Roti Festival

This festival is an annual event celebrating Indian culture in Jamaica. There are plenty of Indians here in Jamaica, many of whom are second and third generations. This event celebrates their food, dance, and music. There are a lot of sponsors connected with the event, so it is fairly good-sized and organized well. It was held on Lady Musgrave Road, at the Indian Club. That is, the place where Indian people gather, not one of those bowling pin exercise devices.

For me this turned out to be a day with a lot of different things to focus on.

The Venue

We got there fairly early and caught this guy climbing a tent putting up the Maggi sign. It looked good when it finally got up there, but we were kind of in despair as we watched the guy fiddle with things.

The venue was all tents, food, drink, trinkets and souvenirs, and some kids games. It looked pretty good. All day it looked like rain, but it didn't. At times the sun broke out.


The People

This was also a true "outameni one people" day. All flavors were represented well. I was a little surprised that the support was so widespread.





The Hair

Another focus was hair. There was a lot and it was all different. I am sometimes amazed at the variety. It's probably just that I am bald and jealous!





The Cultural Stuff

There was a bit of culture, too. Much of it was food, but there was music and dance, too.


This girl in pink danced more like a Middle East belly dancer. She also came out and danced with a Trinidadian percussion band that was fantastic.

Sean found himself able to partake of the roti and curry.

There were several sets of lessons on how to cook roti as well. This lesson was about dal poori roti. You enclose a few spoons of dal in the middle, seal it, roll it out carefully, then cook it on the griddle.



This one came nice and brown and puffy!


The Kids

As usual, the kids were beautiful. There were a lot, and they were definitely outameni one people. This girl's braids had lots of ornaments.

This little girl with her bhindi was spectacular. She'll break hearts.