Losing the beat
20/02/07 20:42 Filed in: Carnival
This is the band Tribe,
moving from Mucurapo Road in St James onto the Foreshore, a process
that took more than four hours, backed up traffic and was wholly
manageable.
Yes, that is a potty truck, one of almost two dozen that supported this small army of the party hearty with music, food, drinks, shuttle maxi-taxis and even an air-conditioned truck with tinted windows for the elite.
After a long wait to travel the hundred or so yards to my home, I discovered that I couldn't drive onto Mucurapo Road and would have to go all the way around and joint another line of traffic.
I did not take this well. In fact, I lost my mind, doing the one thing I try never to do and getting into an argument-well a cussing match-with security guards.
Not even security guards, guys who had been given a length of rope and a yellow jersey and directed to keep spectators out of it.
This was a monster of a traffic jam. Nobody could get out of St James easily and nobody was getting in while this band made its crossing.
If it was beyond the yellow jersey boys, even more surprising was the fact that the authorities couldn't seem to do anything either. The SAUTT helicopter circled the area several times, finally hovering off the sunset-reddened shore for several minutes.
In that time, two large trucks of regiment soldiers made their way through the traffic and parked opposite the chaos.
The armed men jumped out, waved large guns around and then, puzzlingly, jumped back in their trucks and drove off.
Nobody appeared to do the obvious thing, which was to manage the traffic around the chaos on the Western Main Road and by making the free lanes of the foreshore highway two-way.
But that's really just a lot of detail around a problem that's likely to happen again, as the large, popular all-inclusive (and all-exclusive, to judge from the toilet facilities) bands attract ever larger numbers of participants.
There was a news report on the Carnival Monday night news with a bandleader who seemed to think that governmental intervention to "deal with" large bands was a good idea.
It isn't, and I think this message should get out there quickly, because the Government seems troublingly enthusiastic about taking control of far too many aspects of Carnival "for the people."
I hated not being able to get home when I wanted to, but adapting to Carnival's realities means acknowledging all the issues, whether it is that calypso tent attendance is declining or that massive bands of convenience need special planning to ensure that they can negotiate the streets of Port of Spain.
Yes, that is a potty truck, one of almost two dozen that supported this small army of the party hearty with music, food, drinks, shuttle maxi-taxis and even an air-conditioned truck with tinted windows for the elite.
After a long wait to travel the hundred or so yards to my home, I discovered that I couldn't drive onto Mucurapo Road and would have to go all the way around and joint another line of traffic.
I did not take this well. In fact, I lost my mind, doing the one thing I try never to do and getting into an argument-well a cussing match-with security guards.
Not even security guards, guys who had been given a length of rope and a yellow jersey and directed to keep spectators out of it.
This was a monster of a traffic jam. Nobody could get out of St James easily and nobody was getting in while this band made its crossing.
If it was beyond the yellow jersey boys, even more surprising was the fact that the authorities couldn't seem to do anything either. The SAUTT helicopter circled the area several times, finally hovering off the sunset-reddened shore for several minutes.
In that time, two large trucks of regiment soldiers made their way through the traffic and parked opposite the chaos.
The armed men jumped out, waved large guns around and then, puzzlingly, jumped back in their trucks and drove off.
Nobody appeared to do the obvious thing, which was to manage the traffic around the chaos on the Western Main Road and by making the free lanes of the foreshore highway two-way.
But that's really just a lot of detail around a problem that's likely to happen again, as the large, popular all-inclusive (and all-exclusive, to judge from the toilet facilities) bands attract ever larger numbers of participants.
There was a news report on the Carnival Monday night news with a bandleader who seemed to think that governmental intervention to "deal with" large bands was a good idea.
It isn't, and I think this message should get out there quickly, because the Government seems troublingly enthusiastic about taking control of far too many aspects of Carnival "for the people."
I hated not being able to get home when I wanted to, but adapting to Carnival's realities means acknowledging all the issues, whether it is that calypso tent attendance is declining or that massive bands of convenience need special planning to ensure that they can negotiate the streets of Port of Spain.
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