By Tony Deyal
As a youngster always hungry, and in my teens when with some of my friends we looked down at a lady having her shower below the mango tree. While mango is great for sperm count, increases versatility in men, helps to regulate sex hormones and boosts sex drive, it is also low in calories with fewer than 100 per cup. The research shows that “The goodness of vitamin C, A and essential nutrients in raw mango triggers the immune system, improves vision, makes your skin and hair healthy and lowers the risk of prostate cancer.”
No wonder the Mighty Sparrow sang about his big brother, Umba, who “cook up one, he eat one raw/ dey taste so good her wanted more, more/ he wanted more!” In the process, the mangoes broke up with the bananas and didn’t give a fig for them. Subsequently, Umba found that one rotten mango could spoil the entire basket and so most people went for coconut.
I couldn’t blame them. Once we heard that in 1956 the great Harry Belafonte gave up on “mango” and went for what was considered the “cheerful and catchy calypso song”, that was it! I was 11 years old and then suddenly nobody cared about “mango long, mango sweet” and even “mango ‘doodose’…” coconut woman was calling all of us. Every day you could hear us, and Belafonte, shout for something that was “good for your daughter, had a lot of iron and could make you strong like a lion.” Then Harry Nisson “Put the lime in the coconut” and everybody left the banana boat for what the coconut woman said was, “You’ll agree, coconut makes very nice candy, the thing that’s best if you’re feeling glum, is coconut water with a little rum.”
Then like mangoes, coconuts became passing clouds. The American soldiers saw Trinidadians, especially the women, as resources for sex and hard work. This was objectified through the mix of rum and Coke. It was composed by a Venezuelan who grew up in Trinidad, Lionel Belasco, based on a song titled “L’Année Passée” which then became “Yankee Dollar.” Not very long after, the Trinidadian calypso musician, Lord Invader (Rupert Grant), turned it into “Rum and Coca-Cola”.
It was not only good for your daughter but for all of us. Even now, almost 70 years after I first heard it, I can still remember and sing, “Drinkin’ rum and Coca-Cola, go down Point Koomanah. Both mother and daughter, working for the Yankee dollar.” Truly it was, “Big, big bamboo, bamboo, Ayy, yah yah yah yah yah yah yah, working for the Yankee dollar. Money in the land with the Yankee dollar ohh…”
I found out later that the combination of “Rum and Coke,” which was at the top of the world for a very long time, started in 1900 when a US Army captain based in Havana, Cuba, during the Spanish-American War, poured some coke and a squeeze of lime into his Bacardi (which was then a “white” rum) and made a toast to his Cuban friends with, “Por Cuba Libre” (To a Free Cuba). One expert has written, “Drinkers of this beverage love the exotic Indian origin of this drink…Its simple recipe and inexpensive, ubiquitous ingredients have made it one of the world’s most popular alcoholic drinks…it has been noted for its historical significance” because it “seems to reflect perfectly the historical elements of the modern world.” There was a time I would have not just drink, but drunk to that.
I was a little boy in Trinidad when I first saw, and heard, Lord Invader. Even at that age, I understood what he meant by, “saw that the Yankees treat them nice and they give them a better price.” In fact, in the final stanza, Invader sang about a couple who had just got married and then their marriage broke up because “the bride run away with a soldier lad/ and the stupid husband went staring mad.” Clearly, he didn’t like the big, big bamboo as much as his wife did.
Fortunately for me, especially when my wife found out about me and my bamboo, people all over the world were already asking for it. It was, still is, and every day and every way becoming more and more popular. It is now a highly sustainable resource due to its rapid growth rate and regenerative properties. While my friends with hardwood quickly find out that they take several decades to mature, bamboo takes only a few years. At five the bamboo is ready to rumble. This makes it a renewable and eco-friendly option as it reduces the pressure on many things, including natural forests. While it is lightweight like me, its renewability far exceeds timber, mango and bananas.
In fact, some bamboo species possess a strength-to-weight ratio equal to, or better than, steel and lumber. Some also have the compressive strength of concrete. Even toilet paper, which now causes 27,000 trees to be cut down, is being made from bamboo which grows faster than the average tree, and 1000 rolls can be produced in the times it takes for one tree to grow back.
What got me thinking about bamboo was the International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup this year, 2024. The countries that will host the Caribbean part of it will need to have the space to make the money that supposedly can be as much as US$300 million. While the present Cricket West Indies (CWI) president, Kishore Shallow, lives up to his surname, people like the Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley, realise the need to renovate and upgrade the facilities (in her case, Kensington Oval), that will leave the cricketers the best developmental options for the future.
I was corporate secretary of the WICB (under Ken Gordon as president) in the 2010 World 20/20 tournament. We made a lot of money and shared it with the six organisations that constitute the ownership of WI Cricket, hoping that they would all do what the present prime minister of Barbados will definitely make happen if she gets that kind of funding. Almost 15 years after, many of us still ask: “Where the money gone?” While some say: “It gone for higher” and others comment: “No, it gone for hire” nobody can get “fire” because our attempts to have a complete review of the finances of the board have never happened, and will never ever happen.
While many knew and saw a link among the heads of boards of the different countries as a cabal (or group of people who are united in some close design, usually to promote their private views or interests, political purpose, conspiracy and secrecy), this too was never investigated.
This is why I am convinced that everyone in the West Indies Cricket Board needs a good bat. A bamboo bat.
According to the Cambridge Faculty of Engineering, bamboo bats have a bigger sweet spot and we, the people of the Caribbean, know very well how to use them.
*Tony Deyal was last seen saying that with a big, big bamboo bat we can make sure the Cricket Board Cabal will not be able to bamboozle the people of the Caribbean.
