About Antigua and Barbuda
Antigua and Barbuda is a tropical but dry country of 3 islands in the Eastern Caribbean. The largest, Antigua, has secluded bays and sandy beaches, coral reefs and volcanic rocks rising to about 400 metres at Mount Obama. Barbuda is a flat coral island with a large lagoon, while tiny Redonda is rocky and uninhabited.
Region
Language
English is the official language in Antiqua and Barbuda although many people speak Antiguan Creole.
Population
97,928 (2022)
Area
Antigua 280 square kilometres, Barbuda 161 square kilometres, Redonda 1.6 square kilometres
High Commissioner
Her Excellency Karen-Mae C. Hill, OBE
Capital
St John’s
Joined Commonwealth
1981, following independence from Britain
Episode guests
Joy Lawrence OH
Educator, Author and Poet
Joy Lawrence OH is an educator, author of several books on Antigua and Barbuda’s folklore and history, and a poet. Her latest book The People’s Point: an Antiguan Waterfront Community is available to buy online. Her first was Island Spice in 1996. Other publications include The Footprints of Parham: the History of a Small Antiguan Town and its Influence, The Way We Talk and other Antiguan Folkways, Caribbean Creoles, and Bethesda and Christian Hill our History and Culture. Her historical interest developed after learning that Bethesda, the village from which she hails, was home to the first slave school in the British West Indies. She continues her quest to document our history one village at a time.
In 2004 she was awarded the UNESCO Honour Award for outstanding contribution to the improvement of the literary arts in Antigua & Barbuda
In 2017 His Excellency Sir Rodney Williams , Governor-General of Antigua & Barbuda, appointed Joy Lawrence to be an Officer of the Most Precious Order of Princely Heritage (OH).
Love Me
When e’er I think of you, my love
My disposition assumes a pure white dove
Whose gentle heart, like arms, embrace
The purest love, amazing grace
Come nestle in my castle high
Come feel my love, my warmth, for I
Am dazzled by your charm, your visage
So humbly now this plea I wage
Come soar with me above the clouds
Aways from this wild madding crowd
Come see the sun, the moon, the stars
The glories of my beating heart
My darling, if you’ll marry me
Like peas together we shall be
In a pod by rich love nurtured on
From morning till the day is done
We’ll grow, we’ll bloom, we’ll age, then die
Like two rainbows across the sky
And happy, happy we shall be
When we fade into eternity.
An interview with Hurricane Luis
But Luis, what has Antigua done you?
Why you had to treat her so?
Why you turn ugly, callous man
And dealt her such a blow?
Nature! It’s your nature?
You did what you had to do?
You never meant to hurt a soul?
You were merely passing through?
But you realize you set us back thirty years
To eat red herring and corned beef?
You realize you knocked out lives, utilities
And me Aunty Carro’s false teeth?
You realize you flattened houses, uprooted trees
And have everybody exposed?
Disrupted our school, displaced our folks
And put me in second-hand clothes?
How come you not remorseful?
How come you not ashamed?
How come you leave Antigua flat
And then go strike again?
You find yourself at breakneck speed
When you cross Antigua land
You never knew you could move so fast
You get crazy when you see white sand?
What? You move at breakneck speed
And take two days to pass through?
You diameter broad and take long to pass
You hombre grande y gordo?
Ah beg you move from me see, Sir!
Ah beg you please go along
I don’t converse in foreign twang
Me na hablar Espanol.
