Caribana Tribute

As it was Caribana WEEEKEND the first weekend of August, I just couldn’t resist writing a reminiscing blog about my experiences at such a festival. For those of you who are not familiar with Caribana it is the Caribean festival of Toronto and it only happens once a year. It is MASSIVE it is HUGE. All the hotels are booked out and everyone with a sense of adventure and the spirit of fun flocks to Caribana. It is officially Toronto’s biggest money making weekend.

Now I got introduced to Caribana in my first year of living in Canada, which is thanks to my wonderful friend Camille, who I had met during frosh week. Camille and I always laugh at how we met because we were the only black girls in the Environmental Studies department….Now remember there is no such thing as coloreds that side of the world, I was light skinned black, maybe Milado also known as 0.5s (Half breeds). It would have been strange if we didn’t talk or befriend each other….COZ we both knew we were the minority in the department…. and it was hard not to spot one another out from the crowd. I remember staring at her and wondering ….which part of Africa could she be from. Her features were very unique her face was round and her body wasn’t typical African. …well the African I knew. ..which was small waist and large hips. Anyways it turned out that Camille was from no where even near Africa, but came from Trinidad an island in the Caribbean, which I had never heard of (at that point in my life)….but ended up learning so much about culture.
Camille was the seed planter of my wannabe Caribbean persona. She introduced me to Soca music and got me loving slow reggae. It was like a culture I had never heard of that played music with a rhythm that moved much faster than Kwasa-Kwasa. When she invited me to Caribana I could not say NO. Even though I was warned about how bad such a carnival parade was. People had been shot in past years. But my thought was what is the worst that can happen to us because we were a group of over 15 girls. Plus my new sense of adventure to experience such a parade was burning deep inside me.
Camille introduced me to a whole other range of friendships with these 15 girls. I called them my Caribana Girls! These were all Camille’s sisters friends. Almost Every year they would meet up strictly to celebrate Caribana. The friendships didn’t run deep but we knew enough about each other to enjoy each others company. Together we were such a mix of girls with different looks and personalities. There was Daniel (Camille’s sister) who was daring and loud with these captivating eyes, to Layel who was Persian sweet tall and slender with long flowing locks, Nancy who was from Egypt short with curly hair that could look like an afro if she wanted it, to Ruth chocolate skin colour with a wonderful smile. That was just to name a few…but you get the gist of the group.. I was always the rookie …the newbe girl. Although most of you know me as being pretty loud….with these girls I wasn’t much. I remember Camille telling me that the girls were worried about her brining me…. Thinking what if she doesn’t like to dance…party pooper or a complainer. Mainly because this type of a weekend wasn’t the time to be stuck up.

So our typical Caribana weekend would involve all of us 15 girls sleeping in 2-3 hotel rooms. The plan was you were not going to be doing much sleeping. I would feel bad for any person that stayed next door to us because our rooms were always up late and full of music. Friday nights involved walking down Young Street. That was all that needed to be happening. Anyone who was anyone would be walking down this long street…..just walking and checking people out …or being checked out. That was it. We always had a theme for our group…Friday nights would be White T shirts and Jeans. During the parade would be a costume or colour theme.
It may have sounded childish (dressing the same) but it actually felt really good when you are all dressed in one colour. … It would be harder to loose someone and you always felt part of a family. It was always funny when guys would shout in an attempt to get our attention “yo yo, girls in pink” …and no one would turn…then they would try to pick out some feature “yo, you Alicia keys...” which would be any girl in the pink with the Alicia keys hair style. But none one would ever be interested.. It was like an unsaid rule that this was a girls weekend not a Pick up boys weekend. We would probably tease guys every now and again…sometimes it would be actually funny coz some of the girls would actually embarrass guys. I guess coz the harassment that would go on would actually be irritating.

The Parade its self is CRAZY Hot. It is full of loud music and millions of colourful costumes and masks. What I love most is that generally everyone is out to have a good time. The weather would be at its best during this weekend and in Canada when it is even the slightest bit warm you are bound to see lots of skin. Its like you might as well go extreme because it only happens a few days of the year. Even I have the shortest of shorts…just doesn’t feel right wearing them this side of the world. I look back at some of my pictures and think Wow how in the world did I wear that with out feeling revealing. But because everyone is dressed up it doesn’t feel revealing… My first caribana I probably had the most covered but it got less and less as the years went by. By 2008 I was actually in a Caribana costume. Wearing that costume made me feel as if I was born in Trinidad. I would even pretend like I was from there… but my accent was useless.