My First Carnival

People just want to share my first carnival experience with you!!!

Trinidad and Tobago Carnival has been a long-time fascination for me for a number of reasons: 1) dressing up, dancing, drinking and partying on the street are things that I enjoy, 2) tropical paradises and I are solidly compatible, and 3) I grew up Kingston Jamaica and was never into carnival or soca, until i migrated here. Now like McDonalds..... I'm loving it!

It took me ten years to finally get around to making it happen. Why? Well, honestly the endeavor requires a decent amount of planning, time, money and effort. It’s not for the faint of heart.

Trinbago carnival comes from a uniquely rich cultural history, and represents the liberating departure from working as a slave for the greedy economic benefit of the oppressor, in favor of working relentlessly purely for the purpose of decadent pleasure. This is an absolutely brilliant thing to experience. As I told my Trini friend who was guiding me on this adventure, “I have never worked this hard to have a good time.”Truth be told, the planning stages for this journey began long ago. I think I told my friend of my intent to finally make good on my promise to tag along with her to carnival last summer.

She came to Jamaica the previous year for our carnival, not quite the fanfare or celebration close to TT carnival, but carnival nontheless. Soon we were off, negotiating airline tickets, accommodations, cars, all-inclusive party tickets, costumes and the like. Most of these things required extensive schmoozing, cajoling, waiting, more waiting and a pretty hefty amount of money.

My wife single handily planned planned our wedding but from the cost of my costume to the entangled logistics, it felt not too unlike I was planning a big ceremony for myself, my matrimonial union with the blissful frenzy of carnival.

I was excited at the photos of skimpy outfits the females had to wear. I started working out more and drinking a lot less Guinness and other alcoholic beverages . Over the holiday season, I stealthily ducked all the costume-busting sweets stacking up in my office break room.

And what was the experience like? It’s genuinely impossible to capture. People warned me that I would be sleepless, breathless, intoxicated and gyrating my hips to soca music to within an inch of collapse. This was all true.