Another Kind of Carnival - Part 1

 May 4, 2024

A couple of notes - first, I'll stop posting these as "Pandemic Diaries."  Not that Covid is gone, but we're not really in that pandemic phase.  I'm still masking up, given my lungs, but I know most people are back to normal.  

Second, I'm dating these blogs back to the approximate time they happened, even if the posting date is months later.  It's been a busy summer, as always.  So I'm playing catch-up.

We left off in New Orleans.  After Carnival there, culminating in that amazing Mardi Gras parade, Richard and I knew we had to go back to St. Thomas and celebrate another Carnival there.  It was always our favorite event of the year, as it is for most Virgin Islanders.  At the end of April, we flew on south.

Now, Carnival in the Caribbean happens at various times, because each island or island nation will have their own Carnival.  Trinidad celebrates a pre-Lenten Carnival.  But the Virgin Islands, with three major islands, celebrates three Carnivals each year.  We're most used to the Carnival on St. Thomas, though we've attended events on both St. John and St. Croix.

We booked a hotel right in town, in Charlotte Amalie, so that we could walk to all the events.  Perfect location, even if it was a bit loud most nights due to the festivities which can continue until sunrise.  Or close to sunrise, anyway.

 

Carnival really begins a month earlier than we arrived, with weekly events such as Battle of the Bands.  Battle of the Steel Pan Bands.  Battle of the Brass Bands.  Queen competition.  King competition.  Prince and Princess competitions.  Calypso competitions at various age levels.  It goes on and on.

 

We arrived in time for Food Fair, which is always on Wednesday of the last week for Carnival.  Ended up not going, the site changed and was not in walking distance.  We tried waiting for the provided van or bus, but there was a huge crowd, and one tiny van showed up.  Oh well.  On to the next activity.

 

Thursday (May 2) was J'ouvert, which translates to "I open."  I guess as in the opening of the culminating Carnival activities.  J'ouvert is the huge road march with bands on flatbed trucks, going down the main road along the waterfront.  Crazy and crowded, people in just about anything you could imagine, lots of music pulsating and throbbingly loud - it's kind of controlled chaos and so much fun!  

 

It turned out one of my former students and her partner put together their wedding for J'ouvert morning!  The first band and crowd that went by our hotel was the wedding group, guests, families, and the happy couple.  One of the most creative and undoubtedly cool wedding celebrations ever!!!  Just a brilliant idea!

 

Richard and I went down to the street when the other bands began to come by, and hung outside for a while.  J'ouvert does move a bit slowly, and after the sun was getting bright and hot we went for breakfast.  We both had fun watching people, though, and looking for friends, former colleagues, and just anyone we knew.

 

Friday is the Children's Parade, always adorable.  There are six different kinds of troupes, or maybe just six different components of the troupes.  There are mocko jumbies, the stilt dancers.  Floats, though usually there are only a few floats.  Twirlers (baton twirlers).  Marchers/dancers (without batons).  Steel pan bands, on trolleys because the bass pans are huge.  And Carnival clowns, sort of masked dancers in a specific one-piece kind of costume.

Some of these are school groups, some are social or neighborhood troupes.  Some are even community groups, such as those sponsored by a sorority or fraternity, or the territorial court.  Fun ways for children and teens to participate in Carnival.

My policy is usually to walk the parade.  It's slow and boring to sit in one spot and watch the parade go by, because there are stands set up along the parade route.  The judges sit in the stands and each troupe or section of a troupe will perform their routine right in front of the judges.  And then move on.  While it's fun to watch each routine, it's really crowded right there.  Further down the parade route means spending a lot of time waiting.  So I just walk along the parade route, stopping periodically to watch the participants, talk to friends, whatever.

I walked out of our hotel and up one block to Main Street, the route for the parades.  I saw a mocko jumbie talking to a child on its mother's shoulders.  Took some photos, and started back toward the street.  Except this mocko jumbie said, "Hello, Ms. Schwartz."

Well!  Mocko jumbies are covered head to toe, including faces covered.  They represent spiritual or ethereal beings, so we're really not supposed to know which human is playing this role.  But hey, this was obviously one of my students, grown into a tall man on six foot stilts!  So I asked, we chatted, and yes, he was one of my students from who knows how long ago.  As is usual in the VI, I know his mother.  I know his father.  His younger brother was also one of my students.  I probably spent fifteen minutes or so chatting with this mocko jumbie as he stepped and balanced on those stilts that are taller than I am!

That was kind of how the Children's Parade went for me.  Seeing colleagues across the street and waving madly at each other.  Passing by a former student who is now grown into an adult and has their own children, or is manning a secure area for VIPs.  Running into a colleague with whom I worked on a committee, and giving each other big hugs in the crowd before catching up on the past ten years or so.  

Of course, also watching the adorable children as they performed or walked by, so serious as they concentrated on the steps of their routine.  Or the really little ones being carried by a parent, because a mile or two is a long trek for the preschooler littles.

I walked about a mile, from our hotel to Fort Christian, the big red fort built in 1671.  The man selling drinks didn't have bottled water, he was making smoothies.  But this is the VI, it was Carnival, everyone was happy and friendly.  So he poured me a cup of water over ice and refused payment of any kind.  Is it any wonder we love this place?

I turned around and walked back along the parade route, saying hi again to some of the people I'd run into, recognizing others and copying the same routine.  

I probably didn't see the entire parade, but I did see my former school's steel pan band.  The principals have changed, as have the steel pan band director, so I knew no one in the group.  Oh well, time moves on, waits for no one, all that stuff.

It was great fun, and a wonderful way to return to a place that was our home for over twenty years.