In Oc­to­ber, three months be­fore Junkanoo be­gan, ten­sion was al­ready high in the air of neigh­bour­hoods in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas, such as Mc­Col­lough Cor­ner and Ma­son's Ad­di­tion where many Junkanoo Shacks-what in T&T are called mas camps-can be found.

When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the Gaza Strip/One Fam­i­ly shack, de­sign­er and band leader Gary St Louis, 38, was a lit­tle guard­ed be­fore he found out we weren't Ba­hami­an. He need­ed to be sure we weren't from ri­val shacks such as the Sax­ons or Mu­sic Mak­ers try­ing to spy on his pro­duc­tion.

Gaza Strip, a near­ly 1,000 strong group, will be por­tray­ing Hur­ri­cane in the coun­try's tra­di­tion­al Box­ing Day pa­rade. St Louis said com­pe­ti­tion in the an­nu­al street pa­rade of colour­ful cos­tumes, chore­o­graphed dance and live mu­sic was not on­ly tight but strict. If the band sched­uled to cross the stage at 1 am is late, they can be dis­qual­i­fied. And this is just one reg­u­la­tion from the guid­ing 90-page rule book for judg­ing Junkanoo.

At the shack in Ma­son's Ad­di­tion, St Louis was busy past­ing blue rib­bon to his mas­sive in­di­vid­ual cos­tume ded­i­cat­ed to Hur­ri­cane Ka­t­ri­na. The theme for this year's band was pro­posed by painter Stan­ley Burn­side-who is a house­hold name in Junkanoo along with his broth­er Jack­son. At the cen­tre of St Louis's cre­ation, which he's build­ing from his own sketch, is Moth­er Na­ture.

Dec­o­ra­tions alone for these large cos­tumes can cost as much US$2500. When you add man pow­er, the cost of base ma­te­ri­als the fi­nal prod­ucts can reach in­to the thou­sands. The mak­ing of the cos­tume might not even sound as gru­elling as "rush­ing", how­ev­er.

Rush­ing is to the Ba­hamas what play­ing mas is to T&T. And to rush you need an in­stru­ment or knowl­edge of a chore­o­graphed dance to par­tic­i­pate. "Yet the time, mon­ey and hours of stren­u­ous danc­ing on the road are no de­ter­rents to Junkanoo. It seems that every­one in­volved was "born in­to Junkanoo" and that kept their spir­its up year af­ter year.

St Louis re­lat­ed that he too had been par­tic­i­pat­ing and cre­at­ing all his life. His en­tire fam­i­ly from wife, to chil­dren, to aunts, un­cles and cousins, are ac­tive par­tic­i­pants. "Junkanoo is a spir­it. You have to be in it to love it. You can de­scribe junkanoo in many dif­fer­ent forms and fash­ions," he said. Ac­cord­ing to St Louis every year has been his best.

Junkanoo groups come high­ly sec­tioned. At the front you have flag bear­ers or ban­ners. Then there are free dancers which are fur­ther bro­ken down in­to off the shoul­ders, jumpers and naked dancers. Af­ter that there's the chore­o­graphed or show­time sec­tion, which must have a min­i­mum of 12 dancers, all fe­male. Fol­low­ing the women is the brass sec­tion and then tom tom or rhythm drum sec­tion. The fi­nal sec­tion and per­haps most im­por­tant con­sists of large bass drums.

"Bass drums are at the core of the band and are the orig­i­nal drums which can be traced all the way back to Africa. Those are the pulse of the en­tire thing. Every­thing else is like a gar­nish," said Tama­ra Bullard, 32, lead chore­o­g­ra­ph­er at Gaza Strip. Bullard is an ac­coun­tant by day and still grap­ples some­times with the stereo­types as­so­ci­at­ed with Junkanoo. "Its like some of the taboo stuff re­lat­ed to Car­ni­val that says a young la­dy shouldn't be in the street shak­ing up, but its break­ing now be­cause you have an in­flux of all types of peo­ple com­ing in."

The ideas about de­cen­cy may al­so be linked to lin­ger­ing class di­vi­sions found in Junkanoo. Most of the shacks are found in what Bullard calls the in­ner-city and she is ful­ly aware of her Bail­loo Hill Es­tates sub­ur­ban back­ground.

"I feel my par­tic­i­pa­tion is to some ex­tent self af­firm­ing and ad­vo­ca­cy be­cause I try to show them that the so-called out­sider who went to the pri­vate school and the uni­ver­si­ty and has the white col­lar job can still come and con­tribute and that doesn't change who I am as a per­son."

Bullard al­so be­lieves that at­ti­tudes to­wards Junkanoo are chang­ing see­ing that the Na­tion­al Art Gallery of the Ba­hamas host­ed the first ex­hib­it ever ded­i­cat­ed to the art of Junkanoo in Jan­u­ary. Work from the Burn­sides was fea­tured in the ex­hib­it and their pieces al­so make up part of the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion speak­ing to the in­flu­ence Junkanoo cos­tum­ing has on the Ba­hami­an artis­tic con­scious­ness.

For the up­com­ing vi­su­al artist, Jef­frey Meris, 21, who's al­so a Gaza Strip de­sign­er and builder, his art and Junkanoo are in­trin­si­cal­ly linked. "My art and Junkanoo work very co­he­sive­ly. Junkanoo in­flu­ences my art­work be­cause with­out Junkanoo I wouldn't be where I am to­day cre­at­ing work and stuff like that. Junkanoo opened up doors for me to meet artists and be­come a part of the lo­cal con­ver­sa­tion when it comes to art," he said.

Meris is al­so a lif­er, hav­ing been in­volved in Junkanoo since age 10. Apart from learn­ing from the artists he ad­mires such as the Burn­sides, the shack has be­come a home away from home for Meris and much more. "This has be­come al­most like a re­li­gion some­thing that you faith­ful­ly fol­low. There's no grand cash com­pen­sa­tion to say if you wan­na be rich for the rest of your life do this but it's al­most like Chris­tian­i­ty.

"Like the way Chris­tians be­lieve that when you die you'll go to heav­en. It's just some­thing that you look for­ward to at the end of the year just some­thing spir­i­tu­al that you can't re­al­ly de­scribe."