Wow! What a display CARIFESTA XIV (Caribbean Festival of Arts) turned out to be. It was an opportunity for the people of Trinidad & Tobago to proudly show off their wide variety of talents in presenting such an amazing showcase. This year marked a new level of ingenuity and organisation for this celebration of the region’s art, craft, culture, fashion, writing, music, dance, theatre and film making.
A friend called me a couple of weeks before the week-long event to interest me in attending some of the CARIFESTA experiences. To be honest, I didn’t know what CARIFESTA was about and assumed it was some sort of trade show. After hearing about the spectacular opening ceremony, I went along, on the Sunday after it opened, to the CARIFESTA Village in the Queen’s Park Savannah next to the Grand Stand, to see for myself. I was delighted by the beautiful facades of the various tent houses, as these portrayed colourful depictions of iconic buildings from different Caribbean countries. I felt, however, that T&T perhaps would have been better represented by our elegant Red House rather than our grey Central Bank ‘twin towers’. We stood proud as our national anthem was sung beautifully to mark the start of a variety of entertainment in the central square of the ‘village’.
Each enormous tent housed a different type of vendor offering with representations from all around the Caribbean, and even Canada was promoting its CARIBANA event. I had to come back to the CARIFESTA village a couple more times and I still didn’t properly get to see it all, it was so large. Apart from the ongoing shows on the central stage – folk dancing, soca, steel pan, comedy, etc., I enjoyed a fashion show in the fashion and jewellery tent, and a reading from a local author in the Bocas Lit tent which was tucked away in the back. There was a variety of food offerings from the tents on the dedicated food strip on one side of the Village. I enjoyed a delicious seafood stew with red beans and rice and sautéed veggies from the Haitian booth. I wish though that there had been a covered seating area provided to protect us from the sun and rain while we ate our food.
My friends and I made several purchases since we found the quality of items on sale was very high and the prices quite reasonable (though the other islands probably had to charge higher prices because of their extra costs). My only complaint is that most booths only accepted cash and there was only one ATM at the far side of the square. It didn’t take long to get through my cash, and I had to reject a purchase because the line for the ATM was far too long to tolerate. In fact, the crowds towards the end of the week became unbearable. It was reported that over 10,000 people came to the Village every day and this increased to over 20,000 on the final weekend, even forcing the Fire Department to stop more visitors entering on the Friday night, for safety reasons.
This event was clearly a huge success, and I’m sure the participating vendors were gratified by the public’s response though I’m sure it was a very tiring experience. The Village was just one aspect of the CARIFESTA experience, though. I attended a free literary activity “The Value of Life Writing in the Caribbean” with local author, Barbara Jenkins, at the Writers’ Centre in Woodbrook, and this was most interesting and inspiring.
I also visited the Art Society’s (ASTT) CARIFESTA visual art exhibition on the theme of “Me …. A Reflection of Who We Are” which featured the work of local artists and sculptors. Interestingly, the ASTT closed this show with the ritualistic burning of a ten foot effigy of the evil Hindu King Rawan, accompanied by throbbing Tassa drumming. I still plan to visit the art exhibition at Killarney (Stollmeyer’s Castle) entitled “Icons” which will remain open until September 23rd. I missed so much else that was going on at the same time – the art exhibition at NAPA, the T&T Film Festival which was brought forward to coincide with this event, and many other shows, concerts and street cultural performances.
There was just too much to see and do in a short space of time. Next time I will be better prepared!
