A MASSIVE ‘Mash Day Jump Up’ is billed for the Rosignol Stelling Road as part of a packed ‘Mash’ programme of events planned for West Berbice this year.According to programme coordinator, Ms Carol Smith-Joseph, this year is set to see the biggest ‘Mash’ celebration West Berbice has ever seen since 1982.
“We have many people on board in the planning,” she said. “We have private sector entities, including business people and members of the Region Five Chamber of Commerce; we have public sector entities, including the Police, the Army, the NIS, the MMA/ADA and GWI, as well as residents of several villages who are part of the planning to bring back large-scale Mash celebrations in West Berbice,” Smith-Joseph told The Buzz.
The ‘stelling jump-up’ will take place at the end of a parade from Hopetown to Rosignol, starting at 09:00hrs on Mash Day, February 23.
Smith-Joseph said: “We may not have very many extravagant floats this first time around, but the parade is being planned to be colourful and to be fun, for participants as well as those who will witness it along the nine mile route.”
The Jump-Up on Mash Day will precede the formal Flag Raising Ceremony at Cenotaph Square, at Fort Wellington at midnight on February 22.

FUN MASH NITE
Mash Night will also be a fun night for celebrants of the observances in West Berbice, as the Committee is finalising plans for a J’Ouvert Morning affair at Playboy Square at Number 28 Village for another opportunity for them to jump up.
She, however, has a word of advice for her fun-loving fellow West Berbicians:
“Keep fit! The rhythm of the local calypsos is pretty fast this year, so get that waistline acclimatised for the tremble and the shake and the roll.
“This year Mash in West Berbice, you gon need stamina pon stamina!”
Noting that the Committee is also reaching out to residents of the Mahaicony/Abary end of Region Five (Mahaica-Berbice) this year, Joseph said:
“They usually have their own thing, but if they are not having it this year, we are inviting them to come and join us at the Abary/Berbice end, and make the Mash celebrations even more memorable.”
The last centrally-planned Mash celebrations in West Berbice were held in 1982. Residents of villages at the western end of West Berbice, such as Paradise and Belladrum, had held spontaneous parades and other forms of celebration in the intervening years.
The West Berbice Mash 2017 Committee will meet again next Wednesday at the Hugo Chavez Centre at Onverwagt at 13:00hrs to review the progress being made in the planning, and to add other details to make the revival of Mash celebrations in West Berbice “a very remarkable affair”.