KALI­FA SARAH CLYNE

There was a no­tice­able de­crease in mud and oil bands as com­pared to pre­vi­ous years as paint and pow­der seemed to rule the road for J'ou­vert yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Port-of-Spain was trans­formed in­to one large street the­atre as J'Ou­vert mas­quer­aders pa­rad­ed through the streets in paint-splat­tered cloth­ing.

A young man wear­ing a bib and di­a­pers turned to his girl­friend, smack­ing his lips against her cheek, a beer in his hand and a smile on his face as mu­sic blared from a set of speak­ers on Ari­api­ta Av­enue.

At around 4 am, char­ac­ters pranced through the streets, call­ing out friends, danc­ing with strangers and shar­ing one com­mon­al­i­ty, smiles that stretched from the lips to eyes as they wel­comed the ear­ly morn­ing fes­ti­val.

Large crowds gath­ered near the bars with the loud­est speak­ers, en­joy­ing their own street par­ty as steel­bands such as Caribbean Air­lines In­vaders and Star­lift made their way through the fray, beat­ing sweet mu­si­cal notes out of steel.

As rap­so group 3Canal passed with their band, black paint was past­ed on­to wait­ing faces.

Near the sta­di­um on Wright­son Road, big trucks, blast­ed so­ca mu­sic from speak­ers as peo­ple in match­ing out­fits squirt­ed pink, yel­low, green, blue and red paint on­to each oth­er's bod­ies. One woman, in J'Ou­vert band iJou­vert, stood on a truck spray­ing pink paint on­to a jump­ing, wav­ing, win­ing crowd from the tray of a pick­up truck.

Dri­vers of the many ve­hi­cles on the road seemed im­pa­tient with rev­ellers as they reck­less­ly moved through the streets.

This did noth­ing to damp­en the fun or ac­tiv­i­ties as a man lift­ed a plas­tic cup to his lips as Ravi B's voice called for a bot­tle of rum per day.

By 5 am, J'Ou­vert bands were squeez­ing past each oth­er in St Clair as mas­quer­aders from sep­a­rate bands mixed and min­gled, en­joy­ing each oth­er for a few mo­ments be­fore mov­ing apart with their own trucks.

Near the large, dig­ni­fied struc­ture of the Arch­bish­op's House on Queen's Park West, emp­ty paint bot­tles and beer cans lay strewn across the road as the rich scent of co­coa from a large J'Ou­vert band per­me­at­ed the air.

Brown liq­uid trailed down red t-shirts and dif­fer­ent hues of skin as women and men dis­played their abil­i­ty to bend, move and gy­rate on the Sa­van­nah grass and pave­ment, with pink poui trees over­head.

Arms spread in joy­ous aban­don as mu­sic blared and Machel Mon­tano's voice de­clared him the hap­pi­est man alive.

At the sight of pho­tog­ra­phers, groups of friends stopped the danc­ing to pose for pic­tures be­fore ask­ing which web­site they would be able to view the im­ages on.

At 6 am, J'Ou­vert band Dirty Dozen, along with what ap­peared to be a few hun­dred rev­ellers, danced past Kapok Ho­tel in Mar­aval, paus­ing to al­low an am­bu­lance to pass them on the road when re­quest­ed by their DJ.

As bands passed, em­ploy­ees from the Port-of-Spain city cor­po­ra­tion along with em­ploy­ees of the Com­mu­ni­ty En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (Cepep) swept the streets and placed garbage in­to bags.

On St Clair Av­enue, a big truck played the song Rol­ly Pol­ly as so­ca icon Austin 'Su­per Blue' Lyons was jammed from a heavy-set woman on a truck car­ry­ing drinks.

In Wood­brook, the pun­gent scent of urine was over­whelm­ing as young women re­lieved them­selves be­hind cars and men used the walls of the com­mu­ni­ty's res­i­dents as a uri­nal.

As the sun start­ed re­flect­ing from wind­shields and win­dows, rev­ellers be­gan putting on sun­glass­es and the at­mos­phere tran­si­tioned from bliss to an aware­ness that brought with it signs of vi­o­lence.

Where be­fore, the pre­dom­i­nant sound was so­ca mu­sic, po­lice and am­bu­lance sirens be­gan a dif­fer­ent melody in the streets and blood mixed with paint as bot­tles flew through the sky.