Four years ago Guyana hosted the Caribbean Festival of Creative Arts (Carifesta), the tenth since its premiere in 1972. Guyana had less than a year to host this mega event and surprisingly enough the country was successful and the events were well organised.
Few people knew the reason for Guyana’s sudden production of the events and even fewer followed up on the history of the soon to be ‘re-dead’ art festival. Carifesta was dormant from 1981 to 1992. Trinidad and Tobago then undertook to host the festival in 1992 and again in 1995. In 2000, St Kitts and Nevis was host, followed by Suriname in 2003. Carifesta then went back to Trinidad and Tobago in 2006.
In 2008 it was the Bahamas’s turn, but that island nation pulled out at the last minute, following a change in government, saying there was not sufficient time to pull together the events. Guyana, wanting to
