rhythms (not) of me

the music y'all... we know com has fallen off, but just to quote for the throwback, "black music is black music and it's all good."

take a listen to "radica why yuh leave," while you look at the pics; it's the winning chutney soca song from this year that comes on all the time, and me and p agree that it's our current favorite. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_bC5Q1heRg

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transportation... or lack thereof

p said in slight frustration at one point, "it's a very subtle system" in reference to the maze of 90's compact cars careening through streets built for buggies. recently, a bus service has been added, which our new hostess jasmine was very excited about. i guess we didn't factor in the hour long wait... at rush hour! we opted for the bus station photo shoot to keep us entertained:

the pulse of history

yesterday morning round 4:40am, rolled out of bed to travel downtown to see the reenactment of the Canboulay Riots of 1880-81 (background info: http://www.triniview.com/articles/canboulay.html)

camera died upon arrival, which was just as good since the images i saw were seared into me - a nation celebrating our history. like all that bullshit they do at gettysburg and in philly around independence day; all of that energy of the state recreating itself through story - all of that happening in and through brown people. we're talking maybe 100 people acting in a street theater piece for another 500 people, with all the major television networks broadcasting, and rebroadcasting for the news. that same cycle that regurgitates nike and jessica simpson to us was at work this week reminding the folks of T&T that this huge party was borne of the resistance of enslaved people.

awkward in my heart, because as much as i recognize myself in these streets, saw my story in between the drumbeats andflamebursts of the ceremony, i know that i am still not home. unbearable sometimes to be black from our very special part of the new world. no flag, no language, no names, no rituals. nothing more than echoes of who we were. i'm like,m what the fuck do we have to show for ourselves, to show for our legacy? blues, rock n' roll, and hip hop. as much as they mean to me, their paucity when i am faced with a land like this leaves me feeling vacant.

p said it -we are orphans, and the most welcoming foster nation can't undo our history.

the masquerade begins
part of the way the national memory is nurtured is through the different state sponsored carnival ceremonies and events. on carnival friday, there is the "parade of tradiitonal characters," where it seems like almost every school in the rehgion is assigned a different character from historical carnival ceremonies to embody, which to me seems like kinaesthetic patriotism-building, and can we say cute!

maypole:

black indians:

red guarahoons:

(femme) sailor!

midnight robber:

this last one may be the most special to me; nalo hopkison's midnight robber snatched me up and reminded me that sun ra was not the only heir to the afro-futuristic "what if we were free" rhythm of being. i knew ther was a caribbean reference, but it was remarkably different to stand on a space where that was not a learned fact, but a lived one.