CARNIVAL LAGNIAPPE

Thousands of Trinidadians are expected to head for the more popular beaches today from a relatively early hour, armed with their CD players and what is left surprisingly of their energy and enthusiasm.

It has become something of a tradition within the past two decades or so for post Carnival partying and unwinding at beaches on Ash Wednesday. It will be a belated goodbye to Carnival 2004, and scores of tourists many of them returning residents, will join with the locals to relive their Carnival fun, sing along and dance to the latest Calypsos, eat bake and shark and roti, consume alcohol and have what they generally regard as having a good time. A few may even decide to be ‘unconventional’ and take a dip at Maracas Bay as well, or at whichever beach the partying spirit leads them.

The visitors, returning residents et al, view this as getting a Carnival lagniappe and a chance to optimise the money spent on their vacation. For them it will be a welcome extension of what ironically is a pre-Lenten festival, getting in essence three days of Trinidad and Tobago’s “Greatest Show on Earth” for the price of two. In addition, resident Trinidadians who have been confused recently with all this talk by the Government of Barbados that flying fish off Trinidad and Tobago waters should be its fishermen’s for the taking, yet offering nothing in return, can either look out from Maracas Bay, if that is their liming area of choice, and stand in their shoes and wonder, or simply shrug it off as silly season stuff.

If nothing must stop the Carnival, as an old song goes, then for them nothing should stop its extension as well, including questionable Barbados claims to Tobago’s flying fish. Ash Wednesday is the day on the Christian calendar, observed mainly by Roman Catholics, when ashes are sprinkled by priests on foreheads to remind Christians that they are entering a period of discipline in much the same way the Muslims observe Ramadan. Today marks the beginning of the Lenten Season which is today observed more in the breach than anything else. This is a pity because Lent should give us time to pause and contemplate a great deal about ourselves and our lives and the state of our country.

Fete is great and we certainly know how to fete but there is a time and place for everything and we would do well to face all the serious issues we have in our country and perhaps the Lenten season is the most appropriate time. And while on the subject of discipline, drivers heading for the country’s beaches today, because of the volume of traffic which will be triggered are advised to exercise more than usual caution on the roads. Not only should they be careful not drink and drive, but should be extra courteous to other users of the road, particularly if heading into or out of the winding North Coast Road.