erk the new day /|\ this poem was written by me for mental health week, inspired by my mother and my girlfriend's aunt. women who escape the world and find calm in their beds. doors closed (occasionallybarricaded by chair) to seize necessary solitude from the chaos beyond/before.
I stumbled across this interesting little piece on a famous goal scored by Haitian footballer Emmanuel Sanon in the 1974 World Cup. It features in "Libète: A Haiti Anthology", [ISBN 1-55876-213-2], co-edited by Bob Corbett and Michael Dash.
'The Man Who Beat Dino Zoff',
by Charles Arthur, 1998
Manno Sanon's goals put Haiti on the footballing map when, in 1974, it
became the first Caribbean nation to qualify for the World Cup finals.
Manno Sanon, Haiti's first soccer superstar, is a modest man. Of the goal he scored against Italy in the 1974 World Cup finals he says, "It was nothing special. I scored a lot of goals." His goals, an astounding 47 of the 106 scored in the four years after he broke into the national team, helped Haiti top their qualifying group and become the first Caribbean nation to qualify for the World Cup.
He was already a hero in Haiti, but his powerful run and strike against Italy, a goal voted the best of the entire tournament by international football writers, turned him into a legend. Now twenty four years since that goal, and back in Haiti after a long time living abroad, Manno is
clearly chuffed by the reception he has received, "When I go to do
something that should take five minutes, it takes an hour, because everyone
wants to ask me about that goal."
Haiti's qualification was made possible by the patronage of the dictator,
Jean-Claude Duvalier, who through the Haitian Football Federation, paid the
squad of talented amateurs a monthly retainer during the long qualifying
process. Nevertheless relations between team and benefactor were far from
cordial.
Manno recalls the euphoria and tensions after Mexico's failure to beat
Trinidad in the qualification tournament played in Port-au-Prince meant
Haiti were through to the finals in West Germany,
"It was the first time a small country like Haiti had qualified for the
World Cup. At that time there were only 16 teams in the tournament, so it
was quite something. The night we knew we had qualified, well, the country
was upside down. It was crazy."
Then the successful players demanded a bonus of more than $5,000 and the
furious dictator sent a message saying the strike threat deserved a death
sentence. His representative let it be known that they would be pardoned
but would be expected to do their patriotic duty by representing Haiti in
the finals.
The team's first game was against Italy, finalists in 1970, and led by
goalkeeper Dino Zoff who had just completed 12 consecutive internationals
without conceding a goal.
"Everybody was asking who would beat Dino Zoff. The newspapers mentioned
European and South American players, but nobody thought a Haitian could do
it. That upset me because I knew I could do it."
The Haitian team surpassed all expectations by holding Italy to 0-0 in the
first half. Two minutes into the second half, Manno shocked everyone but
himself.
"With my pace, you can't leave me with just one defender, but that is what
happened. I was one-on-one with Spinosi. I received a pass from Phillipe
Vorbe. I beat the defender with my speed. One-on-one with Dino Zoff, and
the goal was wide open. I dummied to go left, and then went right. I
rounded him, and rolled the ball into the net."
One of the biggest upsets in World Cup history was on the cards, but it was
not to be. Five minutes later Italy equalised. The Haitian team began to
tire, and the relentless Italian attacks brought two more goals. Worse was
to come. After the game a Haitian player tested positive for drugs - a
cold-cure like Maradona in 1994? Later that night a fight broke out between
some of the Haitian players and Duvalierists in the Haitian delegation who
were furious that the country's honour had been besmirched.
The demoralised team lost its two other matches with Poland and Argentina,
but Manno's goal against Zoff had made him a star. After the tournament he
signed for the Antwerp club, Beerschoot, at that time a force to be reckoned with in Belgian football.
After seven years in Antwerp and 16 in the US, Manno has now returned to live in Haiti, and is trying to revitalise Haitian soccer.
"The country is in a state, and Haitian football is in poor shape too. Me and some of my teammates from before are talking about what we can do to make those good times come back again. We have pure talent in the street - it's like Brazil. You don't have to send them to school or coach them. They know it themselves. But the conditions are not right."
Copyright Charles Arthur 1998 - all rights reserved.
The goal:
'vive l'Haiti'!!!
This is just one of over 180 extracts in "Libète: A Haiti Anthology".
Authors featured include Amy Wilentz, Michel Laguerre, Rene Depestre,
Graham Greene, Dany Laferriere, Sidney Mintz, Laennec Hurbon, Allan Nairn,
Jacques Roumain, P.J.O'Rourke, and Felix Morisseau-Leroy.
Lorna Goodison and Francio Guadeloupe share equally beautiful parallel stories of love that cannot be. Intimate and closely entwined lives are pulled inevitably apart by the subtle yet magnified differentiations of class and colour that lead to their separations. Beautifully told everyday tragedies, of a granny and little girl, and their whistful memories of love.
This post is inspired by a short film I recently shot with a friend Ras Julie, following him as he carries a stem of bananas on his head from his garden in Loubiere, St George, Dominica to and though the streets of Roseau, Dominica's capital over a mile away (without stopping).
This awe inspiring performance is symbolically powerful...
Julie carries a stem of 'fig', as green bananas are known locally in Dominican Kweyol. The fig is the most basic staple food of the island. It was previously colloquially termed 'green gold', attesting to the once lucrative value of this export crop to Dominican farmers who would bring the fruit to Roseau to be shipped to England, bringing relative economic prosperity to the island in the decades leading up to independence. Julie and his brother grow bananas in abundance in their garden and are currently developing a small business selling a flour made from dried fig.
Yet when Julie - a rastaman who's powerful mastery of the delicate skill leaves marveling onlookers' mouths agape as he passes on his one wheeled bike, bananas aloft - meets the bay-front, he finds not a 'banana boat' transporting banana cargo and departing migrants in hat and tie to 'Englan', but a 'tour-ris boat' - signalling the tourism / service economy aspirations of the island after WTO rulings crippled the Dominican banana export economy in the 90s and early 2000s.
Later, passengers from the boat taking a tour through through the botanical gardens excitedly lift their cameras to their eyes as Julie passes - visibly thrilled by the figure of a Rastaman riding by on a unicycle. Continuing on, we begin an interview whilst he weaves along the pot-hole filled road exiting the gardens. When asked what inspired him to pick up the unicycle and request his brother in New Jersey, NY send one down for him, he told me he first saw Jamaican reggae artist Peter Tosh riding a unicycle and was inspired.
The article below tells more of the story of Peter Tosh and the unicycle as a pre-lude to Julie's unicycle video, to be released later this year.
Peter had a love for unicycles or "inicyles" as he
called them. He also had a large collection of unicycles and would often be
seen riding his unicycle downtown through the streets of Jamaica. Peter was an
imposing figure, standing more than 6 feet tall, rather lanky and gangly and so
to see the 6 foot plus rastaman riding through the streets of Kingston was a
sight to be seen. The unicycle was great for cruising the streets, being able
to maintain a steady speed, making travelling on foot a thing of the past.
No one is quite sure when Peter's interest in unicycles
first began, one would guess that it was after his split from the Wailers as
Peter had made no mention or reference to unicycles whilst with the group. It
is also not certain what sparked Peter's interest in them either, was it the
unusuality of them, complexity, uniqueness or was it Peter's way of gaining
attention, gaining the limelight to spread his message?
After all not too many
other musicians traveled by one wheel, by doing so this made Peter stand out
even further.
Or was Peter's interest in the unicycle down to being in
complete control of his own destiny?
Peter not only took to the streets with his unicycle though.
He went every where with his unicycle, riding through Babylon by bike.
Riding a unicycle is a lot tougher than it looks, Peter had
great balance, and had a great deal of elogance and so able to master this art,
and so the wheel became an extension of his legs, as much as a spliff became an
extension of his mouth or a guitar of his arm. There is a wide variation of
athletic fitness, balance perception, and reaction time involved when learning
to ride a unicycle.
The unicycle had been all over the world with Tosh and
seemed emblematic of its owner's stance in a dangerous world: precarious yet
balanced, eccentric but uniquely upright.
On a number of occasions Peter would ride his unicycle
onstage much to the delight of the fans on hand. Peter would zoom from one side
of the stage to the other before stopping and parking at the microphone where
he would start to sing still perched atop his bike. Microphone in hand Peter
would continue to sing whilst free-wheeling across the stage.
His unicycle proved a hot topic of conversation during
interviews too, many journalists intrigued by Peter's interest in the "one
wheel bike". On a number of occasions Peter would demonstrate his unique
talents by hopping on his unicycle and riding around, back and forth, side to
side. One such incident took place in 1983 on MTV, Peter was promoting his latest
album Mama Africa, he wheeled into the studio on his bike, talked for a few
minutes about the album and then wheeled out of the studio.
Tosh was not just content in cycling forward, he even
mastered the art of cycling backwards and a number of other tricks. Peter
obviously spent a great deal of time riding and practicing, he became a master
and in 1980 he showcased some of his tricks and other skills for a Austrian TV
station.
Peter also had a love for other bikes too, especially the
penny-farthing which had a large front wheel and a small front wheel, this is
where the design of the unicycle is rumored to have come from. Peter had a
great interest in all cycles, no matter how many wheels and collected a number
of unusual cycles.
In 1983 during Peter's historic concert in Swaziland spent
most of his free time in his hotel lobby wheeling around on his unicycle
conversing with onlooking guests in awe at Peter's agility.
Peter's oldest son Andrew inherited Peter's passion for the
unicycle and carries on the Tosh tradition of riding a unicycle around onstage.
Continuing to spread his fathers words on one wheel [follow link for interesting Jamaica Observer article on Andrews inheritance of the skill].
He silently sits,
Staring diagonally downwards at the
At the hard crumbling horizon
That is the wall on which he remains.
I say hello each day as I pass
Breaking his concentration
He looks up at me
Reluctantly
Donating a nod
Before returning to the eternity
In which his imagination seems to wander.
His body remains firmly in place.
His ageing frame, slim and dark, with a silver bearded face
It attests to a long life truly lived.
His location against the perpetual motion
(that is the bobbing, swelling, spray and flow)
Of the Caribbean sea
Serves to remind me
Only of his stationary pose.
Where does he wander when his mind’s eye
Moves him
Beyond this banal world of you and I?
Where does he dwell and who does he tell
In a realm before utterance, touch,
or tears cried
As small as a world, as big as alone
Chasms appear to rift our beings
I there. he here.
Tied.
This morning when taking in my washing from the line in my landlord's yard Sister Sorhaindo, my elder neighbor softly called out to me:
"So how you like Dominica so far?"
... i replied: "I think its lovely". And continued, "... I have met lots of very kind people so far"....
She appeared distant in contemplation for a split second then refocused on me and responded,
"but you are only just born... you are only just born in Dominica".
Last time i was in Dominica I was in the process of completing the first year of my life and I had only just entered the lived world... now i have reentered it in a new moment as people often do when transformative experiences jolt us into new locations
... maybe Sister Sorhaindo sensed the significance of this sojourn for me - a new life in this novel yet familiar place....
anticipating departures
pensive sinead; poised sunglasses and Creolitie reading
a view from my new home in the house of the pastor, his wife and her elder sister
notes on the veranda
a workspace
walking at 5am with the pastor
hiking in the hills with Omar
A wooden handmade cask water pipeline - an ancient serpentine assemblage
a crab at the top of mountain - whats going on here?
Middleham falls
Middleham, Omar and Me
Sharon, Me and Grace on Jounen Kweyol
cruising on Kweyol day
Daniella and Sarah on Kweyol day
Still veggie... to all you non believers go swig a bottle of Karl's hotsauce!
Coach Adom as they know me at the Newtown Junior Football Academy
