Carnival 2009

Carnival (Fat Tuesday~the day before ash Wednesday) is a big celebration here in São Vicente. Preparation for the big day start at least a month in advanced and there were parties basically every weekend leading up to, plus people in bands practiced every night. So needless to say there was tons of anticipation for the big day. The weekend before Carnival was full of parties. There were a couple of second year volunteers and this guy we met who was a volunteer in Cameroon a couple years back and on Saturday we dressed up in our finest ridiculous outfits and found a party at local hotel. This very popular drum band was playing and the place was packed, a little too much for my liking because at some point it was difficult to dance, but it was also close to impossible to get a drink at the bar (coca-cola of course!) and the bathroom situation was incredibly bad, especially for a nice hotel. Anyway despite a couple pit falls, over all it was a pretty good party with good music and it was kind of like Halloween with people in all these awesome costumes (I was a butterfly, kind of… I really just had wings). The most popular outfit amongst men however was…. Drum roll…. Dressing up as a girl.

At work on Monday we had a mini-Carnival which was so cute, the kids had some really awesome costumes and there was dancing, music and food. We made masks, the prev and a couple of kids wore thoseThey also had a clown who did a small act taking people from the audience. I almost fell over and contemplated running outside so he couldn’t get me. But he dragged me up on ´´stage´´ and it was kind of like Simon Says but more mortifying and included me bending over and winding up a car, getting yelled at for not opening the imaginary door to the car. The one thing that made it more bearable in the end was the smiles on all the kids faces, probably a mixture of being glad they weren’t pulled up there and also just loving me being bright pink and embarrassed.

Tuesday was the big parade that went on all day. Lindsay and I wore shirts that a friend gave us that said Carnival 2009. I unfortunatly didn´t make it all that long because I got a stomach bug of Monday morning which basically kept me in bed for way too much of Carnival, I figured there is always next year.

So overall Carnival was really cool, definalty something you have to experience. The only downer other than being sick as having my phone stolen which wasn´t all that dramatic execept for a small fight for the phone (Iºm a weakling so it wasnºt a fair fight). It was a bit of a hastle to get my new phone because the one that I was able to get was only at this one random post office in another community and itºs not nearly as cool as my other one, it doesnºt have a camera or anything but it is what it is and Iºm glad to be back in touch with the world again)

Random Picture of Mindelo