just looking at it from the inside of a tour bus — you've got to get out and be in it: walk in it, run in it, trek it, hike it, dive into it, soak in it, swim in it, sail it, climb it, even drive it (and believe me, the roads in Dominica, with their narrowness and slopes and curve, are an experience in themselves). 

For someone from Barbados, which is flat and almost completely deforested, the mountains and greenery of Dominca were absolutely awe-inspiring.  As the plane descended to the Melville Hall airport, I kept craning my neck to peer out the window and marvel at the sheer number of trees.  It was evident even before we'd landed why Dominica is known as the Nature Island of the Caribbean.  And after hiking to over 3000ft above sea level, on the way to the famous Boiling Lake, it was also clear why the original Carib inhabitants called it Waitukubuli, meaning Tall is Her Body.  That climb is something my legs will not soon forget! Fortunately there was also an abundance of wonderful natural hot pools in which to soak and soothe my aching muscles.

All in all, I don't think I've ever had a better holiday.  I've already begun planning my return trip.

the standpipe

Before indoor plumbing became a commonplace thing island-wide, there was the roadside standpipe. The standpipe was a free public water supply, the main (often the only) source of piped water for many communities; folk would gather around it to collect water for their cooking, washing, bathing and other household chores.

You won't see standpipes in newer residential developments, ones that sprang up after it became the norm for each house to have their own connection to the water supply system; standpipes belong to the older communities and villages. The district where I live seems to have standpipes in unusual abundance — I have counted six so far, all within about a one-mile radius. And it's a rare morning where I don't see someone filling a bucket from at least one of these six, carrying water home to wash their car, or water their garden, or launder their clothes, or whatever else.

Standpipes in the rural parishes seem to get even heavier use. A friend of mine has a standpipe just outside his garden wall, and people regularly stop there on the way back from the beach at the bottom of the road, to wash the sand and salt from their feet and bodies. On drives through the country, I've seen young women bathing their babies at the standpipe, older women doing their household laundry, little children taking a bath (or at least taking the opportunity to splash as much water as possible at each other and all over the road), and Rasta-men shampooing their locks. One morning, out on a run before dawn, I saw a couple of guys bathing a horse at a standpipe — now that was an I wish I had my camera moment!

I'm a regular standpipe user myself: when I'm out on my morning runs, I try to plan my route so that I finish close to one (not hard, since there are so many!), so that I can cool down with a drink and some splashes of water on my face. Long live the standpipe, that most wonderful Barbadian public convenience!

go fly a kite

It's that time of year, coming up to Easter, when the strong steady winds and the fact that children are on holiday mean that all over the island, men and boys (but not many women or girls, for some reason) are engaging in the traditional seasonal pastime of kite-flying.

In the past few weeks, I've been seeing kites everywhere.  People have set up temporary roadside stalls and kiosks just to sell kites.  The modern North American plastic kites are fairly popular, but there are plenty of the old-style Bajan kites, which I much prefer, on offer too.

Traditional Bajan kites are typically hexagonal, made from a framework of light wood covered with geometric patterns of multi-coloured tissue paper, with long strips of cloth for the tail.  Some of them have what's called a "bull", a flap of paper attached to the kite so that it flaps in the wind and makes the kites buzz or "sing".  (Someone in my neighbourhood got an early start on the kite-flying season and staked their kite out way back in January; I could tell because, although I couldn't see it in the early light, I could hear its steady buzz in the otherwise quiet morning air when I went out for my run. It's since been joined by two others, each with their own distinctively pitched hum.)  I've heard stories about kites with razor blades tied onto the string, so that they could be maneouvred to cut other kites out of the sky, but I've never seen one like this. 

The kites can range in size from less than a foot in diameter to many feet wide.  For years there was an annual kite-flying show and competition on Easter Monday (I don't know if it's still running) with entries up to 40 feet tall competing for the prize for biggest kite.  Biggest kite that actually flies, that is, and the trouble was that kites that large really don't stay up in the air for long.  If the wind is high enough for one to manage to make it off the ground at all, the frame is more likely than not to break under the strain and the kite will plummet down, sending spectators running for cover.  At the other extreme, last week I saw this small boy with a small kite — it was just a few inches across and made of sticks and an old plastic bag — trying with a look on fierce determination on his face to get his kite to rise even 6 feet into the air and stay there.

One year one of my cousins had a kite that broke free.  It was a beautiful kite, around three or four feet wide, with a fantastic intricate pattern of triangles in bright reds and blues.  He got it up into the air and let it far out and up, and the kite was weaving and dipping and twirling and dancing in the sky, and we were all marvelling and taking turns to hold the string and feel the kite pulling and tugging against our grip.  And then the string broke and down came the kite.  And it didn't fall nearby either, it came down a good distance away, because he'd let out so much string.  He made his mother get in the car and take him to the areas where he thought it might have fallen to see if he could get it back, and they searched and searched for it but it was nowhere to be found.  My cousin was 17 or 18 at the time and thought he was a big man, but when he came back from his failed retrieval mission, there were tears in his eyes for the loss of his kite.

Next weekend will be the big kite weekend.  At the Garrison Savannah, and on beaches and on hills and in open fields, people will be flying kites.    Every time I see a kite flyer, whether it's a couple of boys racing across a pasture trying to get their kite to rise or a grown man at the Garrison bracing hard against the strong pull of the kite soaring high above his head, I feel a little tingle of joy and a smile comes to my face.  Maybe I should get a kite of my own?

See some pictures of Bajan kite-flying here and here.