Michelle Loubon

Red and pink hi­bis­cus nod­ded their pret­ty heads at the Carib Cen­tre, Paul Mitchell Street, Ari­ma. A short dis­tance from the chaitaigne (bread­nut tree), the new­ly in­stalled queen of the Carib com­mu­ni­ty Jen­nifer Cas­sar cut a re­gal pic­ture un­der the moriche palm hut. Op­po­site, the Cen­tre was a jig­saw with carv­ings of Amerindi­an chil­dren in an Age of In­no­cence and guide­lines to the Mak­ing of a Ca­noe (an Amerindi­an mode of trans­port). Pres­i­dent of the San­ta Rosa Carib Com­mu­ni­ty Ri­car­do Bharath ex­plained they were busy prepar­ing for the San­ta Rosa Fes­ti­val on Au­gust 28.

Cas­sar, too, was equal­ly ex­cit­ed about the Feast of San­ta Rosa-her first of­fi­cial role- since her in­duc­tion at the land­mark San­ta Rosa RC Church, on Au­gust 6. Quizzed on her sen­ti­ments Cas­sar, 60, said: "I am hum­bled. I am ho­n­oured to be able to rep­re­sent the Carib com­mu­ni­ty. I am a proud Arim­i­an. I am of Carib stock." As the count­down ticks to the street pro­ces­sion, Cas­sar said: "We are con­tin­u­ing the cel­e­bra­tion which has been on­go­ing for 200 years. It be­gan in the 1700s. It is one of the few in­dige­nous fes­ti­vals that have thrived."

Prepa­ra­tions are un­der­way.

Cas­sar added: "The com­mu­ni­ty has the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for clean­ing the brass can­dle hold­ers. We have to clean and dec­o­rate the San­ta Rosa stat­ue. White, pink, yel­low and red ros­es dec­o­rate the stat­ue. We have to dec­o­rate the church." Led by Mon­sign­or Al­lan Ven­tour, the pro­ces­sion would wend its way through the streets of the Bor­ough. Hymns, songs and chants are raised in ho­n­our of San­ta Rosa. It cul­mi­nates with lunch and a cul­tur­al fes­ti­val fea­tur­ing steel­bands and paran­deros at the Cen­tre.

In­duc­tion at San­ta Rosa

The late Carib queen Valenti­na Med­i­na was giv­en a grand send off at San­ta Rosa on April 29. It was the same venue for Cas­sar's in­duc­tion dur­ing the reg­u­lar 5pm mass. It was wit­nessed by sev­er­al dig­ni­taries like Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph and shaman Ado­nis Cristo. As she mount­ed the steps, Cas­sar said: "I was re­ceived by Mon­sign­or Ven­tour. I was ush­ered to my seat. Chief Bharath es­cort­ed me to the al­tar. He an­nounced I was the new tit­u­lar head of the San­ta Rosa Carib com­mu­ni­ty. I was wel­comed in the Kare­na lan­guage. It was an aus­pi­cious day."

Re­news call for Amerindi­an Vil­lage

Seiz­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty dur­ing her maid­en speech, Cas­sar spoke about the land for the pro­posed Amerindi­an Vil­lage at Blan­chisseuse Road, Ari­ma. Cas­sar said: "It is crit­i­cal. I will be­gin to work as­sid­u­ous­ly on get­ting the land that was promised to us. We want to start the process to en­sure sur­viv­abil­i­ty. We want to set up a cas­sa­va (man­ioc) mak­ing in­sti­tu­tion. We want to rear wildlife. We want to form link­ages like eco tourism since there are rivers run­ning through it." Cas­sar es­ti­mat­ed it would cost about $1/2 mil­lion to cut an ac­cess road and con­struct two build­ings.

About Cas­sar

Mal­abar res­i­dent Cas­sar boast­ed she was "liv­ing on the same place where she was born" to Odette, 80, and Rawle Pyle, 86. Pyle's grand­moth­er was an Amerindi­an from Guyana. Her grand­fa­ther Pabli­to Lara was de­scend­ed from pure Carib stock. Re­flect­ing on her child­hood, she said: "I lived the Carib life. We used the mor­tar and pes­tle. We made cas­sa­va bread. We had a tapia house." She is mar­ried to Au­gustin Cas­sar and is the moth­er of Vanes­sa and John.

Af­ter 41 years as a Pub­lic Ser­vant (Ju­di­cia­ry) she has re­tired. Cas­sar has al­so found time to be a cul­tur­al ac­tivist co or­di­nat­ing stick­fight­ing com­pe­ti­tions through­out T&T. She in­sti­tut­ed the seg­ment King of the Rock and Best Kan­dal which is of­ten won by the Tal­paro Tam­bule In Kan­dal bo­is­men. But her pas­sion for the First Na­tion Peo­ples nev­er waned. Cas­sar has at­tend­ed con­fer­ences in Pana­ma and Suri­name on their be­half.