Kiddies rule the streets for Junior Parade of the Bands

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Down­town Port-of-Spain was the cen­tre of colour, en­er­gy and ex­cite­ment as scores of chil­dren took to the streets to frol­ic for this year’s Ju­nior Pa­rade of the Bands, leav­ing a trail of con­fet­ti, shin­ing dust and smil­ing faces in their wake.

From as ear­ly as 8 am, mu­sic trucks, ju­nior mas­quer­aders, band lead­ers, and par­ents packed St Vin­cent and Ed­ward Streets for last-minute prepa­ra­tions and cos­tume ad­just­ments be­fore reach­ing the down­town judg­ing point at the Lord Kitch­en­er Stand on South Quay.

Over 77 bands of var­i­ous sizes par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­ces­sion as chil­dren danced, tod­dled and even car­ried across the judg­ing point by their par­ents.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia Ltd short­ly af­ter cross­ing the down­town stage, Sparkle Braith­waite, leader of the Great Minds Pro­duc­tion (GMP) chil­dren’s Car­ni­val band, said she was hap­py with this year’s pro­duc­tion.

Re­fer­ring to the joy it brought chil­dren to be part of the lo­cal cul­ture, she said that while there had been some small changes in the turnout, she was proud to be part of the cel­e­bra­tions.

“It has changed a bit, I don’t know if it’s what’s go­ing on in the world, but we came out this year as a small band, and we feel good.”

Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne vis­it­ed the judg­ing point just af­ter mid­day, where he met with of­fi­cials and mem­bers of the Port-of-Spain City Po­lice on site.

Al­leyne said he was hap­py with the turnout of spec­ta­tors and mas­quer­aders for the an­nu­al romp and was im­pressed with the qual­i­ty of cos­tumes and pageantry on dis­play.

“I think that the pret­ti­est part of Car­ni­val is Kid­dies Car­ni­val. If any­body wants to see the cre­ativ­i­ty and en­er­gy in our Car­ni­val prod­uct, they should take a look at Kid­dies Car­ni­val.

“The cos­tumes are al­ways beau­ti­ful, the chil­dren are al­ways very ex­cit­ed to par­tic­i­pate, so we’re all just ex­cit­ed for the rest of the sea­son to take place.”

Al­leyne al­so not­ed that var­i­ous sup­port sys­tems to en­sure ad­e­quate se­cu­ri­ty, traf­fic man­age­ment and clean-up op­er­a­tions were al­ready un­der­way even as the pro­ces­sion took place.

Al­so at­tend­ing the event was Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, who said he was pleased with the arrange­ments in place for Car­ni­val ac­tiv­i­ties in and around the city

“I want to com­mend every­one for bring­ing the chil­dren out and giv­ing them a chance to par­tic­i­pate in the cul­ture of T&T at such a young age.

“I think by and large in Port-of-Spain a good job was done by the (Port-of-Spain) City Cor­po­ra­tion ... the pow­ers that be, we had a lot of events, but there was con­trol, even now there’s an ef­fi­cien­cy so that augers well for the man­age­ment of the Car­ni­val in the fu­ture.”

The pro­ces­sion fea­tured bands of var­i­ous themes from trib­utes to T&T cul­ture, with DMC Kids Mas ‘Pan and Parang’ which fea­tured cos­tumes bear­ing the steel­pan to or­nate cos­tumes in­spired by mid­night rob­bers and fan­cy sailors.

One mas­quer­ad­er, 11-year-old Ava Lewis, said she was hap­py to be with her friends as part of the pro­ces­sion, as it had be­come a tra­di­tion for her.

“It’s such an amaz­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty to play mas. It’s a re­al tra­di­tion for me, so it feels amaz­ing.”

Ava was part of the Hal­lelu­jah sec­tion of the Great Minds Pro­duc­tion (GMP) Chil­dren’s Car­ni­val band.

The spec­ta­cle wasn’t lim­it­ed to cos­tume dis­plays, as mem­bers of the T&T Cadet Force Steel Or­ches­tra in tra­di­tion­al sailor cos­tumes marched through the judg­ing point play­ing their ren­di­tion of new and old so­ca tunes.

By 2 pm, most of the ac­tiv­i­ty in South Quay had dis­si­pat­ed as the chil­dren and par­ents went to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah’s Grand Stand.