{"id":8847,"date":"2021-04-04T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-04T08:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=8847"},"modified":"2021-06-17T17:06:39","modified_gmt":"2021-06-17T15:06:39","slug":"oh-lord-kum-ba-ya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stolb01web.ddns.net\/wordpress\/?p=8847","title":{"rendered":"Oh Lord, kum ba ya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was only last year on seeing an episode of Padma Lakshmi’s Taste the Nation<\/em><\/a>, that I connected the Gullah Geeshee and their cultural heritage with the Sea Islands and their significance to the history of slavery, the Civil War and Emancipation, that I had concurrently been studying<\/a>. A travelogue piece in the NYT<\/em><\/a> from the previous year interested me further, with its depiction of the region and how it is being endangered by tourism and environmental changes – and ignorance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, on reading this<\/a>, I was surprised to realise the Gullah Geeshee had<\/strong> touched me, and unbeknownst to me, as a young school girl – a lifetime away and thousands upon thousands of kilometres as birds fly and fish swim. I see before me an orange songbook and there it is: Kumbayah<\/a>! Do I also remember a “negro spiritual”<\/em> citation? I think so, but not much more – certainly nothing of its specific origins nor even that it meant “come by here”. What I do remember, is that my class sang it as a round at a regional eisteddfod – I do declare if we didn’t win!<\/p>\n\n\n\n