Debbie Ransome In Port of Spain

Yes, she's jumping in a band and is willing to share almost every experience.....

This site will be updated during the 2008 Carnival season.

Carnival Tuesday night and it's las' (last) lap. The final trot down the road to wherever you want to see out your carnival.

The atmosphere starts to change as people get back into their life sections as opposed the sections of bands they'd chosen to buy into for the two days of Carnival.

More affluent types seek out their SUVs and charge home, regardless of the revellers and masqueraders on the road ahead of them.

The police swoop down on young lads in the final party area of St James, checking for anything suspicious.

Tourists edge home to rest their feet and prepare for the beach phase of their breaks.

Shurwayne Winchester points to keeping the essence of Carnival generosity in his song. The words: "Carnival please stay...don't go away...I'm begging you, I'm begging you."

An anecdote: one of the security guards in my band comes up to me as we're chipping (slow rhythmic steps) back to base. People are merry (that would be the drinks truck), the world is still a mellow place.

Security guy: "She want a headdress."

Me (because my ears now have a layer of cotton wool from the loud sound systems): "Sorry."

Security guy: "She (pointing to girl on drinks and food truck) want a band headdress."

Me: "A band headdress..Isn't it my headdress after paying $2,000?"

He shrugs in "I'm only the messenger" style, wishes me a great las' lap and chips back to the truck.

Ash Wednesday morning and a few people are making their way to church to receive ashes.

However, it's back to work for the majority of the population.

For this final entry in the Carnival diary...thanks for staying with me if you have.

And, your views are welcome.....I'd be happy to answer your comments when I get back from the beach and I'm back in London

Monday night was about feeding, watering, and caring for tired feet.

And the early hours of Carnival Tuesday provide a rare breather from what had been the constant throbbing of music since Sunday.

Unlike, say, Notting Hill Carnival in London where there’s a designated time and place, Trinidad Carnival is the most all-inclusive party you’ll ever attend.

For those who choose not to take part, it’s a long holiday with live coverage on local TV channels showing the noise and the finery which you don’t have to touch. Or you could rent a beach house and avoid the noise of the rest of the island.

If you have less money, the free show of hundreds of bands in all their splendour (pretty mas…short for masquerade) is there to enjoy from every pavement.

Let me get journalistic and jump into the annual debate for and against “pretty mas”.

I can see both sides in my usual journalistic fashion.

I know where those who dismiss it are coming from – it’s over-priced. It is basically chicks in bikinis with a few additional bits sewn on. It looks like Rio-comes-to-Trinidad.

However, that reduces all bands to one style – I saw the usual levels of creativity, feathers or not, on the streets of Port of Spain on Monday and it only gets grander today.

Arguing for the defence, Carnival Tuesday is a little like a girl’s wedding morning.

I heard last weekend of girls drinking only green tea to look their best today. I know girls in England who spend thousands of pounds to do the same for once in their lives before walking up the aisle.

For those with partners, it’s one of those rare “dress-up” moments where you don’t have to ask him to “take me somewhere nice”. You’re at Carnival and it’s one of the few occasions in a girl’s life where she dresses up like a Vegas showgirl and doesn’t stand out as she sings and dances through the streets.

You’re in an all-inclusive band, so the food and drink move with you. It’s one of the safest ways to let it all hang down that I can think of as a well-brought up gel….

If you’re single, it’s your chance to show it all off without that being an invitation for a guy to try and crash the security ropes and grind down on you. It’s dress-up time for big girls.

There…I’ve had my rant.

I’m now going to put on more make-up than I have since my wedding day. I’m going to find some jingly bracelets and I’m going to sing and dance through the streets of Port of Spain.

Let the grinches of this world frown at that. I wave my feathered headdress at them…..

The first of the big music trucks passed outside our place at 03.15am – I guess its time to get out of bed and enjoy Carnival Monday!

Today is a stripped-down affair – the band t-shirt, and anything else you want to go with it.

But before the ‘pretty’ bands take to the streets, it’s the joys of J’Ouvert.

Its wear your oldest clothes and prepare for somebody to throw paint, mud or coloured grease on you! You just need to wash it all off for the parade of the ‘pretty’ bands later this morning.

Time to catch up with my Section ………….

Sunday is a laid-back affair.

It’s time to sleep in if you spent Saturday night in South Trinidad for the Panorama Steel band finals.

There’s brunch to be had at friends’ houses – a quiet time when the music stops pumping – a musical armistice before the Sunday evening events fire up.

The island will then keep pumping until Tuesday midnight.

But let’s look back at Saturday night.

Trinidad as the home of the steel pan (many Trinis will remind you that it was the only new instrument to be invented in the 20th Century) attracts thousands of pan aficionados from as far afield as Toronto, London and New York.

Saturday night was the pan man’s heaven. Phase II Pan Groove beat their long-time rivals All Stars.

Also, the results of the Groovy and Power Soca Monarch contests are out.

I glow with a little self-satisfaction that Shurwayne and his thoughtful Carnival Please Stay won the Groovy Soca title.

Some of the Sunday newspaper columnists are annoyed that the Power Soca contest seemed to be based, as they say, on gimmickry and special effects on stage.

Tonight, it’s the Dimanche Gras show – the showcase of the best of Carnival.

There’ll be 20 to 25-ft King and Queen costumes.

There’ll be the traditional Calypso Monarch contest, with the lyrics sent to test the patience of British colonial powers and current-day politicians alike.

There’ll be creative narrative of the history of carnival.

And all this rolls into J’Ouvert morning – when the streets are shut down to cars and people party all day, all night….as the song goes…until Ash Wednesday.

There’s something about Kiddie’s Carnival on Saturday which melts the heart.

Trinidad and Tobago’s cutest children are urged on through the streets in the most imaginative costumes.

Some are so young, they cling to their mothers or fathers, thumbs in mouth, clearly confused at why so many people along the pavements are pointing and saying “Ahhh!”

Others just get it and strike a pose when admired or while being photographed.

I wonder what this display does for a child’s ego? I’d like a child psychologist to tell me whether this is a great annual boost for the kiddie ego to attract so much admiration across the day.

The kids perform for the judges on the street along Queens Park Savannah.

Again, some are loving it; others are bewildered and don’t want to let their parents’ hands go for the big moment.

There’s sense of a warm-up for the big two days – Carnival Monday and Tuesday.

Food stalls are going up, music is everywhere…cars pull in and people pile out to collect their costumes for Monday and Tuesday.

Colourful headdresses are to be seen everywhere in people’s hands.

Groups of women stream into shops selling accessories to pretty-up their costumes even more.

I’ve collected mine. It needs no more further help.

9pm Friday: the key to getting into the bigger shows is based on the Trini art of queuing. If you’re in the right mood, with a beer in your hand, and minded to be patient, it can be one of the funniest experiences ever.

9.15: At the entrance we choose, there are sort of two large lines of people somehow getting merged into a scaffolding set-up which is being used to herd people into the various doors of the Queen’s Park Oval. There are different types of ticket: you can have general membership; for more money, you can be a very important person and, if your pockets run deep and you want a seat and various freebies, you can be a very, very important person. Whether it’s TT$150 or $600, there’s a large queue and security checks at all doors. In another setting, these lines (?) could get nasty; but, sprinkle a dose of Trini humour, and everyone – black, white, India, tourist are all laughing and joking as they’re shoe-horned in through the entrances.

10pm: We’re in! Yes! And the whole range of Trini food and drink open up for us. At the bar, I’m recognised and asked why I didn’t get a media ticket. “much more fun this way”, I say….”I’ve had years of doing it the official way as a correspondent and reporter here…bring on the music!”

10.30pm: We’re standing on the grass where the good and the great of cricket have made history, enthralled, and strutted their stuff. But tonight, the focus is not on the pitch but on the stage and the line-up of all the soca talent the Caribbean has currently to offer. From songster Shurwayne Winchester who has the crowd crooning along to reigning monarch Bajan Biggie, the joint was jumping – green florescent sticks held aloft by patrons, fireworks and confetti on stage, all adding to a tremendous night out under the stars.

Saturday 1am: the longer the Groovy Soca Monarch show goes, the better the performers have to be to keep the crowd’s attention. If they’re good, we’re waving and jumping and shouting. If they let us down, people turn their backs on the stage and talk among themselves and look round to see who they know.

1.30am: Now, it’s the Power Soca Monarch contest. There are many who are not sure what the difference is. Believe me, if you're there and that bass starts to thump in the depths of your chest, you KNOW the difference……

1.45am: the audience takes on a younger look – the girls in their cut-off shorts, the men with as much jewellery as the girls. They start to surge onto the Oval field and it’s clear that the rest of the evening belongs to them.

3am: Within a 2-mile radius, the music from the Oval is still to be heard. From our room, we listen to the PA system, the crowd singing along, and the occasional sound of fireworks being let off as part of an act. Cars pass by playing their own competing, thumping sound system. It feels good to be in Trinidad….

4.20am: the PA system seems to get louder or am I just suddenly awake and confused…the music is still pumping. I wonder what it’s like to live in the immediate environs of the Oval on a night like this.

5.45am: Are they still partying? Wow!

6.20am: Don’t these people have homes to go to? Then I remember how, in my 20’s, I also saw it as something of a challenge to stay to the end.

6.30am: Go home people…and PLEASE do it quietly!

Or Fantastic Friday as it’s being more commercially dubbed these days.

Depending on my mood, different sides of Carnival are open to me today…..If I feel for some ole time mas (Old time masquerade if you’ve never been here), then there are the Canboulay events – a celebration of traditional carnival – the sort of Carnival my mother used to play when men and women wore full sailor costumes or became Red Indians (yes, way before PC-ness gave us Native Americans).

During the Canboulay, I’ll see dragons and sailors, men on stilts, and pantomime-type dames parade through the streets reminding me of those black-and-white photos of my mother, her brother and their friends smiling through from a more innocent world.

A world when when “we” (and Trinidadians and Tobagonians were then citizens of the British Empire) had won the war and the whole world looked rosy and the future looked bright.

On the other hand, my Friday could take on a more modern focus.

Do I want those tickets for the Groovy Soca Monarch contest tonight at Queen’s Park Oval? This show is “power soca” at its heart-hitting max – the thumping, bumping rhythms getting the adrenalin going for a whole new generation of music fans.

And to set the tone, Beenie Man, who when I last looked was not well-known as a soca artist, will be on the bill at the Oval.

But, am I still up to an evening of jumping, winin’, grinding, and sweating – a sort of aerobic pre-cursor to Carnival Monday and Tuesday? Mmmmmm….

Which reminds me – the most important thing of all on Fantastic Friday….time to pick up my costume……

Later:

Friday evening and already the streets of Port of Spain are beginning to get that Carnival feel – music pumping out from houses, cars, bars...anywhere a speaker can fit.

Young women climb into taxis and cars loaded with their costumes and headdresses.

Men stand outside of bars holding beers and sharing their carnival plans.

Tourists flock across busy roads trying to get used to the pace that is Trinidad Carnival beginning to gear up.

The Groovy Soca Monarch contest looms at the country’s temple to cricket – Queen’s Park Oval. Queues are building up for the tickets which can cost anything up to US$100.

Between 2-3am Saturday, people will leave the various fetes, contests, and shows to grab a little sleep.

8am Saturday, it’s out with the little ones for children’s carnival in the streets of Port of Spain.

Alison Hinds’ song says “No sleep till Ash Wednesday”. She might have a point there…..