Winston Olatunji Scott tells you with a great degree of pride "I am Sierra Leonean." And although he has lived out of his country for thirty years, goes back on visits from time to time.
While living in London, he met and married a Trinidadian nurse, Rosalind Forbes, twenty-seven years ago. They have two adult children who with their mother and father have visited Freetown in Sierra Leone because says Winston " they must know where the head of the family, their father, came from." And also his mother and four brothers still live in Africa.
Last Saturday night, Winston and Rosalind hosted the sixth annual Emancipation Day party at their Elizabeth Gardens home in St Joseph. And while to the average Trinidadian, like myself, Emancipation Day seems to be just another holiday, not so for Winston, who fiercely proclaims "it is necessary because in the first place we must show appreciation and recognition of all the trouble and difficulties our forefathers went through during the time of slavery when they were stripped of their identity and scattered throughout Europe and the West Indies."
"It's only when the crime against humanity was realised that people who are considered to be the fighters against slavery like Mansfield, Wilberforce, and the others who fought against slavery, said it had to be stopped. I sympathise with people who say they are not Africans since their ethnicity and identity are being lost because they live in Trinidad or Barbados, but your core roots are African. We have a common saying 'if you are not white consider yourself black' and most black people if they were to trace the roots of their forefathers, they must go back to Africa in one way or another."
"I know a group of Americans who went throughout Africa to places such as the Cameroons, Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria to find out where they originally came from. Some Trinidadians do say if they had money they would love to make a trip and by some means investigate where they came from to see if they are Senegalese, Cameroonian, Ethiopian or otherwise."
The Scotts Emancipation Day party, which I attended for the first time last week, started when Winston worked in the Trinidad government as an accountant for seventeen years. "My friends wanted to know about Africa, so for Emanicipation I gather my friends, relatives and neighbours, and throw a function in recognition of the occasion, of remembering the struggles that our forefathers went through."
"However, we should recognise that we are not fully emancipated because still we are in the shackles of our colonial masters, especially by way of international debts. They have done away with slavery, but yet most third world countries are under some restrictions or control by the international moneylenders and they have a stranglehold on most African economies. But the spirit, thought and pride are all still there and we must keep our heritage and culture identified and celebrated."
A favourite African dish served at the Scott's party is African Man Soup made by Winston, who remembers being the first African invited a number of years ago to cook for the very popular "Men Who Cook" at the Hilton Hotel. "I introduced just two dishes exclusive to Africa, African Man Soup and Ochro soup African style."
The Man Soup is a very rich and potent soup by virtue of the ingredients used to actually prepare it; a lot of protein, carbohydrate and things which will act like an aphrodisaic, such as, fish, shrimp, corn, ground provisions, split peas and peanut butter a very rich ingredient for soup if cooked properly, with added seasoning. "They each go into the soup bit by bit, there is a time frame for each ingredient, they do not go in all at once" says Winston.
While for the Ochro soup a special ingredient is palm oil, which Scott says is not available here. "It is a very red oil which is cooked with fish, meat , ochroes and callaloo bush to give it body, and you eat this soup with white rice. Most people don't believe you can do this with ochroes, they just boil it, but we cook it."
Another dish served last Saturday night was the main staple food in Freetown, Jollof Rice, one of the most common foods there "used for festive occasions, such as a christening, marriage, Christmas, and it comes out very red, and is served with a separate sauce of gravy made of various meats, chicken, pork and beef and seasoning prepared into a stew. The redness comes from tomato puree. When they taste it, they come for more. It has a strange but very catching taste." But as could be seen at the party, the most popular item on the menu and the first to finish was the African Man Soup, which says Scott "local women drink even more than the men".
Various styles of African dress were worn, which Scott attributes to " an upsurge in the awareness of African costume. People are now taking pride to make them exotic and graceful. My wife loves them and has various styles of African costumes from Sierra Leone." Says Rosalind Scott "there is now a Cameroonian designer who makes exotic styles here. Look at the headtie, it is an exotic and graceful thing but difficult to arrange, I had to be taught how to do them."
What makes the difference in authentic African wear? I asked Rosalind, who feels "the sleeves and necklines have a lot to do with it. You see it also depends on what part of Africa your clothes come from. For instance, in the Cameroons there is a French mix so they have a lot of French elegance in their outfits, like the old French people they will have puffed sleeves with pellum and appliqued necklines, possibly made with pellum also for it to lie properly."
"Whereas in Sierra Leone, a lot of machine embroidery is used, made strangely enough by men. I didn't meet one single female dressmaker. You buy your fabric, bring it to them, choose your design and these very simple people have mastered the art of this cordlike embroidery, and they will make it for you. Most people buy their material because the particular fabric is made in a certain way with designs of either cocoyea brooms, fans, animals or abstract prints."
"The Gara, which is like a tie dye, is also beautiful. A lot of the free flowing gowns with threading on the sleeves and around the neck are made from this material."
The Scotts are very appreciative of the support they receive annually from their many African friends, a lot of whom are retired people from the University of the West Indies, and also their friends in Elizabeth Gardens and its environs, not to mention those who came from as far as San Fernando, Arima and Diego Martin. There was lovely back-in- times music for dancing; very entertaining steelband presentations from Parry's steelband, made up mainly of children, and directed by Selwyn Paul; and the young African drummers and dancers of La Mango group from Maracas, St Joseph.