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Today is National Hero's Day. I've featured some of them already, so today I'll focus on the day volcano ash covered this island.
La Soufrière Volcano in the nearby island of St. Vincent, part of a small archipelago with the islands of the Grenadines, erupted on April 9, 2021. That was the first of several eruptions. Barbados was placed on a warning for potential ash fall from then and for several days. The real damage occurred on Saturday, April 10, 2021, when people awoke and wondered why outside was overcast - only to discover there was ongoing ashfall. It was worse in the north of the island. By the next day, the south was badly affected. Over that weekend Barbados was affected from north to south by ashfall. Checkout this family's experience on April 10. It seems they decided to live in Barbados for a while and have been documenting their life in Barbados on Youtube.
La Soufrière Volcanic Eruption - Barbados Ash Fall Part I, The Flip the Script Family [April 2021]
It is fascinating viewing. Yes, my car looked like that too. Actually I refused to clean my car except for the windows, rearview mirrors and windscreens for two weeks because on the road as large vehicles zipped by and covered my little car in dust, it would have been a waste of time. I only recently tried to clear some small areas of my property. It's been an experience for sure.
This is not the first time Barbados was affected by La Soufrière. In 1979, it erupted and an ash cloud came to Barbados (also in the month of April) but most of us alive at the time, do not recall such sustained ashfall or that degree of cleaning.
In my research, it seems that La Soufrière erupts early in the century as the last really significant eruption to affect Barbados was in 1902. Prior to that, recorded eruptions were 1812 and 1718 - so except for 1979, an eruption occurs in the first couple of decades of a new century. An eruption was due.
One of Barbados' eminent creative writers and educators, now deceased, Kamau Brathwaite wrote "The Dust" to commemorate the effects of the 1902 eruption on Barbados. He was writing in a spoken word style before "spoken word" artistes were fashionable. In this excerpt, Merle Collins reads from "The Dust" in celebration of his 90th birthday in May 2020.
Night 15: Merle Collins reading Kamau Brathwaite's The Dust, Kamau Brathwaite Remix Engine [May 2020]
Her accent is not Barbadian, but you get the gist.
Staying with the dust theme, when I was a youth, we would say someone "dusted" the competition to describe being soundly beating in a race, a sport, any kind of competition where the leader wins by a large margin. So in parting, I will share the work of another renowned Caribbean artiste, David Rudder, who is a multiple calypso competition winner in Trinidad. This one was a fine tribute for the steel-pan bands when competing in the steel pan competitions during Trinidad and Tobago's Carnival celebrations. The winner would "dust" the competition. Listen to David Rudder's Dust in Dey (pronounced "day") Face. Do you hear that pan? The sweetest sound in the world, I say every time.
