The annual Soiree on Friday at Hopetown Village, West Berbice attracted numerous persons, with some dressed in African attire.

Jane Jones, third from left, posing with Colleen Grant and her mother Agnes Grant (second and fourth from left) and other women, in their African attire.

Many persons lined the road from early in the evening while cultural programmes were held at different venues in the village much later.

Some were drinking while others were just walking or gyrating to the music blasting from music sets.

Others sampled the delicacies which included cook-up rice, konkee, fufu, met-em-gee and cassava pone.
Jane Jones, coordinator of one of the programmes which was held at the old Fort Wellington (FW) School building told Stabroek News that the activities for the night would have included African drumming, Queh Queh and other dances, dramatic poems and a libation ceremony.

Jones, whose group represented the St. Michael church, said that at midnight “we would call up our ancestors and thank them for the past and ask them to bless the future.”

A former resident of Hopetown, Colleen Grant who visits yearly for the event along with her mother Agnes Grant and other persons from New York told this newspaper that they were there to “upkeep the soiree and to pay tribute to our ancestors.”

Remembering their ancestors through African drumming along the road.

Colleen said she grew up knowing the celebration to be called “shove down”, meaning that revellers would push each other down during their “backward and forward dancing.”