New Years and other Carnival Fun

There were a bunch of different events part of carnival this year. I didn't go to everything, but here are some of the highlights of the major events:

Friday, December 18:  Carnival Grand Opening  
Saturday, December 26: J'ouvert 
Monday, December 28: National Carnival Queen Pageant
Tuesday, December 29: Calypso Monarch Finals
Thursday, December 31: Children's Carnival Parade   
Friday, January 01: Grand New Year's Parade 
Saturday, January 02: Carnival Last Lap 

This isn't all of the carnival events, but I did get to partake in more than my fair share of carnival activities. The National Carnival Queen Pageant was interesting. Having been to the Miss America Pageant that my roommate competed in (Kate Grinold- Miss DC of 2009, I'm still super proud of her!), it was really interesting to compare how different the two were. The crowd was so unresponsive, I would never be able to compete in anything similar over here. And they were just as harsh in their judgement as they are unresponsive. The slightest stammer and the entire audience burst into laughter.

There were five different components to the competition: 1) swimsuit 2) talent 3) costume (they had to wear a costume that represented Kittitian culture and history) 4) evening gown 5) interview. Thankfully the last component held the most value in points. The most entertaining part was when one of the contestants was asked about her platform regarding breast cancer and she said that people suffering from it "shouldn't worry about what the doctor's say, they are not going to die and should continue living their lives".

The Grand New Year's Parade was pretty fun. Per Geoff and Kim's suggestion, we decided to watch from Central Street instead of waiting for it to show up in the circus. Which ended up being a good thing cuz it was pretty darn lively from where we saw it. Whereas things started winding down by the time they got to the circus and the square.

The moko-jumbies dancing on 6-8 foot stilts!

The Bull originated from an incident which occurred on Belmont estate around 1917, surrounding an estate manager and his prize bull. The story goes that the bull fell ill, and it is the scene of its revival that is acted out in graphic detail causing humour and havoc as the bull runs wild among spectators.

For New Year's Eve itself, a group of us went to the 'strip'. The strip is basically a strip of beach on the southern peninsula with the Atlantic on one side and the Caribbean on the other. There's a bunch of beach bars and restaurants lining the strip and on weekends that is normally where all the locals hang out till crazy hours. New Year's isn't really celebrated here though, added to the fact that it was raining and only a Thursday and things were kind of dead. But our little group had enough fun making noise on our own =)

Last Lap was basically a culmination and repeat of all the stuff that has been going on throughout carnival, with all the same cultural performances and troupes and parading through town until really late until fights broke out. Anti gang units and police were all over town and streets were closed off.

And that was the end of Carnival =(

On Sunday, the Prime Minister held a New Year's Extravaganza/Concert. It basically ended up being a political rally (which we aren't supposed to be involved in) but by the time we realized it was too late. There were some awesome fireworks, some of the best I've ever seen actually. And some pretty good performances. I think Caribbean music is really starting to grow on me.

Tiff, Maggie and I at the concert. There were fireworks above us a minute before the picture.