Saturday 4/8/00, was the day the 'Honduras Parade Committe', headed by our Garifuna brother, Pablo Gomez, made history once again. The great event which was sub-titled 'Juntos podemos, unidos lograremos', was in commemoration, of the 203 years since our Garifuna people arrived Honduras. The even took place in the Bronx, NY, and it was scheduled to start at 7:30PM. Due to other compromises, unfortunately I arrived a little late and from what I heard I missed the best part of it. However for those of you that missed it for whatever reason, I'll try my best to fill you in with some of the observations that I made.
From what I can gather from the event's program, the audience was suppose to go through the evening with a mixture of historical speeches, which pointed out the great values of our Garifuna existence, followed by performances by Garifuna bands and solo artists. I arrived the place at the point of the latter. As I entered the location of the event, I greeted some of our community active members, namely, Mrs. Mirtha Colon, Mr. Regil Solis and Mr. Pablo Gomez, which were gratefully standing by the entrance. Next I proceeded to where the action was taking place, the performances that is. I managed to watch the performances of Fernandez band, Guiriga Impacto and La Atrevida, which were extremely formidable! These two bands actually rocked the show, but when La Atrevida stepped up, she actually made ALL the females scream! for the content of her song, which I will leave up to you to investigate :)
I finally met a Garifuna sister from Nicaragua! I had been hearing all along about some of our Garifuna brothers and sisters residing in Nicaragua, but I had never met one in person, until the day of the event, which was an unforgettable moment for myself. Glenda Solis, is a Garifuna student from Nicaragua, who has came to New York exclusively for this historical event. Apparently Glenda reported on some of the issues affecting the Garifuna community in Nicaragua, but for reasons mentioned earlier, I arrived a little after the speeches, so I wouldn't be able to comment of it.Â
Our brother Jimmy Suazo, was also in the house! We conversated for a few minutes and planned for a chat session on garinet, during the next few days. You'll hear more about this in the upcoming days. In addition, there were also other talented individuals that bring life to our culture with their great music. Some of the performances that I missed were by: J. Kids, La Peligrosa and Danzas Satuye.
From what I could captured, in my opinion, the overall event was great! However I was expecting to see a lot more people, since it was an event about us, the Garifuna people.
Millions of thanks to our brother Pablo Gomez and everyone else who made this event a reality! Some say 'good things are left for last', and the good things that we do from the bottom of our hearts, are the things that live in the memory of our people forever. The event was enjoyable and it will live forever in my mind.Â
If you are interested in becoming a member of the 'Honduras Parade Committe', please call:
718-538-9236 or
718-563-0110
So, do you gari?
//Jorge.Cacho - gk@garinet.com
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