Children’s Carnival and Panorama

Day 276 – Port of Spain, Trinidad

Saturday was the day for the children’s Carnival, and at night Panorama: the Steelband contest’s finals.

Both events -and many other- happen on the Savannah, officially Queen’s Park Savannah, but everybody shortens it to the Savannah. (Streets around the park are one way, but for the Carnival, they are switched to two-way streets, to the bewilderment of many drivers, unsure of where exactly to go!) The Savannah is a huge expense of grass with grandstands on one side, allowing many events to be staged there.

We went there to see the children pass in their costumes. We bought snowcones, crushed ice with syrup poured on top, and had to take shelter a while later when it started to rain.

(Pictures here.)

We finally left under the threat of more rain, and it started pouring just before we reached the cars. Perfect timing!

That night they had arranged for friends to take me to Panorama. As the friends were dedicated fans, they had taken tickets well-placed in the grandstands, with a good view of the stage. They explained everything to me, and answered all my questions!

(Pictures here!)

Steelbands were created by using oildrums and other metallic pans, cutting and reshaping them to allow different notes when banging on them. (If you have never heard the Wedding March on steelpans, you have missed something.)

Panorama – Large band contest with air puppets – See the puppeteers in black at the feet of the puppets.

For the final event, we had ten medium-sized bands and ten large bands playing each an arrangement of a popular song. (“Hookin’ Meh” was chosen four times, I do know the song now.) While the band would get on stage with their instruments wheeled in place, the song would play, then we could compare it to when the band was playing.

Though you are technically not allowed to bring alcohol in, nobody was checking the content of the bottles in the various coolers. Because you can bring your own food and drinks, of course! And share them around with your neighbours around. Like black pudding (“boudin noir” for our French readers) on garlic toast or fish and bake (1).

Each band has its own flag-person -usually a pretty woman- waving the band’s flag during the performance. But there were the occasional man and moko jumbie. Some bands had elaborate decor, some less (one looked like a Chinese restaurant, with red lanterns and everything, and dancers dressed as Geishas, which are Japanese, with giant fans, but well, who cares?), and of course the man with a garbage bag for the song “Hookin’ Meh”.

We stayed until 2AM, when 3 more bands had yet to play and the winners hadn’t been decided.

(1) You may have heard of “shake and bake”, pre-made bread crumbs or other seasoning that you put in a bag, add your meat, close, shake to cover the meat, then take out and bake. The local variant is “shark and bake”, fried bread around a centre of shark meat. If using another fish, call it “fish and bake”. Personally, I thought it should be called “shark and bait”, but, well, it still would mean something else!