Clay­ton Clarke

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

The sem­i­nar­i­ans at St John Vian­ney and the Ugan­dan Mar­tyrs Sem­i­nary at Mt St Bene­dict in St Au­gus­tine took a break from their de­vo­tion­al rou­tines to cel­e­brate Car­ni­val on Fan­tas­tic Fri­day.

Hail­ing from coun­tries in­clud­ing Kenya, Ghana, Nige­ria, Cameroon, the De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Re­pub­lic of Con­go, Ugan­da, Tan­za­nia, In­dia, Aru­ba, Haiti, Suri­name, and T&T, the priests in train­ing trans­formed the sem­i­nary’s spa­cious greens in­to a vi­brant Car­ni­val are­na, com­plete with a stage and dec­o­ra­tions.

Lo­cal stu­dents Jerome Alexan­der, Jamele Brown, Luke Walk­er and David Vil­lafana led the way in the fes­tiv­i­ties, with Walk­er per­form­ing a drama­ti­sa­tion of Lord Kitch­en­er’s Bees’ Melody, along­side his group dressed as bees. Vil­lafana played a key role in the stick­fight­ing pre­sen­ta­tion, while Walk­er al­so spear­head­ed the sem­i­nary’s steel or­ches­tra.

For­eign stu­dents brought their own cul­tur­al flair and cap­ti­vat­ed the au­di­ence with tra­di­tion­al African dances and songs.

Lo­cal cui­sine was a high­light of the event, with dish­es such as corn soup, pelau, souse, geera neck, bake and shark, and chan­na fea­tured on the menu.

Prin­ci­pal and Rec­tor of the sem­i­nary, Rev Dr Ja­son Boatswain, not­ed that Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions have been a part of the Ro­man Catholic in­sti­tu­tion since its found­ing in 1943.

“The Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tion is noth­ing new to the sem­i­nary. It has been oc­cur­ring since the in­cep­tion of the sem­i­nary which has been in ex­is­tence for 82 years,” he said.

Rev Dr Boatswain ex­plained that the event was al­so an op­por­tu­ni­ty for cul­tur­al ex­change and un­der­stand­ing.

“This has mor­phed in­to a cul­tur­al melange, a mix­ture of dif­fer­ent cul­tures. You have the African tra­di­tion and beat fus­ing with Caribbean cul­ture. Part of it is in­cul­tur­at­ing them, but at the same time they are shar­ing their cul­ture with us,” he added.

“We want to ex­pose the new sem­i­nar­i­ans to the good, the bad and the in­dif­fer­ent of T&T’s cul­ture be­cause if they are go­ing to be able to talk to, to coun­sel, to be with peo­ple, they have to un­der­stand the cul­ture.”