Chinese Bicentennial 2011 Dragon Boat Racing

Every time I think of dragon boat racing I think of the 1956 movie, The King and I, when the King of Siam asks his son what he will do when he is king and he says that he will have fireworks and boat racing. When the King asks him why boat racing, he answers simply, 'I like boat racing.'

That is the way I feel about the growing sport here in Trinidad and Tobago as well. I just like it. The movement of the boats over the water, the paddles digging into the surf, moves something inside me like freedom bubbling up, that probably connects back to something in my ancestry. How true that is I don't know given my Afro-Trinbagonian heritage. If that's the case I should feel more at home in a savannah than near water but my mother does have Amerindian in her blood so maybe it has something to do with that. But, back to boat racing!

Dragon boat racing to be exact. In commemoration of the arrival in 1806 of our Chinese-Trinbagonian brethren, every year, either on the 12th of October which is the official date for the CHINESE BICENTENNIAL or the Sunday closest to it, the Dragon Boat Festival is held, this year at Anchorage, Chaguaramas on Sunday the 9th of October 2011.

So at nine ten in the morning, I arrived and despite some news reports of it starting at 8 or even 9am, I was not expecting anything to start until 10am. And like typical Trinis, they did not disappoint. At 9:30 the first boats started heading out into the water, lining up at their markers to await the starters horn. By 9:45 the boats slowing began, one by one, to head off to the shade of the trees hanging over the hillside as the officials seemed to be taking their tender time. By 9:50 the officials came speeding over in a small fishing boat and by 9:55 the first race finally started with Sports World Aquaholics winning the first heat of the day. Now I may be wrong, but after five minutes the teams, instead of heading back to the loading bay, went back up to the starting line and raced again. There did seem to be a bad start the first time to me but the announcer didn't announce a do-over so I can't be sure. However, the second race was announced as heat one and not the first so I can assume that was the case. Either way, Sports World Aquaholics ran away (well, rowed away) with the win again.

After this, the races went off smoothly. As soon as a race finished the teams made their way back up to the loading bay, where the next set of teams were waiting for them to disembark to head out themselves into the water and off to the starting line. The time between the races was only 15 to 30 minutes apart for the most and as soon as one race finished the results for the race before that was announced. Well after doing this for the last five years, I would expect them to get the flow of it by now! Ha, ha! Flow, get it? Water, flowing,...? Oh-kay, moving on!

The seniors rowed first. Some of the participating teams were Sports World Aquaholics, Degree Tidal Bliss, GHL Awestruck, Point Fortin Shock Wave, Western Union Angels and Saints, Excellent Stores Titans, Energy Vanguard, Vikings, Paddle to One Drum and UTT South Drillers. It was hard to say which teams were the clear cut winners but Sports World Aquaholics, Excellent Stores Titans and Paddle to One Drum seemed to be doing well, winning almost every race they were in up to lunchtime.

After the seniors had their first round of races, the Juniors started at about quarter past 11, with just two races from what I saw. South East, St. Mary's college and Trinity college raced in the mixed category, while Bishops raced against Holy Name Convent in the womens, eh-hem, young ladies category. Trinity college and Bishops won these heats respectively.


By lunchtime, all the seniors had raced twice in their respective heats and the sessions breaked for lunch! While patrons thronged the one (1) food booth (doh know what was going on with that but the food taste gooood!), we were provided with entertainment. From a tai chi fan dancer to Tassa Drummers who had the crowd cheering them on, and expected (ah mean is trinis we dealing with here) but still unexpected winers to the DJ's mix (some parent had their chile rolling they eye and ducking wid shame).

In the end Excellent Stores Titans took home the win in their category with a tight race against Sports World Aquaholics.

Trinity College and Bishops Anstey won in their respective school categories. Honestly my support went to St. Mary's College but my favourite school team was Holy Name Convent. (Doh take it on brother!) Why?

If anybody had walked in at the end of their race they would have never guessed that those girls had lost. They were cheering and chanting going into the water and cheering and chanting back out! They had their own cheer-leading section just in case you couldn't hear them from the water and they probably were all hopped up on gatorade but THAT's what I call a winning spirit!!

Here are a few more images below that captured the events of the day.



















Didn't get to load all the pictures I wanted to but as you can see the teams and patrons were out and having fun. Hope to see you there next time.

- A. Semog

Tobago Blue Food Festival

She broke the cap off the bottle and put the mouth to her lips. She watched the bottle strangely as she rolled the contents around her mouth.

Hmm, maybe if ah try it again, her face seemed to say, but the second try was the end for the concoction as the bottle was promptly covered.
“It alright, eh,” she said, “it just doh fit my taste, yuh know?”

The drink, dasheen punch, the place, Bloody Bay Recreation Grounds where the Tobago Blue Food Festival 2010 was in full swing on the 17th of October. And the main ingredient, you guessed it, dasheen, dasheen and more dasheen.
Not a big fan of provision and all that myself but I do love food. So over I went to Tobago to partake of the festivities. I anticipated that what I couldn’t hold in my belly I could at least take with me so I carried a good size bag.

When I first walked into the food festival area my first thought was, ‘whey, this place small, boy.’ Yes, when you walk in, you walk out, but don’t let size fool you. I found at least 20 different kinds of dasheen food items, and I ain’ talking dasheen carved into little animals and flowers here (though that would also have been interesting) but actual food that you may have eaten before just with dasheen substituted as the main ingredient.

“Dasheen pizza?” two girls asked in unison as they heard it announced by Wendell Mottley who ‘oversaw’ the food demonstrations. I have it on good opinion that he was not an official judge and was just there for his ‘belly’, but then again, who doesn’t come to a ‘food’ festival with their stomach in mind.

Official judges were Mayda Cowie, Elvin Witlock and Deborah Sardinha Metivier with Alana Applewhite as an assistant judge, and man did they have their work cut out for them. Exhibitions opened around 10am so the judges had good time to deliberate.

Imagine, and these are just a few of the dasheen delicacies, dasheen bread pudding, dasheen soup, dasheen jam, dasheen-colada (believe it!), dasheen rum punch, dasheen kurma, dasheen chocolate chip cookies and the highlight of the festival, dasheen ice cream with, you wouldn’t believe, Baileys,(!!) courtesy the Tobago Hospitality and Tourism Institute. Never in my wildest dreams did I think dasheen could go so far but hey, they did it with other foods, why not with the dasheen!


The contestants surely outdid themselves. Other than the Tobago Hospitality School, some of the participants were Shelly’s Delights, North Side Combined from Cap’n to Cook, Susan’s Delights and the wonderful Calypso Girl’s who gave us two of my favourites dasheen wine and dasheen cheese cake. I managed to get the recipe for one of the food demonstrations for dasheen pone. You can find it at the end of this review. Of course most of the dasheen delicacies were catered for your sweet tooth but if you had some serious hunger pangs and needed a full meal, there was ample a stall selling all varieties of blue food and not to mention every variety of meat. From chicken to goat to lap to fish and crab and rabbit, though I didn’t see any flying fish or shark, you get the idea, right?

Now after you had your lunch of cassava, dumplings and of course dasheen with a stewed meat of your choice and you’ve washed it down with some dasheen rum punch or wine, and while you’re snacking on dasheen sweetbread or fruit cake for dessert there were a few other items to the festival (other than the food) to be enjoyed. With Wendell Mottley for Radio Trinbago and Baker as our Master of Ceremonies, the DJ and a small ‘riddem’ section (must always have a rhythm section!) entertaining the crowd between performances there was enough fun to be had by all.

While patrons and tourists alike ‘nyam nyamed’ their goodies they were able to enjoy stage performances that kicked off at about 1pm and went on into the night. Through out the evening there were performances by Indra, Keisha Stewart, Princess Adana, Keshawn Jack, Swappy, Shurwayne Winchester and the Black Stalin just to name a few.









Off the stage you could have participated in a game of ‘ring toss’ which was set up for the amusement of the children and it seemed for the adults as well, as some of the items you had to try to place your ring over were bottles of White Oak Rum and Scotch Whisky! Needless to say, if you snagged it with your ring, you got to take the item home with you. Being the main sponsor TSTT was there giving away free handkerchiefs and pencils as well as a few Blink Vigilance packages to some lucky festival goers. The Tobago Tour Guide Association and the PSCU Cooperative Society Ltd also set up tents for patrons to view their services.

However, probably the most interesting, for me, because I just love the stuff, was a double tent set up by two artisans, jewellery makers who seemed to be enjoying the festival as much as they were there to promote their craft. And such inventive pieces! What really interested me were the materials that they used to make their jewellery out of. They had the usual favourites like hematite and shells but then one business, Naturale, used materials such as fish scales and cow horn in their jewellery.



While another Empress Exclusive went from exquisite materials like mother-of-pearl to simple yet colourful clay pieces.


Right next to them was a young artist named Dillon, who made beautiful paintings on bamboo of some of the lovely scenic Tobago locations like Pigeon Point. I particularly liked one of his paintings called ‘Bamboo Patch’ showing a bird hidden within a patch of bamboo.


At the end of the evening the first prize for best dasheen delicacy went to Shelly Ann Lewis who also took home the prize for best display and spirit of the competition.
Her winning dishes included Dasheen Coo Coo served with Calaloo, Dasheen Souse and Homemade Dasheen Bailey’s.

Second place went to Ysanne Williams-Chance who also won most innovative dish and best dessert. Her winning dishes were A’roshell which consisted of stuffed pasta shells with a dasheen filling (can't get better than that), Dasheen Kurmar and Dasheen Wine.

So. At the end of the day, I believe the only way someone could not have had fun at such a diverse and varied event was if they had an incredible dislike for blue food on a whole and even then, one could have at least acquired some exquisite jewellery. Which would have been well worth it.

- A. Semog

Recipe for Dasheen Pone: (see first picture, contains dasheen pone and punch)

Items:
3 large dasheens
1 small coconut
2 cups sugar (or to taste)
2 pinches spice (powder) or grated
2 pinches nutmeg (powder) or grated
1 pinch tonka bean, grated

Method:
Peel, wash and grate the dasheen.
Grate the coconut and squeeze out the juice.
In a large bowl, add the grated dasheen, spice, nutmag and the tonka bean.
Add a pinch of salt and the sugar. Mix together preferably with a wooden spoon.
Add the coconut milk.
Mix until smooth and bake at 100 to 150 degrees celsius.

Contacts for:

For An Original Dillon: Artist Dillon A. Richards; (868) 330-0418; mrdillonrichards@gmail.com; http://www.originaldillon.com/

Empress Exclusive: Shelly Ann Joseph; San Fernando, Trinidad; (868) 569-6710; empressexclusive@yahoo.com; You can also find her on Facebook

Naturale: Carla Thompson; Santa Cruz, Trinidad; (868) 769-4198; Carlabjorn@live.com