Come On let's Celebrate Guyana!

Come On let's Celebrate Guyana!

Crop Over - Barbados

I would like to share a little on Barbados Crop Over.

Crop Over is a color festival or carnival based in Barbados and is one of the most popular festivals in the Caribbean. Crop Over origins could be traced back to the 1780’s when Barbados was the largest sugar producers in the world. It started as a celebration to mark the culmination of each successful sugar cane harvest, hence the word “crop” meaning the crop time is over.

By the 1940’s the festival was terminated because of the decline in sugar production but by 1974 it was revived. A new form of Crop Over developed with the mixture of other Barbadian cultures infused to an extravagant festival that exist today. Attracting thousands of people from around the world the festival last for about five weeks. It begins with the Ceremonial Delivery of the Last Canes and the crowning of the King and Queen of the Festival which is the most productive male and female cane cutters of the season.

Throughout the festivities there is a local market setup in the capital Bridgetown for visitors and locals to browse through or shop the wide range of local foods and beverages as well as local arts and crafts while at the same time enjoying calypso music and live bands. There is the Cohobblopot which is a large carnival like show consisting of the members of the Kadooment bands who dress up to display their elaborate and stunning costumes. There is the Calypsonian competition which is one of the main features of the festival and showcases the talents of many of the “bajan” musical artist. They compete for prizes and titles such as Party Monarch, the Road March Monarch and the Pic-O-De-Crop Monarch.

The finals of the Pic-O-De-Crop competition are held at the National Stadium, and this is followed by the Fore-Day Morning Jump-Up or Jouvert, which heads right into the Grande finale of the festival which is the Grand Kadooment. The Grande Kadooment is the carnival parade which features larges bands and elaborately clad revelers who dress in costumes depicting several themes. While designers compete for the Designer of the Year prize revelers make their way from the National Stadium dancing their way down the streets to Spring Garden where the party continues with lots of drinks, food and music.

This magnificent celebration should be on everyone “bucket list”!

Source: http://www.barbados.org/cropover.htm

Photo: 1998-2010 FunBarbados Inc

Small Days - Barbados

I spent a year living in Barbados with my parents and siblings . I was about eight to nine years old. The most memorable time in my life in Barbados was going to the beach which was not far from our apartment, moving to a farmhouse in the country area and Crop Over. The farm house also know as a Chattel House we moved to belong to my Dad's friend, it was a small two bedroom cottage made out of wood and it was old and smelt like rotten cucumber and breadfruit. The windows were few, made out of wood and was falling apart, there was no kitchen sink or

refrigerator just a small kerosene oil stove and worst of all the toilet and bath (outhouse) was outside under a large Breadfruit tree, I never like going out there in the night or early morning because the fallen rotten breadfruits attracted slimy, yucky slugs. Nevertheless I loved our little farm cottage because after spending an hour being home schooled by my mom we were allowed to spend the rest of the day roaming neighborhood farms of fruit trees, bringing home at the end of the day ochroes and breadfruit for my mother to transform into some wonderful dishes. The best part of living in Barbados was the Crop Over (Carnival), my dad would set up a large watermelon stand along the carnival route and the revelers would stop by to buy the sweet juicy watermelon slices. We would spend the day at the stand looking at the revelers, the parade and dancing to the soca beat of the bands passing and at the end of the dad my dad would pack up his stand and we would head home tired and belly filled with watermelon.

Small Days it still on my mind - Market Day

When I was around the age of 11 and 12 my grandmother would send my brother and I to the local open air market to buy much needed groceries, fresh fruits, fresh meat and vegetables and yams, Fresh, Fresh vegetables. This was done mostly on Saturdays, we would walk from my home in Hadfield street to Bourda Market green. I was never happy with the thought of marketing but I love going to the market, there was so much to see on the way and mind you for a 12 year old it was a long walk. The route to the market was very interesting. I would walk from the Hadfield Street through John Street then into South Road into Bourda Street across busy Regent Street into the market. On the way we would stop to see what was floating in the South Road Canal, and could find a few interesting things in there; every so often we would see a dead animal, a car or someone flip flop going down the canal it was always dirty and smelly. At the corner of South Road and Bourda we would always stop at the coconut man to enjoy the oh so refreshing coconut water. Then I would walk along Bourda Street which ran the full length of the Bourda cemetery where the vagrants’ live among the old tombs rot and rust. There were many stories behind this cemetery and my great grandmother told us that those buried in this cemetery died from the Spanish plague, I am not sure if it was the truth and have never learn the true story about this cemetery.

Sometimes we would stop just outside the market to watch the vendor's kids play a game of marble called “Gam” played mostly by boys and instead of marbles these little boys would use the awarra seeds used after eating awarra a fruit indigenous to Guyana. Sometimes my brother would participate in a game. My grandmother timed our going to market so we had a particular time in which to be back home, we had been a trouble before so we knew not to mess with her timing. So off to the special vendors she shopped from, checking our shopping list to make sure that we had everything she asked for. My favorite part of the market was stopping to taste the “taste and buy genip” moving from genip vendor to vendor until you found the sweetest ones to buy. Once everything was in the rice bags (shopping bags made from the jute bags used to store rice) we were on our way back home, but by then the scenes of our trip to the market was not fun anymore because the bags were so heavy and digging into our skins that all we wanted to do was get home.