Michael Sloley/ Freelance Photographer
These two carnival revellers had a great time partying in the mud at the Jokers Wild J'ouvert fete on Friday night. The fete took place at Liguanea Park.After three months of preparation revellers will take to the streets of Kingston for the road parade today, the 13th year that Jamaicans will celebrate carnival en masse.
As the revellers, onlookers, vendors and organisers will once more demonstrate, carnival has engraved itself on the Jamaican entertainment, and cultural landscape.
Today's road march for Jamaica Carnival revellers begins at Liguanea Prep School on East Kings House Road, continues along Lady Musgrave Road, Trafalgar Road, then on to Constant Spring Road before culminating in the vicinity of Carib Cinema in Cross Roads.
The route for Bacchanal Jamaica starts at Mona High and moves on to Wellington Drive, past Worthington Avenue before ending at the Mas Camp Village on Oxford Road.
Julie-Anne Lee Samuels of Jamaica Carnival points out that carnival has a much greater impact than simply being a grand road party. She says since its inception, Jamaica Carnival and related events have had a huge impact on several households. She said this was because several persons outside of the organisers of the event benefit from it.
The scores of vendors who gather outside of the events suggest that several independent entrepreneurs rely on it financially. Additionally, the official sponsors of the event also derive much benefit.
One of the major contentions, other than carnival's coinciding with Easter celebrations, is the identity of the revellers. At the start of Jamaica Carnival, persons argued that soca and carnival had no place in Jamaica because it was not of the masses. Nonetheless, the organisers of the various events have pointed out that the segregation seems to be rapidly disappearing.
Ms. Samuels stated, "The audience has changed ... for the better. " Charmaine Franklin of Bacchanal Jamaica noted that Bacchanal Jamaica events have also been showing a wide cross-section of Jamaicans attending the events. "
She noted that as the masses adopt it, prominent members of the society continue to participate.
Even so, as Ms. Samuels maintains, the aim is to further develop it into a mass event. She states that it is for this reason that Byron Lee, the brain behind Jamaica Carnival, insists that the Jamaica Carnival road march must go through Half-Way Tree.
