Nigel Teles­ford

Free­lance Writer

I t seems there is, in fact, a method to the mad­ness.

The crazed ca­coph­o­ny of Caribbean cul­tures hap­pened again last Sat­ur­day at the Cen­tral Broward Park and Broward Coun­ty Sta­di­um in Lauder­hill, Flori­da, as part of the Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val of­fi­cial J’Ou­vert pa­rade.

Pro­duced by the Mi­a­mi Broward One Car­ni­val Host Com­mit­tee over the past decade, the J’Ou­vert vig­il be­gan around 6 am, as Caribbean cul­ture lovers be­gan as­sem­bling at the gates.

There were Caribbean peo­ple from dif­fer­ent states and cities across the USA, with dif­fer­ent al­le­giances and “pump­kin-vine” ties, her­itages and con­nec­tions.

The Car­ni­val is where they all co­in­cid­ed, some clashed, many oth­ers col­lab­o­rat­ed con­sis­tent­ly and con­cen­trat­ed their en­er­gies and tal­ents to con­vinc­ing­ly con­tribute to com­plete con­tent­ment!

Much like that bliss­ful sleep one might ex­pe­ri­ence af­ter show­er­ing from a J’Ou­vert morn­ing, the end re­sult is typ­i­cal­ly a re­ju­ve­nat­ed and in­spired spir­it bare­ly con­tained in an ex­haust­ed phys­i­cal body.

That end-feel­ing ex­ists in tan­dem with the tin­gle most peo­ple feel af­ter sit­ting down fi­nal­ly, when de­plet­ed from a good day out on the road win­ing, jump­ing, wav­ing and ex­press­ing them­selves to the fullest.

T&T was es­tab­lished as a cos­mopoli­tan state and de­vel­oped this fes­ti­val over time to cater to ex­act­ly this need for an an­nu­al as­sem­bly. Ex­port­ed over decades by mi­grants and em­braced by their de­scen­dants, the Car­ni­val for­mu­la is far from per­fect and may not even be ide­al for many gov­ern­ment agen­cies, reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies and stake­hold­ers, but the end re­sult does ap­pear to jus­ti­fy the means.

Plagued with late starts and bu­reau­crat­ic red tape, the Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val or­gan­is­ers nev­er­the­less keep work­ing to pre­serve the an­nu­al gath­er­ing and all the fun, free­dom and fam­i­ly re­unions that oc­cur there­in.

“It’s al­ways a chal­lenge try­ing to or­gan­ise Caribbean peo­ple with events that have stip­u­lat­ed start and fin­ish times,” said chair­man of the com­mit­tee, Joan Hink­son.

“We gen­er­al­ly tend to have a knack for want­i­ng to flaunt and ig­nore the rules, but at the end of the day, we must have some or­der and con­form to the re­quire­ments to be able to as­sem­ble and cel­e­brate our cul­ture and our her­itage,” Hink­son added.

A re­turn to the Cen­tral Broward Re­gion­al Com­plex in Lauder­hill for this year’s J’Ou­vert cel­e­bra­tions saw thou­sands of paint­ed and pow­dered (and most­ly smil­ing) peo­ple emerg­ing from the venue through­out the day in search of food, trans­porta­tion, friends and fam­i­ly mem­bers.

A blaz­ing sun scorched mas­quer­aders all morn­ing as they wait­ed to en­ter the gates and for trucks and band lead­ers to be ready to roll and then were oblig­ed to nav­i­gate a cur­va­ceous and of­ten stag­nat­ed route around the grounds.

“It was hot and it was long and it got crowd­ed and crazy at times, but it was al­so so much fun see­ing all my peeps and my cousins that I haven’t seen for the year and en­joy­ing the mu­sic and the vibes; splash­ing every­one with the paint and danc­ing through clouds of pow­der,” said one fe­male pa­tron from At­lanta.

“It’s a taste of true free­dom I think, just a taste of what life could be like in an al­ter­na­tive uni­verse, but this sam­ple is more than enough to feed our souls with pa­tience and tol­er­ance for the stuff we go through the rest of the year to get back to this feel­ing.”

The Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val taste of free­dom con­tin­ued on Sun­day with the grand Pa­rade of the Bands.