Two Videos, Two Islands

Yesterday, British Airways tweeted about their new Caribbean destinations ad, which I have shared below.




I thought the ad was well done. It showed our people, our culture, in full colour and spirit. I made the comment that the ad was distinctly Trini, not just a little bit, but throughout, and could not truly be described as Caribbean.

Then there is this video which ultimately proves my point because this is another Caribbean altogether, one whose history was just yesterday dealt another debilitating and tragic blow.



No sophisticated editing. No polish. No brilliant colour. No spirit.

Tweets about the destruction in Haiti in the aftermath of yesterday's 7.0 earthquake have taken over Twitter, with photos and commentary being shared by those who can on the impoverished Caribbean island. One journalist has been keeping us all in the loop with what is going on, with his tweets and with shared photos. You can also check out tweets from this user, and also check here and these tweets as well from @troylivesay.

CARICOM, Haiti's own community, has so far only released this statement on its website. I could say a lot about this but I am giving CARICOM the benefit of time this morning.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is distressed at the initial reports coming out of Haiti in the wake of the destruction wrought by the series of earthquakes which struck its Member State on Tuesday. As it continues to monitor the situation closely, CARICOM will move quickly to mobilize its disaster emergency response systems in order to render assistance to Haiti.

"Church groups are singing throughout the city all through the night in prayer. It is a beautiful sound in the middle of a horrible tragedy." - @troylivesay, on his Twitter feed.

In much the same way we can search and find all this info on the tragedy, people have also been sharing info on how you can help relief efforts locally on Facebook and Twitter. I would be surprised if none of you has one single friend in you entire network who did not do the same.

I woke up this morning...and that's it. I woke up this morning and if you're reading this, so did you. So what are you going to do today? Are we still going to make a heap of noise about Beyonce today? Seriously? We are up there in that first video, beautiful and blessed. It could easily be us one day in the second.

So...what are you going to do today?

In Trinidad, you can drop off food, blankets, water, clothing at the corner of Broome St. and Tragarete Rd.  between 9am - 3pm. Label all bags.

Also donate at http://www.foodforthepoor.org/ or

In the US - you can use your cell phone to text “Yele” to 501501, which will automatically donate $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund (it will be charged to your cell phone bill), or you can visit Yele.org, wherever you are, and click on DONATE.

In the US - The Red Cross is using their Twitter account to ask for donations: You can text "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross relief efforts in Haiti.
In addition, you can make a donation right on the Red Cross website.


If you're interested in reading Troy's blog you can HERE.