Kreol Magazine’s First edition of 2017
Welcome to 2017! Happy New Year and a big thank you to all our readers, contributors and sponsors!
In this issue we celebrate two Creoles who have played important but very different roles in their respective nation’s development. France-Albert Renee (p18), the father of the independent Seychelles, who ensured the Creole language and cultural became the core values in the ex-British Colony. The unsung, until 60 years later, World War II hero, Charles Chenier (p24), from Louisiana, who was in the Tuskegee Air Corp squadron and flew over 1500 missions, without loss, as part of the USA military operations.
More recently we have the Paul brothers, Matthew and Xavier, who have taken the set back of a promising career in basketball, which stalled, and transferred their skills and passion into a community project, Prospect Lab, to help disadvantaged kids (p6). Mentorship plays an important role of helping teens through their formative years, to become self-confident and upright citizens of their communities.
Cricket has been the premier sport in the West Indies and two of its icons are now Ambassadors for their countries. Sir Vivian Richards (p32), who won two world cups and scored 36000 first class runs. Now he promotes Antigua to the wider world. Gordon Greenidge, Sir Vivian’s Windies teammate from the successful 70s, is now Sporting Ambassador for Barbados, with the task of making his country attractive for visitors not just for its sun and beaches but also its myriad of sporting activities (p34).
Barbados features again with Richard Sealey, Minister of Tourism, who has managed to turn around the depths of the global recession of 2008 and drop in oil prices, and secured an increase in visitor numbers (p30).
The Creole world is replete with wonderful locations. Kreol transports you to Dominica (p78), St Kitts & Nevis (p79) and to the spectacular Bird Island in the Seychelles archipelago (p74). The latter is a coral structure, not rock, where you can discover not just the birds (terns, white-tailed tropicbirds and sunbirds) but may bump into Esmeralda, the 170 year old giant tortoise as she meanders in search of food.
These uplifting modern locations contrast with the harsh realities of the Creole history, which still reverberates to this day. The UK port of Liverpool was the centre of the world slave trade during the height of this era in the 18th and 19th centuries, exporting some 1.5 million slaves (p46). It has taken over 200 years to acknowledge this human tragedy and commemorate with the opening of Slave museum in 2007. Norbet Rillieux (p50), a free man of color from Louisiana and with French ancestry, despite transforming the sugar refining industry with his engineering processes, left the US and lived his final days in France. The iconic entertainer Eartha Kitt (p52), a Creole with a white father, whom she never met or even knew who he was, always considered herself an outsider. Her support of the rejected and marginalised members of society is well documented.
Let me glissando onto a high note, so as to speak. Music speaks to us in many ways and jazz has always had this as its foundation. Kreol highlights the modern jazz craze in Chile led by saxophonist Agustin Moya (p.56) to the extraordinary longevity of the jazz epitomised by the Canadian born, Oliver Jones (p.58), but whose parents hail from Barbados.
We cannot miss out on food and festivals, very much the core around which much of Creole life revolves. Savour the Vaucresson New Orleans Creole sausage, which almost went under with Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as it becomes the essential food in the jazz festival scene in Louisiana (p36). The Dominican Republic Ambassador hosted a culinary event in London, where 7 chefs from the Republic regaled an audience with an array of dishes (p96). Such food focus is a major part of the highly successful Festival Kreol (2016), which was opened by the recently inaugurated President of Seychelles, Danny Faure (p84). Kreol also brings you a report of the 1th Festival Kreol of Rodrigues (p88). Try some soup recipes from Vanessa Lewis (p108).
Enjoy and do drop me an email with your thoughts and comments.
Georgina Dhillon
