Los Parranderos Picante is hot!

They created history to become the only school to score a hattrick in the National Parang Association’s Junior Parang Competition (Secondary Schools), the them of which was ‘Viva De Parranda’.

Moruga Secondary, once known as Moruga Composite, earned 171 points with their rendition of ‘La Dedicacion’ and ‘Amigos’ for the competition held on November 20 at Bishop Anstey/Trinity College East Auditorium in Trincity.

Barataria South Secondary placed second with 168 points and Holy Faith Convent (Penal), scoring 166 points, was third.

With three championships, and longstanding tradition in parang, Moruga Secondary is now a full-fledged band, known as Los Parranderos Picante, teacher Cecelia Joseph explained. “They now go out performing for shows throughout the country,” Joseph said, adding that this year the students were eager to learn their new songs and get into the dance routine having won in 2015.

“They were more than ready for this year’s competition,” Joseph said. The students were far from complacent, as they worked harder than last year to coordinate their choreography with singing.

When asked about the cost of production for 2016, Cecelia smiled saying she was happy that parents and local business-owners co-operated with the school.

“We have students coming from the depressed area, where many just survive on little. So we had to write to all the business-owners and we were happy that many responded favourably to this venture,” she said.

She noted parents who are seamstresses and tailors assisted in getting the costumes ready this year as they did in the previous years. She said although Spanish is a subject in the school, Moruga Secondary just has one teacher and this was also a challenge to get the students to understand what they were saying when they would sing these songs.

She thanked past students and tutor Aaron Alexander who visited the school daily to conduct classes with the 18 students of the parang band.

Alexander spent much of his time teaching the proper pronunciation for the songs.

Apart from tutoring, he also accompanied the band on stage playing the mandolin.

Other teachers who assisted in the training of this winning school were Anthony Gonzales, Billion Blackman and Afeisha Brereton.

The lead singers of the school were Vickiece Harrington and Nicholas Lucos.

Los Parranderos Picante were guest performers for the national parang finals in Arima on December 10.

Parang champs Moruga Secondary is now known as Los Parranderos Picante.