CALABASH DISPATCHES 2009

The truth of the matter is that Calabash #9 may not have happened.  Why might this be important?  Calabash is a literary festival that takes place in a small village in a remote parish on a small island each year, and in the larger scheme of things, the possibility of a nine year old festival not happening may seem unimportant.  But Calabash is other things.  It is an International Literary Festival, it is free to the public, it brings together some of the best writers from around the world who donate their time and talents to read here, and for many people—several thousand to be exact—Calabash is necessary.

In March of 2009, Colin Channer, Justine Henzell and I agonized over the basic facts.  We did not have enough money to mount the festival.  Our funding sources had dried up.  Some of our funding sources had changed their mind about the level of funding they would give.  We did the math.  We could not have the festival. It was not a unanimous decision between us and within us.  A part of us wanted to ensure that this thing did not die.  We feared that if we canceled this year, we would be, in effect, ending the festival all together.  We were not sure we could stand the emotional and psychological trauma of dealing with a festival that had somehow failed to happen.  These were small matters, though, compared to the impact of a cancellation on the people we knew had come to rely on Calabash for so much.  Treasure Beach has embraced the festival as a central part of its annual calendar.  Jakes Resort has, over the years, given us free use of its facilities, foregoing all their regular bookings during a typically active holiday weekend, so that we could have the festival.  To cancel would be to put them in a bad spot—an empty resort for a weekend that could have been a busy one.  But the greatest damage, we suspected, was one that we felt inside us, and that we felt may have been hanging over far more people.  You see, Calabash, has, over the years, defied expectations and has become for many, something of an anthem for possibility.  Even people who have never been to the festival, look at it as the kind of success story that does not happen all the time in Jamaica or the Caribbean.  Something like this is supposed to fail.  It is supposed to fall apart eventually and basically fail.  The world is an unfair place, and it should not respond favorably to a seemingly absurd idea:  that an international literary festival can be held in Jamaica, and that thousands of people will attend, and that they will buy books and enjoy themselves, and that somewhere in all of this, they would experience the kind of easy and positive vibe among Jamaican people that we sometimes forget is a part of the basic Jamaican psyche.  In a sense, for Calabash to fail, a sense of faith would be damaged, and perhaps another opportunity for cynicism could set in.
It is those people who feared this particular calamity that responded with anger, sadness and conviction when we did announce the cancellation of the festival.  At that point we had secured our authors—the line up was impressive, and yet we knew we would not be able to make the event happen.  Facebook was alight with shock and anger.  The newspapers were flooded with letters.  Phone calls kept coming in.  Emails kept flooding in.  People wanted to know what could be done. People wanted to donate money.  And in quiet ways people were making phone calls to power brokers, and pressing those with some ability to change things, to do so.
For our part, we had accepted that this was over.  But the outcry of the community from around the world—the Calabash believers—drove this thing back into being.  The details are important, and one day I will write about them with great care; but suffice it to see that the cliché of people power did work.  In many ways, the funding came because it was clear that enough people cared about the festival to make something of it if it was canceled.
In three days, we had to reverse our decision.  We were assured of funding.  We called our authors.  Some had already taken other gigs.  Others were overjoyed to come still.  The festival was on.
Tonight I am listening to the beat of the sea on the shore and thinking that I would not be here on this weekend had the rallying cry not gone up.  We are a day away from the opening of the festival. The crowd has not arrived yet.  But they will.  They will because many of them fought hard to make sure the festival was not cancelled.  And simply put, they won.  They will arrive in their numbers and the wonderful feats of readings and music will go on.
Tonight, Colin, Justine and I welcomed the authors at a dinner in the courtyard of Jakes—a lovely tiled courtyard shaded by almond trees and a handily built trellis of twisting vines.  It is fascinating to watch writers begin to warm to each other, to make connections, to discover people they have only heard about or read.  This is how the festival begins.
The rest of the island is inundated with rain. From Montego Bay, the journey to Treasure Beach is a three hour hurtle through intensely lush landscapes along narrow winding roads.  We made our journey between noon and three o’clock so the roadsides were barren of people—children at school, people at work, and only the occasional bicycle rider in the many small towns that punctuate the journey across the width of this island, interrupted the steady pace of our driver.  In Black River, the school uniforms began to appear and the traffic became a little more clogged.  Black River is an old river town that sits at the coastal mouth of one of Jamaica’s widest rivers.  The narrow streets are commercial roadways of kiosks, store fronts; but looming behind them are older edifices of brick and architecture of earlier times—the twenties and thirties—with their ornate balconies and elaborate lattice work.  Once we crossed the wrought iron bridge at the southern end of the town, the landscape changed into the characteristic flatlands of the St. Elizabeth plains: dry red dirt, stubborn muscular trees of acacia and almonds, and the entanglement of low bushes that give way to rocky pasture land where cows and goats grazed.  It was dry as chips, the sky chaotic with mountains of clouds that reminded me of the rain we had left behind in Montego Bay and the rain pouring down from Clarendon in the east, through Mandeville.
Jakes seemed greener this year.  Folks told me that it had rained a lot this season and the grass around the massive tent was thick and healthy.  The azaleas and hibiscus trees had multiplied, and the Jakes folks have now put in a cut stone platform at the edge of what used to be an increasingly disappearing beach front cove, halting the erosion and creating a sand covered decking that overlooked the sea.
Jack Sprat, the restaurant and bar at the outer edges of the Jakes compound, where they serve exceptional delicious meals of steamed fish festooned with okras, carrots and onions, and steamed bammy, and conch soup, and brown stew, and an excellent jerk pizza, had expanded since last year.  Now there was a more distinctive record and gift shop, and open air lounge area with comfortable chairs and a massive corroded tuber hanging from the ceiling like an ironic version of a chandelier.
The secret of Calabash’s success is the people who plan it and who attend it, yes, but it may well be the place itself.  When I arrived yesterday with my eldest daughter, Sena, it was like coming home, and I realized that there is something about this place that makes a writer happily recommend this festival to his or her friends.
At about four thirty in the afternoon, I saw Colin Channer with a small gathering of men.  I walked over and said hello to Junot Diaz, and watched as Robert Pinsky swaggered out of one of the compact couples cottages (Octopussy I, Octopussy II, and Octopussy III) grinning.
“If there was any resistance,” he smiled, “The moment I opened up my French doors and saw the surf at my feet, it al disappeared.  I am sold.  I am sold.”
For all these beauties, Calabash depends on the patronage of a government and a private sector in Jamaica to happen.  It depends on the patronage of organizations abroad to succeed.  We knew that like most festivals around the world, the economic crisis would challenge the possibility of holding this festival which is predicated on pure generosity and the lofty principle of giving art freely to the society at large.  That the festival is on this year, should be encouragement to many of us who work in the arts and who have sought to make people treat the arts as essential to our lives.  Our audience and supporters made some decisions when they protested the cancellation and lobbied heavily the government and other funding agencies to ensure that the festival continues.  They made decisions when they sent in money for the festival.  Their decision was to argue that a literary festival is a necessary part of the life of this country, that it has value even in the midst of economic crisis.  They argued that it should have priority, and that if we allowed something like this to die—an event that is not seeking to profit any individual financially, and one that is hell-bent on giving a public gift of literature and music to the larger society—then we would be killing something basic in us.

I am blogging again from Calabash—dispatches about a festival that may not have been.  This year’s line up is an exciting one, and hopefully, as I experience its excitement, I will be able to convey the same to you.

You have to, however, imagine the color of the sea, the sound of the perpetual surf, the taste of curried goat seasoned with pepper, the ubiquitous thump of reggae music, the pleasant chaos of colorful light cotton clothes, sandals, scarves, broad hats, and shades as the crowds start to arrive, the slow swagger of the Jakes meandering among the people, and the always present scent of food cooking.  These will be the backdrop for what I write.