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Bahamian Granny Makes Caribbean Friends

I am black and blue on my ass. Bruises. My leg muscles are like jelly. My knees hurt, and my ankles feel like someone took a sledge hammer to them. I got these injuries trying to make a TV star. Let me explain.

Mum and Miss Knowlton certainly don't have a boring life. Our small town wasn't big enough for their horizons. When the Haitian governor general was installed in Canada, Mum met a whole new pile of Caribbean friends. Some were fellow Bahamians (Russells, and everyone knows how Russells carry on), but she also made some Yardie friends and some from who knows where.

She even managed to find a place in downtown Ottawa that serves souse. It een fa real though according to Mum, because they serve Jamaican patties too. Oh yeah, the TV star.

Mum's new Jamaican friend is about her age. They get along fabulously, as does Miss Knowlton, who is as Brit as the day is long. Whatever loneliness that she had before Mum had arrived had totally vanished. Well the Jamaican lady asked if she wanted to volunteer to help clean house for an hour a week for a needy widower. Of course Mum and Miss Knowlton said yes.

I had pictured the needy widower as somebody in their 70's. Turns out its a guy in his 40's. He is a Guyanese who made his way to Nassau. He met a Bahamian woman, and they moved to Florida, and then from their to Canada. They had a boy and a girl, and then the woman died of breast cancer. The boy is twelve or thirteen and the girl is a year or two younger. The man was raising the children all by himself. He was a God-fearing man who took his children to church, and that is how he ran into the ladies that barged into his life and took over the domestic scene.

The young boy is a real keener. He is a good student, and a shy boy. His mother was a red mulatto, and his dad is Guyanese, so the children are strikingly beautiful. They have fine features like some Trinis, and a skin the colour of a Starbucks latte with 35% cream. They are real lookers.

The boy took up martial arts, and at a recent competition in a hotel in the city, the boy attracted attention. It was from the producers of a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) show, who also had a son competing in the same tournament. The producer asked the father if he would permit the boy to read for the part. The father acquiesced, and a few days later, the boy auditioned, and he won the part. He was elated.

Canadians and others who watch CBC wil probably know the show. It is a social satire that started out as a mini-series last season. It was award-winning and so successful that the network spun it into a series. The action takes place in a small town. The boy won the part of "Kumar", who is the son of a leading light of the the town, a gynecologist. However the gynecologist is of East Indian descent, and the boy in question has pale enough skin to pass as an East Indian.

The series of course, is called "The Tournament" and revolves around hockey and how the parents lives interact around children's hockey. The kid who played Kumar in the last series was unavailable, so Mum's friend's son won the part. There was only one problem -- the boy couldn't skate. Unlike the Jamaican bobsled team, there are very few dark-skinned Caribbean nationals who can play ice hockey.

Now I learned to skate in University, as my master's degree was at a university that bordered the Rideau Canal, which is the world's longest skating rink in winter. However, after a bit my ankles give way, and I never did learn to do the fancy shmancy stuff like backwards crosscuts and stuff like that. So Mum and Miss Knowlton volunteered me to tutor the boy to teach him how to skate. I knew that I wasn't up to this job alone, so I coerced my best friend and sometimes boss Ken to help. He grew up totally Canadian, played hockey and has ankles like an ox. I have seen him skate without lacing up his skates, and skating backwards at that.

So I drive out to get the lad, and Ken makes arrangements with the fellow at the local arena. The arena manager is also the Zamboni driver and he offered his help as well. We rounded up some hockey sticks, pucks, went to the second hand sports store and got the boy some equipment. Of course when he auditions, they will give him the latest in Cooper Hockey Body Armour, but for now we had to make do.

It was lucky that the boy was athletic from his martial arts. He took to skating a lot quicker than I did, even though after the first few minutes, he was virtually on his ankles. For me, I took this as an opportunity to improve my skating and do the lessons from Ken along with the boy. Plus we needed more bodies to scrimmage. It's not enough to skate, as I learned, but it's quick a trick to try and handle the puck on the ice when most of your concentration is on not falling and cracking your skull open.

Well the zamboni driver/arena manager enlisted a local hockey team to help "Kumar". Of course, the lads had all seen the series last year on TV, and were eager to help to make a TV star.

Well, last night we decided to wrap up the lessons. I am proud to report that I can now do backwards crosscuts, and I can skate down the ice carrying a hockey stick and a puck. But the most gratifying moment was that when we were talking, we all marvelled at how much the boy had learned. Of course the kids were still on the ice, and the testament to his prowess, was that it took a minute or two to pick him out on the ice.

I know that sometimes you get CBC on Cable Bahamas. So if you have nothing to do, and want to watch the comedy series "The Tournament", try to pick out Kumar on the ice. He also has some speaking parts. The lot us, the Jamaican lady, Mum, Miss Knowlton, Ken, me, the arena manager, and the CP Peewees all helped to make him a TV star. We are damn proud of it, and we're sure that his Mum, somewhere in the heavens with her Maker is looking down too and smiling at Canada's newest hockey player.

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