#talkinsense

If Junkanoo were to exist in its most natural form, perhaps it would appear more like a masked ancestral ritual on African soil or the dance of a honugan in a Haitian Voudon ceremony. But as with much else, we are living outside of the natural order of things.

He was a person I trusted with my most precious dreams and most passion-filled visions. He had the ability to imagine into being the non-existent; and he rated this talent in visualization over the more common ability to analyse and criticize. Perhaps it was this quality that enabled him to cradle the dreams of another and find a way to help them levitate.

He fumbled for a response, claiming that regrettably, he had not done the research to know which tribe in Africa he came from. He said if he were asked the same question by one of his children, he would say, let us go and research it together.

THE other day I stumped a politician by asking him a simple question: What is Africa? The question emerged because he responded to another question I posed, are you African, by saying, "No, I am a Bahamian with African heritage." So naturally, I pressed, and asked, well what does it mean to have Africa heritage?

Musicians from the Roots Junkanoo group take centre stage to tune up their sound for the Boxing Day and New Year’s Day Junkanoo parades. Roots devotees and faithful Junkanoo lovers line all sides of the park as spectator-participants, connecting with that earthy sound speaking directly to their spirits. Food, music and all manner of spirits you can find on the park grounds.

She was so astounded by the sight of her friend’s blackness that she remarked at least three or four times about it, and sought an explanation for his apparently unsightly condition. “You working outside now ehy?” she asked, to which the young man uncomfortably answered “no.” Many black people would find my experience at the wedding not so extraordinary, as the exchange I witnessed is commonplace in the black community.