By ELISABETH ANN BROWN
WASHINGTON, DC – Cultural tourism is a big thing in Washington, DC with so many embassies representing countries all over the world in the District. My husband and I have a special affinity for The Embassy of the Bahamas, at 2220 Massachusetts Avenue NW, since he is a native son of the island of Andros in the Bahamas, and I spent 35 years of my life in Nassau, the capital. Oswald also served for four-plus years as the Press, Culture Affairs and Information Manager at the Embassy, until the change of government in The Bahamas in May 2017. One of the most popular events of the year is the Around the World Embassy Open House, an event created by Passport DC that organizes many cultural tourism events throughout the year, during which many of the embassies open their doors to the public and have music, food, art and free gifts for all the visitors who pour through their doors! The Embassy of the Bahamas is definitely one of the most popular and this year was no exception.
Doors opened at 10am and for the next 6 hours Bahamian music, featuring KB, Ronnie Butler and Phil Stubbs, to name a few, filled the courtyard, and conch fritters and sky juice were among the tasty delights visitors were treated to. Straw work and enormous Junkanoo pictures were on display in the conference room, and Consul General Theo Neilly and his staff were there greeting every single visitor as they filed through. Members of the Ministry of Tourism were also there to show visitors all the exciting reasons for taking a vacation in The Bahamas!
This year the Embassy also featured two artisans, Ms. Whitney Butler of Ayaari Jewelry, featuring Bahamian colours and “bling”, and myself with my fine art photography featuring images taken in Nassau. Showing my work like this is nothing new to me as while living in Nassau I made a living selling it to tourists in some of the major hotels and in Pompey Square with the Ministry of Tourism’s Authentically Bahamian program, and with Creative Nassau, the
group formed by Pamela Burnside of Doongalik Studios.
Being used to the size of the crowds that came downtown in Nassau, I was quite unprepared for the hundreds of people who streamed through the Embassy. In fact, there were so many that they were queueing on the sidewalk outside for over an hour to get in, and the line was moving extremely slowly through the courtyard, but despite rain occasionally falling lightly the crowd’s enthusiasm was not dampened. They amused themselves dancing to the rhythmic music, watching slide shows of my work on my laptop, and chatting with Whitney, myself and members of the staff. A bit of a bottle-neck at the food and sky juice booths was apparently the reason for the slow progress, but even the little children seemed to be happy as their parents enjoyed themselves!
Although I was assured by the Embassy event organiser Cameron Ferguson that we would be wrapping up promptly at 4pm, there were still people filing through the doors for about half an hour passed closing time. There was no doubt that The Bahamas was one of the main attractions during the Open House event.
