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Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Despite tough times... Biggest brightest Carnival in Moruga

by

RADHICA DE SILVA
701 days ago
20230221
Moruga residents and their children get ready for the Parade of Bands on Tuesday at Gran Chemin Grounds in Moruga. [Photos courtesy by Eric Lewis]

Moruga residents and their children get ready for the Parade of Bands on Tuesday at Gran Chemin Grounds in Moruga. [Photos courtesy by Eric Lewis]

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

 

Even though they had lit­tle cor­po­rate sup­port and lim­it­ed funds from the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion, Moru­ga res­i­dents came to­geth­er to host one of the "biggest, bright­est" Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions the com­mu­ni­ty has ever seen.

Hav­ing ex­pe­ri­enced the two-year hia­tus due to COVID-19, com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist Er­ic Lewis said peo­ple were ex­cit­ed for the 2023 Car­ni­val even though they did not have mon­ey to par­tic­i­pate.

The usu­al choco­late mas band was not pos­si­ble, Lewis said, as the cost of mak­ing choco­late for mas was ex­or­bi­tant.

"We could not do the things we did in pre­vi­ous years so this year we went ahead and did what we could, and every­one en­joyed it to the max. It was the biggest bright­est Car­ni­val we've ever had," he said.

Thou­sands of rev­ellers par­tic­i­pat­ed in J’Ou­vert af­ter dawn on Car­ni­val Mon­day, trekking from Basse Terre to Gran Chemin where they took their tra­di­tion­al sea bath.

On Mon­day night, hun­dreds came out for the Ca­lyp­so com­pe­ti­tion which in­clud­ed the six Moru­ga-based con­tes­tants who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta com­pe­ti­tion in Skin­ner Park.

Al­though the po­lice re­stric­tions were many, Lewis said they were grate­ful that so many came out, tak­ing monies from their own pock­ets to par­tic­i­pate in all the fes­tiv­i­ties.

Mean­while, the pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer of the Moru­ga Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee Wen­del Coop­er said their suc­cess came be­cause of prop­er plan­ning and mar­ket­ing.

As the own­er of the Moru­ga on­line ra­dio sta­tion, Coop­er told Guardian Me­dia that they start­ed prepar­ing for Car­ni­val sev­er­al months be­fore, gar­ner­ing sup­port from busi­ness own­ers and com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivists.

"We did ground­work and we kept on mar­ket­ing it. Our main prob­lem every year dur­ing Car­ni­val is the bad sound sys­tem and the mu­sic trucks break­ing down, so we dealt with that from ear­ly," Coop­er said.

With the as­sis­tance of the Com­mit­tee's CEO Naila Gabriel, Coop­er said they al­so mar­ket­ed the J’Ou­vert to oth­er com­mu­ni­ties.

"We had no in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence, and we are proud of what we achieved this year," Coop­er said.

Moru­ga's pa­rade of the bands was sched­uled to take place at the Gran Chemin Grounds. He said they al­so en­gaged in four week­ends of stick­fight­ing at the gayelle in St Mary's.

"We al­so went to a cou­ple of bars and asked the own­ers to col­lab­o­rate with us. Even though peo­ple are fac­ing tough eco­nom­ic times, we pulled to­geth­er. The bar own­ers or­ga­nized sound sys­tems and mu­sic. We en­cour­aged them to vibe up the area with mu­sic so the strain will not be on the Car­ni­val Com­mit­tee be­cause up to Wednes­day, we had not re­ceived a sub­ven­tion," Coop­er said.

He com­mend­ed the com­mu­ni­ty for com­ing to­geth­er to host Car­ni­val 2023, de­spite the chal­lenges. He al­so thanked the po­lice for their as­sis­tance in pro­vid­ing se­cu­ri­ty and or­der in the com­mu­ni­ty. 

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