Even before she opened her mouth to speak, her authority was unmistakable. You could almost tell from the tilt of her head, jaw firm; the bold printed saffron colored scarf resting easy on her shoulders, settled, grounded in her chair, forearms resting loosely on the arms and feet planted squarely on the ground. But what drew you in, convinced you, was the quiet, yet comfortable way she sat in the chair, gaze just a little faraway as though listening, drawing from a distant past and seeming to speak from a place of memory.

Lights, Camera and Action! The tape is rolling, the interview has begun. Or has it? Or is this a tale from the ancestors given to a willing messenger in a contemporary world? Unrelenting detail, from Jamaica to Canada; Childhood spent in the shadow of a bloody and fierce history, passing the historic cane field on the way to school, real stories from a grandma who lived to tell the tale. No, no, not a tale, but rather the truth enshrined in memory. A childhood filled with the memories of community, family, heritage and a deep connection to the land.

And I sat there, mesmerized, for as she told the stories, I could see the banks of sugar cane glistening in the sun, hear the wind whistling through the leaves; then smell the stench of the molasses! The cane field on FIRE!!  Yes, the air is ripe with it, history, heritage, blood, family….. that is we identity.

Then she starts to chant, the rhythm of the dub poetry flows through her – voice, sound and movement. Myth and memory —– eyes cast to the heavens as she tells the story to the beat of the ancestral drum that though a distant memory echoes …… echoes, giving voice to mother Africa ….. Facilitating a ritual healing through artistic expression…

“Repatriation?” She says, “History and culture is part ah dat too, not just finances. Is in the telling, that great gift of story-telling that we enable a new generation to know themselves. Our youth need to be fed our stories, culture, heritage, art, like good cornmeal porridge on a early mawning, to mek dem whole, to feed dem body, mind and spirit”

Ah…you hear it? Yes .. in the strength of her passion the mother tongue has risen to the fore, reminding again and again of histories, stories long lost across the bloody middle passage.