Welcome to Blogging de Carnaval 2012 (1/21)

A young Pierrot Grenade on Carnival Saturday 2011 in the NCC Kiddies Carnival Parade

This image and others are available for purchase in various sizes including 8×10″, 11×14″ or 16×20″ prints, framed or unframed.

Iya Louise Brown Clarke talks to a child in her band, Faces of Orisa and Egungun.

Yuh say ah fuhget yuh eh. But nah, dat wouldn’t happen. Never. Not you, not my heritage, not my personal obligation to blog about an important aspect of my heritage. So today we will open the way, as is always expected in African culture, with my cyber libation (ah know yuh like it, go ahead, use it if yuh want :-)) (I have the oldest elder’s permission, trust me).

I give honor, praise and thanks to the ancestors, the ones known and unknown, especially my own personal mas man, EGR, and very importantly, my own personal photographer/inspirer/dreamer/ namer ETF. I give honor, praise and thanks to those millions of Africans, enslaved and brought to the “Americas” who carried their stories in their blood, in their minds and hearts. I give thanks to the spirit of survival, the tenacity and audacity of all those who made it so I could know about my heritage and exist in this world today. I humbly invite you to join me as we open the way. Welcome to Blogging de Carnival 2012.

Here is video of a dance to Elegba. I’m including it because Elegba (or Legba, Elegua, Legwa) in the Yoruba pantheon of Ifa, is the orisha associated with opening the way. And these folks remind me of a band crossing the stage at Queens Park Savannah on Carnival Tuesday. Last year my friends and I met a notable Trinidadian television writer/ actor who said we carry the history of our ancestors in our bodies, in our movement, and it’s fascinating to see it passed on by people of all different ethnic groups, especially during carnival. A day after he said that, I saw an Indian woman giving a man a good wine by a rum shop on Carnival Tuesday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2icyoICx18

Enjoy (and subscribe, share and comment away)!

L

And remember:

“Se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki.”

Literally translated it means “it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot”.