 The Plume is a special online photo essay showcasing Tobago by National Geographic explorer and photographer Thomas Peschak. - TOBAGO has been showcased in two National Geographic features.
In a news release on November 14, Tobago Tourism Agency Ltd (TTAL) said, "We are pleased to share that the unspoilt island of Tobago has been featured in National Geographic’s newest documentary, Expedition Amazon. "National Geographic also unveiled a special online photo essay titled The Plume, showcasing the island’s striking beauty beneath the surface through the captivating lens of noted National Geographic explorer and photographer Thomas Peschak." TTAL said in a journey that "spanned the entire Amazon River Basin – from the icy 20,000-foot peaks of the Nevado Ausangate Mountain in the eastern Andes of Peru to its freshwater plume that reaches as far as the Caribbean islands, the unspoilt shores and vibrant reefs of Tobago present a stunning finale to National Geographic’s newest documentary, Expedition Amazon." Expedition Amazon, it said, is the culmination of a two-year scientific exploration of the Amazon River Basin. Led by seven teams of National Geographic explorers under the Rolex and National Geographic Perpetual Planet Amazon Expedition, this new, ground-breaking documentary unearthed some of the region’s unique wonders, including its connection to the reefs of Tobago. “I’ve never seen blue sponges in my life,” said Angelo Bernardino, National Geographic explorer and ecologist, while exploring some of Tobago’s unique dive sites. “A lot of marine life that we see here may be directly dependent on the food that is delivered by the Amazon River plume,” explained Bernardino during his exploration of the famous Japanese Gardens off the coast of Tobago’s Goat Island. “And that translates into a completely different marine ecosystem…here, you have reefs that are dominated by sponges,” added Peschak. Known by many as a diver’s paradise, Tobago boasts over 50 well-established dive sites, including the London Bridge Arch in Charlotteville, the Kelleston Drain off the coast of Little Tobago, Angel Reef in East Tobago and the Mount Irvine Wall and Kariwak Reef to the west of the island, thick with sponges, corals and the largest known brain coral in the western hemisphere. Divers can expect to find a vast array of marine life, including moray eels, lobsters, sea horses, barracudas, tarpons, rays and the leatherback turtle. Director of marketing and communications at TTAL Jason Antoine said: “As one of the Caribbean’s hidden gems, Tobago remains a destination waiting to be discovered by many. "With our reefs now featured in National Geographic, we hope to welcome more divers and travellers eager to experience their beauty first-hand. National Geographic's spotlight on Tobago’s mesmerising underwater landscape captures the essence of our natural allure, showcasing why Tobago should be on everyone’s travel list.” "National Geographic’s recognition of Tobago further propels the island’s unique tourism offerings on the global stage, providing travellers, explorers and viewers around the world with a vibrant view of a rich dive experience that takes you beyond the ordinary," the TTAL release said. Expedition Amazon is now streaming on Disney Plus, Hulu and NGTV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCjFWTp2J_k. The Plume online photo essay, "showcasing the island’s striking beauty beneath the surface through the captivating lens of Peschak," can be viewed at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/into-the-amazon/the-plume. (Source: Newsday, Nov 17, 2024)  According to historical records it is believed that Christmas was first celebrated in Trinidad in 1569. The season was introduced by six priests of the Order of Observantines led by Fr Miguel Diosdados. The priests visited several villages in Trinidad sharing the story of the first Nativity. On these visits they were warmly welcomed by the villagers who invited them into their homes and treated the priests to local Cuisine . Trinbago ‘s Christmas traditions have evolved over centuries, creating a festive season filled with unique flavors and heartwarming customs.
Iconic village scene from our distant past. Where do you think this photo was taken and around what time period? (Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's virtual museum of T&T Nov 29, 2024)  It was so refreshing to buy a "press" with guava syrup and condensed milk .
(Source: Trinbago Golden Memories, Nov 29, 2024)  Wow, I had no idea about the original story of Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer! If you aren't familiar with it either, read below:
As the holiday season of 1938 came to Chicago, Bob May wasn’t feeling much comfort or joy. A 34-year-old ad writer for Montgomery Ward, May was exhausted and nearly broke. His wife, Evelyn, was bedridden, on the losing end of a two-year battle with cancer. This left Bob to look after their four-year old-daughter, Barbara. One night, Barbara asked her father, “Why isn’t my mommy like everybody else’s mommy?” As he struggled to answer his daughter’s question, Bob remembered the pain of his own childhood. A small, sickly boy, he was constantly picked on and called names. But he wanted to give his daughter hope, and show her that being different was nothing to be ashamed of. More than that, he wanted her to know that he loved her and would always take care of her. So he began to spin a tale about a reindeer with a bright red nose who found a special place on Santa’s team. Barbara loved the story so much that she made her father tell it every night before bedtime. As he did, it grew more elaborate. Because he couldn’t afford to buy his daughter a gift for Christmas, Bob decided to turn the story into a homemade picture book. In early December, Bob’s wife died. Though he was heartbroken, he kept working on the book for his daughter. A few days before Christmas, he reluctantly attended a company party at Montgomery Ward. His co-workers encouraged him to share the story he’d written. After he read it, there was a standing ovation. Everyone wanted copies of their own. Montgomery Ward bought the rights to the book from their debt-ridden employee. Over the next six years, at Christmas, they gave away six million copies of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer to shoppers. Every major publishing house in the country was making offers to obtain the book. In an incredible display of good will, the head of the department store returned all rights to Bob May. Four years later, Rudolph had made him into a millionaire. Now remarried with a growing family, May felt blessed by his good fortune. But there was more to come. His brother-in-law, a successful songwriter named Johnny Marks, set the uplifting story to music. The song was pitched to artists from Bing Crosby on down. They all passed. Finally, Marks approached Gene Autry. The cowboy star had scored a holiday hit with “Here Comes Santa Claus” a few years before. Like the others, Autry wasn’t impressed with the song about the misfit reindeer. Marks begged him to give it a second listen. Autry played it for his wife, Ina. She was so touched by the line “They wouldn’t let poor Rudolph play in any reindeer games” that she insisted her husband record the tune. Within a few years, it had become the second best-selling Christmas song ever, right behind “White Christmas.” Since then, Rudolph has come to life in TV specials, cartoons, movies, toys, games, coloring books, greeting cards and even a Ringling Bros. circus act. The little red-nosed reindeer dreamed up by Bob May and immortalized in song by Johnny Marks has come to symbolize Christmas as much as Santa Claus, evergreen trees and presents. As the last line of the song says, “He’ll go down in history.” Rudolf will air December 6th, NBC, 8:00 Eastern, 7:00 Central time.  Seeing that the STEEL PAN has OFFICIALLY been announced as Trinidad &Tobago's National Instrument, here's some history about it and its founder.
𝐃𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐖𝐢𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐧 "𝐒𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐞" 𝐒𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐧? In the year 1930, Winston Simon was born at Rose Hill, East Dry River, Port-of Spain, Trinidad. He went, however, to live with his brother at Clinton Street (now Foster Street) in another community of the East Dry River, called John John. John John was an area surrounded by factories, which produced biscuits and other products that used tins and drums. The discarded containers were used by the youth in the area as instruments for their percussion band, which was a response to the official banning of the drum. In the John John band, Winston was a kettle drummer and played his kettle-drum, a rudimentary one-note instrument. It is believed that one night when the band was taking a 'jam' through the district, Winston loaned his instrument to a fellow member. When the kettle drum was returned, Winston noticed that the instrument had been destroyed, as much of its original convex playing surface had been beaten inward. As he tried to repair the instrument and return it to its original shape, by beating it from inside with a big stone, Winston observed that there were different sounds, tones or pitches emanating from various points of the surface of the tin. This discovery encouraged experimentation with the pounding of the surface of the tin using stone and wood alternately, which led to Winston being able to hammer out 4 distinct musical notes, thus producing a four-note pan in 1943 at the age of 13. In that same year, Winston was able to further develop his instrument into the eight note 'ping pong', which is considered the fore runner to the tenor pan of today. By 1946, Winston 'Spree' Simon's ping pong evolved into a pan of fourteen notes but the top of the pan was still convex, was beaten with plain sticks without the rubber and was not chromatically tuned. Following the ban of Carnival from 1939-45 as a result of World War 2, on March 5th 1946, Carnival Tuesday of that year, Winston 'Spree' Simon publically launched his fourteen note pan at the Broadway Carnival Competition in down town Port-of- Spain. At the competition Winston 'Spree' Simon played to an audience, which included the Governor Sir Bede Clifford and Lady Clifford, the Honourable Norman Tang, Audrey Jeffers and calypsonian, Lord Kitchener. He played classics, hymns and calypsos on his 14 note pan, including Schubert's Ave Maria, Kitchener's Tie Tongue Mopsy and God Save the King. Winston 'Spree' Simon was selected to join the Trinidad All Stars Percussion Orchestra in 1951, when the band went to tour London and Paris, in order to introduce the steel pan as an instrument to Europe. (Source: We are trinis, July 4, 2024)  Original photo courtesy Suzette Garanito c late 1950's via Thora Dumbell's Girls. "Born Thora Thomas on January 12th, 1924, Dumbell embarked upon her dance career at the tender age of three. Her talent was so obvious that she subsequently appeared in two movies: a British film at the age of eight, and at 11, Warner Brothers’ adaptation of the musical “New Faces of 1936.”
Dancing was instinctive to her, and she dedicated much of her life to her first love. Her other love was her family, not just within her own family, but extending outward to the larger community of youngsters she would teach to dance when she opened her school in 1950. The school, which eventually made its home at the Chinese Association building on the outskirts of the capital, continued to thrive well into the 1990s, finally closing its doors around the turn of the century. The Thora Dumbell School of Dance would put on annual shows, often partnering with friends and creative collaborators like Carnival designer Wayne Berkeley, with whom she produced “Broadway in Concert” at Queen's Hall. Dumbell actually performed at Queen's Hall's grand opening in June 1959. Dumbell's dance troupes, which mastered various styles of dance, from ballet and tap to modern, jazz and folk, and featured students of varying ages, were constantly in demand to perform nationally. Together with fellow dance pioneer Beryl McBurnie, Dumbell was involved in organizing a rally of 6,000 children at the Queen's Park Oval in Port of Spain in honor of Queen Elizabeth II‘s 1966 visit to Trinidad. She coordinated similar events for a 1968 visit by India's prime minister Indira Gandhi and, as a staunch Catholic, for Pope John Paul II in 1985. Dumbell's love for and understanding of children, her knowledge of dance and movement, and her boundless creativity made her a sought-after judge for the country's annual Red Cross Kiddies Carnival competition and Easter bonnet parades. The child-like delight on her face when she saw a particularly innovative design or a competitor with natural stage presence was as much of a joy to witness as the contests themselves. in 1978, Dumbell was honored with the Humming Bird Medal (Gold), for her work in the area of community service. On the morning of November 4th, “Auntie Thora” as she was fondly known, passed away at her home at the age of 98. Dumbell was a polestar, a place to call home for thousands of graduates from The Thora Dumbell School of Dance, her “girls,” as she called them, and as they, too, referred to themselves." Captions courtesy "Thora Dumbell, a cornerstone of dance education in Trinidad & Tobago, passes on." by Janine Mendes-Franco via Global Voices. (Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh's Virtual Museum of Trinidad & Tobago, Nov. 10, 2024)  Research done by Patricia Bissessar
There's no Christmas plant more iconic than the Poinsettia . Almost every plant lover would purchase one or more of these plants to add to their home décor during the Christmas Holidays. I remembered growing up as a child many homes in the countryside had a large Poinsettia Plant growing in their front yard. But have you ever wondered about the symbolism behind the poinsettia flower and its connection to Christmas? There is an old Mexican legend about how Poinsettias and its connection to Christmas. According to the legend there was once a poor Mexican girl called Pepita who had no present to give the baby Jesus at the Christmas Eve Services. As Pepita walked to the chapel, sadly, her cousin Pedro tried to cheer her up. 'Pepita', he said "I'm sure that even the smallest gift, given by someone who loves him will make Jesus Happy." Pepita didn't know what she could give, so she picked a small handful of weeds from the roadside and made them into a small bouquet. She felt embarrassed because she could only give this small present to Jesus. As she walked through the chapel to the altar, she remembered what Pedro had said. She began to feel better, knelt down and put the bouquet at the bottom of the nativity scene. Suddenly, the bouquet of weeds burst into bright red flowers, and everyone who saw them were sure they had seen a miracle. From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as the 'Flores de Noche Buena', or 'Flowers of the Holy Night'. Ever since the poinsettia has been a symbol of The Christmas Miracle. Reference : Ranch, Paul Ecke. ("The Legend of the Poinsettia." 11/14/07). http://www.ecke.com/HTML/h_corp/corp_legend.html (Source: Angelo Bissessarsingh Virtual Museum of Trinidad and Tobago, Nov 17, 2024) |
T&T news blogThe intent of this blog is to bring some news from home and other fun items. If you enjoy what you read, please leave us a comment.. Archives
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