Carnival!

If there is anything that Trinidad & Tobago is known most for, it is Carnival. The celebration and traditions go way back to when slavery was abolished. Without writing out the whole history, let me tell you that it has now become a wild, extended weekend party. If you can imagine New Orleans' Mardi Gras (which actually got its origins from Carnival) 100 times bigger. For the most part we avoided the wildest aspects of Carnival, but did enjoy a few of the traditions. On the Saturday before Carnival, they have what they call "Kiddie Karnival." Hundreds and hundreds of kids dress up in unbelievably elaborate costumes and hit the streets dancing behind semi-trucks pulling 6 foot high speakers blasting out Caribbean music. The music is so loud that it hurts your chest as the trucks rumble by, but the kids dance the entire day behind the trucks as they wind through the streets of town. I have a few pictures below just to give you an idea as to how elaborate the costumes were.






On Monday, they have what they call "J'ouvert," which I am told means freedom in French. It is the throwback Carnival, also know as "Dirty Carnival," which is understandable from the following pictures. They start the parade at 4am Monday morning, although the partying and drinking starts Sunday night. They don't wear all of the elaborate costumes for this day. They use what they did before anyone could afford the lavish costumes. They cover themselves with paint, mud, chocolate, motor oil or anything else they can use to "masquerade" without buying a costume. I had to work that day, so I had to go downtown anyway. I went early to work and thought I would walk at and get a few pictures of J'overt. After getting this set up at work, I walked out into the streets and there were tens of thousands of people walking the streets dancing and drinking. LOTS of drinking, and it was 6:30 AM! They have trucks pulling open bars in the parades so participants have an endless supply of alcohol. It's actually amazing that they have as few problems as they do every year!





The Tuesday Carnival is the biggest day. That's the day that all of the adults come out in the lavish costumes. However, another common tradition for many local folk is to get away from the madness and go to the beach. Friends from church invited us to spend the day with them at Mayaro, on the other side of the island. There were about 4 families that rented an old beach house. Some of them stayed all weekend, but we only went up to spend the day on Tuesday. I subsequently didn't get any pictures of the big Carnival extravaganza, but we had a great time at the beach. It was a beautiful drive (although we were wondering where they were taking us for a while as you can see in the first picture). We made some new friends and had lots of great, local food: curry chicken, curry duck, curry goat, etc... There were people at roadside stands selling these huge iguanas (lizards) for cooking and currying as well, but none of them made it to our party (and I didn't have my camera ready as we drove by to get a picture of the dead iguanas hanging in the stands for sale). Our hosts told us iguanas taste great and they would be sure and have some for us next time...