Carnival in the Antilles - Blackwattle
by Nancy Knudsen on 27 Feb 2007
In the mood BW Media
After the dishevelled nature of the Windwards and Trinidad – rusty abandoned cars, paint peeled houses, weedy streets and rusty barred broken windows, Bonaire and its capital Kralendijk look like Leggoland!
Bonaire is a long island, and the main town Kralenkijk is on the lee side, making a long straight esplanade, with quiet so-clear water. Environmentally super-sensitive, the island allows no anchoring, and instead there’s the smartest double buoy system we’ve ever come across. There are sixty of these, in a double row along the waterfront, and the boats are lined up like obedient school children on parade.
The houses are all neat and pastel shaded, with gardens. In the early morning there are people running and walking along the esplanade – health conscious, obviously, as well. The whole place has a pretty, well-kept appearance
We’re just in time for the main Carnival Parade – we learn that it will circle the town twice Sunday, and then twice again on Tuesday night, the last party night before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.
We join the crowds, who are lined up for hours along the main street waiting.
Finally, we hear the procession approaching, and the noise is bone jarring. Band after band, travelling in big steel pan band trucks, fight for supremacy, and sometimes it’s hard to tell to which band the dancers are dancing. By the side of the road, the watchers often dance too – old and young, staid and exuberant, and the Blackwattle crew!
We watch both parades, and it is not the costumes and floats that impress us most, although they are pretty impressive – people must have spent months making these costumes and floats – no, it’s the infectious delight and playful joyfulness of the participants and watchers. From 80 year-olds to five year olds, they dance and sing their way along the streets. Sometimes, the procession stops for up to half an hour at a time, but the music keeps playing and the dancers keep dancing. It’s a marathon of glee! The sweat pours freely from many chocolate skins, people offer water which is drunk greedily. The occasional shower of rain cools proceedings, but the then Indians are worried about wet feathers!
But let the photos tell the story:
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Later in the evening we join the procession too, and it becomes difficult to tell the difference between watcher and participant.
To reach the esplanade later and our dinghy, we have to walk the streets where the parade has just passed. With all the alcohol, with all the excitement, milling crowds and racing adolescents, there is not a can, not a wrapper, not a piece of rubbish anywhere to be found on the streets! What an impressive performance that is!
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