It is safe to say that the love for Barbados’ heritage, history and folklore is alive and well at the Vauxhall Primary School.
This much was obvious today as students capped their month-long Independence celebrations with a parade of Bajan characters at the school’s dress-up day. The Vauxhall, Christ Church school was buzzing this afternoon as the mauby lady, a bevy of Mother Sallys, an agile shaggy bear and even a couple of little mischievous green monkeys, as well as loads of other characters from traditional folklore made appearances. The atmosphere was exhilarating as the children danced and sang along to the popular soca music being played and also during entertainer Biggie Irie’s special appearance.
Yuh like mauby? Ranita Carter the mauby lady, could not store enough mauby for the loads of youngsters that couldn’t get enough.
In addition to the traditional characters, tribute was also paid to the sugar cane workers, National Hero the Right Excellent Sir Garfield Sobers, Cultural Ambassador Stedson “Red Plastics Bag” Wiltshire and the Barbados Landship, the latter which saw several teachers and some parents getting into the do when the ship began to sail.
These little ones depicted the Barbados Landship.
It was a tremendous affair and one which teacher Melaney Hurley was especially pleased that parents welcomed and appreciated the school’s effort to highlight Barbadian things and people. This is instead of what has now become accepted, the Marvel storybooks and similar characters. Hurley told Barbados TODAY the school administration made this decision because of their recognition that children were not as knowledgeable about things Barbadian as they would like. So, the endeavour is to ensure that such knowledge is retained for posterity.
The green monkeys were always up to mischief and fun.
“Every Independence we make a concerted effort at Vauxhall Primary School to make sure that we really educate our children about Barbados. The Bajan characters, we stuck up pictures around and they were able to ask the teachers questions about them and learn about the history, about why characters are depicted at our local events and what they represent,” she said.
Mikhail Cummins, who depicted the Shaggy bear, showed off his acrobatic and agile moves.
“I think by us doing this every year we reiterate it to them . . . and hopefully when they have their own children [they pass on the knowledge]. We want to foster that love for country and the island’s history in them so that they can know who we are and why we must not lose sight of that,” Hurley said. (KC)
