Malakai Crichlow plays the Egungun mas, Memory with Love, from Godmother’s International kiddies band 2015 presentation, Remember

Welcome to Blogging de Carnival 2019. I know at least a few of you wondered why I was MIA. To be honest, this blog has been on my mind, but my heart wasn’t in it. Every year I begin by giving thanks for my ancestors, as I believe, first and foremost, our Carnival is a celebration of our ancestors and our ancestral heritage. But this year it is hard to remember, as the reminder that I have a new ancestor brings me sorrow. However, the beauty of life is that I know that sorrow comes out of love. And love has brought us here today. Love is why our enslaved ancestors survived the Middle Passage. Love is why the same movements of throwing efun and replayed in sailor mas with powder, and why, as Tony Hall once told a group of us, we carry the heritage of our ancestors in our mas, in our movements as we dance and all the rituals of carnival today. So as always, let us 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”.

Sankofa, the Adinkra symbol of the Akan people, from what is known today as Ghana, “teaches us that we must go back to our roots in order to move forward. That is, we should reach back and gather the best of what our past has to teach us, so that we can achieve our full potential as we move forward. Whatever we have lost, forgotten, forgone or been stripped of, can be reclaimed, revived, preserved and perpetuated”.*

I started this blog series in 2010 after asking to many kids in DC about what carnival meant. But 9 years later feedback and my search data tells me children in Trinidad & Tobago use the site to get information for school projects, and I couldn’t be happier. To learn more about content of this series click here, and here and here. Subscribe to get updates, especially during the next few days. Also follow my Instagram, linked to the main page for stories, live updates and photo posts. Please follow, share and go to the shop to purchase prints or merchandise.

Enjoy

L

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