Global Voices Online » 2005 » October

From the Caribbean Blogosphere

Georgia Popplewell · 19:58

Some snippets from this week's conversations in the anglophone Caribbean blogosphere:

Aruba
Lost in Smallness is resigned to the inevitable rise in gas prices after the recent parliamentary election.

Bahamas
in search of 42 complains about defective traffic lights, and Bahamas Blog posts some photos of Tropical Storm Rita's effects on the territory.

Barbados
gallimaufry was looking forward to seeing Canadian sci-fi writer Nalo Hopkinson (daughter of Guyanese writer Slade Hopkinson) at the Cave Hill campus of the University of the West Indies on October 12, an event Hopkinson herself blogged about last week.

Belize
Belize Blog - Only in Belize! is intrigued by the massive posters heralding the upcoming race for Mayor of Belize City, and Escribbler reports on a local football tournament.

Bermuda
A Limey in Bermuda reports on his recent chat with the mayor of St. George's about Bermuda's ailing tourist industry, making this unexpected observation about the effect of cruise ships on the marine environment: “Seagrass beds, which help prevent coastal erosion and provide a habitat for local marine life such as turtles and snappers, are already in decline. One of the things currently helping to fertilise them, however, is the sewage from the cruise ships. Lose the ships and the seagrass beds by Fort St. Catherine might be adversely affected.”

Dominica
seeds of a madness flower looks forward to the 9th World Creole Music Festival, which kicks off in Roseau, Domnica's capital, on October 28 and makes a few predictions about the opening night performance by Jamaican dancehall star Sizzla.

Guyana
Living Guyana reports on problems with the new renovation at the Cheddi Jagan International airport.

Jamaica
The Angry Dog's Kennel is irritated at the double-standard in censorship which caused references to guns and marijuana to be bleeped from the music video for Damian “Junior Gong” Marley's “Welcome to Jamrock” and Random Stories from a Kingston Girl talks about National Heroes Day and some of Jamaica's other public holidays. owensoft.net posts photos of Emancipation Park in Kingston, Jamaica's capital and Scratchie's World waxes patriotic about the country's national airline.

St. Vincent and the Grenadines
And Still I Rise wonders whether to vote in the upcoming general election.

Trinidad and Tobago
Nicholas Laughlin files another of his “Guyana project” posts, this time about Guyana's long-awaited 2002 census report, which has just been released. “Most striking to me,” notes Nicholas, “Guyana's Amerindians are now 9.2% of the population, up from 6.5% in 1991–which may reflect improvements in health care, nutrition etc.” He comments as well on the timing of the census's release, observing that it was released “ten months ahead of what everyone expects will be a nasty general election, in a country where the two major political parties depend on ethnic voting, it's revealed that the ruling party's base is shrinking.” CaribPundit questions the wisdom of Haiti's refusal to allow individuals with dual-citizenship to contest the November election. And Small Island Girl posts a euphoric footnote about the Trinidad & Tobago football team's win over Mexico, which takes the country into fourth place in the FIFA World Cup regional rankings and two matches away from qualification for the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

US Virgin Islands
“Why has it been so quiet on the VI side of the Atlantic?” asks the USVI's News of St John, pondering the relative mildness of this year's hurricane season in the Caribbean. News of St John quotes Colorado State University forecaster William Gray's contention that “African dust blew across the ocean in August and September and that helped prevent storms because it dried out the mid-level atmosphere.” He also announces the Quelbe Traveling Exhibit and Colloquium 2005, which centers around the Virgin Islands' traditional quelbe music form and blogs about the 20 percent increase in taxi fares on the island.

West Indies Cricket
The West Indies Cricket Blog kept its usual close watch over the English-speaking Caribbean's sporting obsession, observing that while tickets for the 2007 cricket World Cup go on sale next April, “it’s not going to be as simple as walking up to a ticket booth to make a purchase”. WI Cricket Blog also points to a controversial inclusion on the revamped Cricket World Cup 2007 board and one response to Antigua-based Texan billionaire Allen Stanford's sponsorship of the Stanford 20/20 tournament.

Podcasts
In the podosphere, the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society released its fourth podcast, which features reports on Software Freedom Day activities in Trinidad and Tobago and FLOS Caribbean, “a non-profit entity dedicated to the promotion, use and development of Free, Libré and Open Source software in the Caribbean.” Also in Trinidad, Caribbean Free Radio takes a look back at its own short history in its 34th episode. The latest edition of the Medical School Muse podcast (RSS feed), which is hosted by an American attending medical school in Grenada, takes on the subject of Grenadian customer service. And a new podcast out of Aruba called The Crijojo Funk Show features news and local music.

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Echoes from the Tunisian blogosphere

Mohamed Marwen Meddah · 15:34

The beginning of this week marked a big buzz in the Tunisian blogosphere about Tunisia's national soccer team qualifying to the World Cup next year after a 2-2 draw with Morocco.

Marouen writes about the ReachOut initiative that the British Council has launched. This initiative encourages and enables open discussion between young people from Arab countries and the United Kingdom about issues raised by the United Nation's World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
A number of the contributors will be selected to continue discussions face-to-face in Tunis and video conference with a group from the UK at Café Informatique International as part of the WSIS.

Zizou from Djerba wonders why Tunisia doesn't join the European Union (in French). He thinks we have many things in common with the new countries joining the EU; geographically, demographically, historically, economically and linguistically.

Sami writes (in French) about how he doesn't fast in Ramadan, and wonders why people don't respect his choice just like he respects theirs by not eating in public. He talks about how Ramadan is more of a tradition now than a religious practice, and the proof is that people don't pray and only fast, even though praying is more important than fasting.
In another post he wonders (in French) what would happen if people link between him and his online persona and how it would affect his life and his relationship with the people he knows.

K-Pax writes about his first impressions and how he's getting his life together in Montreal, Canada, after his immigration there. (in French)

Nostradamus is happy to find a website about Ramadan in Tunisia, featuring recipes, prayer times, tv programs and everything a Tunisian needs in Ramadan (inFrench).

TuniZika, the Tunisian musical podcast, release their third episode with music from El Tunisiano, Khaled Nemlaghi, Neshez and Watykan.

Keitaro writes about the great concert by US group “The three ladies of blues” that he attended at the municipal theatre of Tunis (in French).

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