Why does she bother? Why doesn’t she just give up and eat a food like the majority of us. What keeps this African soul going, serving up hope when all we want to do is wine? Something caused me to get out of my bed at 4:30 am on Carnival Friday to journey to Piccadilly Street (you would think it’s more than the 10 minutes from my home). That something (someone) was Pearl Eintou Springer. I’m not an early riser but something deep was calling me. On arrival, with my wife Rebecca and daughter Robin in tow, we surveyed the challenged facilities and managed to negotiate our way into the ‘Grand Stand’.
Ms Springer is the curator of this piece of our Carnival’s history. She is determined to remind us of our national Festival’s African origins. All we hear about Africans on CNN and CCN is negative. (although lately we’ve been hearing that Africa has some economic tigers that are beginning to growl). Kambule (Canboulay/Cannes Brulees) was refreshingly intimate this Friday morning as Pearl and her cast revisited the details of the event that started it all . Pearl Eintou Springer sees her story telling as “the essential antidote and balance against the negativity of dominant pop-culture.”
Kambule was the high point of my Carnival 2013, because everything else has become so predictable. We need more pearls of enlightenment that allow us to see ourselves deeper than bikinis, beads and feathers.
