Our roundtable, “Global Voices, Caribbean Accents” has begun. At the moment we’re listening to our special podcast presentation — the audience seems transfixed!!!

We were going to ask whether there were any bloggers in the audience, but before we could one blogger outed herself - Professor Zero.

But let me get back to the panel…..

Nikipedia and I racked our brains to figure out a catchy way to open “Global Voices, Caribbean Accents”, the roundtable we’ll be leading in a few hours’ time at the National Library. The roundtable is part of the programme of the Caribbean Studies Assocation’s annual conference, which is taking place this year here in Trinidad, and will address, as Nikipedia puts it on his blog, “the current and potential roles of blogging and other forms of participative web media in the Caribbean.”

Then yesterday evening it hit us: what better way to demonstrate the potential of the Internet than by opening with a podcast composed of the voices of some the people [we hope will be] in the audience? In other words, by putting our audience on the Internet, even before they’ve become our audience. So yesterday morning found us down at the Crowne Plaza hotel, getting as as many conference delegates as we could pin down to answer the question: “What does the term “Caribbean” mean to you?”

And here is the result: CFR #43, roundtable opener in the guise of a CFR podcast. Hope you enjoy what our audience has to say.

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In honour of Indian Arrival Day, which we observe today in Trinidad & Tobago, my maternal grandfather’s West Indian Travel Permit.

According to research conducted by my cousin Stephen Trent, my great-grandfather, Ganga Singh Bissau, was born in the village of Ghagiphur, “which could be in Northern Rajasthan, Punjab or modern Pakistan (who knows if this village still exists).” He would have come to Trinidad some time in the 19th century to work as an indentured labourer. My great-grandmother, Bhagwanti Changoor, was born in St. James, Trinidad, of India-born parents.

My grandfather was born in Philippine, in southern Trinidad, and at birth was given the name Poon Mahabir Ganga Bissau, becoming Morton Dean Gangar after he fell in with some Canadian missionaries and was persuaded to convert to Presbyterianism (several of his siblings remained Hindus). He married my grandmother, Petronella Quarless, a woman of mixed African and European ancestry, in 1930. They had nine children. MD (as my grandmother always called him) occasionally spoke Hindi with his siblings but never with his children. I believe my grandmother’s mastery of Indian cuisine came via her mother-in-law, who also pierced the ears of the five eldest girls (by the time the sixth — my mother — arrived, Bhagwanti was too old, or was perhaps was even dead by then).

MD died in 1973, when I was far too young to contemplate such matters, but by 1967, the year this Travel Permit was issued, I’d like to believe that he was thinking of himself as a Trinidadian and a West Indian (though up until 1962 — the year Trinidad and Tobago gained independence — he was a British subject). Perhaps more importantly, MD was a metrosexual: I remember him as an assiduous hair-comber, and he always smelled of after-shave. Which might explain where C*POP gets the trait.

Technorati Tags: indian arrival day, india, trinidad, caribbean, diaspora

Selwyn Henry, a member of the television crew covering the Trinidad & Tobago v. Bahrain World Cup qualifier match on November 12, contemplates the sea of red-clad T&T football fans in the stands. Photo by C*POP

Radio Open Source  is prepping a show about the 2006 World Cup, set to air on June 8, and Trinidad and Tobago’s qualification for the tournament features quite heavily in the preview notes (as does my “Germany, Here We Come!” podcast). The angle is this:

We want to know how soccer can explain each nation that loves it. We’ve taken as our guide the excellent but unfortunately titled The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup, which breaks down what the sport means, team by team. To the Brazilians and the Germans it’s a birthright; to England it’s a reliable Mets-style heartache. To Trinidad and Tobago: a miracle.

What is it for you? Did you marry into a soccer nation? Were you born in one? What was your best World Cup summer?

Radio Open Source takes a unique approach to producing their shows, designing them with input from potential listeners and interviewees collected via the Radio Open Source blog. So if you have anything to say on the subject, or know somebody who’d make a good interviewee, please leave a comment on the blog, or drop Brendan Greeley a line at brendan[at]radioopensource[dot]org.

Issues cannot hear. Why then do some people (e.g. academics, politicians, corporate operatives) talking about “speaking to issues”? How about speaking about issues, to people. If you keep on talking like this, we’re going to start believing you don’t really want us to understand.

Plain English, please.

It’s said in these here parts that, when it rains while it’s still sunny, it means the devil and his wife are fighting. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Devil seem to be having some kind of domestic dispute this afternoon, because, as I write, this is the scene just beyond the windowsill:

Maybe this time it’s not about a hambone (as the purists say) — they could be fighting about the cricket. Perhaps the Devils are one of those households divided by sporting allegiances. Whichever of them’s the West Indies fan, however, must be over the moon, because a few miles away in Port of Spain, the WI just — literally just — won the 5th one-day international against India by 19 runs!

. . . but these World Cup-themed iPod hoodies sure ain’t.

At least they had the decency to put the Trinidad & Tobago model in the middle of this shot, between Brasil (who we wish we could be), and the USA (who we wish we had beaten in that ill-fated 1989 qualifier).

Via iLounge.

Update (27-6-2006): iLounge announced yesterday that Vaja, maker of gorgeous but pricey leather iPod cases, has also launched a series of World Cup-themed iPod suits. No sign of these items as yet on the Vaja web site, but should you decide to invest, be prepared to part with a cool US$90. The model shown on the iLounge web site is white, however, and folks who know me may be familiar with my views on white leather (should only be used to make athletic shoes or upholster the seats of cars driven by pimps). Not that I was planning to buy one, of course.

Depending on the kind of CFR listener you are, the following may or may not constitute good news: Global Voices now has an “official” podcast, of which I am the host/producer (at least for now).

On one hand, this could mean that CFR has become even more of a cobbler’s child. On the other, however, putting this show together yesterday made me realise how much I miss doing regular podcasts.

Whichever camp you happen to fall into, do take a listen to the first Global Voices Podcast and let me know what you think.

For those who may not have seen it, I posted the following at Caribbean Free Photo this past Friday. In St. Kitts I also happened to run into one of the developers of the project, whose understanding was that some of the Chinese construction workers are petty convicts:

This rather quaint archway marks the entrance to the construction site for Grenada’s new National Stadium in Queen’s Park, which is being built with funding, expertise and manpower provided by the People’s Republic of China. With 500-plus construction workers from China living and working on the site, the area has virtually been transformed into a Chinese village, complete with garden.

The Grenadian and Chinese flags, billowing in the wind above the National Stadium construction site

One thing that struck me on my visit there earlier this week was the fact that while all of the Chinese workers wore hard hats, soft canvas shoes seemed to be acceptable as worksite footwear. When I made the observation to the Grenadian project manager, he replied that “that’s their culture.” According to the project manager, the Chinese workers take daily post-lunch siestas and don’t drink cold water. “Only hot water and tea,” he said, which would explain the ubiquitous khaki-coloured canteens.

Chinese construction workers in Grenada

The spanking new Warner Park stadium in St. Kitts, viewed from the Media Centre

Just in from the opening ceremony for St. Kitts’s impressive new Warner Park cricket stadium, and see that Ryan Naraine has linked to both Nikipedia’s and my “coverage” of the situation in Montserrat, and wonders whether it will affect the One Day International scheduled to happen here on Tuesday (and which, as I mentioned earlier, will be St. Kitts’s first international cricket match).

It was stated during one of the speeches that BWIA could not land in Antigua today because of the Montserrat situation (one would assume because of volcanic ash in the air), and, as a result, several WICB officials could not make it to St. Kitts in time for the ceremony. A few Kittitians I spoke to after the ceremony also mentioned that they had noticed an unusual amount of ash in their homes lately. There was no mention of any disruption to Tuesday’s match, however, though this was of course an official ceremony marking a joyous occasion, with politicians, diplomats and other officials in attendance. Plus the match is still two days away. . . . We’ll see.

In other ceremony news, the Taiwanese ambassador (The Republic of China (Taiwan) funded the building of the new stadium — not the People’s Republic of China, as ICC Venue Development Director Don Lockerbie bloopered in his speech. Bad mistake to make, Don) announced that Taiwan will be donating a further US$2.5 million to St. Kitts for the development of an athletics facility. The cheque (which was a small paper one, as far as I remember, not one of those symbolic giant-sized ones) was handed over to Prime Minister Denzil Douglas right there on the podium.

At the ceremony, I also had the pleasure, would you believe, of meeting a Kittitian CFR listener: “Are you Georgia from Caribbean Free Radio?” she asked (seems I’m actually recognisable from my Flickr photos). This was Amicia Mussenden, who maintains the Discover St. Kitts and Nevis Beaches web site and The St. Kitts Nevis Blog. What a delight.

On a semi-related note, I listened to the end of the second One Day International standing outside the car on a point overlooking Basseterre (just in front of the Ocean Terrace Inn, where we’re staying). The situation in Montserrat aside, a nail-biting finish with the West Indies beating India to draw the series against a Caribbean almost-sunset: there are worse places to live than this.

Posting again from the PDA & will soon be out of wi-fi range, but Nikipedia just emailed from Trinidad with this:

”….just rang both the observatory, where I spoke to the director, & the emergency office in MS, & got a full update. Will post details to my own blog, but the basics: dome collapse this morning, pyroclastic flow, ash & gas eruption, tsunami warning, small tsunamis already reported from Antigua & Guadeloupe, some tel. exchanges down in MS, advisories issued but no evacuations or anything like that.”

He’s posted details at his blog.

Here’s the Wikipedia link for the Soufriere Hills Volcano in Montserrat. Those who follow Caribbean news will certainly be aware of the eruptions which have rendered much of the island inhabitable.

I posted the previous entry from my PDA, so couldn’t do much hyperlinking or Googling about the Montserrat situation, but I’m back at the hotel on my laptop. Not finding anything about the dome of the Soufriere Hills Volcano collapsing on Google News, but the Monsterrat Volcano Observatory web site has a photo of the lava dome taken on May 18, and an activity report for the period May 12-19 which says that:

Lava extrusion has continued throughout the reporting period. There is now a broad spine in the southern summit area of the dome. . .

and that:

Residents of Montserrat and visitors to the island are advised to tune into ZJB Radio for up-to-date information on the volcano. Access to all areas south of Richmond Hill, and south of Jack Boy Hill to Bramble airport and beyond is prohibited at all times….

A gentleman here at the hotel just said that the American Airlines flight out of Miami has not even left Miami as yet. Montserrat is about 60 miles from St. Kitts, from where I write this….

If anybody reading this has other information, please leave a comment or send me an e-mail.

We’re sheltering from the rain in Bambu’s bar & restaurant in Basseterre, St. Kitts. Just struck up a conversation with a woman who said to me, “I hope you weren’t planning to fly out today.” She said the dome of the Soufriere volcano in neighbouring Montserrat has collapsed & the ash is causing visibility problems for aircraft. So I can only imagine the scenes in Montserrat itself. . .

Basseterre, the capital of St. Kitts, viewed from Fortlands

It’s a cool, drippy morning in St. Kitts, where I arrived yesterday afternoon. St. Kitts is one of the islands that has always managed to bypass me on my Caribbean travels, so I’m more than happy to be here. So far we haven’t seen much more than a bit of Basseterre (which — at a glance, at least — seems very charming); and Warner Park, the island’s spanking new cricket ground, which opens officially today. This coming Tuesday, in fact, St. Kitts will host its first ever international cricket match, and I have to say they’ve chosen well. Kittians (and the scores of visitors from surrounding islands and elsewhere) will get to see the West Indies play India in the third One Day International, and with the five-match series at 1-0 (India won the first match in Jamaica on Thursday, and they play there again today) some good cricket should be witnessed by all (or at least let’s hope so).

We’re staying at the Ocean Terrace Inn (or OTI, as the cognoscenti refer to it), which is beautifully situated on a point above the western end of Basseterre in an area called Fortlands. The property itself is a bit of a mix of old and new (my room is in what appears to be the “old section”) but you couldn’t ask for a better location, and with free wi-fi in the common areas, what’s not to like.

Yesterday evening we also ate at StoneWalls, the restaurant and bar owned by my long-time Caribbean Beat colleague Garry Steckles. Highly recommended.

Earlier this evening I popped over to JQ’s Supermarket in the Rodney Bay Mall and was standing in the checkout line when a woman in front of me nodded in the direction of the point-of-sale rack to my right and said something to the woman in front of her. They were speaking in Kweyol, so I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I looked down at the rack and saw what had caught the woman’s attention: hanging on the lower section of the rack, among the chewing gum and batteries and magazines, were several rows of Durex condoms. I moved aside as the first woman bent down and took a packet of condoms off the rack (Durex “Comfort”, in case you’re interested). She and her friend examined and discussed it for few seconds, then she handed the packet to the cashier. The cashier said something to the woman,, after which the woman took the packet of condoms back from the cashier and put it back on the rack. (I guess the price wasn’t right.)

Two aspects of this scenario struck me: the utterly matter-of-fact manner in which these two women (who I’d guess were in their late thirties or early forties) discussed condoms in a line at the supermarket; and the fact that, in St. Lucia, condoms are actually sold in the supermarket. They aren’t in Trinidad. In fact, I can think of few places in my native land–which is generally considered more “sophisticated”, more “developed”, than St. Lucia–where condoms are displayed on an open rack like that. In most cases, they’re on a wall behind the cashier’s head, and you have to ask for them. And when you request ribbed, or studded, or kiwi-flavoured, or extra large, the cashier smirks, sighs, then moves her arm in an exaggerated slow-motion arc toward the rack. (I’m making this up, of course, but I’m sure it happens.)

So what is St. Lucia doing that Trinidad and Tobago isn’t?

Driving around Castries (St. Lucia’s capital city) today looking for a parking spot (a normally futile exercise) we finally found a semi-legal one in front of the old craft market. Not surprisingly, most of the vendors there are women, and on this low-season, low-traffic day they had mostly each other for company. Among themselves they speak Kweyol, of course, as many (most?) St. Lucians do, and the sprightly vendor who decided to appoint herself our broker and recruit people we could interview, perhaps taking me for a St. Lucian, spoke to me in a mixture of Kweyol and English.

I know about ten phrases in Kweyol, and for some stupid reason, when I meet Kweyol speakers I tend to try these phrases out, misleading my interlocutors into thinking I actually speak the language and causing them to reply to me in the rapid-fire version of the language people use with their linguistic peers. Which I then have to admit, sheepishly, that I don’t understand.

I was determined for this not to happen today, so I made it clear up front that my Kweyol was pretty non-existent, though somehow I ended up saying this in Kweyol-: Mwen pa ka palay Kweyol” (”I don’t speak Kweyol”–which this site says could have been more elegantly expressed as “Mwen konnet an ti miyet Kweyol“, “I know a tiny bit of Kweyol“).

The woman very quickly figured out I was bogus, however, and I ended up having a good time talking with her and her opposite neighbour. As we were about to leave I asked her how to say good-bye in Kweyol. “Ovwa,” she said. “No, not ovwa,” said the opposite neighbour, who was clearly a purist, “Too French. Say Mwen ka alé.” (Which means, literally, “I’m going”).

“Mwen ka alé,” I said. “Mesi anpil.”

I hate smoking cigarettes with a passion, but for some reason I’ve always admired this sign. I love the combination of faded green and red; I love the sign’s rich patina. And yesterday, walking along the Carenage (waterfront area) in St. George’s, Grenada, I had a chance to photograph it for the first time.

To take a look at my rather abitrary set of Grenada photos, click here.

Meant to post this earlier, but I’m on the road so haven’t had consistent internet access. Received this a couple of days ago from Brendan Greeley of Radio Open Source:

Open Source is doing a show on remittances this week, and we’re looking for both perspective on the effects of remittances on on specific economies, and more personal stories (see email below for a more complete description of the show).

Anyone with a burning story to tell about remittances, please get in touch with me off-list, brendan@radioopensource.org

Remittances are a major contributor to the GDP of several Caribbean countries; it would be a shame for us not to be a part of this conversation. If you know anybody who can talk knowledgeably on the subject, please drop Brendan a line or pass on his e-mail. You can also leave comments and suggestions on the Radio Open Source blog.

Shirley, me & C*POP, back in the day

. . . the This American Life web site has seen the light and now streams shows using the MP3 playlist format (instead of godawful RealPlayer)? I’ve listened to so many back episodes today that I’m tempted to say I’m Ira Glass-ed out. As if that were even possible.

. . . one of the shows you can download from Google Video for US$0.99 is Charlie Rose? The previous day’s show can also be streamed for free (though with a TSTT residential ADSL connection you truly get what you pay for). The show can be downloaded in .avi, iPod video or PlayStation Portable format. I’d be curious to know how many people watch Charlie Rose on their PSPs.

. . . CDs are the new paper? As difficult to control (at least for me), as hard to part with. My own backup CDs I catalogue with DiskTracker, of course. But what to do with the one containing images a client gave you to use in a project that’s been long completed; the gorgeous promo CD from the place you’ll never visit; the one playable only on a PC running Windows XP (this when you’re still a year away from being able to justify buying a MacBook Pro)? On the plus side, CDs are shiny, and I’ve never anyone hang a sheet of paper from his rear view mirror.