Canepiece & Sandy Bottom

Over the weekend I had the chance to get out and stretch my legs in the great outdoors of Montserrat. With Gerren as my guide, we walked up Silver Hills - a range of hills at the northern end of the island. A relatively easy trail, it took about two hours for a return trek and offered many scenic views. At the summit is an antennae array used by LIME (the local telecom and mobile provider), the MVO and the airport. I could also see most of the inhabitable area of Montserrat, with the volcano in the background masked by quite heavy cloud cover.

On the way we spotted some feral goats and a well-hidden pig farm. The wild boars that occasionally roam the area which I were warned about didn't make their presence felt, though.

Some rather striking local flora.

Some of the scenic views on offer en route up to Silver Hill.

The rooftop of an antennae array building at the summit.

Probably the least of your worries should you lose your footing.

Being the hilly island that it is, Montserrat boasts quite a number of hiking trails. And from this first sneak peek of the hills, I look forward to start ticking all of them off one by one. Montserrat also has quite a fair few number of beaches which, due to the prevalence of cliffs, are only accessible by boat. Currently, the only way to get a proper grand view of Soufrière Hills seems to be helicopter - once a week the MVO gets a helicopter in from Antigua to access monitoring equipment near the volcano, and I hear it might be possible to hitch a lift on one of those rides.

And I shall leave you with a scenic view of the northern part of Montserrat seen from the summit of Silver Hill. On the leftmost edge of the picture, with the row of houses curving out, is part of Lookout - a recent housing development area. The thin strip of 'road' at the right-hand side is actually the airport runway, with Glendon hospital slightly towards the back. Soufrière Hills is in the background, covered by clouds.

Balinese kotekan & Scottish reels

And in the blink of an eye, two weeks have passed since my last blog update. Teaching has gone into full swing now, and the response so far from students has been encouragingly positive. I have been planning the work scheme for music to be taught as a subject to the Years 7 to 9 in Montserrat Secondary School, in conjunction with the Ministry of Education. If my objective is to expose students here to as varied styles and genres of music as possible (as was originally the idea), then delivering music education through the classroom has certainly achieved that.

The approach here that I have taken has differed quite greatly from the UK - students here have no formal music education in schools, and don't receive regular instrumental lessons, if any at all. This is unlike back home, where you could hold a creative music workshop made up of any type of student participants, and almost all of them would certainly have had music taught to them in the classroom and have had weekly instrumental tuition. This, of course, makes it easy to explain what the concept of kotekan found in Balinese gamelan is all about and attempt to recreate elements of that on their instruments. Over here, however, I've had to start from the very basics of pulse, rhythm, note values and notation before asking them to identify the time signature of a Scottish reel (which went down quite well), for example. And this could have, in my opinion, been only effectively delivered in a classroom setting.

The Year 9s have been having a go at film music, looking into different styles of today's Hollywood composers, differentiating between elements of film music such as motifs, underscoring and scene music, as well as coming up with storyboards of their own before acting scenes out while accompanying them on instruments, live. Given how there is no cinema located on Montserrat (the only one was previously destroyed by the volcano), I was slightly apprehensive about the relevance of this module. But I had nothing to worry, as I later found out that given the prevalence of broadband internet on the island, a lot of my students regular watch films through downloading or streaming (as one does?) them online. Ironically, I get power outages here about twice a week - but the wifi in my house never fails me. This reminds me of the time last summer when I was in Romania leading students to volunteer on a summer school programme at an orphanage in a village somewhere in the middle of Romania - and the village had blazing fast broadband internet, but no running water.

I have made slight progress on the instrumental front. I have managed to unearth approximately 50 recorders from the Ministry of Culture, as well as get another adaptor for the keyboards - that makes it two now. And, adding on to the Virtuoso piano app on my iPad and iPhone, as well as the piano app on my TA's Kindle Fire (bless her - she downloaded a piano app for her tablet to help me out with the 'shortage'), that makes five accessible 'keyboards' in the classroom.

Sir George Martin has just ended his month-long sojourn in Montserrat, which he and Lady Judy embark on every year. They own a property here called Olveston House - a beautiful house that, when not occupied by the Martins in January, is used as a guest house which has hosted the likes of Sting, Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney during their expeditions here to record at AIR Studios.

George & I in Olveston House on the eve of his departure.

On a slightly different note, Montserrat Idol has commenced - yes, even this island has not escaped the television sensation scheme first concocted up by Mr Simon Cowell himself. However, given that there is no television broadcasting station in Montserrat, the only way to watch the competition is to, well, go watch it live yourself. It's held every Saturday evening at this cosy beach bar in Little Bay called Soca Cabana, and the competition is now in it's second year (if I remember correctly). The first prize? Round-trip airfare to Antigua, two-night stay at the Catamaran Hotel in Antigua's Falmouth Harbour, a Blackberry Torch and automatic placement in the finals of the Antigua Idol contest (they have it there too!) for this year.

Also, as inevitable as the sun rises and sets everyday, I have embarked on some steel drums playing myself, having joined a steelpan ensemble on the island called Volpanics (loving the pun here). I've assigned myself to tenor pans duty, only because my limited coordination skills can only allow me to focus when are the notes are one pan instead of being spread out over two or three pans. That, and I just love playing the melody anyway! Will update my progress on here as I, hopefully, improve.

Spring-clean & Old school

Over the weekend just past most of my time was spent moving all the instruments from Brades to the new music classrooms, cleaning up the space and setting it up to be ready for this week. We have been moving stack-loads of violins, clarinets, keyboards, guitars, trumpets, trombones and the odd tuba here and there from a warehouse in Brades, where all community-based music activities used to take place, to two dedicated classroom spaces which will be taking over as the music education 'hub'. These two classrooms are actually part of a block, which used to be the Salem Primary School extension. It was, however, only used for a year as the 1995 mass evacuation due to volcanic activity nullified any use for the extension.

Relatively speaking, these classrooms are newer than the ones in Montserrat Secondary School (MSS) - there's a whiteboard (as opposed to chalkboard - yes, old school indeed), and one of the classrooms as a working A/C. However, having come from a teaching environment of interactive whiteboards, PowerPoint presentations using projectors, on-demand wifi which translates to instant YouTube access, and even the odd 50-inch LCD screen made to mirror an iPad, this has certainly been a challenge to adapt and improvise. Thanks to Spotify, I can sync the music tracks that I need to use during teaching to play offline on my iPhone. Thanks to DropBox, I can sync view PowerPoint and PDF resources on my iPad. And now one can also easily download videos off any video streaming site using 3rd-party software to save them for offline viewing. Which does, in turn, translate into even more lesson planning as I have to anticipate way ahead as to exactly what music resources I'll need and make them all available offline before I leave my flat.

The big clean-out - that's only half!

Many of the instruments that are already on the island have been donated by organizations overseas, mostly from the UK and the USA. Given that almost everything (especially food) is imported, all instruments on the island have, more likely than not, come from some distant land by some generous benefactor. However, regular upkeep of the instruments seems to have gone somewhat astray. I'm not doubting that they have, over time, been put to immense use - however, when I was sorting out, cleaning and tuning all the instruments after they'd been moved, there was more than a dozen violins without a bridge, two or more missing strings, and bows so neglected that I think no amount of rosin will bring them to life. Rusted euphoniums caked in dust, guitars with cracked necks, and foldaway metal music stands that could take a finger or two off were also commonplace - all of them had to go.

At present I also have six keyboards, but all without adaptors to power them - which effectively renders them useless. If anyone would like to generously donate six standard 12V adaptors (UK-style plug), please get in touch with me. We would really be immensely grateful.

Before the spring-clean.

A little more respectable-looking.

I also chanced upon a very old-school Casio keyboard which, by the looks of it, has survived for at least a good decade and a half, perhaps even two. It weighed about twice as much as your regular keyboard and had a nostalgic array of pop-in and pop-out buttons which sufficiently distracted me for a minute or two. Sadly, that did not come to life when I plugged it in, so that, too, had to go.

The celesta never goes out of style.

And a big shout-out to the chalkboard in the corner.

If you should be reading this and you think that your school, organization, foundation or company would like to contribute towards Montserrat's music education scheme, we are in urgent need of instruments such as flutes, drum kits, and most of all hand percussion instruments such as the djembe, caxixi, egg shaker, cabaça (or shekere), guiro, agogo (or cowbell), claves, tambourine, darbuka, and triangle. All donations will be gratefully received and duly acknowledged. You can get in touch with me at jonathanang@ovi.com.

Lift-off & Whip-cracking

Yesterday saw my first day starting in Montserrat Secondary School, and it certainly was a marked difference to my previous school. Having only one secondary school on the entire island, there is definitely an immense variation of students - the raucous, the studious, the quiet, the uninitiated. Proponents of the meritocracy system will like to know that schools here divide their sets solely according to learning ability, with each form divided into three or four sets, one of which will be comprised solely of students who need learning support.

All music activities and lessons will be held off-site, a former primary school extension located a 10-minute walk away from the main campus. I don't know if that will turn out to be a blessing or not, as being removed away from campus might increase a sense of 'break-away' from the main curriculum in students, or that might mean that they might not just come to class at all! I have been told that there are organizing shuttle buses to ferry students back and forth from the main campus; that should work.

I was given the chance to observe a chemistry lesson during Period 1 yesterday, but throughout the lesson I heard another group of students having a laugh outside along the corridor. Guess their teacher wasn't around? Having spoke to Jo about this yesterday, she replied with some form of cool indifference, highlighting the time she spent in the state school system.

After discussions with the directors of Culture and Education, my job description has begun to slowly take shape. I will be delivering structured classes during curriculum time to Forms 1 to 3, that's Years 7 to 9. Schools in the Caribbean use a syllabus by the Caribbean Examinations Council, simply called the CXC programme. However, at present, only Forms 4 and 5 follow the CXC syllabus (of which music isn't offered as a subject by the school), while Forms 1 to 3 don't follow a structured syllabus at all. So that translates to lots of lesson planning. For community-based work, I will be starting off with working with New Beginnings - an ensemble that is comprised of primary and secondary schools across the island. Run by the Minister of Culture, Herman "Cupid" Francis, this music outreach programme has been in place for a little over ten years. I will also start running extra-curricular activities after lessons, first in the secondary school then stretching out to primary schools.

I'll be trying to garner interest for choirs and ensembles by using the good 'ol posters around the school method. Let's see how that goes. I think a bit of whip-cracking may be in order to get things moving along...

iPlayer & Mini-kingdoms

Well surprise, surprise. I guess the Beeb doesn't consider British Overseas Territories to be suited to enjoy their fine TV programming. Indeed, I am now iPlayer-less, or at least will be for the next seven months. I don't usually get a constant hankering for EastEnders, really. I just don't know why, this isle technically being crown-owned land, am I being denied my occasional indulgence of the finest British soap.

The BBC News app has also denied my live streaming of its namesake channel (it doesn't even give me an error message prompt, it just minimizes without playing) and I now have to, alas, contend myself with BBC World with an ever-increasingly American shift in coverage and other trashy American TV channels which show up to five back-to-back episodes of Wife Swap. (Guilty as charged!) Attempts to download the BBC iPlayer Global app have backfired too because it's only available on the US iTunes store.

In other more exciting discoveries, I noticed while driving around the island that there's yet another small rocky island not too far away from Montserrat. It cuts quite an imposing figure, rising out of the sea with steep cliffs all around topped by an area of grassland that slopes rather steeply. Welcome to Redonda, a very small, uninhabited Caribbean island which is now part of Antigua and Barbuda. It is basically one very large rock, the remnant of an ancient volcanic core. Due to a lack of a freshwater source, Redonda itself is currently uninhabited, except by seabirds and, according to Wikipedia, a herd of feral goats that manage to survive on the poor grazing on top of the island.

Redonda rising out of the ocean.

Montserrat is the closest land to Redonda, which is situated between here and the island of Nevis. Originally spotted by Columbus who claimed it for the Spanish crown despite not setting foot on the island himself, it was subsequently made a British possession in the 1860s (why not?) but was handed over to Antigua and Barbuda when the latter become independent. Interestingly, however, Redonda has been claimed as a "kingdom" and is now considered a micronation. Who by, you might wonder. Here's an interesting blurb about Redonda's history as a mini-kingdom, extracted from Wikipedia's article about the Kingdom of Redonda.

"Redonda also is, or appears to be, a micronation which may, arguably and briefly, actually have existed as an independent kingdom during the 19th century. The title to this supposed kingdom is still contested to this day in a half-serious fashion. The "Kingdom" is also often associated with a number of supposed aristocratic members, whose titles are given out freely by whoever is currently the "King". Currently there are a number of different individuals in several different countries who claim to be the sole legitimate "King" of Redonda.

The idea of the kingdom appears to originate with M. P. Shiel, 1865–1947, an author of fantasy fiction. He claimed that in 1865, his father Matthew Dowdy Shiell, from the nearby island of Montserrat, proclaimed himself to be the rightful, and supposedly legal, "King" of the island of Redonda in order that he might establish his son as the rightful heir to the throne. This story, as first recounted by the son in a promotional leaflet for his books, may be partly or entirely fictional."

Another curious development that has since emerged (in 2007) was when a pub in Southampton attempted to declare themselves an embassy of the "nation" of Redonda, in order to gain diplomatic immunity from a nationwide ban on smoking in enclosed workplaces, including pubs. This was after the pub was granted status as a consulate of Redonda by the island's current king and the pub owner receiving a Redondan knighthood. Of course, this bold plan was eventually thwarted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, no less due to the fact that if the pub was classified as "foreign soil", it would be allowed to serve cheaper drinks because the pub would be exempt from VAT. You can read more about it on this online news article here.

Above is a map of the area on Google Earth to give you a clearer idea of where this fascinating micro-nation is actually located. Perhaps if I went over (by what means, I have no clue) and planted a Singapore flag there I could make it the first Singaporean colony - given how fickle the process of claiming territory seems to be. For the more musically-inclined, do check out Redonda's national anthem here. If you have a seaworthy vessel which you would like to enlist as part of the Royal Redondan Navy, you can download the application form here.

In other news, today I decided to go for a run around my immediate area just to have a look-see. One-and-a-half miles later I was completely shattered from what was possibly the most undulating run I have ever done in my life. Montserrat really is immensely hilly and certainly very punishing for a casual runner like me. At times the road was so steep I thought it might be less painful to jog backwards instead!

Ash & Pyroclastics

Yesterday I decided that my free time (so far) would be best spent driving around the island and orientating myself to the island. Montserrat itself isn't big; at 10 miles long and 6.8 miles wide, and more than half of it in the exclusion zone, it is significantly smaller than Singapore. However, it is extremely hilly - most of the populated areas are not along the coast, as there seems to be much less accessible shoreline that I first expected. Therefore a journey from Olveston (where I am, the southern part of the habitable area) to Brades (the de facto capital up north) takes at least twenty minutes.

With it being a tropical island with very little seasonal temperature variation, it is very much like being back in Singapore, except with the climate generally being a couple deg C lower and certainly less humidity levels. A lot of Montserrat does resemble Singapore sixty years ago - very rustic, rural and colonial in some ways.

One of the stops I made during my little island road trip was Jack Boy Hill, a secluded lookout spot in the northeast where I had a partial but picturesque view of the exclusion zone as well as the former airport which was abandoned during the last major eruption. It was quite surreal to see vast portions of land completely covered with hardened pyroclastic flow, rendering the entire landscape a dull grey - very much like a modern-day Pompeii.

A house completely destroyed by pyroclastic flow.

Coastline of the exclusion zone.

I also visited some of the (undestroyed) beaches along the west coast, with a popular one being Little Bay. This area is being redeveloped as the new capital town, with it being one of the more popular areas on weekends where bars and nightclubs open for business. The island's diving shops and facilities are also located here, so I hope to be spending some time there in the future when I decide to take up diving again!

Other practical considerations which I managed to suss out were the exact locations of the only two petrol stations on the island (they must be making a fortune!) as well as where some of the island's schools are located. At present I'm staying very near the only secondary school on the island, where I will be mostly based at. It seems I'll be starting work on Monday - can't wait. There are only so many free afternoons where I can sit on my porch all afternoon drinking beer and enjoying the sun.

View of the beach from Little Bay

You can tell from just exploring the island that Montserrat has come a long way since more than half the population were made refugees from volcanic activity in 1995. Everyone here seems to share a spirit of solidarity, spurred further on by a thoroughly friendly and amicable attitude. When I got out of my car at the supermarket and locked it, a local came up to me and said, "This is Montserrat, no need to lock your car!" Okay, maybe that will take some time getting used to.

Antigua & Mini-planes

So, here we go. Day 1 on this tropical paradise isle that is Montserrat. Well, I say paradise - that's from what I've seen so far when the Britten-Norman Islander I was in flew above Montserrat as it approached landing. The day started early yesterday with a delayed & packed flight to Antigua from London Gatwick, brought on by terrible gales lashing the runway. By then I was quite grateful to be leaving such foul weather to sunnier lands.

After a very quick & hectic layover in Antigua, I found myself onboard a six-seater Islander aircraft - the only type of aircraft that FlyMontserrat operates - heading towards the Emerald Isle, pop. 4,822, along with three other fellow passengers. Whilst en-route I got to know another passenger who was also starting a new job in Montserrat - the new customs head, who himself also travelled from London. There was indeed a moment of hilarity which ensued when he, having arrived without making himself known to customs that he was their new boss, was asked to step behind the yellow line and wait his turn.

There are currently only two ways to get to and from Montserrat. The first is either a 40-minute long ferry ride or a 20-minute long flight, both from Antigua. Montserrat's former airport, along with the former capital Plymouth, were destroyed in the 1997 eruption of Soufriere Hills volcano. For several years afterwards, Montserrat had been only accessible by helicopters or boats until July 2005 when the new John A. Osborne Airport was completed on the north end of the island, prompting flight services to resume.

The pilot & stewardess. Talk about cosy.

Upon landing, I was picked up by representatives from Montserrat Enterprises, then driven to the police station to obtain my local temporary driver's license before being shown to my accommodation. For the next seven-months I'll be put up in the lower half of a colonial-era styled house which has been divided into two apartments, one on the ground floor and the other on the first. I still have yet to meet my neighbour(s), but let's hope they weren't too put off with me blasting the local radio belting out hits from Enrique Igleasis and Westlife (I like this place already!) whilst I was doing my unpacking.

Day One has thus kicked off in the most relaxed manner possible. Last night I sent out a deluge of emails checking-in with the various powers-that-be that I would be working with, but I still have yet to get any response regarding official meetings or school tours. Perhaps I'm just still stuck in hectic big city mode and need to take time to calm down and adapt to the Montserratian way of life.

I have been invited to dinner with the governor of Montserrat, Sir George Martin and their respective families tomorrow. Time to start all that ironing!