I'm Volunteering at the Red Earth Eco-Arts Festival 2009!

Picture taken from Wikimedia Commons

This weekend Fri 29 May to Sun 31 May 2009 is the Red Earth Eco Arts Festival...I know some are celebrating Indian Arrival Day on the island as well marked on 30 May every year...but hey half the population is of Indian origin we are all over the place in all walks of life we have arrived! :) Over 150 plus years now...so...instead I'm all excited about Red Earth! :) I know my ancestors would be proud as I'm hanging out with Dharti Mata herself along with some cool first people dancers flown in from Australia by the Australian embassy- Descendance! And since watching Hugh in the film Australia I've been wondering about this dreaming business so...so looking fwd! :) Really even more so than my ancestors or the Native Americans I find that the first people of Australia ...man they really have it going on with the Earth...she is not just Dharti Mata to them she is them and they her! Those people are the earth space they live in...there knowledge of their environment is so lived and breathed by them that they have developed an intuitiveness about them...I was so amazed to realise this while watching the film Australia...that is amazing! :)

I repost what I wrote about that film on my Books and Films Corner blog here:


"AUSTRALIA
Loved it! And no it wasn't just cause Hugh Jackman of my We Three Kings! fun and fame was in it! I loved it and unexpectedly so...because I just decided to go see it to meet up with some people and we figured it was the most passable thing on in cinema. I thought I was going to see before me a sweeping love saga unfold. And yes it was indeed a love story...but it was about Australia! I couldn't get the idea of 'dreaming' out of my head after I saw the film. It made me think about first peoples all around the world and how they really could have such a feel for the land...so much so that they become intuitive...it made me think of myself...I searched within...it made me realise that although I had never visited India I knew it because that was what Hinduism was...it was a tapestry of India...an ode to its rivers and valleys...its plants and flowers....and I feel the South Indians the Saivites were the ones who really were the first peoples of their they really knew the lady...it is why I celebrate that Hippy Master Shiv today! :)And it made me wonder of the land I now live in Trinidad. What do I know of it? Well it's first peoples...we have practically wiped them out and their voice here...well the Europeans did and we were the peoples they brought from another time when people still thought they could own each other...but what about now? It is almost impossible to gather much of the original peoples of Trinidad information...it is pretty much lost...but I could at least try to adapt the approach I know from Hinduism here in this land...and it was what I had been doing anyway...but Australia inspired me to keep on Dreaming..."

It is amazing how the universe unfolds but seems my wishes of Feb are all coming true because here I am about to be part of an Eco-Arts festival with first peoples from all over the world performing...including...that's right people from Australia! :)

So I'm head over heels...doing cartwheels if only I really could...excited about this event! I decided to volunteer at it cause then you get to be even so much more into it and closer to the workings of it I find...I actually enjoy volunteering so it is actually a pleasure and joy for me not a task...but yes a volunteer's day does tend to be long...and sometimes in the tropical heat we are having these days very hot! :)

So last weekend I went on the briefing for volunteers and it was the coolest thing to check out the sites that were going to be holding the events before hand!

-The Mystic House:This house is so coined cause when Merchant Ivory Productions were filming 'Mystic Masseur' the making of the V.S. Naipaul book Mystic Masseur into a movie. Well the production crew transported a house form the south of Trinidad to the Chaguaramas Nature park to do the filming. It was cool to me to be able to recognise when I looked at it...wait...it is the shop in the film! :)

-The Bamboo Cathedral: A protected area in the park since if people tamper with it...well we will loose the beloved cathedral that formed naturally with the bamboo. The area is made famous by Trinidadian artist Jean Michel Cazabon in his works and you would have no doubt seen it in his artwork if you are familiar with it and any Trinidadian would be subliminally even...as it is all over...and lots of video footage of it is aired over the years while I was growing up on national TV and pictures everywhere...

-The Dry River Bed: Well it is as the name says a dry river bed and the performers are going to be blessing the space and then Rocking the River bed!

-The Old American Wartime Tracking Station: Nuff said...but there is some cool star gazing going on up there tonight as part of the festival.

I could go on but the festival itself has its own website here Red Earth Festival and you also check them out on Facebook here

Me, I'm just excited as is reflected in my Facebook status hoping like Shakespeare's famous title "All's Well That Ends Well"

And HAPPY WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY 5 JUNE 2009! ...Twitter for those trees man! :)


HAPPY INDIAN ARRIVAL DAY FOR TRINIDADIANS OF INDIAN ANCESTRY AND ALL THOSE AFFECTED OR INFLUENCED BY US POSITIVELY TOO!

Twitter for the trees! Twitter for the Trees! Twitter for the trees! :) I'm following Twitter for the trees! :)

Living and Loving in London with Qype!

Hey let me tell you a story about some Londoners:

Alice well she just stepped off the plane. It’s her first time in London and other than down the rabbit hole she hasn’t a clue where else to go!

And Hafiz he’s been in London studying for months now but he hasn’t made it past the University perimeters!

While Abayomi has been living in London for years but still finds it hard to keep up with all the new restaurants, clubs, pubs that seem to be opening and closing all the time. Which ones to go to? Which ones are any good? It’s always a fight to keep up. And how does she let everybody know not to ever, ever have sushi at that place she went to last Friday? And to always buy the cheesecake and coffee from the new little pastry shop on her street corner ? :)

While Paul he’s lived in London all his life but still sometimes feel the need to reach out and connect with all other social drinking loving folk like himself! Is there really a ‘Cheers’ out there somewhere? No, not the ones named after ‘Cheers’ a real ‘Cheers’…where you can find your own Norm, Sam and Cliff…you think?

All these poor lonely Londoners were lost roaming souls until one day a lovely muser like me stopped each one of them on the streets and said:

WELCOME TO QYPE! BE A QYPER! LET’S GO QYPEING!


They all looked at me like I was a mad woman! But they agreed to pet the manicou on my shoulder while I took their mobiles and pointed them to:

http://www.qype.co.uk

And after that my friends four new Qypers were born…and they told their friends and friends of their friends until a legend was born…all of London, UK, Europe and eventually the world was Qypeing…they were finding cool places, people and things to do and it was as fast as lightning…ooh baby it was so exciting! :)

And here is why…

Qype is this cool site that allows you to check out a broad range of places you would normally frequent arranged in broader categories like:
Eating & Drinking
Arts & Entertainment
Health & Beauty
Nightlife
Events

There are many other categories as well and the site's biggest traffic and main hub seems to be London but you can set the site to browse other areas in the UK, Europe and throughout the world. The site is in English but can also be set to be read in German, French, Spanish, Brazilian and Polish languages.

Anyone can become a Qyper and Qypers aren’t just out there looking for information they are also writing reviews, telling friends what they like about these London restaurants in the category restaurants london or where the best place to have a pint of Guinness is in London by browsing in the category pubs london

And remember Qypeing is not just about Food and Drink…for the theatre lovers like this muser there is the Arts and Entertainment category where if you click on it and then go to Theatres you will find a listing of 426 Theatres in London with Qypers writing reviews and posting pictures and details about the theatres.

For those of you who engage in Universal Collective Prayer on my sister blog well there is a place for that too…under the same Arts and Entertainment tab you have to click on Religious and Spiritual and voila you get 72 hits!

So for sure it is a wide and varied world of Qype!:) But dem Brits sure love their social drinking so raise your glass and hop over to the hottest forum on the site "We like social drinking"…well if you like! :)

All in all welcome to the world of Qype!…a wide and varied world with lots to read, learn and interact with, so that you can get about London, UK, Europe and even the whole world better with the wisdom of many as the wind in your wings!:) No more, bad sushi and always, the best cup of coffee! And for the vegetarian like me there is lots of that too just click on one of the 116 Vegetarian restaurants listed here and no meat eater ever touch my muse!:)

ENJOY!
And hey why not join Qype now it's free and them Qypers are giving away some shiny new Iphones I hear if you write a review on there! :) They told only my muse but I'm telling you! :) Maybe I'll write one too! :)

Gone Gardening: My First Harvest!

OK sorry for not sharing with you as it happened but for those of you following my gardening blogs...here it is My First Harvest! :) It actually occurred on as the picture tag will show... 20 April 2009!



It wasn't reaped by me but then my gardening project has always been community based. It was reaped by one of my uncles- no pictures attached. The said uncle who one morning secretly weeded my garden and I figured...hmmm...someone has been weeding my garden?...and figured it was him...but then he came to say the "He had done it like Rumpeltstiltskin" his words!...so you see those nursery rhyme terms run in the family! :) But he didn't expect anything in return...in fact he then proceeded to pick the first harvest and leave it with my mother!:) As you can see it pictured above it was the Cherry Tomatoes he picked...they're definitely delicious to eat just raw and yep can definitely make up part of a raw or semi-raw diet if I decided to go back along that road! I've since had them both raw and just tossed into other dishes semi-raw or all cooked up...delicious all ways...and yep it does taste like a cherry a bit mixed with a tomato and is a burst of flavour! I've even since gotten a second batch as pictured below:

And my sunflowers seem to have almost completed their cycle...sorry was a bit taken up to do more pictures also my mum has been accusing me of going picture crazy and perhaps she is right...although yep it is to share on the blogs but...and yep I will do more sunflowers soon and will this time shoot more pics when they are all in their full bloom...some marigolds are springing too so that should be good...

Definitely more photos should be in the works since I'm planning to acquire new tech toys soon and will be blogging in more style come the end of June or so just wait and see! :) One tech toy which I am excited to test out soon on a trip to a certain cavernous place is as below. Check it out I thought it was an excellent Amazon buy! :):


As I leave you I'll have you know that not a single fertilizer was added on this grow and my little Ratna eggplants have borne fruit...also even my tiny bell peppers are now flowering for so!:)