It’s now 234pm Trinidad time, and I’m sitting in Panini Café wolfing down a roast beef wrap. Around 224pm, as I was on my way here, sitting in traffic (and, incidentally, checking e-mail), the car suddenly started shaking. Knowing my car, it could well have been something going on under the hood, so I switched off the engine to make sure. The vibration continued. I looked around to see if other drivers around me were reacting, but the windows of the shiny black BMW next to me were so heavily tinted I couldn’t tell. Called Nikipedia, who confirmed it was indeed an aftershock, and that one of the multi-story government offices — a fairly new buidling — not far from where I am right now, had to be evacuated because a crack had appeared in the structure.

Interestingly, one of the e-mails I was reading when the aftershock occured was a French Embassy communiqué about the earthquake from a mailing list for French nationals and francophiles that — even though I’m neither — I happen to be subscribed to. They seemed to be taking this morning’s tremor very seriously and quoted this report from the Seismic Research Unit:

“On Friday morning 29th September at 9:08 a.m. local time, an earthquake occurred less than 5km off the north coast of Trinidad. The preliminary location for the event is 10.83°N 61.41°W. This event was reported as widely felt throughout Trinidad, Tobago, Venezuela and St. Vincent. Thus far there have been no reports of injuries and several reports of minor damage - cracks in walls.

The USGS has reported that this morning’s earthquake was of magnitude 6.0 while our records show a preliminary magnitude of 5.5. Our instruments are closer to the epicentre and we also have a better distribution of instruments near the source of the earthquake so we are confident that our magnitude of 5.5 is accurate.

The report in the Trinidad Express (which includes a map, in case you’re interested) says “there was no major damage or injury,” but the communiqué advises that people confirm that “the structure of buildings has not been weakened by this morning’s tremor, especially as buildings in Trinidad do not generally conform to seismic standards.” Then they go on to reproduce the in-case-of-an-earthquake guidelines from the Embassy’s security manual.

Maybe it’s time I embraced francophilia.

(Image from the Trinidad Express.)

It’s now raining cats and dogs here in the valley, and I called my colleague at UNICEF (ten minutes drive away, and where I’m supposed to attend a meeting shortly) to find out whether it was raining there as well. She said it was bright and sunny. That’s tropical weather patterns for ya.

Speaking of dogs, Delphine’s pretty broken up about today’s occurrences. She was outside for the earthquake, no doubt cowering somewhere, and now she’s cowering because of the sound of the rain on the roof. Always cowering, that Delphine.

Traffic apparently crazy in downtown Port of Spain, as I’ve learned both from the friend I just talked to on the phone and from the comment left on the previous post by an “excited by shaked” pharmacy worker, who also wrote that schools have been dismissed. I understand as well that the BP building was evacuated — seems there might have been some damage. Power still seems to be out in some areas.

I myself am about to head into the melee to attend a meeting on the outskirts of Port of Spain.

The University of the West Indies Seismic Research Unit has posted information on their web site about this morning’s ‘quake:

Earthquake near Trinidad

On Friday September 29th an earthquake of magnitude 5.5 occurred near to Trinidad. So far we have reports from Chaguanas, St. Augustine, Princes Town, Point Fortin and Westmoorings. We will be posting additional information to this website shortly. If you felt this event please send us an email saying where you were and what you felt.

908am (GMT -4), Blue Range, Diego Martin, Trinidad.

Just felt the strongest, longest earthquake I’ve ever felt in my life. The house felt like it was rocking from side to side. Haven’t checked as yet for damage, but I’m certain that less sturdy buildings than this must have sustained some. It also took the power out — posting this thanks to my CDMA wireless modem.

1000 posts at Global Voices! Thanks to all of you in the Caribbean blogosphere — you’re the ones who made this possible.

And now get back to your computers and write me some more stuff to link.

Arts blogs
Over Global Voices, I’ve posted a short piece on how artists and arts organisations in Trinidad are using blogs.

And the Piggy goes to. . . .
Some real cloak and dagger business going on over at Barbados Free Press. A mysterious donor called “Mr. O” has given BFP US$1,000, which they’re offering as a prize in the 1st annual Barbados Piggies at the Trough Awards. “The “Piggy” as the award is affectionately known, is presented annually to the Barbados politician or civil servant who best exemplifies the “chow down and climb right into the trough” spirit of Bajan corruption.” Apparently BFR already has the cash in hand, so if you’re up on your Bajan politicos, why not give this one a shot?

It takes more than a village
Carifesta IX. What can I say. If you do happen to visit the “village” at at the National Stadium, however, and don’t wish to be completely dismayed at the fossilised, déjà vu quality of most of what is on display under those awful white tents (with the exception of the Guyanese wigs, which were a genuine revelation. Real human hair, the woman said. For TT$200!), pay a visit to the Belize booth, and particularly to the table in the corner with the display from Stonetree Records.

There, in addition to a number of CDs featuring an array of music from Belizean and other artists from the Caribbean coast of Central America, you’ll see a pair of ingenious portable listening posts. They’re about the size of a large laptop computer, with a touchpad bearing thumbnail images of various CDs. Put on the provided headphones, press a thumbnail, and you’re listening to full-length samples of the tracks on each CD. It was the sole example of innovation, technological or otherwise, I came across in my (admittedly rapid) tour of the village. Every small music label should have a couple of these in its arsenal.

I lied to the Jehovah’s Witness woman who just came to the gate. “How are you this morning?” she asked cheerfully. They need to get better about disguising themselves. Had she been carrying a basket of mangoes or something else I could have had for breakfast, instead of a stack of Watchtowers, she might even have succeeded in luring me outside. Instead, I shouted through the dining room window, “I’m on a phone call!”

But I was probably going to be destroyed at Armageddon anyway.

“One of the dumbest moves that was ever made by anybody [on the US invasion of Iraq].”

“If we dont have the right information today, we’re doomed.”

“Men should be barred from public office for 100 years anywhere in this world. . . ”

- Ted Turner to Reuters journalist Paul Holmes

Here at Reuters headquarters in New York with Rebecca, Alice and Kamla Bhatt listening to Ted Turner hold forth on — well, lots of things. Join in the discussion by logging on to the Internet Relay Chat. Link to the webcast and video cast at this page. My not terribly interesting Flickr photos are here.

Global Voices co-founder Rebecca MacKinnon, yours truly and Francophonia editor Alice Backer cuddle the trophy

I know that for some this is very stale news, but Global Voices won the Knight-Batten award today! So proud to be a part of this. Big congrats and thanks to all on the the GV team! (UPDATE: And here are Rebecca’s and Alice’s far more substantial accounts of yesterday, and the Knight-Batten press release announcing the results).

And tomorrow afternoon I’ll be repping for GV again at Reuters’ New York headquarters as Reuters journalist Paul Holmes talks with Ted Turner — the United Nations’ largest private donor — in an attempt to extract the latter’s views on his investment and the state of the UN. Global Voices will be running an Internet Relay Chat through which you can raise questions which we’ll be tossing to Messrs. Holmes and Turner on your behalf. Or make even more of a splash by blogging about the event and tagging the post “gv-un”. Rebecca gives full details here.

“It might be easier to teach a good  blogger how to be a journalist than it is to teach a good journalist how to be a blogger.”

Ken Sands of the Spokane Spokesperson-Review’s Transparent Newsroom Initiative, who’s presenting at the moment. Sounds like a great project. Dean Wright from Reuters has just joined us.

J-Lab director Jan Schaffer just opened the proceedings. Earlier today she introduced us to one of the other finalists saying, “Meet one of your co-winners.” Co-winner. Nice concept.

Everyone we meet says they love Global Voices. “Oh, you all have to win,” said one person. HealthNewsReview.org is presenting now. The slide on at the moment calls it “the only systematic news audit service about Health”. Or something like that (the slide just changed). If sexiness is one of the criteria, GV may have a slight advantage here.

Two great posts on GV this morning, by the way: Salam Adil on Iraq and Jennifer Brea on DRC.

Sitting as we speak in the Holeman Room at the National Press Club in Washington DC awaiting the start of the 2006 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism awards ceremony. I’m helping represent Global Voices along with Rebecca MacKinnon and Alice Backer. Things crazy at the moment — more later.

As if I weren’t already head over heels in love with train travel. Captured earlier today on Amtrak 195 to Washington DC. And yes, I’m a bad, bad travel blogger: my second trip in 18 days and I’m yet to write anything about my wanderings. At least I post the occasional photo to my Flickr page.

More later, we hope. And by the way, Galvanize is good for you (and seems I missed the launch party of the season on Thursday)! But a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the form of a deep-fried patty is probably not.

I touched upon my Martinique experiences some time ago at the dormant-but-not-in-fact-dead Caribbean Free Photo. In that post I mentioned the group Malavoi, whose music, I said, “features prominently on the soundtrack to my Martinique days.”

Yesterday I happened to come across the MySpace page of Ralph Thamar, Malavoi’s former lead singer. Around the time I arrived in Martinique Thamar was just starting his solo career, and I recall once having somehow gotten seated at a table (probably due to some screw-up in the seating plan) with him and Edith Léfel and Marijosé Alie at a bizarre event called “La Nuit des Stars” that was being televised by RFO Martinique. Those were some strange times, indeed.

I no longer keep up with French Caribbean music like I used to, and this video for the song “Fe Van” reminded me of what I might be missing. Accompanying Thamar on piano is Mario Canonge, another fine Martiniquan musician whom I had the good fortune of meeting briefly last year, when he played with the band Sakésho at a jazz festival here in Trinidad.

“Fe Van”, incidentally, is from Thamar’s 2005 album Alma y Corazon.

Today is the fifth anniversary of 9/11, as you will undoubtedly be reminded at every turn. It’s also the first day of the summit of the Non-Aligned Movement taking place in in Havana, Cuba.

Is the Non-Aligned Movement still relevant? (St. Kitts and Haiti have just joined up, by the way). Jeremy Taylor, what’s your take on this?

UPDATE (10:16 PM, Monday; September 11, 2006): Thank you, Jeremy.

7:12am

There’s a scent coming through my window this morning on the chilly air. Fermenting fruit (from the mangoes rotting on the ground under the starch mango tree), mixed with burnt sugar. It reminds me of something, though I don’t know what. Something from another island, I think, to do with the countryside. It is strangely comforting.

Preparing for a hurricane on a small, flat, wealthy island in the north Atlantic is a radically different proposition from preparing for a hurricane in a city precariously situated at the junction of a major river and a major gulf with long-standing sewerage and drainage issues and plagued by social inequalities; or on a small, mountainous and relatively poor island in the Caribbean.

Could she be honing her skills in stating the obvious? you ask. That is certainly possible. Today, however, Bermuda’s bloggers were posting up a storm — if you’ll pardon the pun — as they prepared for the arrival of hurricane Florence. In summarising their commentary for this Global Voices article, I was prompted to consider the implications of being able to — having the mental space/time/leisure to — blog about the act of preparing for a hurricane, about the process of evacuation, about going down to a local bay to romp in the big, hurricane-induced waves, about popping down to the South Shore to shoot a video or two, about having to switch to blogging from your cell phone because your DSL connection went down. (And before somebody else does, let me point out that, were a hurricane to hit Trinidad, these are exactly the kinds of things I’d probably be blogging about, expect maybe the part about cavorting in the waves).

But to get back to Bermuda, CNN and “all the major networks” are said to be there covering the action, and a rumour about a power outage was dismissed as false (false, I tell you! A power outage false! Instead of only too real, not to mention imposed without warning! Speaking of which — let me hit “Save” while we’re at it). Even the Bermuda government was using its newly launched blog (!) to disseminate information.

So it is with good reason, then, that Bermuda isn’t considered part of the Caribbean.

(This started off as a quite sincere, straightforward entry — I’m not sure what happened. Don’t you hate it when blog posts turn weird and cynical on you?)

UPDATE (7:32 AM, Monday; September 11, 2006): Seems the power did go out in Bermuda after all.

There hasn’t been much noise about Carifesta IX in the blogosphere (or anywhere else for that matter), but here, from the Ringplay Productions blog, is a follow-up to an earlier item I posted at the Carifesta IX Fringe Festival Blog about the Bahamian presence at the festival:

Horse in Trinidad

The CARIFESTA contingent will leave Nassau for Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday, September 21. You Can Lead A Horse To Water is scheduled to be performed three times during the week of September 23-30, once in the fabulous Queen’s Hall, and once in Tobago. Horse is only one of the offerings of the Bahamian contingent; The Bahamas will be represented in song, rake and scrape, the literary and visual arts, crafts, and a small taste of Junkanoo.

Having never seen the play I can’t vouch for its quality, but over the past few months the Ringplay blog has been posting behind the scenes accounts and photos from a production of Horse recently staged in Nassau, so I’ll very likely check out the production at Queen’s Hall. (Besides, what the hell is “rake and scrape”? I need to find out).

Other arts organisations who care to have blog-reading types like me attend their events might wish to take note, though I suppose that not every arts organisation is going to have an experienced blogger like Nicolette Bethel among their ranks. Here, however, is a notable exception.

(Cross-posted at the Carifesta IX Fringe Festival Blog)

Anybody find this surprising?