SAN­DRA L BLOOD

blood­l­sandy@gmail.com

Shurlan Lon­don de­scribes her­self as an en­tre­pre­neur, culi­nary pro­fes­sion­al, ed­u­ca­tor and cre­ative ser­vice provider who en­joys us­ing her skills to cre­ate so­lu­tions that make peo­ple’s lives eas­i­er and health­i­er.

“My pas­sion is serv­ing oth­ers while build­ing busi­ness­es that pos­i­tive­ly im­pact my com­mu­ni­ty, but at the core are ed­u­ca­tion and re­spect, which I thrive on and take great plea­sure in im­part­ing and help­ing oth­ers em­u­late. They are two of my great­est mo­ti­va­tions,” she said.

“As a child, I was cre­ative, cu­ri­ous and al­ways en­joyed learn­ing new things. I loved work­ing with my hands and find­ing ways to help oth­ers. Those ear­ly ex­pe­ri­ences shaped the per­son I am to­day and in­spired my en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it,” Lon­don shared. “One of the ar­eas that keeps me ground­ed is learn­ing about eth­nic­i­ty and its val­ue while ask­ing my­self, what does it all mean? As an African-ori­ent­ed per­son, while in­ter­est­ed in oth­ers’ eth­nic­i­ty, I dug deep in­to mine. I was al­ways cu­ri­ous about why Africans wrap their head and body. I learned that both wraps are con­nect­ed to well­ness, self-care and cel­e­bra­tion.”

Lon­don re­calls the lyrics of the late leg­endary Ja­maican singer Bob Mar­ley: “Eman­ci­pate your­self from men­tal slav­ery. None but our­selves can free our mind,” and while she whole­heart­ed­ly agrees, she said it takes a lot of courage and self-ac­tu­al­i­sa­tion, but she’s made a com­mit­ment to help­ing oth­ers recog­nise and find them­selves through learn­ing about African wraps.

“African at­tire and fab­ric tell a sto­ry of deep his­to­ry, na­ture, cre­ativ­i­ty and raw tal­ent, and ow­ing to the rel­e­vant ed­u­ca­tion be­ing ab­sent at school—at a for­mal and struc­tured lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion—the wear is tak­en for grant­ed,” said Lon­don. “At times, it is even snick­ered and laughed at, which is dis­re­spect­ful and re­dounds to many peo­ple feel­ing ashamed to freely wear it, or it’s worn/treat­ed with dis­ap­proval.”

Lon­don spe­cialis­es in wrap­ping and al­so the in­tegri­ty of wrap­ping.

“I’m a very sim­ple per­son and my de­meanour is usu­al­ly mis­un­der­stood or tak­en for grant­ed,” she stat­ed. “But once I wrap my head or body, I feel a sense of calm and con­trol. I am a stage-three stom­ach can­cer pa­tient who is rav­aged by harsh ra­dio­ther­a­py treat­ments, with a cy­cle com­plet­ed on Ju­ly 27—four days be­fore Eman­ci­pa­tion Day—but my heart is in the right place, strength­ened by my African spir­it.

“There are ma­jor ben­e­fits to wrap­ping, and the world has grown to re­alise that every eth­nic group wraps, but specif­i­cal­ly for Africans, its wrap lan­guage falls with­in colours and fab­rics rang­ing from sol­id to mixed, and styles.”

In her con­tin­ued thrust to ex­pand her knowl­edge and share it with oth­ers, Lon­don tapped in­to An­ces­tral Threads (AT), who fur­ther ed­i­fied that head wrap­ping is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of African her­itage, cel­e­brat­ing fes­ti­val and spir­i­tu­al tra­di­tions and iden­ti­ties, and is a sym­bol of free­dom and re­silience, while body wrap­ping is used for cul­tur­al fes­ti­vals, per­for­mances and sto­ry­telling, ho­n­ours an­ces­tors and cel­e­brates African roots.

AT clar­i­fies that while that speaks to the Caribbean, in the moth­er­land, Africa, tra­di­tions vary across the South, North, East and West. Both fab­ric and wraps cov­er a much wider range of ben­e­fits, in­clud­ing so­cial stand­ing, mar­i­tal sta­tus, fes­ti­vals, re­li­gion, fam­i­ly her­itage, trib­al iden­ti­ty, cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, moral and eth­i­cal stand­ing, rit­u­als and an­ces­tral cus­toms, and both wraps pos­sess key ben­e­fits.

Head wraps are a form of cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty, pro­tect the hair, pro­mote hair growth and reg­u­late tem­per­a­ture, with some be­ing Du­ki, Gele, Isi­agu, Isi­cho­lo, Shùkú, tur­bans and veils, and body wraps of­fer a sense of em­pow­er­ment and con­fi­dence, aid with detox and cir­cu­la­tion, sup­port heal­ing and im­prove pos­ture. In gen­er­al, wrap­ping is more than style—it’s a liv­ing tra­di­tion passed down through gen­er­a­tions, con­nect­ing us to our an­ces­tors and em­pow­er­ing our fu­ture. It speaks to pro­tec­tion, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, iden­ti­ty, tra­di­tion and em­pow­er­ment.

Lon­don said, like many oth­ers, she was of the view that all African fab­ric is made via fac­to­ries or elec­tri­cal ma­chines, but that is mis­lead­ing.

Some African fab­rics are ac­tu­al­ly made from tree bark, and some are paint­ed with mud, and care­ful­ly pre­pared en­tire­ly by hand us­ing home­made tools, ap­pa­ra­tus­es and process­es. It’s called African crafts­man­ship that takes months to pre­pare be­fore achiev­ing a per­fect fin­ish, en­abling it to tell its in­dus­tri­al sto­ry.

Lon­don’s oth­er ma­jor project is get­ting tra­di­tion­al au­then­tic African culi­nary dish­es on the ta­ble just as she’s do­ing with wardrobe. “When we at­tend non-African eth­nic events, we are hap­py to share the re­spec­tive eth­nic culi­nary de­light, yet there’s a scarci­ty, if any, of au­then­tic African de­lights to be found in T&T, and that doesn’t au­gur well for in­tegri­ty, en­joy­ing cul­ture, cre­at­ing his­to­ry or pre­serv­ing her­itage.

“My culi­nary jour­ney be­gan from a gen­uine love for prepar­ing food and bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er through meals. It’s the same as bring­ing peo­ple to­geth­er with clothes. Over the years, that pas­sion grew in­to a pro­fes­sion as I de­vel­oped my skills through train­ing and prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence. I en­joy cre­at­ing qual­i­ty food and shar­ing my knowl­edge with oth­ers through work­shops and men­tor­ing.

“I en­joy bak­ing, ex­plor­ing new recipes, learn­ing new busi­ness ideas, cre­at­ing prod­ucts and spend­ing time de­vel­op­ing projects that serve my com­mu­ni­ty. I al­so en­joy teach­ing and shar­ing knowl­edge with oth­ers, hence African wrap­ping.

“Help­ing oth­ers is one of the great­est mo­ti­va­tions be­hind every­thing I do. Whether I’m prepar­ing food, teach­ing a wrap work­shop, of­fer­ing a ser­vice, or en­cour­ag­ing some­one to start their own busi­ness, I be­lieve that suc­cess is even more mean­ing­ful when you can up­lift oth­ers along the way.”