The Queen's Park Savannah in Port-of-Spain, usually an oasis of calm at lunchtime, was buzzing Monday with the sound of drumming, singing and rapso as young people had their day in the sun at Youth Day–part of the week-long Emancipation Day celebrations.
The Lidj Yasu Omowale Emancipation village, erected each year for the event, consists of stalls and tents with food and artworks celebrating traditional African culture–or at least a T&T interpretation of it. Red and green flags flutter in the breeze. The main area of the village is all very tranquil. Security guards and stall owners are on the brink of falling asleep in their seats in the midday sun.
Nearing the Grand Stand, however, the noise gets louder. Entering the shaded seating area by the stage it becomes something of a din–the kind of racket you might hear in a school playground. But schools are on their August holiday and the children are here today not to simply crash around like it's break time, they've come from all four corners of T&T to learn about African heritage.
All kinds of schools, youth centres and vacation camps are present. On stage, dressed in bright green T-shirts around 30 children from the Fondes Amandes Community Reforestation Project eco-culture camp in St Ann's are being taught capoeira and stickfighting. Both are martial arts that originated in Africa and migrated west, becoming appropriated over the course of time in the Caribbean and the South American mainland.
At another end of the Grand Stand, children from Rio Claro dressed in orange T-shirts saying "Tamboo Bamboo" are learning about the traditional T&T art form of playing thick bamboo trunks as if theyare drums.
Rosary Boys' RC school of Port-0f-Spain are in purple and are learning traditional African dance moves, taught by the Malick Folk Performing Company. Shanice John, one of the dance tutors, tells the T&T Guardian, "The boys are better at learning basic movements rather than technical dance moves. The girls are more responsive to dance, generally, but we'd like to see more boys getting involved in the artform."
The Lalibela Holistic School, a private school close to the Savannah in Belmont, arrives with teacher Safiya Olugbala to take part in an organic percussion workshop run by Jewels of Nature–run by two brothers, Modupe and Baba Onilu, who are following in their father's footsteps in producing instruments made only of the natural organic materials of T&T found in the rainforest.
They use wood, bamboo, seeds, calabashes and other natural materials to create instruments like the "bamboolin"–made of bamboo but strung to produce a violin-like noise. Or the "earth harp," shaped roughly like a Welsh harp but with threaded hollowed-out seeds that create a tinkling sound when you run your hand over them.Even the skins of the drums are "organically" sourced.
The brothers visit the abbatoir where goats are slaughtered for meat and take the goatskins which would otherwise be discarded and dry and stretch them into drumskins.Michelle Diaz, a teacher from Sacred Heart Boys' RC School, has brought her pupils here to "realise the importance of African culture, food and music and because it's a good rest from studying for the SEA."
When lunch time comes the children look sweaty and exhausted but they are clearly having a great day. They eat traditional African dishes finished off with sno-cones, and the organisers dish out goodies for them to take home.
Kemba Jaramogi, who work with the Fondes Amandes Community Reforestation Project, an organisation set up to raise awareness of environmental issues, organises youth camps every summer and says she never misses the Youth Day at Emancipation Day. She says it is very important that the children, aged five to 15, attend.
"Because it falls outside of the school term it means that while the children learn about other commemorations, religious holidays and celebrations, they don't mark Emancipation Day at school or learn about it because it always falls during the school holidays."