Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine July 2018 | Page 338

Festival of the Female Cooks Photo Credit: Bagolina Gwo-Ka Festival During the month of August, Guadeloupeans honor and celebrate female chefs, bastions of Creole culinary traditions, they are known as the “Professionals of the Mouth”. The Chefs wear colorful traditional dress. Their headscarves and aprons are embroidered with their emblem: St Lawrence, Patron saint of cooks. The Chefs association was created in 2001, in honor of Saint- Lawrence, who was burned alive on a grill for refusing to give his church’s property to the State. Every year, the procession leads the Chefs toward the St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedrals where their flowers and utensils are blessed. It marks the beginning of a wonderful parade in the streets of Pointe-à-Pitre. Sounds of bells and tap-tap (instrument used in the past to summon the house staff ) announce the cortege: a beautiful procession of colors, scents and music… The parade ends at the Amedee Fengarol School and for that special occasion, the school is transformed into a restaurant! © www.guadeloupe-islands.com July 6 - 15, 2018 This is an annual celebration of the Creole culture that sees traditional music and dancing on the streets. In 2014 the Gwo-ka Festival was listed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, making this event doubly special to the people on this island. The music produced by the traditional drum, the ka, plus the dances and songs that are performed when the ka is played is referred to as “Gwo-ka”. It originated from the days of slavery, when drums were used as a means of communication between slaves to prevent the owners from understanding what was being said - coded communication! Every July, concerts, artistic expressions and other forms of entertainment with the Gwoka traditional them