Our Grenada Blog

For those of you who missed it, this years Carnival was as good as, if not better, than last years' celebration.

This year we took my wife's sister, as she had never been to Carnival before. Can you imagine, a teenager, living in Grenada, who has never had a chance to jump up for Carnival? There is something not quite right about that! Anyway, we decided to start her off lightly by taking her to the Jouvert celebration.

It was much better organized than last time around.

The weather cooperated nicely and we had a few short showers to keep everyone nice and cool.

Lots of colour this year...usually in the form of body paints! We made sure to introduce Amanda to the joys of brightly coloured makeup....(get paint on hand, apply liberally to any exposed body parts, including hair and face.
Stand back and admire the effect. Enjoy the screaming accolades coming from a shocked teen. Repeat often.)

The good thing is that it was easily washable, but if you go to Jouvert, you really don't care about such minor things, and you usually end up throwing out the clothes you wore to it.

We were there to have fun, and we did. Before too long, we were just as painted as everyone else.

The only down side to this years Jouvert celebration is that there were not as many themes/actors. Just about everyone was out to 'jump up'.

The typical Jouvert would have people making fun of the politicians and major events which happened in the previous year. Its always good to see that people can still find the fun side of things in life. This year was no exception, and there were quite a few 'acts', even though not quite as many as last year.

Of course, after sleeping off the effects of Jouvert, we were ready for the Monday night Mass.

The bands gathered on the Lagoon main road after dark. There were general themes for each band, but the main thing was that you could be a part of any one of the bands you wanted. The members bought packages which usually included a t-shirt, hat and other props. Of course, these were things like flashing light sticks, whistles, glow wands etc. We met up with a couple of friends, who were experiencing the carnival for the first time as well, and bought a package in that band for Amanda, as she said she wanted to jump up with them. Turns out that they all had a fantastic time! I don't think that our friends will miss next years celebrations, if it is at all possible.

Once they all got started, it was wonderful to watch. If you get the chance to do Carnival here, you must NOT miss the monday night Mass!

Tuesdays' parade of the bands was a fitting end to this years celebrations. This was the costume display and final jump up, the 'pretty mass'. Again, this was held on the Lagoon main road, where everyone could come and enjoy.

We got a lot of photos, covering just about every band. The bands got started around 3:30pm and paraded past the judges and then slowly made their way into the town for the final jump up. This is the final celebration for the carnival, and usually goes on up till midnight.

For more photos please check out grenadaphotoalbum.com