RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

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.