Merry Bloody Monarch Indeed

Well, as is the case annually, Trinidad and especially Port of Spain is about to turn into the anarchic mess that is Carnival. Traffic has been snarled for the past week ( even worse than usual) and everywhere there is evidence of tourists and migrated Trinis who have resurfaced with insta-accents. As the weekend progresses there will be gratuitous music blaring from giant trucks that will clog the roads and give anyone with a brain a headache, Fortunately, the average Trini seems quite able to place his or her brain in their empty carnival costume box and stow it under the bed until Ash Wednesday.

People such as me who have work and a tendency to avoid chaos will be left struggling to get from place to place and cursing the lack of any order in the capital. Which is not to say that Port of Spain has much order to begin with. Come Sunday night or early Monday morning the traffic lights in the city will be symbolically switched off as the city hands over control of the streets to the people. Shortly thereafter all hell will break loose and j’overt will begin at 4am with people wearing everything from just mud to simple costumes. Then we will progress to Monday Mas followed by the even more street clogging Tuesday Mas.

Don’t get me wrong, I thing Carnival in years gone by was great – a testament to creative souls who laboured all year to create a band wit the help of masqueraders. Now it is about as much an expression of the  dedication and creativity of the Trinidadian people as PriceSmart. We have taken a people’s festival celebrating art and turned it into a disease riddled streetwalker.

I was at work in physical presence today only and though we had a newscast that resembled War and Peace I managed to pull it together thanks to Melissa Wong, Ria Rambally and Robin Morais. Where all those stories came from I have no idea but I was able to get them all in between the two newscasts.

I am a bit out of sorts for the usual reasons lately but also because I just realized Robin has gone to Guyana and Brazil with Marina and Peter and Naz are in Atlanta en route to Las Vegas…all fleeing Carnival. Omar just popped in ( after asking) to change so he could go to another party and I am sitting here happy to be in the condo away from it all and away from people who have to party their lives away.

Back to work tomorrow so I will leave you now.