Caribbean Culture

Behind the Caribbean's sandy beaches, palm trees and fruity rum drinks is a festival waiting to happen. A festival, Caribbean style, is part street party, part masquerade and part jam session. Travelers to Trinidad know that a Caribbean festival is not a spectator sport. Unlike an American parade, where people line the sidewalks watching the bands march and majorettes twirl, audience participation is part and parcel of Caribbean festivals.

ZAMBIA Service and bike tour During World Bicycle Relief's cycling trip through Zambia, travelers help by building bicycles and distributing them to students (especially girls), small-business owners and medical caregivers. After the philanthropic work, there's a two-day tour of the region. Itinerary: Varies based on the nonprofit's needs, but arrival and departure is out of Lusaka. Dates: Oct. 8-16; 2012: May 19-27, July 21-29, Oct. 6-14 Price: $2,750, double occupancy, including all transportation within Zambia, food and lodging but not airfare.

Three people were killed when they were hit by floats in one of the city's largest ethnic festivals, a parade celebrating Caribbean culture. In the first incident, Joseph Donn and Zacehel David, both 11, were dancing behind a float attached to a truck that stopped suddenly. The driver of the next float couldn't stop in time and hit the children, killing them, police said. Hours later, an 18-year-old man was killed by a float along the parade route. Police did not release details.

During summer in Los Angeles, lovers of reggae culture -- smitten by the sun and the sky -- have occasional flights of fancy: Turning to the ocean, humming a Jimmy Cliff tune, they imagine themselves in the West Indies. Smog soon clouds such Caribbean reveries. Unlike New York or Miami -- America's answer to Kingston, Jamaica -- L.A. lacks an overwhelming West Indian population (.3%, says the 2000 census).

"It's a mystical, magical, Caribbean musical-comedy farce," said Charles Douglass, describing his "De Obeah Mon," which opens Saturday at the Westwood Playhouse. Like its closest literary relation, Moliere's "The Doctor in Spite of Himself," Douglass' play features feuding spouses, rich suitors, obstinate brides and reluctant medical practitioners.

When in Antigua, do a Wadadli. Here, it's Hairoun. In Barbados, you'd better go for a Banks. St. Lucia pushes Piton. And you really shouldn't belly up to a Bahamian bar without kicking back a Kalick--named for the sound of a local cow bell. Even tiny Dominica, an island nation of 90,000 sandwiched between French Martinique and Guadeloupe with no other major manufacturing, makes its own beloved brew, an obscure little number called Kubuli. Despite markets smaller than those for most U.S.

Caribbean musician David Rudder doesn't have much patience with the images of island life concocted for travel brochures, movies and television. "I try to show (that) the Caribbean is more than just this impression of sand and sea and straw hats and colored shirts," the soca singer said by phone recently from Houston. "I try to paint pictures of the Caribbean and the way we see things. It's not just this happy-go-lucky kind of 'Yeah, mon' existence that people (associate with) the Caribbean."

A parade celebrating Caribbean cultures drew a huge, mostly peaceful crowd Monday in the tense Crown Heights neighborhood, the scene of recent violence between blacks and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. Mayor David N. Dinkins, grand marshal of the West Indian-American Day Parade, said the goodwill that enveloped the festive event was not because of the large police presence.

Andy Narell doesn't look like a controversial guy. If anything, the soft-spoken, thirtysomething ex-New Yorker, with his receding hairline and quiet smile, has the gentle appearance of a college professor or an easygoing family counselor. But Narell, who performs tonight at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, is embroiled in a contentious dispute in the small Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

Among the first words a foreigner is apt to hear on a visit to Haiti are: " Blan, sa k' pase? Ki sa ou ap fe an Ayiti? " Or a visitor in Jamaica might overhear this exchange: " Me a gaa a tung." " Wa mek? " " Mi a gaa one flim . " In the first instance, the Haitian is asking: "Stranger, what's happening? What are you doing in Haiti?" In the Jamaican exchange, the first speaker says, "I am going to town." He is asked "Why?" The answer: "I'm going to a movie."

Three people were killed when they were hit by floats in one of the city's largest ethnic festivals, a parade celebrating Caribbean culture. In the first incident, Joseph Donn and Zacehel David, both 11, were dancing behind a float attached to a truck that stopped suddenly. The driver of the next float couldn't stop in time and hit the children, killing them, police said. Hours later, an 18-year-old man was killed by a float along the parade route. Police did not release details.

When in Antigua, do a Wadadli. Here, it's Hairoun. In Barbados, you'd better go for a Banks. St. Lucia pushes Piton. And you really shouldn't belly up to a Bahamian bar without kicking back a Kalick--named for the sound of a local cow bell. Even tiny Dominica, an island nation of 90,000 sandwiched between French Martinique and Guadeloupe with no other major manufacturing, makes its own beloved brew, an obscure little number called Kubuli. Despite markets smaller than those for most U.S.

Among the first words a foreigner is apt to hear on a visit to Haiti are: " Blan, sa k' pase? Ki sa ou ap fe an Ayiti? " Or a visitor in Jamaica might overhear this exchange: " Me a gaa a tung." " Wa mek? " " Mi a gaa one flim . " In the first instance, the Haitian is asking: "Stranger, what's happening? What are you doing in Haiti?" In the Jamaican exchange, the first speaker says, "I am going to town." He is asked "Why?" The answer: "I'm going to a movie."

Andy Narell doesn't look like a controversial guy. If anything, the soft-spoken, thirtysomething ex-New Yorker, with his receding hairline and quiet smile, has the gentle appearance of a college professor or an easygoing family counselor. But Narell, who performs tonight at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, is embroiled in a contentious dispute in the small Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

Caribbean musician David Rudder doesn't have much patience with the images of island life concocted for travel brochures, movies and television. "I try to show (that) the Caribbean is more than just this impression of sand and sea and straw hats and colored shirts," the soca singer said by phone recently from Houston. "I try to paint pictures of the Caribbean and the way we see things. It's not just this happy-go-lucky kind of 'Yeah, mon' existence that people (associate with) the Caribbean."

A parade celebrating Caribbean cultures drew a huge, mostly peaceful crowd Monday in the tense Crown Heights neighborhood, the scene of recent violence between blacks and an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect. Mayor David N. Dinkins, grand marshal of the West Indian-American Day Parade, said the goodwill that enveloped the festive event was not because of the large police presence.

During summer in Los Angeles, lovers of reggae culture -- smitten by the sun and the sky -- have occasional flights of fancy: Turning to the ocean, humming a Jimmy Cliff tune, they imagine themselves in the West Indies. Smog soon clouds such Caribbean reveries. Unlike New York or Miami -- America's answer to Kingston, Jamaica -- L.A. lacks an overwhelming West Indian population (.3%, says the 2000 census).

ZAMBIA Service and bike tour During World Bicycle Relief's cycling trip through Zambia, travelers help by building bicycles and distributing them to students (especially girls), small-business owners and medical caregivers. After the philanthropic work, there's a two-day tour of the region. Itinerary: Varies based on the nonprofit's needs, but arrival and departure is out of Lusaka. Dates: Oct. 8-16; 2012: May 19-27, July 21-29, Oct. 6-14 Price: $2,750, double occupancy, including all transportation within Zambia, food and lodging but not airfare.

"It's a mystical, magical, Caribbean musical-comedy farce," said Charles Douglass, describing his "De Obeah Mon," which opens Saturday at the Westwood Playhouse. Like its closest literary relation, Moliere's "The Doctor in Spite of Himself," Douglass' play features feuding spouses, rich suitors, obstinate brides and reluctant medical practitioners.

Behind the Caribbean's sandy beaches, palm trees and fruity rum drinks is a festival waiting to happen. A festival, Caribbean style, is part street party, part masquerade and part jam session. Travelers to Trinidad know that a Caribbean festival is not a spectator sport. Unlike an American parade, where people line the sidewalks watching the bands march and majorettes twirl, audience participation is part and parcel of Caribbean festivals.