SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

In an ex­plo­sion of colour and cre­ativ­i­ty, chil­dren as young as one year old took over Port-of-Spain ON Sun­day for the Down­town Kid­dies Car­ni­val pa­rade.

Al­though a con­stant driz­zle put a slight damper on the fes­tiv­i­ties, the young­sters were ea­ger and ready to show off their cos­tumes as they crossed the South Quay judg­ing point.

Ros­alind Gabriel’s band, Na­tion­al Trea­sure, was the first to cross the stage when the com­pe­ti­tion start­ed at near­ly 2.30 pm. But de­spite the late start, work­ers from the Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion could still be seen putting the fin­ish­ing touch­es on the judg­ing sta­tion.

As big trucks blast­ed this year’s so­ca hits and the chil­dren danced in their colour­ful cos­tumes, the work­men were seen drilling and ham­mer­ing pieces of the judg­ing sta­tion in place.

But noth­ing could dis­tract from the dis­play be­ing put on by hun­dreds of chil­dren.

Lit­tle Cia­va Ja­cob, pre­sent­ing an in­di­vid­ual cos­tume ti­tled “Miss Car­ni­val Bac­cha­nal Woman” from the DMC Kids Mas Band, was a clear crowd favourite as she waved her lit­tle arms and danced as she crossed the stage.

The band’s pre­sen­ta­tion, “So­ca Gold” show­cased pop­u­lar so­ca and Ca­lyp­so songs through­out the years, with ex­trav­a­gant­ly dec­o­rat­ed cos­tumes in every colour.

Mi­ni band, So­phie’s Win­dow lit up the judg­ing point with their vi­brant pre­sen­ta­tion of “A Day at the Cir­cus.”

An­oth­er large band, Fun Time Pro­duc­tion, al­so fea­tured a mu­si­cal theme with their of­fer­ing, “Sweet Trin­ba­go.” Even as the skies dark­ened and rain threat­ened once again, the young­sters frol­icked across the stage in their cos­tumes.

One Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC) of­fi­cial told Guardian Me­dia there were four large bands, one medi­um band, eight small bands and 17 mi­ni bands reg­is­tered to cross the judg­ing point. The of­fi­cial said if bands that were not reg­is­tered be­fore pre­sent­ed them­selves for judg­ing, they would be al­lowed to cross the stage.

For­mer Port-of-Spain May­or, Murchi­son Brown, who is the co­or­di­na­tor for the South Quay judg­ing point, said the large turnout of young mas­quer­aders bodes well for fu­ture Car­ni­vals.

“For the fu­ture, the num­bers might have been larg­er but we have to re­mem­ber what hap­pened for two years pri­or be­cause I think par­ents are still a bit scep­ti­cal but I think the bands do dis­play a cer­tain of mas­quer­aders which au­gurs well for the fu­ture so for 2024, I think it’s go­ing to be a much larg­er turnout of chil­dren and mas­quer­aders on the whole,” Brown said.

He said that com­pared to Car­ni­val 2020, the 2023 sea­son had a lot more ac­tiv­i­ties. How­ev­er, he was a lit­tle con­cerned about the in­clement weath­er.

“The weath­er is al­so dif­fer­ent be­cause we are hav­ing mixed weath­er but I think the en­thu­si­asm is there, we saw with the chil­dren yes­ter­day and we ex­pect to see the same to­day, al­though it’s just the Down­town com­pe­ti­tion that is on to­day

I don’t think it will be as big as yes­ter­day’s but we will see how it goes,” he said.

Brown al­so co­or­di­nat­ed a judg­ing point in St James on Sat­ur­day. He said the pa­rade was very suc­cess­ful and very well at­tend­ed.