Emancipate yourself

Two days ago,August 1st it was Emancipation Day, to all those people out there who may not know what I mean by that I'm talking about  a national holiday that was started in Trinidad and Tobago in 1985,  27 years ago  [and if you don't know where sweet T&T is look it up],  making it the first country  in the world to do so. It was declared a national holiday to commemorate  the freeing of the slaves in these islands by the British 178 years ago. I'm not going to bore you with the historical aspect of this celebration because if you're not into history it wont be of much interest to you. It's celebrated by people of African descent all over the Caribbean and even in north America, but not all of them have it as a national holiday and here we make a really big deal about it. Being a multicultural melting pot emancipation is observed in different ways by different people. The rest of the population usually takes part and everyone is encouraged to free themselves from the shackles of mental slavery, prejudice, racialism, laziness, all negative thought and behavioural patterns and to closely guard our freedom of speech and expression etc but the message is usually aimed towards people of African descent. Encouraging them to reopen their minds to the concept of what it means to be liberated. Celebrations start a week before the holiday.An African type village, the Lidj Yasu Omawale emancipation village, is set up in the capital, Port-of-Spain and it is the centre of activities for the week. There you can buy African artifacts paintings and clothing from all over the world and witness exhibitions of African dance, food and music. The spectacular breath taking part of all this is when on the morning of the 1st there's a massive parade through the streets of the capital. It's called "The Kamboule" and it's an opportunity for people to positively project their heritage through their garments and movements, it's also an effort to eliminate the stereo types of African culture.  There's drumming and  steel bands or steel drums,which were invented in this country, Moko jumbies African dancers and thousands of people in full traditional wear. At night there are flambeaux [kerosene filled glass bottles with a wick] processions to recall the rebellion of the ancestors against slavery. Each year it attracts an increasing number of foreign visitors across the African diaspora. The celebration of Emancipation in Trinidad and Tobago is now one of the world's foremost African festivals and T&T is now being called the emancipation capital of the world.         

I'm writing this blog for totally selfish reasons, to connect to a world that I know is out there, even though I don't usually take part in it. Don't get me wrong now, I love being out,meeting people and enjoying the company of my "fellow islanders"but it isn't always possible. My sixteen year old daughter had herself a good falling to the ground, roll around laugh at my expense when she heard I was starting a blog, but thats ok. There's a lot of doubt about what I'll be able to write but I'm sure that theres a lot of people out there like me, whose life might not be extremely exciting but who still has a whole lot to say and would like to share in my experiences, maybe even joining me to share theirs. Living life is about every day occurances that happen not only to me but maybe to a lot of people out there, it's reaching out and sharing some things about myself that will hopefully make us all feel a little less lonely in this world that we live in.

I woke up today feeling crappy like I sometimes do, dwelling on the negative, thinking about my problems and freaking out about the increasing number of neices pouring into our house over the holidays, but standing in my gallery half an hour later watching the sun slowly rising and touching my face with it's warmth ,I realised in the middle of all this birbsong inturrupted quiet.That I was one of the lucky ones, that no matter how disruptive and loud my kids, neices, nephews got at least I had them to love and have them love me. No matter what my situation is at least I'm here, blessed to be where God put me having the experiences I'm having and just living life