I WAS looking forward once again to Barbados’ Crop Over Festival, traditionally held at the end of July, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The Barbados government, which basically organises and partially funds the event through the National Cultural Foundation (NCF) with the cooperation of the private sector, did a really good job and all came off well.

As the many Guyanese who have come to the island to experience the festivities will attest, the climax is, of course, Grand Kadooment, when costume bands parade into the capital, Bridgetown, from the National Stadium about five miles away.

This year, 21 bands, comprising about 20,000 revelers, participated with themes including environmental issues and health and heritage subjects. Some were big: The Power X 4 for example, had 1500 revelers.

The first band left the Stadium at 09h00, and the last arrived at the Spring Garden Highway destination at 17h50. Lots of excitement for those watching along the route. Of course, the women had on the mandatory two-piece costume, some rather skimpy indeed. Most of the revelers had their little container with a personal brew. “It is water; don’t you believe me?” some of them told the skeptical interviewer on the government-owned TV station, CBC-TV, which broadcast most of the march.

The top ‘Road March’ tunes this year were Edwin Yearwood’s ‘Middle of the Road’; Mikey’s ‘In Dat’; and Nathalee’s ‘This Is What We Do’. Some Guyanese were telling me they felt Nathalee (real name Nathalee Bynoe) got “unfaired” by the judges, and I would agree. I heard her song along with others on the radio, but it wasn’t until I saw her perform in person at the Prime Minister Thompson’s Crop Over reception at his official residence, that I knew she really had a hit.

There are several big events in the two Crop Over weekends. These are aside from the several calpyso tents, only one of which I could check out this year (The Bacchannal Tent, where Guyanese Nalini Sukhram, aka ‘GT Girl’, was performing). All are popular with the Bajan and visitor public. The Pic-o-de-Crop Calypso Monarch this year was won again by ‘Red Plastic Bag (real name Stedson Wiltshire)’.The Party Monarch competition was eventually won by long time tryer, ‘TC (Terencia Coward)’.

I didn’t get to see the Cohobblopot show, a variety thing with singers, including Machel Montano from Trinidad. That show was this year held at the newly-refurbished Kensington Cricket Oval and focused on a ‘Tribute to Alison Hinds’, Barbados’ Soca Queen who regularly visits Guyana.

I did go down to the Bridgetown Market Street Fair on the Saturday to check out the action. I grounded once again with some of the Guyanese-born craftspeople showing their work for sale. Among them was the hardworking Arnold Bishop who specializes in leather-craft. He brings all his leather from Guyana

Crop Over actually starts in May, with the opening of the tents and the ceremonial turning over of the last of the cut canes. Prizes are given to the men and women who cut the most cane during the season. There is only one cane harvesting season in Barbados, and the canes are not burnt like in Guyana.

The festival had its origins in the late 1600s (some reports say it started in the 1780s) to ‘celebrate (for the slaves, it meant the end of a part of their hard, unrewarded work)’ the end of the sugar harvest. It was stopped in the 1940s but revived in 1974 .

The festival coincides with the anniversary celebrations of the July 26, 1937 ‘riots’, which were actually a labour rebellion led by a Trinidad-born man named Clement Payne, who is today one of Barbados’ National heroes. And of course, there is Emancipation Day, which is on the Monday before the big climatic events. There were also the laying of flowers and speechmaking at the Emancipation Monument (commonly called the Bussa Monument after a slave revolt leader and another of the island’s national heroes) which I attended. There was some discussion in the press about the overshadowing of these more serious anniversary celebrations by the festivities.

I was further deeply honoured to have been invited by the organisers to lay flowers and say a few words on behalf of the government and people of Guyana at the monument for Clement Payne and the heroes of the July 26, 1937 revolt in Bridgetown, which is a public holiday in the island (as in Cuba, to celebrate the attack on the Moncada Barracks there). A Barbados Government MP, Hon. Patrick Todd, represented the Barbados government, while Hon Cynthia Forde represented the Barbados Labour Party Opposition at the Payne and heroes ceremony.

As with the Guyana government and Masharamani in Guyana, the Barbados government sees the Crop Over festival in both historical and present generation terms: There is a need to remember the past but also to take care of the present. Economically, it is one of the bigger such ‘Carnival-type’ festivals in the Caribbean, though not as large or well known as the one in Trinidad. Barbados’ Minister of Tourism, Hon. Richard Sealey, said at a post-Festival news conference attended by visiting journalists, that he was pleased with the coverage the island was getting abroad. He also said the island’s economy benefitted from the many thousands of Barbadians who come ‘home’ this time of the year to participate in the festivities.

There were fears that because of the international economic downturn, which has affected Barbados’ main economic sector, tourism, Crop Over 2009 would be downsized compared to last year. According to organisers, some of the bands were indeed smaller this year but, all in all, it appeared to be another successful Festival. Barbadian middle and working class levels still have some money. Many came out with expensive costumes. Remember, the per capita earnings in the island is near US$10,000 a year.

At the risk of upsetting those gloom and doomers who unfairly criticise the ongoing progress and development in Guyana despite the challenges, I had a good time at the Festival, though reflecting seriously when necessary and sensitively with regard to Barbados’ historical events.
(Norman Faria is Guyana’s honorary consul in Barbados <nfaria@caribsurf.com>)