From as early as nine in the morning, the buses started to rumble along the winding path to the Seville great house in St. Ann, transporting over 5,000 students and teachers to the Jamaica National Heritage Trust’s (JNHT) annual heritage expo. The student came from schools across the 14 parishes of Jamaica, some as young as four years old, all eager for the opportunity to escape school for a day and to learn more about the island’s cultural heritage.

The annual heritage expo at Seville Heritage Park seeks to promote Jamaica’s heritage through exhibitions, speech, drama, songs, dance and demonstrations and there was plenty of that this year. First the students paid tribute to the island’s seven heroes, lustily singing the patriotic song “Forward, Forever United”, as they laid floral tributes at the effigies of the heroes. The effigies themselves were huge attractions, drawing the students like a pied piper. The children were totally fascinated with them, wanting to touch and in some cases, put them on, heavy though they were.

Executive director of the JNHT welcomed the students and teachers to the historic site while Chairman Professor Verene Shepherd spoke on the importance of recognizing our Taino heritage. She reminded the students that every time they ate certain foods or hear the names of certain places, they should remember that these things had their root in the Taino heritage. The Seville property in fact was once a Taino where the village of Maima was located. It was also Columbus spent a year while shipwrecked in Jamaica.

There was a huge roar of approval for the students from the Edna School of Dance, who, led by head of the school Nicolene Degrasse-Johnson, demonstrated the African retentions in modern dance – demonstrating for example how the head movements of ‘kumina’ find its way into the ‘dutty wine’. This the students thoroughly enjoyed.

The students were also fascinated with candy thrower Fae Thomas, one of the last remaining on the island. She delighted the children with her deft hands as she threw the candy against a piece of board while stretching it and twisting it. They watched with bright eyes as the dark brown sugar is boiled and turned white, stretched, twisted, flavoured with peppermint, cut and bagged. By the time the demonstration was complete, the little hands were eagerly reaching for the red and white candies.

There were also cultural performances from Drews Avenue Primary doing the ‘Maypole dance’, Islington Cultural Group with the ‘Dinki Mini’, the Hartford Cultural Group serving up a medley of Jamaican folk songs and the Alpha Boys Band.

Among the highlights of the event was a fashion show featuring students wearing costumes from the different periods in Jamaica’s history. So there was a Taino couple, Christopher Columbus in full Spanish dress, the British, Chinese, Indians among others.

Ocho Rios Primary School walked away with the top prize of a computer courtesy of Corporate Computers in Molynes Plaza, for winning the exhibition competition. Their exhibition featured artifacts, clothing, food and charts on aspects of our heritage. Priory Primary with an outstanding display ‘Lets Go Way Back’ placed a close second while Servewright Primary placed third.

There were also outstanding exhibitions on cultural icon Miss Lou, reggae super star Bob Marley, National hero Nanny of the Maroons among others. The exhibitions creatively took us way back into the past showing an assortment of artifacts, clothing, utensils such as iron, dutch pot, etc. that our foreparents used.

Archaeologist Robyn Woodward, visiting from the Simon Fraser University in Canada, conducted accommodated several tours of the site near to the sea where a 17th Spanish sugar mill was found, explaining to students the importance of the finds and the site itself.