Soca time again

This is the carnival weekend in Jamaica - culmination of all the revelry that started in January.   I was awakened at 4:00am by music blaring from the trucks as the jouvert posse took to the road.   Living where I am in the heart of Kingston, everything passes by my apartment complex.  I’m not complaining this morning.

I laid in bed trying to decide if I should go on the street to watch them gyrating pass (as I usually do each year).  As I listened to Destra exhort her massive to ‘wave yu hands and put dem in de air’, I smiled, remembering the days when I was a card-carrying costumed participant and would be on the road wining down to the ground and carrying on bad along with the best of them, clad in the skimpiest of outfits, instead of watching from the sidelines as I do now.  Good ole days. 

Not that I’ve totally abandoned the world of the socaphiles.  Two weeks ago I was bumping and grinding to The Alison Hines Show held at Mas Camp and just last year I was in Trinidad for carnival.  I didn’t play ‘pretty mas’ because the group that I went with wanted to ‘observe’ (what good is that?) so ended up only participating in ‘ole mas’.  It was great.  

 Then, as I gyrated, pranced, chipped merrily along to ‘roll it gyal’, ‘Max it up’ and ‘Scandalous’, I was convinced that Trinidad Carnival was indeed the greatest festival as people love to say.  There were times when after a night/morning of attending another fete that I felt like I’d drop from fatigue, like my feet would abandon me and just go on strike, felt as if my waist had no more ‘wok up’ left and I just wouldn’t be able to attend another event.  Somehow, after defying the aches and pains and dragging myself to yet another soca fete, the exhaustion seem to just melt away after hearing the music.

So at 4:15am after listening to the walls vibrate and shudder, I hurriedly drag on some clothes and dance my way outside to take up my usual position on the sidewalk outside my apartment building to watch them pass.

The difference between jouvert (old mas) in Trinidad and Jamaica is that apart from the size of the crowd, the revelry is more contained in Jamaica.  I remember prancing through the crowd in Trinidad last year, dousing the other revellers with paint and water, visiting the paint truck frequently for refills, remember being thoroughly soaked even though mindful of my hairstyle, I tried unsuccessful to avoid the water truck with it’s far-reaching hose. 

After a few minutes of watching and dancing to the music of the passing trucks, I knew it was time to return home when one of the police outriders passed me, then turned his bike around to stop in front of me, smiled lecherously then inquired, “Is because yu nipples so nice why yu don’t wear brassierre?”   

If I wasn’t so impressed with the courteous behaviour exhibited by our police officers during the cricket matches I attended recently, I’d say they need to be trained.  They are.  But there will always be the coarse elements that cause one to think otherwise.