Just outside the Mission House in Bodden Town was the ideal venue for Gimistory, one evening out of a whole week of traditional-style Caribbean storytelling put on by the Cayman National Cultural Foundation (CNCF). The event was well attended and everybody seemed to love it.

The show began with local performancers from the CNCF’s Young at Arts programme, Alanna Warwick Smith, Tariah Lemay and Jevaughnie Ebanks. There were also performances from Venita Ryan, Pricilla Pouchie and Barbara Aliprantis.

Coming onstage in a long, flowing blue dress, Sheila Payne, all the way from Curacao, told a story about a dancing frog who got a lift up to heaven on the back of an eagle, but left it a bit too late to get home again.

“She kept dancing, and the angels and saints they started to dance with her. The time passed, and at that time the heaven gate would close, so Eagle flew back, and Miss Frog was standing there at heaven’s gate, with no transportation.

“St. Peter passed and gave her one kick, so she tumbled down to earth, and she crash, and she scrimble up and that’s why, when you a dead frog it is all scrimbled up,” she said.

The evening’s entertainment finished up with two traditional Calypso singers from Trinidad and Tobago. The first, David Beraeax, explained the history of Calypso singing:

“Calypsonians would pride themselves on the ability to compose songs very quickly, sometimes on the spot,” he said, before singing a very funny song about women talking backwards so that men wouldn’t understand them.

Fellow calypso artist, Phillip Murray, better known as Black Sage, then gave the audience a dazzling example of the art of Calypso singing at its best:

“Bodden Town it is so special, you know that it was the first capital, so I am confused, I want to declare, why it is they want to put the rubbish
dump here.

“If you do want a fight I am telling you, I come from Trinidad I will fight for you, because I am telling you, without a frown, I really love this place Bodden Town..

“To put the dump here I have to comment, it going to destroy all you’re environment, why they doing it? That I can bravely say, is for those rich people in Camana Bay.”