On Tuesday, 8th March, the Grade One students of the Vivien Vanterpool Primary School were engaged in a special session of learning in their Social Studies class. It was all to do with the customs and cultures of various islands in the Caribbean, with emphasis placed upon various native foods and the celebration of cultural festivals.
Teacher Carol Webster was delighted to tell us what the whole exercise meant. She, along with her Assistant Teacher, Mavis Rogers, spoke with The Anguillian directly during the session: “We are giving the children a taste of the meals that are native to the islands,” Teacher Carol said. “Each island has its own unique dish and its own unique celebrations.”
Teacher Carol, who hails from the island of Barbados, endeavored to display the actual Bajan food to her students. She said: “In Anguilla, the local national dish is peas ‘n rice and fish, while in Barbados, our national dish is cou-cou and flying fish. We explained to the students that these dishes are unique to these respective islands.”
“In Anguilla, the traditional beverage taken with the national dish is lemonade, which is a mixture of lime juice blended with water and sugar. In Barbados, our traditional drink is sorrel or ginger beer.
“So we actually cooked rice ’n peas with fish that represented Anguilla. We used snapper fish for this lesson. We also cooked cou-cou, which is turned corn meal with okras. However, since we could not get any flying fish for the lesson, we used the Anguilla snapper fish instead.
“The only difference is that we cooked plantains with the fish that represented Barbados, because that is the custom there—plantain with flying fish. We made lemonade to represent Anguilla’s beverage and sorrel to represent Barbados’.
“In addition, we taught them there can be customs which can be native to two or more islands. For example, in Barbados coconut bread is a traditional national delicacy but we also love conkie which is native to both Anguilla and Barbados.
We showed the children how the conkies are made in grape leaves in Anguilla. Normally, in Barbados conkies are made in banana leaves. But, because the wind was so high here lately, all the banana leaves we found were torn. So, we improvised and used grape leaves for Barbados’ conkies as well as Anguilla’s.
“As far as national celebrations are concerned, we taught the students that different islands hold national celebrations on special days. For example, while Anguilla celebrates Separation Day on the 30th of May, in Barbados, Independence Day is celebrated on the 30th of November.
“Additionally, we taught them that other customs that are unique to respective islands of Caribbean include national songs, national dresses, etc.”
Both Teacher Carol and Teacher Mavis boasted that the meals were delicious and the children were delighted to eat and drink what was provided for them to learn from.
