Heritage and heroes in the spotlight at Great Huts Eco Resort

FROM FRIDAY, October 17 to Monday, October 20, Great Huts Eco Resort, an eco-friendly, Afrocentric nature sanctuary, perched on the cliffs overlooking the turquoise Boston Bay in eastern Portland, will be hosting a series of activities in keeping with the observance of National Heroes Day and the beginning of its 25th anniversary celebrations.

The weekend will honour Portland’s vibrant creative community, featuring artists and cultural personalities, including Arlene Passley of Aya Naturals, Kukuwa Abba, Zachary Moss, Hopeton Cargill, and the renowned, multiple-award-winning Manchioneal Cultural Group, led by educator and performer Richard Darby.

“The milestone celebration highlights Great Huts’ ongoing mission to preserve Jamaica’s cultural heritage, showcase artistic expression, and foster community engagement,” Great Huts says.

Guests will be greeted at the ‘Beach Bar’ with a curated ‘Heroes welcome drink’ for the early arrivals on Friday, October 17 to launch the weekend. The beach, on the other side of Boston Beach, is one of the four nature segments on the property, located a few minutes from the world-renowned Boston Jerk Centre. The others being the ‘jungle’, the ‘meadow’, and the ‘cliffs’, thus the resort’s motto, ‘Paradise on the Edge’.

In Kukuwa Abba’s ‘Cultural Exhibition’ on the Saturday by Kukuwa she will be showcasing authentic collectibles from Kenya and Ethiopia, including traditional jewellery, sharmas, and kikoy. “Kukuwa, a health and social development professional with over three decades of experience, brings her passion for African heritage to this special exhibition,” Great Huts also says.

Saturday night, too, is going to be special as a cultural explosion will echo from the ‘Safari Deck’ as Darby and his energetic and mesmerising team of young performers take the stage for the ‘Manchioneal Cultural Group 50th Anniversary Performance’. It shall be an evening of traditional dancing, drumming, and singing; from the folk, to the ska, to the dancehall, the group will be giving the moves, the grooves, the moods and the attitude.

And, what is culture and heritage without food? Thus, dinner by Arlene Passley of Aya Naturals will be a culinary experience highlighting plant-based, ‘ital’ earth foods sourced from Portland’s farmers. According to Great Huts, guests and patrons “will enjoy homestyle meals with an international flair, curated by Arlene Passley of Aya Naturals”. Reservations are recommended.

On the Sunday, there is going to be much painting and sipping, under the theme, ‘Paint Your Hero’. Guided by celebrated Portland artists Hopeton Cargill and Zacariah Ireland (formerly of the Portland Art Gallery), this interactive session will have guests and patrons expressing their creativity while reflecting on and immortalising our Jamaican heroes through art. This session is complimentary for in-house guests, while it is open to the public on request. All events are open to the public.

NEW YORK-BORN FOUNDER

Great Huts was founded by New York-born Dr Paul Shalom Rhodes, who has been associated with Jamaica since 1973 as a tourist, to pursuing a medical school elective in Hanover in 1974, to doing charity work at the Hanover, St James, and Trelawny infirmaries. He resided here twice and is registered to practise in the island.

Dr Paul, as he prefers to be called, continued to visit Jamaica, increasingly. He was very disappointed that the resorts in Jamaica had nothing to tell the story of black people. “What struck me as odd, as a white man coming to Portland, was why the resorts I was visiting were so European. Where was the story of the black people who were brought here in the most horrific means? Where was that part of the story, where was the African part?” he asked.

In 1996, on one of his visits to Portland, at Boston Jerk Centre, Dr Paul and Lloyda McIntyre, the then activities director at the Hanover Infirmary, stumbled upon an unused property overlooking the sea near Boston Beach.

They crawled under a barbwire fence to view the place. It was all trees and jagged rocks, and garbage. “I said to myself, oh my God, one day I would love to build something special on this land,” Dr Paul recalled. That day came, as he eventually bought the property, and an adjoining one, and transformed them into what he was not seeing in Jamaica.

Dr Rhodes built an ‘African village’ of many ‘great huts’, each of which looks nothing like the others, as opposed to great houses. In the structures and the décor, this resort is a place that tells the story of black Jamaicans, where they are from, what their ancestors had been through, their ways of life, and their artistry. The manifestation is now in its 25th year.

Over the years, Great Huts Eco Resort has curated and hosted a variety of cultural programmes, including the weekly Saturday night show by the Manchioneal Cultural Group. The space is replete with Jamaican art and pieces from Africa, and is the backdrop for many music videos, and international media features.

“I never thought about Great Huts’ ending … It was designed and built to endure and to provide fun and meaningful travel to people visiting our dear Jamaica. I never really doubted a milestone. There were periods of disappointment and depression … but that’s part of taking care of a property,” Dr Paul told The Gleaner when he asked about the 25th-anniversary milestone.