Phew – After weeks and weeks of parties, dancing, socialising, drinking and eating, I can say that I have survived my first Crop-Over but now it’s all finished and I’ve had some time to reflect I have to admit that my overall thoughts on the whole thing are very, very mixed.
For those of you that don’t know, Crop-Over is a ‘cultural’ festival that goes on in Barbados over about six weeks culminating in a carnival on the first Monday in August (a Bank Holiday) known as Grand Kadooment Day. I’ll get to K-Day in a minute but before that you have weeks and weeks of build-up and that’s where my first ‘problem’ lies.
Crop-Over basically consists of a series of what the Bajan’s call ‘Limes’, which from what I can ascertain are basically large gatherings of people, standing around in fields, open-spaces, gardens etc, eating and drinking and well, ‘liming’ which is the Bajan word for doing nothing much at all.
I went to three such events and apart from one I can safely say that I was thoroughly bored out of my skull for most of the time.
I just don’t see the point of standing around watching other people eat way too much and drink way too much, while you also eat way too much and drink way too much after the hours of midnight (because Bajan’s don’t usually go out anywhere before 11pm)…I felt like a naughty Gremlin who had snuck out of the house for a giant midnight feast.
I think the locals like these types of ‘parties’ because most of them like nothing better than staring at other people and commenting on what they are wearing, how they have their hair and who they are with, but for someone from the UK who is used to just keeping her head down and not really being bothered about what other people are doing unless it directly affects you personally, I found the entire thing extremely tiresome.
The next issue I have is with Crop-Over itself in that I don’t even know what it’s about. Now, I know someone might say well, look it up, or google it or buy a book, but my point is that surely someone from the Ministry of Culture or the National Cultural Foundation who is being paid to educate us about these things should make it their business to explain at regular intervals what the point of the entire thing is just so that we know. I mean how can you put your heart and soul into ‘celebrating’ when you don’t really know what it is you are ‘celebrating’ for or about.
I believe the ‘celebration’ is somehow supposed to be tied in with the Season of Emancipation (I only know this because I covered a media event to launch the Season) but I still don’t get the direct connection between ‘jumping up’ on Crop-Over while people wuk up on each other like animals, as they drink huge amounts of alcohol, with the emancipation of slaves. Am I missing something?
I also have a slight issue with the amount of events that go on during Crop-over to showcase calypso and soca music. Putting aside the fact that I don’t really like either art-form why do we need to have a Junior Monarch competition separate from the adult Sweet Soca and Party Monarch competitions? Why can’t they just be amalgamated?
And then before you even get to those events you have about a million so-called ‘tents’ where these people sing their songs before being chosen to take part in the competitions. And then there is also Cohobblopot (don’t ask me to explain that word or where it comes from) and countless other places where the Calypsonians and Soca artists sing for their supper – I think it would be much better if is was all condensed a bit so that we don’t get overwhelmed.
Then there is the actual ‘jump’ itself. The ‘jump’ consists of 22 bands in various costumes moving down a set route from a start point to the finish – a bit like the Notting Hill Carnival.
In order to be in the ‘jump’ you have to join a band and I decided to go with ‘Power X Four’ mainly because my friends were also going with them and also because they are one of the bigger bands and so I thought they would be one of the most organised. Well, how wrong can you be… if I was ever going to jump again (which I’m not) I can say now that I would never, ever go with Power X Four.
First of all I paid $480 Barbados dollars for my costume which basically consisted of a bikini top and bottom with a few sequins and beads glued on. Then I had to go back on a set day to collect the costume. I was told this would be the Friday before Grand Kadooment Day but as I was off work I decided I would go on Saturday. Well, needless to say collection was not on Friday anyway.
On Saturday at 1pm the costumes were being given out and when I arrived at Power X Four’s base at 1.35pm, and was told to collect a number, I found out to my horror that I was number 128. This was bad enough but the numbers were being called out on average one every 20 minutes. Meanwhile countless people, friends of friends and any guy at all (yes, men were being let in ahead of women) were allowed to get their costumes ahead of the queue so the number system was doomed to failure anyway.
I waited for about an hour, went down the road for some things and got back at 3.15pm – they had made it to number 54. By the time I left at 4.15pm with a headache and hunger pains they were up to number 76 and needless to say I still didn’t have my costume!
Anyone would think they’d never done this Crop-Over thing before and were trying it out for the first time – Gosh people, how hard is it to organise collections for the different sections on different days or to have the guys one day and the girls the next!!! Anything has to be better than that complete and utter shambles.
My mum reckoned the costumes were given out so late so if there were any problems there wouldn’t be much you could do about it – either way the longer I waited in the hot sun for that tiny two-piece ensemble, that cost me nearly $500, the more I felt like I had MUG written on my forehead. I later went back about 8.30pm in the evening before another party (which was the excellent event hosted by the Mottley family) and waited a mere 20 minutes.
Then on K-Day we all gathered at the start point with bits already falling off of our costumes waiting for our scheduled beginning as band number 4. Bands 1, 2, and 3 left with no problems but there was no sign of our illustrious Power X Four organisers so we stood and waited as band after band left before us until finally we left in position number 8 – which doesn’t sound too bad until you realise that there were about 20 / 30 mins inbetween each band setting off.
Then once we were on the road and I thought the troubles would cease but again I was wrong as we stopped and started, and stopped and started and never managed to keep any momentum with the dancing and wukking up and instead barely managed a slow funeral-like march.
Eventually we reached the National Stadium where our costumes were ‘judged’ but by now my costume was hanging on by a thread and needless to say we didn’t win that competition.
After that the drinks trucks decided to move ahead of the revellers and from then on it was no longer a ‘jump-up’ but more like a marathon as we ran and ran and ran after the drinks trucks in 40 degree heat, only to be told when we reached them that they had run out of water and there was only alcohol left. After pleading with people to please give me something non-alcoholic at least I finally averted fainting with some much needed orange juice.
About 8 hours after starting off we finally made it to our destination but we had long since left the band behind who were now moving at snail’s pace and had nearly caught up with the first bands to leave.
After all that I had to go to work and try to produce news while wearing nothing but a bikini top and bottom and some beads. I really didn’t drink much but because I’d only had a hotdog for the entire day I was definitely not in the best state to produce a news bulletin.
But you know what… despite the problems with the band and the costume and the drinks and other niggly little things, I think I can safely say that I did enjoy Crop-Over 2010 and Grand Kadooment day in parts.
I haven’t partied like that since I went travelling around the world in 2000, when I used to go out almost every day, and all of the people I went out with are great fun and good people to know.
I drank, sang, danced and at one event got thoroughly soaked to the skin during a literal lightening storm but I definitely would do most of it, yes, most of it, all over again next year… am I crazy or what?
Karen R's Blog 