Trinidad and Tobago is famous for it's Carnival. Carnival is held on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It is called the "Greatest Show on Earth."

Carnival Monday

On Carnival Monday morning we celebrate J'Ouvert. It starts around 4.00 a.m. The featured bands are Old Mas, Mud and Oil and blue devils. The mud and oil bands are where the people literally douse themselves in mud or oil and go around trying to dirty the spectators. Trucks playing soca music provides the music for the masqueraders. It is a lot of fun.

After lunch the costumed bands come out only in part of their costumes on the streets. And in the evening there is midnight mas which comprises mainly of steelbands and bands where the people are dressed uniformly in brightly painted jerseys and headbands, ‘chipping' behind a DJ truck.

Carnival Tuesday the costumed bands start their parade at 7.30 a.m. This is called the ‘Parade of the Bands'. The parade is beautiful, a sea of colour unlike anything you've ever seen. There are three categories - small, medium and large. The large bands have approximately 3,000 masqueraders and would need about five DJ trucks to supply music for them. A small band can have just one person putting on his own little display. This street parade would end at around 10.00 p.m., but Carnival lovers would stick around ‘liming' until 12.00 a.m when Carnival officially ends.

Before the actual Carnival days we have a variety of shows or festivities that make up the entire Carnival season.

Fetes

A fete is a big public party sponsored by various organizations. These start right after Christmas. It comprises live soca bands and soca artistes and an in-house DJ that would provide music during the intervals when the bands change hands. The most popular fetes now are ‘All-inclusive Fetes' where you pay a large sum of money up front, but you can eat and drink all you like without having to pay extra money.

Calypso is the music of Trinidad and Tobago. It is hard to describe, you'll have to hear it to really understand. For the Carnival, ‘tents' are opened where you can go and sit down and listen to the calypsonians sing on a variety of topics. From these tents, 24 are chosen for the semi-final competition, which is one of the major shows of the season. From here 12 are chosen for the final, which is the Calypso Monarch Competition held on Dimanche Gras night.

We also have the Soca Monarch Competition. Soca is a faster version of calypso and is mostly played at the fetes and on the parade days. Soca music has grown in popularity over calypso. It is played on the radio more often than calypso, so to hear calypso you would have to attend the tents or wait for the semi-final competition.

Some of the other competitions are the Calypso Queen for our women calypsonians. Junior Calypso King and Queen for the school children, and Young Kings for calypsonians who have never won a competiton before.

Panorama is the steelband competition. The steelband is the only instrument of its kind to be invented in the 20^th century - in Trinidad and Tobago. It was originally made from the oil drums and is the National Instrument of the country.

The Panorama final is held on Carnival Saturday night, but the popular show is the semi-final which is a whole day event. Most people attend the semi-final more to party than listen to pan music.

The bands play a soca song of their choice. Some soca artistes actually compose a song especially for the pan, but any song can be played. The bands each have a total of 8 minutes to complete their segment.

There are three categories of bands - small, medium and large. A large band, at least for Panorama, must have no more than 100 members. The medium and large bands are judged at the same competition. The small band category has its own. This was not always so. There was one competition for all the bands, but it was unfair to the smaller bands as a large band always won. Now there is a champion for each category and this makes the panmen very happy.

Dimanche Gras is the final major competition before the two-day parade. It is held on Carnival Sunday night and features mainly the King and Queen of the Band and the Calypso Monarch Competition.

Each band to parade on Carnival Tuesday submits a King and Queen. They each portray a large, beautiful costume. Unlike Brazil where the costumes are carried on floats, the masquerader has to actually ‘pull' the costume. Depending on the size, wheels are sometimes attached to help make carrying the costume easier, but it is mostly supported by the individual.

Also being featured on this night would be the various champions of other competitions which were held for the season.

Trinidad and Tobago has a very diversified ethnic mix. People of East Indian and African descent make up the major part, but we also have Chinese, Portugese and Syrian ethnicities. This makes our culture a varied one. Some of the other major festivals are:

Divali - The Hindu festival of light.

Phagwa - Another Hindu festival. It is celebrated with song, music and dance. Watercolours are mixed and sprayed on all participants.

Hosay - a Muslim festival which is the observance of Shi'ite Muharram rites

Eid-ul-Fitr - a three day festival at the end of Ramadan, the month of fasting, another Muslim festival.

Kite Flying

There is also kite flying in Easter. Kite flying was a dying art but until recently with the introduction of kite flying competitions, it has now become very popular again. The only thing is where before you would make your own kite, there are now ready made ones that can be purchased. I suppose this is one of the reasons it has become so popular once again.

Tobago

In Tobago we have the Tobago Heritage Festival, the Charlotteville Fisherman's Fete and the Crab and Goat race around Easter. Tobago is really the tourist site of the two countries. The beaches are crystal clear and there are beautiful coral reefs.

Trinidad and Tobago lies between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean and has approximately 1.5 million people. We are the leading Caribbean producer of oil and natural gas. Our economy is growing and foreign investment has increased.

We have 13 official public holidays and 2 unofficial ones (Carnival Monday and Tuesday).

Trinidadians are known for our party spirit. We love to ‘lime'. (liming is equivalent to ‘hanging out'). We are a very happy people, even though violent crime has increased a lot lately. Apart from that we have a very lively and go-happy spirit.