We know all the results by now, in this year’s annual Lucian Kannaval Shebang, with (like Ricky T promised) ‘much to talk about…’
Without doubt, if ‘Lucian Carnival’ is about showcasing who we are and what we have to show, Saint Lucia is the new example of how to ‘Play Mas Hard!’
As per usual, not everyone agreed with all the results, but all respected the judges final say.
Choice Displays
Baring-it-all and working-up-the-body has become a branded selling-point for Saint Lucia Tourism and many of the visitors admitted what they saw here they’ve seen nowhere-else, but in Sweet Saint Lucia — the only nation in the world named after a woman.
A group of women from New Orleans – home of carnival and Jazz in the USA – said this year they came to ‘watch’ our carnival, but next year they’ll be coming back to ‘Play Lucian Mas’.
But, while the dwindling older generation continues to be loud in their condemnation of the way most women revellers exercised their display choices, their bodily armour continues to attract the eyes of their critics, who now claim ‘boobs and bums are so widespread’ today, that it’s impossible not to see, or watch.
Thing is, anyone seeking fault hard-enough can get or invent enough for distraction, but even the usual naysayers will quietly admit this year was the best carnival they’ve seen, even if only because we escaped Hurricane Beryl or because it was crime-free.
The police have reported that people took the advice to DRINK RESPONSIBLY and BEHAVE RESPONSIBLY!
Everyone who left home to watch carnival got quite-a-lot to see; and everyone who paid to join a band – VIP, V-VIP or not – jumped for more than their money’s worth.
Milky Way
The bands were mixed at all levels, some registering almost 2,000 members; the themes differed, as did the portrayals.
Some bands stressed-less on costumes and more-on numbers, while others held-on, in different ways, to traditional emphases on universal themes of gods and goddesses, phantoms and dragons from lost cities in imperial galaxies located east of the sun along the Milky Way.
Others opted to adopt Human Rights and Freedom clauses to not seem to care how members who ‘paid their dues’ cared about what or how to display themselves along the local milky way between the Bambam Wall and the Castries Waterfront.
‘Dingolay’
Frankly, though I see much progression every year on the road on my TV, I haven’t seen enough progress in and emphasis on creativity over bacchanal, on better understanding the roots of carnival than learning or teaching how best to ‘dingolay’.
A few years ago, I only went out briefly to see the so-called ‘French’ bands from Martinique or Cayenne (which are mainly Saint Lucians in those Caribbean pieces of France), because they are so well-coordinated and organized, choreographed and consistent.
But over all those decades they’ve been coming, we don’t take-a-page from those fellow Saint Lucians, ours being what a good Carnival-loving friend described as “a more scandalous approach…”
Good, Better, Best…
This past Wednesday wasn’t Ash Wednesday, but everyone interviewed by the local and visiting press agreed this year’s carnival was either ‘Good’, ‘Better’ or ‘Best of All!’
The Ministries of Tourism and Culture have boasted an explosion of visitor and participation figures.
A few vendors complained — as per usual — about fees and rain affecting their profits, in the process exposing those who refuse to pay the official fees cheat their way into paying less or nothing while the City Police, police the parades.
There were plausible comments about the need to revisit venues, routes, emergency preparedness levels, traffic management – and many of the usual annual observations repeated every next-year.
Equity in distribution of government assistance packages and the future of the survival of traditional events like Ole Mas, J’ouvert and Road March were also publicly discussed – including Diaspora Saint Lucians everlasting fascination with The Bam-Bam Wall.
It’s been nothing but good news since what would have been Ash Wednesday, Carnival 2024 helping boost visitor figures for the start of the second half of the year, with better figures than in 2023 – and best of all, much-better than 2019, which was our best tourism year before COVID.
Of course, there was the usual talk about wanting to develop village and community tourism in towns and villages and while it’s all good, implementation will require deep planning.
For example: Is the objective to have all 17 constituencies have carnivals simultaneously, or will there be annual selections, like with Jounen Kweyol?
But, either way, apart from townspeople and villagers backing their community carnivals, how will persons accustomed to watching and playing Mas ‘up North’ be encouraged to reverse the trend and tide, just like how those from ‘East, West and South’ have always done to flock-up to Castries for Carnival Monday and Tuesday all their lives?
Again, the elements (rain) didn’t stop play this year, but offered showers of blessed lessons on why planning for carnival in hurricane seasons also has to take increasing and worsening climate change into consideration.
We heard-and-saw it all this year — including a Catholic priest taking to the calypso stage and being accused of selling-out on his frock and flock.
We also saw the disgusting scene of a national monument being assaulted by what’s presumed to have been a misbehaving visitor flying a flag, but we also saw many other Caribbean and international flags from faraway lands, from Guyana to Ghana, from Jamaica to the UK and Canada.
Gingerly Quip
And speaking of Canada… I continue to have the greatest admiration for the ability of Saint Lucians (and Caribbean people) to make marvellous mountains even the tiniest mole hill.
Take the way a plastic criticism of the prime minister’s refusal to drink or offer bare ‘rum’ to persons in distress turned-out into a water-tight topic at the calypso tents — a popular DJ mix and landing a number-two spot in the Road March Competition (judging which song was played most by the bands on the road) for DYP’s rendition of ‘Maka Bai Wom’
And then there’s the PM’s own ability to turn the ‘ginger ale’ joke into a serious statement, actually serving locally-made ginger ale to the many seeking photos and selfies with him serving ‘ginger rails’ — over the rail (of the VIP platform he and other officials occupied.
Two Steps Back…
We need to revisit carnival, not because anything is wrong or right with it, but because everything changes and we have to change with the times without letting the times always change us.
We have to look back and ahead, but back before ahead.
We must take two steps back before taking the next step forward. We have to take Carnival to school – not in terms of teaching how to drink and wine and jam, but in terms of understanding its history and how carnival came about.
We need to let today’s 21st century generation know that there was carnival before 1979 and 2000 – and it was nothing like this: not as big, not as crazy — or as dizzy.
But even back-then there were worries, with annual Ash Wednesday news about some woman having thrown acid on, or stabbed, or just fought with another, over seeing her jumping-up with her man.
Back then – in the very early days – there was also carnival related gang warfare between the steel bands from Faux-a-Chaux and Conway.
There was no hi-fi (or wi-fi) back then and each band was accompanied by a steel band — also dressed for the parade and always ready for the night-time jump-up around the Town of Castries.
Today, the older generation needs to teach and explain, share our memories of the connection between Ash Wednesday and the Church; how Carnival emerged as a Christian celebration and observance of the end of gaiety and carefree life, and the start of the Lenten Season.
Young Saint Lucians – children, students and youth – need to know what the word ‘J’ouvert’ means – as in the dawn of the final three-day chapter of the carnival season (from Monday to Wednesday’s burning of the festive devil through the ‘Tayway Vaval’ ceremony).
We have to explain too where the term ‘Vaval’ originated and what it means (in terms of what it’s meant to portray); and why, on Ash Wednesday, all the carnival costumes would have been burned at the national dump in Faux-a-Chaux, or Shit Alley or Queen’s Lane.
Young Christians also need to know why the ashes crossed on their foreheads at evening mass on Ash Wednesday is supposed to seal your closure on sinning and to start repenting and seeking salvation – for all of 40 days and 40 nights.
And the Lenten Season culminates in another long holiday party over several days at Easter time, starting on Good Friday and ending on Easter Monday.
We have to understand why we have the large number of church-related holidays we have – called ‘Holy Days’, as separate from National Holidays – and why the churches continue to whine over what the church still sees as a hostile takeover of a Christian activity by a state that couldn’t-care-less if Palm Sunday falls on Corpus Christi.
Begin to Start…
And we must begin to start showing more appreciation for the ability of the genii (what some people call ‘geniuses’) in our cultural midst, who can always creatively marry the issues of the day with the songs they sing and the portrayals they play.
Veterans like Adrian Augier (and others of yore) are being forced to also compete with those also engaging in and profiteering from the ‘pa-may-lay’ approach that simply highlights the nakedness of our creative imaginations.
It used to be that ‘young women of yore’ (then called ‘young ladies’) before the start of the end of the last century, were taught to always care about how they looked “on the road”, but that advice has had lessening effect over the years, as increasingly visible to the naked eye.
We have introduced profitable entrepreneurship to almost all aspects of carnival and culture, from La Woz to Jounen Kweyol, but the naked realities are strain to hit us in the face and – and, as per usual, we argue without thinking, engaging jaws before brains, like being forced to have to choose between Elephants and Donkeys, or Mules and Jaskasses.
Holidaying for Nothing…
Fortunately, the transition from pulling the curtains down on Carnival to raising them for the observance of a third consecutive Emancipation Month has been seamless and automatic.
Emancipation Month was formally launched in the midst of Carnival last month, which will include La Woz and lead to La Magwit and Jounen Kweyol in October.
And then there’s December 13, the only age-old colonially-imposed holiday we still hold-on to and celebrate without any-good-reason – except our love for holidays…
We’ve invented every reason to preserve December 13 as a holiday-for-nothing, but that-too will pass, as we will have to eventually swallow-hard and accept that we’ve made ourselves the best example of a people that tried hard to make a false ‘Discovery Day’ it’s actual Independence Day – and still calls it it’s ‘National Day’.
Slouch of My Couch
I enjoyed every bit of carnival 2024 that I followed, as the Slouch of My Couch.
I lay in bed listening to everything blasting nightly my way on weekends from The Sab, watched all the videos online that interested me — watched the parades of the bands and sections ‘live’ on CHOICE and Hot 7 TV on Monday and Tuesday – and enjoyed the bird’s-eye view that only ‘live coverage’ can afford the consummate observer like me whose carnival is observing The Mas from a distance – including the long-lasting tears of the heartbroken over the decades-old divorce of Ash Wednesday Mass from Playing Mas on Carnival Monday and Tuesday.
But that, folks, is for another Lucian Ole Mas!