Trifter

Atop a huge signboard constructed above a cornerstone building in downtown Port of Spain, Trinidad there’s a countdown to Trinidad’s Carnival.   The days, the hours, the minutes and the seconds tick away on this signboard announcing to all the time of this year’s Carnival celebrations.

In Trinidad it began decades ago with the French Creole planters and their society friends staging a carnival every year the two days before Ash Wednesday.  In those days it was a decent, happily musical affair with many parties and much revelry.  Since then it has descended into a hedonistic and cultural business with excessive drinking and sexual activity amongst the mostly scantily clad participants who have long since adopted this celebration as the premier cultural event in this country, the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, located about seven miles from the Atlantic coast of Venezuela where the language is English after the British captured the islands from the Spanish and Dutch.

The post colonial government of Trinidad and Tobago promoted the calypso and its accompanying carnival as the signal cultural icon of this country’s independence and since then, 1962, poured its support into it and developed it into a centrepiece for its people.
The carnival itself started out quite well but over the years the traditional calypso with its humourous and satiric lyrics became a heavy affair with extremely few lyrics and much louder musical accompaniment better known as soca or soul calypso.  The manners of the participants also became heavily sexually oriented and nowadays Carnival has become a time for much hedonism and loose behaviour.

Its cultural infleunce has dominated this country ever since and the society leadership continually promotes this Carnival.  Many people have found ways to make money out of this as well as descend into a complete state of pleasure and enjoyment for the two carnival days and at least a month of parties.

It is a good time to enjoy a stay in Trinidad and meet Trinidadians at their best.
Naked women or nearly so are the norm and an abundance of rum and whisky and music prevails.

It is promoted as a way to get rid of the stresses of work and daily life and it can easily exhaust the feinthearted.