Another Kind of Carnival - Part 2

May 5, 2024

 

Continuing with Carnival, St. Thomas style.

 

Saturday of the last week of Carnival is the Adult Parade.  It's vaguely similar to the Children's Parade, but it's 95% costumed dancers, and maybe 4% mocko jumbies.  Possibly 1% Carnival clowns, or even less.  Very little else, other than trucks blaring music for dancing, or carrying cold drinks for all of those dancing people march-dancing down the street.

 

Imagine the most colorful extravaganza from your favorite Hollywood musical movie - then multiply the color tenfold, and picture that going by so close you can feel the feathers fluttering in your face.  Dancers going in every direction, people posing for photos or talking to friends, and costumes that defy gravity.  Bikini clad women from ages 16 to who knows how old but definitely "of a certain age" or beyond, in every size and shape, and celebrating their beauty - men in shorts and headpieces, late teens to beards of grey, bare chested and celebrating their masculine physiques, including dad bods.  Paint powder adding color to the air.  Music reverberating in your bones.  It's wonderfully uninhibited and chaotic!  

Yeah, we love it!!!

I met several people while walking the parade, so managed to get some shots of people in costume, posing for me.  I saw the first woman later in the parade!

 

I again walked the parade, stopping and staying put in several different locations to get different views.  Well, I didn't walk the entire parade, just several hours of it.  The parade begins about 10 AM and continues to sunset, about 6:30-7:00 PM.  But I walked enough to see the middle to end portion of the parade.

 

To me, it's all about the color and costumes and movement, in addition to the people.  I'm always convinced I can see
half my students all grown up, dancing down Main Street bedecked with feathers and
plastic jewels - but who knows, they could be my students' children by this point in time.

I ended the parade with over 500 photos.  I've saved 319.  I'm hoping there are only 150, 170 here.  But, well, Carnival is a sensory experience.  It's a bacchanalia whether one is drinking alcohol or not.  It's a visual and auditory overload, but so thrilling and exciting no one cares.  

It's excitement personified, if that makes sense.  Just joy in being alive and being able to celebrate living.

So, have fun with the photos.  This year's costumes were a bit more revealing than some years, so I tried to keep the photos PG-13.  But there isn't much more to say - still running into friends, former colleagues or students at the parade, still having fun.

 

Oh, two funny stories.  My last stop to watch and take photos was right by someone's small house.  The owner was sitting on her porch, watching the parade pass by.  I said good afternoon, and stayed to one side of the house, making sure I didn't block her view.  When I left, I thanked her for sharing her space and letting me watch the parade.  She told me I was welcome any time, and I should come back next year!

Then walking back to our hotel, I started chatting with some people.  Turned out one of them was the uncle to one student I had been looking for, their family is always the last troupe.  The family is now doing something else, so that's why I didn't see this student.  His brother married another student of mine - so I asked the uncle to please send my regards to both of these former students.  (And then ate lunch at the uncle's restaurant on Monday.)  Yes, St. Thomas is a very small island, and it seems like I know half the people in some kind of way!

 

I will add that Saturday evening ends with fireworks over the harbor, and we had a great view from our balcony.  We spent Sunday morning at the beach enjoying brunch with friends.  I met up with three other friends for meals, and we caught up on our lives.  

 

It was a wonderful visit.  Richard and I both miss living in the VI, but there's a whole big world out there and we might as well keep exploring it.