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Join us for Jounen Kweyol

We travel to the Caribbean for one of our favorite holidays — Saint Lucia’s Jounen Kweyol.

Saint Lucia’s Jounen Kweyol is a festival that celebrates the island’s multicultural Creole heritage that mixes British, French, African and Caribbean influences. At the festival, which takes place every year on the last Sunday of October, you’ll see, according St-Lucia-Vacation-Guide.com, “men displaying how they used to saw wood, the making of Creole bread using wood to heat the oven, making of cassava bread, bakes and fish cakes made out of Cray fish, the making of certain tantalizing dishes that were prepared long ago that has lost its popularity in recent times; crab callaloo, pemie, roasted sardines eaten with breadfruit, and more.” As you’ll see in this video, at that time of year Lucians wear madras, the national form of dress, and you’ll hear them speaking the local French-based Creole language.

Our Jounen Kweyol


We end this week with our own version of a St. Lucian Jounen Kweyol celebration. Okay, so we don’t hit all the points, and, since the kids in class are generally one to five years old and not so well-versed in the historical machinations of the Colonial Era we may not be able to impart all the nuances of the holiday, but heck, can’t we still have fun? Here’s how we do it.
1) Start the music. Have students wear imaginary MADRAS to mark the occasion.
2) Start dancing. Simulate the KWADRIL, based upon the highly choreographed European quadrille.
3) SAW WOOD.
4) BAKE BREAD.
5) EAT CRAWFISH , CRAB CALALOO and ROASTED SARDINES.
5) Repeat — dance, saw, bake, eat, dance. For fun, jumble the order and go faster and faster. Saw, dance, bake, eta. Bake, eat, dance, saw. Eat, bake, saw, DANCE!