8/10/05 Carnival (Long) Weekend

This weekend Carnival started. Carnival has its roots in pre-Lenten celebrations; a celebration before the abstinence and fasting that many Christians celebrate. However, like many celebrations of historical significance, this too has become an excuse for a major party. Carnival is a national holiday and the partying started in the middle of last week and slowly built up over the weekend. Everything shut down on Monday and Tuesday and I've been told that on Wednesday everyone will show up to work in body, but certainly not in spirit!

Like I said, originally this was a pre-Lenten celebration and I've heard two explanations as to why Grenada celebrates Carnival in August. The first is that there are other islands in the Caribbean that have absolutely HUGE Carnival celebrations (e.g. Trinidad) and the smaller islands just cannot compete. So instead of trying to draw people away from one Carnival to another, they have just staggered the celebrations on different islands. The second theory, which is certainly more intriguing, is that when the Cubans were starting to have some influence in Grenada in the early 1980's, the Communists wanted to try to get away from major religious celebrations. Apparently, according to this theory, the Communists were up for some major partying so they just moved the dates of Carnival to August; maybe those Commies weren't so bad after all!

The official celebration started on Friday night with the beginning of the Soca Monarch Competition. My apartment is situated up on a hill overlooking the stadium where this competition was taking place so I was able to enjoy the music and fireworks from the comfort of my own porch. While I was enjoying my Carib I saw a dog running up the driveway and through the gardens faster than a speeding bullet. I guess he didn't enjoy the fireworks as much as everyone else. Several days later a man came up to the clinic asking if anybody had found his dog who had run away during the fireworks. I used this opportunity to remind him why a collar and a leash are a good idea.


There was plenty of celebrating going on Saturday night but I was too tired from the Hash so I played an old fuddy-duddy and went to sleep to the thumping of the music. It turned out that I needed all the rest I could get for Sunday night and Monday morning's partying. During the day on Sunday I got to enjoy the "Parade of the Bands" again from my porch. Now as I mentioned before, this celebration had been gearing up all week long. Everybody had been practicing for the Parade of the Bands. The basic idea is that a large group of people, wearing similar clothing, waving pompoms or something around their head, follow a rather large truck overflowing with speakers (take a look at the photo on the right) with another large truck bringing up the rear serving lots of alcoholic beverages. Now people, you must understand that it takes a lot of practice in order to be able to follow this truck in the precise chaotic manner that is required. By the way, the music coming from these speakers is so loud that people across the Atlantic in western Africa can dance to it!

I walked around St. George for a little while but had missed most of the day's celebration by the time I got down there so I, of course, had a Carib and wandered around. I then stayed up all night reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown (fun book) and went back out at 2:30 am for "J'ouvert." I'm not really sure what the purpose of this is supposed to be but I can tell you what was going on. Unfortunately, I did not take my camera because it was raining intermittently. When I got down to the main drag, there were more people lined up behind the same trucks with the huge speakers. However, this time they were all painted up. People had painted their entire bodies with yellow, green, white, and blue paint and I was told the color was supposed to correspond to where the person was from on the island. Then there were the crazy people who rub their entire bodies with Vasoline and then douse themselves with what looks and stinks like burnt motor oil and kerosene (I later found out that that is exactly what they were putting on their bodies). These guys were called "jab-jab" which I think is something akin to the boogyman. It's a story used to scare children into behaving; "You'd better sit down or jab-jab gonna git you!" But basically everybody jumps around rubbing paint all over everybody else and drinking until the late morning.

Next was Monday Night Mas where, you guessed it, people dress in similar clothing, wave some lighted instrument around their heads, follow the loud trucks and drink. This evening I made it up into the judges booth so I was able to take some good photos and some video (if I figure out how to get video up on the web I'll let you know where to look).









Tuesday was the final day of Carnival, thank God! Not that I didn't enjoy the time off and the parties but I don't really enjoy huge masses of sweaty, drunk people. Today Ron, the guy who cleans the kennels and takes care of the dogs at the GSPCA, took me to Grenville on the other side of the island to see their Parade of Bands Last Lap. There was little different from the previous nights. Everyone was dressed in costumes, waving things around, following the same loud-ass trucks, but it did involve less drinking.









There were also many more children involved in this parade. See the big speakers on the right. Very large, extremely loud!



Then there are these other guys called "Shortknees" (because of the short pants they wear and the anklets made of bells) and when people see them coming, the crowds part like they're throwing anthrax around. In fact, they run around the parade and crowd throwing baby powder all over everyone.










So that was Carnival. I'm probably not the best person to give an accurate account of the entire event because of the aforementioned aversion to large, drunk crowds but there were still some good times!