Trini Carnival

Every year in my beautiful island of Trinidad and Tobago we celebrate Carnival. Though the actual event is only two days, "the best Monday and Tuesday of the year" as some would say, Carnival is much more than that. It really starts about a week before the main event or even a year before the main event if we really get down into the nitty gritty.

A year before the main event, between July and August there are several band launches. Band launches are basically parties that different carnival bands host, for example Tribe or Fantasy, where they show off the costumes that are available for the upcoming Carnival. But fast forward from all that to the week before Carnival, in most parts of the world, from what I gather, Christmas is the happiest time of the year, everyone's happy and love is in the air, that is Trinidad during Carnival season1. So in the week before Carnival masqueraders collect their costumes, there are lots of fêtes2 , there's a fête every night up until Carnival Monday, there's a steel pan competition called Panorama, there's "Kiddies Carnival", King and Queen competition and probably a lot of other exciting things that I'm forgetting at the moment.

Carnival Monday starts with j'ouvert3 at about 1/2:00 am and ends anywhere between 6-8 am. After j'ouvert "mas" starts,  mas traditionally would have been costumes like "Fancy Sailors", "Dame Lorraine", "Moko Jumbie" and much more but these days carnival has become "bikinis and beads." On Monday people usually wear a dressed down version of their costumes and then on Tuesday they wear the full thing which includes arm bands, legs bands, head pieces and lots of feathers. On Tuesday the bands are judged, and a winner is declared on Wednesday. When bands go to the various judging points their masqueraders must get into their sections, a section consists of people who are playing in the same costume.

This Carnival I mostly did work but I did manage to squeeze some fun in. On Carnival Saturday I tie-dyed some shirts and went to panorama, on Carnival Sunday my family hosted a lime4, on Carnival Monday I went to Las Cuevas (the beach) and practiced my surfing and on Tuesday I went ON THE ROAD!!

Sorry I didn't take any pics on the road except for the one above, the costume above is not the typical Carnival costume but I thought it was beautiful.


1 Carnival Season begins after New Years and ends at 12:00am Ash Wednesday.
2 Fête (french) - party.
3 J'ouvert (french origin, pronounced ju-vay) is like a street party with oil, mud and paint, traditionally j'ouvert has little satirical skits which highlight different news worthy events in the country for example politics.
4 Lime - can be used to mean a gathering or to hang out.