We experienced a Carnival parade in Santo Domingo! It was a
lot of fun. February is Carnival month in a lot of places in Latin America and
of course Mardi Gras in New Orleans is very famous as well. Carnival here in
Santo Domingo has some similarities, but many differences.
Both Mardi Gras and Carnival in Rio are associated with the
one last fling before Lent, 40 days before Easter. One of the first differences
in the Dominican Republic is that Carnival leads up to February 27th,
which is Dominican Independence Day rather than Easter, Lent, etc.
Just for fun, let’s play a little Jeopardy:
Alex Trebek: February 27th
is the day that the Dominican Republic gained their independence from this
country.
Me: What is Spain?
Alex Trebek: I’m sorry that is
incorrect. The correct answer is Haiti.
Yup, that’s right on February 27th 1844 the
Dominican Republic gained independence from their western neighbor Haiti. Who
knew? Well, probably people with a better grasp of history than me knew.
We were somewhat eased into the whole Carnival thing. There
had been a growth in the number of advertisements, street decorations and other
things leading up to Carnival. One of the shopping malls had a very good
display showing the various types of masks and costumes used in Carnival. At
the Museum of the Dominican Man there is a large part of the third floor of the
museum dedicated to the Carnival celebration. So we had some background and
idea of what was going to go on in Carnival.
We live about 1 kilometer away from Avenida Maximo Gomez, in
Santo Domingo, the main street that the Carnival parade goes down. As we have
been out for walks the past few weeks we have seen the construction of
grandstands and the placement of huge statues or displays on the street. I
later learned that the displays were some of the main characters of the
Dominican Carnival.
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| Devil mask in museum |
Limping Devils (Cojuelos Diablos) – lots of these
everywhere. Although the devils can look pretty scary, the stuff I have read
says that this devil is a “naughty” or “childish” devil that was banished to
earth for his childish pranks and spends his time hitting people and other
devils with his “vejiga”. Originally, a vejiga was an animal bladder filled
with air. Today they are mostly balloons or soft cloth balls filled with
stuffing.
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| 40 foot tall Roba de Gallina figure placed on the street during Carnival |
Steal the Chicken (Roba de Gallina) – this one puzzled me at
first as well. Without any explanation, it looks like the after effects of a
plastic surgeon that went way overboard. The first time I saw this character I
thought of the 1992 Sir Mix-a-Lot hit, “Baby Got Back” and thought that a new
version needed to come out titled, “Baby Got Back and Front.” I later learned
that the story behind this is that it represents a man who steals chickens and dresses
as a woman and hides the chickens in his bust and hip area, accounting for the
exaggerated features. I am pretty sure they just use balloons these days, no
chickens are harmed in the making of these costumes.
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| Calife figure placed on the street during Carnival |
Calife – this is another popular character that surprised me
at first and honestly, made me cringe a little. It is a black-face character
with a very tall stove-pipe hat. Certainly today in the USA blackface is largely
considered to be offensive and racist. I asked one of my new Dominican friends
if anyone considers the Calife character offensive or racist here. He was very
puzzled, “What would be offensive or racist about Calife?” I explained a little
bit about the history in the USA where white actors would use blackface make-up
to portray African Americans in a negative way. I showed him a few pictures on
Google of Al Jolson in blackface. He was still surprised, “The reason Calife is
so dark is that he is from the area in the Domincan Republic where they work in
the sugar cane fields. Since people who work in the sugar cane fields are out
in the sun a lot their skin is darker than most.” I must admit, I still don’t totally
understand this one. From what I am able to gather, he is supposed to represent
a poet that writes poems and songs criticizing the government and politicians.
Maybe if I understood Spanish better and heard some of the songs it would make
more sense.
I had trouble figuring out what time the parade started. I
asked a couple of people when the parade started. They told me, “Sunday
afternoon.” When I asked if they knew what time Sunday afternoon, they shrugged
and said, “If you go around 2 or 3 in the afternoon you should be OK.”
I searched the online version of one of the local newspapers
and thought I found something that said the parade was from 2:00PM to 4:00PM.
We walked from our apartment down to Avenida Maximo Gomez around 2:00PM on
Sunday afternoon and found hardly anyone there. At first I thought I might have
misunderstood the time and we had missed it. However, asking one of the
policeman nearby, we were assured that the parade hadn’t started yet.
This is
something I am aware of, but am still getting used to; the cultural views of
time. Americans, Germans, Swiss typically have a linear view of time. If you
have an appointment for 9:00AM and it is 9:01AM, you are late! Italians, Latin
Americans and Arabs typically have a multi-active view of time. In a
multi-active view of time relationships, feelings, and importance of the event are
all factors that have more importance than the actual chronological schedule.
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| Our initial vantage point |
We settled in to a spot right on the barricades in front of
one of the VIP grandstands where the judging took place and began to wait for
the parade to start. As the afternoon wore on, more and more people showed up.
Many of the children were dressed up in costume and there were several groups
of adults dressed up in quite elaborate costumes posing for pictures with some people
and hitting others with their vejigas.
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| An example of one of the vejigas (soft ball on a tether) used to playfully hit passersby |
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| Even little devils get thirsty |
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| Photo op with Susan |
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| Everybody wants their picture taken |
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| Kids checking out the latest costumed characters coming down the street |
At about 4:30 in the afternoon, the judges came to their
places at the judging table in front of the main grandstand. Maybe the parade
was about to start? Just then, a lady approached us and asked us if we wanted
to sit in the grandstand. We willingly accepted! The grandstands, and much of
the Carnival, were sponsored by Presidente beer, a major Domincan beer company.
What typically happens in cases like this is that the sponsor gives VIP tickets
to their best customers and people they think will look good on camera in their
grandstand. Not everyone who is given a ticket shows up, so they typically try
to fill up the seats with young, good looking or hip people from the crowd. So
it was a little bit of a surprise that they asked us. We are not young, good
looking or hip. I think it must have been because we looked different than just
about everyone else in the crowd. Susan was definitely the whitest person I had
seen all day. Maybe it was their plan to have a more diverse group of
spectators?
Sitting in the grandstand was great! You got to sit in a
chair – remember it was now 4:30 and we had arrived at 2:00 and had been
standing in the sun the whole time. We were in the shade! And they offered free
beer or soft drinks!
I went up to the bar in the back and asked if they had any
soft drinks. “Tienes refrescos?” He replied in the affirmative. I asked,
“Tienes Coca Cola?” He gave me a dirty look and said something that I couldn’t
understand. It was pretty loud with the background music blaring and besides,
my Spanish is still not that great. He pointed to a Pepsi bottle. I said, “OK.
Pepsi Cola.”
“Coca Cola es un palabra mala!” he said. (Coca Cola is a bad
word!) I then realized that Presidente beer must also have the Pepsi franchise
for the Domincan Republic. I had just asked for their biggest competitor’s
product. We both had a good laugh about this and I walked away with a couple of
Pepsis.
Back in my grandstand seat sipping my ice cold Pepsi I
looked at the VIP ticket they had given us. There it was on the ticket, the
starting time of the parade. I finally knew when the parade was supposed to
start. “3:00 en la tarde,”, the ticket said. I was pretty sure that meant 3PM,
but to be sure I punched it in Google Translate. Sure enough Google Translate
said, “3 in the afternoon.” Then I remembered to set Google Translate to
translate Dominican Spanish
to English. Google Translate said, “What’s your hurry? The parade will start
when everyone is ready. You are not doing anything else this afternoon, are
you?” Sure enough, at 5:45PM the parade started, when everyone was ready. I
still need to settle down some more and get used to Island Time, Latin American
Time or whatever you want to call it.
The parade was great. Very interesting to me. I had seen it
advertised that there was one million pesos in prize money available for the
best entries, about $22,000 US dollars. It seemed to me that there were about
four general themes of the various entries in the parade. All of them were
individuals on foot, no floats as I have seen in pictures of Carnival in Rio or
Mardi Gras. Many of the entries must have been from a particular neighborhood
or organization, although it was difficult for me to determine where they were
from. The reason I say this is that many groups had a wide range of ages
represented, from 3 years old to adults.
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| Individual Fantasy contestant |
Individual Fantasy – these were by far the most elaborate
costumes. The entry was always just one person. They typically didn’t do much
when they got to the judges stand except shuffle around a little bit for 30-60
seconds. The costumes were pretty good. You could tell they spent a lot of time
and a lot of money on the costumes.
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| Another elaborate Individual Fantasy participant |
Some variation of devils – there are typically two things
that give away that these are “devils” 1)they always have vejigas (balloons
that they strike the ground or people with) 2)the masks all have similar
attributes – spikes, long nose, etc. There are all sorts of variations of
“devils” – typical, Egyptian and my favorite Star Wars Stormtroopers!
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| One of the many devil groups - notice the vijegas |
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| My favorite! Star Wars Stormtrooper themed devils! |
Choreographed dance troupes – these groups would do some sort
of choreographed dance routine in front of the judges from a sound track.
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| The Greeks are coming! |
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| A group of tiny Califes |
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| Thai themed choreographed group |
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| Even Uncle Sam was represented |
Energetic loud groups – energy and loud noise seemed to be what
these groups were going for. While not tremendously choreographed, these groups
made up for it in energy – jumping around and playing their drums, whistles and
trumpets very loudly.
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| What these guys lacked in choreography and costumes they made up for in energy and volume. |
The parade itself lasted for at least two hours and by the
time it ended the sun had gone down. Some of the final groups had lighted
costumes, adding to the effect. What a great way to spend an afternoon and what
a great time we had experiencing something unique to the Dominican Republic.
