He also participated in Cuba's national team at the Tokyo Olympics. Lescay won the silver in the 2017 Nairobi U-18 World championships at just 15 years old. The technical director of Cuban athletics, Daniel Osorio, confirmed the news to the official Cuban sports newspaper JIT. Long jumper Lester Lescay, who just celebrated his 20th birthday, did not return with the Cuban national team to its preparation camp in Castellón, Spain after the competition in Belgrade on Monday. If you are up to it, jump over a fire (safely!).Another Cuban athlete deserted its national team just a few days before the 2022 Word Indoor championships which will take place in Belgrade from March 18 to 20. Take a moment to look into the fire and connect to our shared humanity. Light a candle, or use a firepit or a fireplace. So: pause for a few minutes this Tuesday March 14. Still, through it all, we’ve also displayed those qualities - resilience and survival - that some see at this tradition’s very heart. Oppression, wars, attacks on women’s rights, the effects of the climate crisis, and the slow recovery from the pandemic have left us … well, as Iranians would say, yellow. And there has been a lot of suffering these past few years, not only in Iran but all over the world. The uprisings following Mahsa Amini’s death have now quieted down, suppressed by detentions, deaths, and executions. It has been a difficult year for Iranians. Perhaps that is why we like to stare into the ebb and flow of a fire - it connects us to life, nature and shared humanity.Ĭhaharshanbe Suri is Tuesday, March 14 this year. There is fire in all our ancestry in some form or another. I sensed a connection to the pagan origins of all their ancestors. I flew, looking in my mind’s eye over the city of my childhood in a snapshot, the street maze alight with one bonfire after another - some people jumping over them, some spoon-banging pots and pans (to ward off evil spirits), others lingering in the periphery dancing and eating aash, a Persian stew made with whey, or ajeel, a mix of dried fruits, nuts and seeds.īack at our celebration at the cottage, I watched my daughter’s friends - of Iranian, English, Polish, Guyanese, Spanish, Armenian, Jewish, Scottish, German, Egyptian, and Italian lineages - jump over the fire, sparklers in hand. As I watched her jump, my heart ascended. ![]() We set up little fires along the driveway and lit up some sparklers. We and a few other families drove up to their cottage. ![]() I spoke about it with some friends, and one of them invited us to come up to their cottage and use their driveway. There are municipality and city bylaws that prevent it - and of course we were in the midst of a pandemic. I soon realized it was not an easy task in Toronto and surrounding areas. In 2021, I set out to share the fire ceremony with her. I found myself adopting Western traditions celebrating Christmas, Halloween, and Easter, creating a sense of belonging and tradition for her.Īs is often the case with the birth of a child, however, as you nurture, fires on the verge of being extinguished glow and recapture attention. Another year I went to a North York celebration in Mel Lastman Square, but to my disappointment there was no fire-jumping, at least the year I went. I once jumped over a candle with some friends. Once I was in Toronto, on my own and ricocheting through university, medical school, and residency, Chaharshanbe Suri faded into the haze of memory, displaced by the pragmatic hustle-bustle of life. Eventually, we packed our bags, taking our possessions in a few suitcases to Madrid, Spain, leaving behind us the willow tree in the front yard and the river flowing next to the three-storey apartment building we lived in. My childhood was disrupted by riots, protests and running for bomb shelters against the backdrop of sirens. Others say that the fire is a connection to our ancestors, and an honouring of the dead. Some say it is in recognition of the resilience and survival of a people through a long winter inching close to its death. The fire-jumping dates back thousands of years, to pagan and Zoroastrian celebrations. The fire-jumping celebration is known as Chaharshanbe Suri, a tradition celebrated in Iran and surrounding countries such as Afghanistan. “Your red be mine, my yellow yours.” Thereabouts.īack in Tehran, before I left in 1981, I’d say those Persian words each year while I jumped over bonfires the last Tuesday before the spring equinox. I had taught her to say “ sorkhiye-to az man, zardiye-man az to.” Moments earlier she ran, sparkler in hand, jumping over a succession of small bonfires. Her face and the sparkler both glow, giving colour to the rest of her body against the grey of an overcast evening. My daughter holds a sparkler in her hand.
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