Panama's annual West Indian Fair was in danger of not happening a couple of months ago, but the community pulled together and put on a solid show this year. The late start limited the publicity, but between the expectation that the event always takes place on the Saturday and Sunday of Carnival and the word of mouth and Internet communications networks, word got out in Panama and in the large West Indian community in New York City. However, the late start did prevent the event from participating in the rise of cruise ship tourism and otherwise kept a number of the foreign Carnival revelers from putting in an appearance. As it turned out, the crowd started coming in a bit late, but by the time that the sun went down on each day, the attendance was comparable to that of recent years.

This year there seemed to be fewer vendors of merchandise than last year, and sales were down a bit. However, there seemed to be as many or more food vendors than in recent years, and the selection of West Indian-style foods was clearly better than last year's. My budget, stomach and need to be watching the table where The Panama News was selling books and other items were limiting factors, but I managed to sample the icing glass, saril, ginger beer, raspados, fish cakes and curried chicken during the two days.

This year the musical presentation relied a lot more on the DJ, with fewer live acts. It was a Lesser Antillean orientation --- on the first day the DJ played a lot of soca and plenty of calypso, but it was hard to hear a reggae beat. Of course, Panama does have a large population of folks with Jamaican roots, but a lot of the country's West Indian population came here from Barbados, Trinidad, Martinique and other small Caribbean islands.

The stage was dominated by regulars --- for yet another year Alejandrina Lam and her Congos de Curundu showed off an aspect of Panamanian black culture that's not Antillean in origin, and on both Saturday and and Sunday nights Leslie George again demonstrated his multifaceted brilliance as a vocalist (or some of it, as he's not only the country's best calypsonian of the moment and a great Gospel singer, but one thing we didn't hear at the fair was his prowess as an opera singer).

On Sunday reggae made its appearance, with many of the morning's Gospel tunes praising the Lord with a distinctively irie beat, the DJ getting into some of the Panamanian Spanish-language reggae-rap fusion and the Jammers taking the stage in the afternoon. Sunday's music was also more African-American, both on what the DJ played and with the very good jazz concert that Danny Clovis, Barbara Wilson, et al put on in the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Her Majesty Amaly I, this year's Antillean queen, with support from her princesses, amply proved that black is, indeed, beautiful.

Next year is Panama's centennial, so Carnival and one of its important traditions, the Antillean Fair, will take on added significance. Those of you who are reading this, especially at latitudes well above 9°N, should mark your calendars and make your travel plans accordingly.

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