Published: 10 Nov 2010
Fireside chat heats up Brooklyn
Right: Raymond Luke, chairman of Sesame Flyers. Below: Author Prof Erleen Harris looks on as Nandi Keyi speaks about her book. Photos: Glenville AshbyIt is an interesting concept and sure to generate lots of buzz in the weeks ahead. Friday Nights Fireside Chats is by no means an original concept, but given the location, its market and promoters, I would not bet against it. In truth, any project cosseted by Sesame
Flyers Inc is well positioned. Flyers, a Brooklyn cultural fixture that has seen its stock grow exponentially in the last decade, is hedging a lot on this venture. Its chairman, Raymond Luke, called it “a journey into the arts, a more profound experience.” He is confidence personified. Fireside Chats is a six-part series that features, what event organiser Glenda Cadogan called, “Everyday celebrities including performers, authors and poets,” of Caribbean heritage. “We will get them to chat with us in an intimate setting. This is like the nurturing ground for the next Sparrows and Rudders,” she added. A chilly evening ushered in the maiden show. The Carnival showroom at the Church Avenue headquarters of the Flyers underwent a marked transformation—a makeshift stage, Afro-Caribbean motifs and symbols, an imitative fire pit, plants, and satin-clothed chairs to accommodate a captivated audience.
Under the glare of the studio lights and video cameras of Gayelle TV, a cautious beginning gave way to a charged and interactive show, with a stream of questions from the audience—some self indulgent, others compelling—leading to wrenching revelations from featured guest and author of The True Nanny Diaries, Nandi Keyi. “It was hard getting up in the morning and push strollers,” she confided, as she touched on the controversial existence of thousands of Caribbean baby sitters in New York. There were moments of levity, lots of it, but the gravity of the subject weighed heavily at times. As well it should. The True Nanny Diaries, is a fiction clothed in the exigent reality of West Indian life in the Diaspora. It’s a journey that juxtaposes the travails of Valdi West, the protagonist, with her white, affluent and dysfunctional employers. It explores the vicissitudes of life with all its expectancies, mangled dreams and compromises. Nandi, who was born in Britain of Trinbagonian parentage, cleverly slithers through the perplexity of Nannyism.
She is engaging and sharp, but still, there are no easy answers here. Recent laws to protect domestic workers will not deem Nandi’s sobering work anachronistic, nor would it sanitise phantasmagoric tales of abuse. Paid vacations, and healthcare plans aside, domestic work in the US ruptures familial ties back home, saps the spirit—leaving the soul naked and cold. To many, this is the sin qua non of the discussion.
Nandi acknowledged that much. “A whole generation of young boys are affected. Grandmothers are not mothers,” she later told me. And offered words to inspire. “If we are patient, we will not leave Trinidad. We can make best of the situation and succeed.” But she will never bite the hand that fed her. “Look, you can make US$600 a week...it’s part of the journey to a destination. My daughter also grew up learning about life in Manhattan.” The trouble is, many never reach the destination, remaining stuck in the mire of what many call, “servitude.” That is the Kantian dilemma which is at the core of the Diaries, a timeless literary work that deserves more than a single fireside chat. Overall, Fireside Chats was fluid and engaging. No overt technical kinks, no snafus. A propitious beginning indeed. Raymond Luke should be well pleased.
(Feature review by Glenville Ashby, a New York journalist for the T&T Guardian)
Fireside Chat Heats up Brooklyn
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