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So yes, Thursday I get to go to Belmont (a village in the southern part of the island) and rehearse with a band for Parang. Who knows what that could have meant?
Wednesday, I was walking between Hillsborough and L’Esterre (where Sonnel lives) looking for a guest house that wasn’t booked for the Parang Festival. Along the way, I ran into Sonnel who was coming back from the funeral of the woman for whom they had the wake Tuesday night. He and I walked to the tire shop of his cousin, Gus (where we’d played Tuesday night with Grandpa, Sugar, Monika, and Rich) and there I met his cousin Matthew, one of Canute Calliste’s nineteen children.
Oh, yeah, I just came from the Carriacou Museum where I was jamming with Canute (who was highlighted in the last section of a 1997 article). Canute is 87. He’s near-blind and he doesn’t acknowledge me much, but he liked my guitar and my uke so we played these two and three-chord progressions/tunes. It was fun. I recorded a little of it. On violin he’s ethno-musically significant, on uke and guitar he’s an old guy who still has vestiges of chops and he does love to strum and investigate the necks of stringed instruments. Lots of music in his ears and 80% comes out through his fingers.
Matthew told me that there might be a band in Belmont looking for a guitarist for Parang and that he’d investigate and contact me through Clemencia, his sister, who runs the museum. As I played with Canute, Matthew informed Clemencia that I should go to Belmont that afternoon, near the bakery where I’ll find the guys with whom I’m to rehearse. I love it. I love having a place on the island to go to, having a reason to go there. The parang music — it’s fun and sometimes a little boring — they’ve got to do a thousand verses to air all their complaints and tell all the dirt on everybody they’ve dug up through the year. It’s playing on the local radio now, so I’ve heard some samples.
Last night I went to the Catholic church for a Christmas talent night. When I came in the ladies were singing “Oh Come All Ye Faithful”, about a zillion verses, sans hymnals. Then, spontaneously, somebody launched into “Silent Night” and then sang three verses of that by heart. It reminded me of listening to “The Four Seasons” in Ste. Chapelle in Paris when Bridget and I attended a concert.
The priest here is Irish. He got up and said, “About four years ago, I was working in East Africa and somebody told me, ‘Hillsborough is for you.’ I’d never been to Hillsborough. I’d never heard of Hillsborough. But if this [gestures at the musicians and the congregation] is Hillsborough, then Hillsborough is for me!” Irish and West Indians, how much more spoken music do you need?
I drowsed through a lot of the concert. I’d brought my uke and guitar and twice people asked me if I didn’t want to play something, but I declined. I couldn’t think of a Christmas-themed piece to offer.
But, on my walk that day, I’d been called over by two women and a man leaning on the railing of another church (this one in L’Esterre). They wanted some music, so I played some. Then I asked them if they knew a song that I’d learned from some church ladies in Bequia, where the Alcyone stopped before Carriacou. It’s a Caribbean Christmas song, I think. [It’s not, actually: It’s “Come on Ring Those Bells”.]
They knew it and got some of it recorded. (“Navidad! Navidad! Lindo Navidad!”)
Everybody likes to take a holiday,
Everybody likes to take a rest.
Spending precious moments with their family
Enjoying the love and happiness
Chorus:
So, come on ring those bells,
light the Christmas tree,
Jesus is the King, born for you and me.
Come on ring those bells,
everybody sing,
Jesus, we remember it’s your birthday.