Car­ni­val lovers go­ing through with­draw­al symp­toms with the can­cel­la­tion of Car­ni­val 2021 were treat­ed to the spec­ta­cle of tra­di­tion­al Car­ni­val char­ac­ters at Trinci­ty Mall, Trinci­ty, on Sat­ur­day.

Well-loved, nos­tal­gic char­ac­ters such as Ba­by Doll, Jab Jab, Go­ril­la, Dame Lor­raine, Sailor, Fan­cy Sailor and five Moko Jumbies from Ju­nior Bis­nath's Kaisokah School of Arts in San Fer­nan­do, greet­ed, danced and en­ter­tained spec­ta­tors and pa­trons to Car­ni­val vibes mu­sic pro­vid­ed by the Pan-De­mo­ni­um Steel Or­ches­tra at the farm­ers' mar­ket in the mall car park, at the en­trance and the in­te­ri­or of the mall.

The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture & the Arts had a Car­ni­val ex­hi­bi­tion in the Mi­cles Atri­um, in the mall, high­light­ing Car­ni­val ca­lyp­so cham­pi­ons, in­clud­ing the re­cent­ly de­part­ed Singing San­dra.

The face masks worn by pa­trons as well as the Car­ni­val char­ac­ters, who car­ried signs re­mind­ing peo­ple to wear masks and sani­tise their hands were stark re­minders of the grim re­al­i­ty of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the health and safe­ty pro­to­cols re­quired.

A shopper dances with the Traditional Carnival Characters as they parade for shoppers during the Trincity Mall Carnival Exhibition.

ANISTO ALVES

Speak­ing to Sun­day Guardian, the mall’s mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer, Lisa Young-Wing said "Trinci­ty Mall in af­fil­i­a­tion with Farm Fresh Foods is hav­ing a farm­ers mar­ket. We've been hold­ing the event since Ju­ly 2019, and this is the first event for the year.

"Be­cause of the time of the year (the Car­ni­val sea­son), we de­cid­ed to add a lit­tle lo­cal flavour with a rhythm sec­tion and lo­cal Car­ni­val char­ac­ters. Our cus­tomers are in­to the sea­son that we're not hav­ing, but more safe­ly and com­fort­ably, ad­her­ing to all COVID-19 health and safe­ty reg­u­la­tions."

She said nor­mal­ly every year for Car­ni­val, up to 2020, the mall would host pre-Car­ni­val events. This year all ac­tiv­i­ties will be in keep­ing with COVID-19 rules and reg­u­la­tions.

ANISTO ALVES

Aaron Bull, the co-own­er Farm Fresh Foods said the pop-up mar­ket place start­ed off as a farm­ers' mar­ket and grad­u­al­ly in­clud­ed lo­cal crafts and ar­ti­sans.

He said every two weeks lo­cal ven­dors and small busi­ness­es were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to show­case their prod­ucts in these dif­fi­cult COVID-19 times when many busi­ness­es were clos­ing down.