From grey skies to golden mas

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

On­look­ers lined the bar­ri­ers along South Quay in Port-of-Spain on Car­ni­val Tues­day, as a kalei­do­scope of colour, feath­ers and se­quins flood­ed the cap­i­tal for the Pa­rade of Bands. Just af­ter 7 am yes­ter­day, be­neath over­cast skies that threat­ened to damp­en spir­its, the first large band, The Lost Tribe, made its ap­proach to the judg­ing point.

De­spite the gloomi­ness, mas­quer­aders shim­mered in in­tri­cate de­signs, ra­di­ant golds, ocean­ic blues and bursts of fiery or­ange.

As they crossed, mu­sic trucks pumped an­thems that have de­fined the sea­son: Machel Mon­tano’s En­core, Voice’s Cyah Be­have My­self, and Bun­ji Gar­lin’s Road Man, send­ing waves of ex­cite­ment through the crowd.

As the morn­ing pro­gressed, the clouds part­ed and the sun cast a bril­liant glow over South Quay. The change in weath­er seemed per­fect­ly timed. Bands like Pa­parazzi, Show­time, Ex­ou­sia, Hott Stuff Pro­mo­tions and Pe­tle Mas Car­ni­val fol­lowed in daz­zling suc­ces­sion, each pre­sent­ing sec­tions that told sto­ries through cos­tume and move­ment.

Pa­parazzi’s front­line mas­quer­aders sparkled in mir­rored em­bell­ish­ments and dra­mat­ic head­pieces that caught the sun­light, while Ex­ou­sia de­liv­ered bold, the­atri­cal por­tray­als with cos­tumes rich in deep pur­ples and emer­ald greens and daz­zling golds.

Hott Stuff Pro­mo­tions lived up to its name with siz­zling reds, or­anges and metal­lic ac­cents, their mas­quer­aders danc­ing with un­re­lent­ing sta­mi­na. Pe­tle Mas Car­ni­val brought play­ful el­e­gance, pink palettes and bursts of blue swirling as mas­quer­aders chipped and wined their way be­fore the judges.

Tourists raised their phones high to cap­ture the spec­ta­cle, while lo­cals waved to mas­quer­aders they knew in the bands and en­joyed the at­mos­phere. Among those in at­ten­dance was Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne, who was al­so seen greet­ing for­eign on­look­ers and ob­serv­ing the city’s sig­na­ture cel­e­bra­tion.

There was a brief pause in the rev­el­ry when the pro­ces­sion was tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the pas­sage of the of­fi­cial en­tourage of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro. The in­ter­rup­tion was mi­nor and the rhythm of the road quick­ly re­sumed.

By mid­day, South Quay had trans­formed com­plete­ly with no trace of the ear­ly gloom. In­stead, there was on­ly sun­light, so­ca and the un­stop­pable pulse of mas­quer­aders em­body­ing the spir­it of Car­ni­val.