HEARTICALLY YOURS

Ghana is the 8th African country I have visited but to say that is only to show off as in each instance I have experienced but a small slice of life in tiny corners of vast countries that comprise the African continent. However, I am very much at home here for this fortnight of return to my vine and fig tree, as I am struck by the similarities that I have now come to associate with being in West Africa.

I am not a city person and I hope that Anguilla’s town planners find a way to preserve the agricultural lands in the Valley that contribute so richly to the unique blurring of the urban and the rural that makes Anguilla special. However, right now I am in the Big Apple, well not in the heart of it, but being reminded of a few things that I enjoy during such visits. I have a childhood fascination for the trains and still marvel at the engineering feat of the subway.

The following poetic fragments reflect the scrambled brain feelings that have resulted from too many weeks of following the US presidential campaign. I wanted to call it a Media Spun President.

There are so many lessons that old fogies like us can learn from our youth. As the recently revived, restored, revitalized Anguilla National Youth Council (ANYC) arms itself with the knowledge and skills required for representing the youth of this country, they deserve the strongest assistance and support from the various sectors of Anguillian society.

But why are they always talking about Ethiopia and what does some obscure historical battle in a place I’ve never heard of have to do with me? First, Ethiopia is not just about you. It is about the cradle of human civilization and learning and if you do not wish to be associated with that then I sincerely apologize.

It has taken several days to recover from the Victory Vegetarian Banquet and once again I am saying never me again as events in the Yard are just too taxing. While the cleaning up continues, borrowed items are being returned and unsold tickets are being turned in, it is time to say thank you to all those who contributed to the banquet whether directly or indirectly.

That Black History Month, the brainchild of Carter G. Woodson, began as Negro History Week in 1926 and was intended to highlight a serious imbalance in the education system of the United States of America? http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmintro1.html

“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them…” Matthew 6:26

The lady is an artist. I knew that ever since I wrote a piece on her hardanger a long time ago and took some of her work to CARIFESTA V in Trinidad and Tobago in 1992. However, if I or anyone else thought that hardanger would be her only claim to fame, her Flights of Thread exhibition at Wallblake House next week will prove us wrong.

Warmest congratulations to Mr. Carlton Pickering and all those who comprise the largely volunteer team of Kreative Communications Network (KCN). For the past eleven years KCN, with the support of private sector sponsorship, has consistently brought us local and regional television programming that permits us to see ourselves and how we live in the Caribbean without the packaging that makes us nothing more than a tourism destination.

This week I am torn between two events that impacted me so strongly last week that I just have to share them with you.  The first was the commissioning of the Steinway Model O Grand piano at the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School’s (ALHCS) auditorium at Campus B and the second was the 11th Annual Bordeaux Farmers Rastafari Agricultural and Cultural Food Fair in St. Thomas USVI.  

There is a history of relationship between the University of the West Indies (UWI) and Rastafari and it is not insignificant that UWI’s birthday is January 7th, is the day of Lidet or Christmas in Ethiopia.  According to an article in Jamaica’s Daily Gleaner, ‘It was on January 7, 1948, that…the decision was taken that the lands at Mona, Jamaica, were most suitable for establishing the first campus of the UCWI…  The UWI, which was established that year as a university college in special relationship with the University of London and given its own Royal Charter as an autonomous university in 1962, is the oldest, fully regional institution of higher learning in the Commonwealth Caribbean. 

North Side, Anguilla, Christmas week, 1957.
“Ma Ma bake you Johnny cake
Christmas coming
Ma Ma bake you Johnny cake
Chrismas coming…”

I know you read this column because you often tell me so but after reading today’s article we will need to talk so please call me at 497-2878. What I’m asking you to do today is to think about what YOU can bring to the mix of resources needed for a sustained programme of Parenting Education and Support in Anguilla. Generally speaking, people do not like to have their weaknesses pointed out, especially if this is done without empathy and sensitivity so we can assume that one of the reasons parents do not rush forward to seek support when they need it is because they are embarrassed.

As I eagerly await the birth of my second grandchild (biologically speaking), you will forgive me if my thoughts keep turning to the whole gamut of experience involved in that lifelong process of parenting, in which grand-parenting is involved. Lifelong, because no vows are taken but unlike marriages (where the vows are sometimes broken shortly after they are taken), this is the relationship that really exists, “till death do us part”.

Life often comes at me in recurring themes and this week’s theme seems to have been children out of school without the kind of concerted community attention needed to make that out of school time useful or productive. In each instance the child in question was male – my sons, and in each instance I could see the devil around licking his lips at the prospect of awarding more work to idle hands.

Last week I mentioned in passing, and this week I am earnestly starting, the campaign to have all our radio stations find a standing slot in their opening or closing programmes or both, for “Anguilla My Home”, an excellent CD produced by the Gumbs Family. Many years ago, “Anguilla My Island”, a song by another cousin, Austin Gumbs, was used in just this way, so precedence has been set.

“For the truth is that development means development of people. Development brings freedom, provided it is development of people. But people cannot be developed; they can only develop themselves. For while it is possible for an outsider to build a man’s house, an outsider cannot give the man pride and self-confidence in himself as a human being… He develops himself by making his own decisions, by increasing his understanding of what he is doing, and why; by increasing his own knowledge and ability, and by his own full participation - as an equal – in the life of the community he lives in.” (Julius Nyerere, 1974)

I didn’t even hear about the first Antigua and Barbuda International Literary Festival held last year but thanks to the staff at the Anguilla Public Library Service, I was invited to participate as a panellist in the second one from November 2 – 4, 2007. What a joy. Though I churn out these articles weekly and sometimes you enjoy what I write, I think I had forgotten that the literary self needs to be nurtured, and honed, fine tuned to the point where one earns the right to say, “I am a writer.” Nurturing of that self was what took place in Antigua last week-end.

Something wonderful happened on my last two Saturdays, so wonderful that I am moved to share the experience with you in the hope that you will have it too, on Saturday 10th November at Triple Crown Culture Yard. It all began when a very resourceful sister named Judy Guthrie called up to ask if I would be interested in starting one.

A new shopping experience is on offer in Anguilla and there is more than a hint of promise at In Spire which opened its doors in Lower South Hill last Monday.  Something extraordinary happens when you walk through the door - something that makes you want to enhance the spaces in which you spend quality time.  In Spire Décor and Design enables you to do so without paying a fortune.  My remark to the quietly confident young woman behind the venture was that she was going to make a shopper out of me.