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Forty Years By Queen Macoomeh
Copyright July 2007
Forty years eh? Papa-yo! Caribana nearly half as ole as me awready oui. Forty years dat include bacchanal, commess, bobol, progress an stamina. When yuh step back, yuh have to say it come far even doh it have plenty more to go. Caribana go outlast everybody who interfering wid it today. All yuh done know my mout en have no lock when it come to Caribana. It easy to pong Caribana because plenty ting wrong wid it an all of it have to do wid people – we people, de overseer, tout monde. But plenty ting right wid it too, so ah taking a positive approach to dis ting here today. As a Caribbean person, I glad to know we have such a ting up here. If we din have it, all now so I dead from cultural discombobulation. Once or twice dey did say dey might close it up fuh good an ah did feel sick to meh heart. Not because ah lookin to jump up an party eh because to me Caribana is more dan pretty mas, wining an a parade. If it had finish in troot, it wudda mean one of de main expression fuh meh culture gorn troo. An not jes my heritage but de new one dat we growin to include Icebox Land. What we have here not de same as back home. Dis is a new creature we bornin an we doh really know yet what it go look like – dis chile is from a mix marriage. Over de years it went from a handful Caribbean people to a Icebox Land Caribbean Icon – de whole worl know we name. Yuh hearin meh lyrics? Wedda dey like it or want it, we Caribana putting plenty cahcahdah in Icebox Land bank account. Doh leh nobody tell yuh no. You try to get ah taxi in Toronto during dat week nuh? Hotel full, flight coming een, gas price suddenly add twenty cents, Budget and Enterprise car park empty. Every speaker, generator, flat bed truck an microphone rent out. Everybody who have space to put a car charging yuh $20 to squeeze in. Deh doh care if de car mash de grass but after Caribana if yuh walk too close dey want to boof yuh. Caribana have problem to fix, ah not saying no, but when you look close at de amount of organization it taking to bring off such a massive ting, yuh have to give dem a clap. Jes de crowd alone nuff to give yuh heart attack if yuh doh plan de movement properly. Yuh ever take four chirren to a mall? Johnny want to pee, Rupert gorn so, Seeta hungry an Adolphus snatch someting from de people shop. Yuh ketchin yuh nen-nen to keep deze four chirren togedda. So imagine you put on a event wid nearly a million people. An not jes any people eh, is Caribbean people. You done know how we wayward fuh spite. If de sign say No Entry, is exactly dey we looking to buss a hole in de fencing to pass troo. If de security guard say only people wid costume could pass dey, we looking to argue dong de poor man who getting $12 a hour to take abuse. Den yuh have to make sure we doh break Icebox Land rule an law. Caribana noisy. We cah have a quiet Caribana. Dis is not no ballet. Any one of dem speaker dey using, bigger dan meh car. At Lamport Stadium we have to done by a certain hour uddawise de residents in dat area go call pohlice. So de organizer have to make sure de show start on time, de costume cross on time, de judges finish judge on time, de result give out on time and we stop making noise on time. You ever tell a Caribbean crowd dat music done? Or to lower de music? Yuh ever hear Iwer or Destra whisper a chune? Noise pollution law in yuh pweffen, papa. When de truck reach lower dong de Lakeshore dey have to unplug de noise. After all, music in de middle of de day, during a parade, by a lake, on a Saturday, over a long weeken does disturb Icebox Landians. We cah have dat. Yuh understan?
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