Trudy of Carnival Faces enlightened me to her involvement in the #ThePeoplesJouvert movement and that automatically peaked my interest. Not only because she is one of the few that is trying to preserve the culture but she is one that I truly consider a friend. Fast foward to collection. As media, I had no collecting to do but my team was able to conveniently collect. There was no line, mishaps or headaches.
Not too bad.
The packages included:
- A drawstring bag to fit everything into
- A checklist
- A plastic bag which had your powder
- Your teeshirt/bodysuit
- Reject linen *the orange bag you see
- A whistle
- A mask
- Meal chit
- Cup
- Telephone case
About this package. It was decent enough, no real complaints but a few observations.
- The bag was decent enough.
- The reject linen idea. I appreciated not having to take one of my heavy duty black garbage bags to sit on afterward and that they actually thought of masqueraders here. LOVE.
- The bodysuit snapped in the crutch. Those who planned on wearing stockings had to either not wear it or come up with another option. One of my friends ripped it and sew it back together and the other just didn't wear it. Thing is, it snags the stockings. Personally, I don't wear stockings on the road whether jourvert or carnival so I was good.
- The meal chit given was made of paper. Paper anything at a jouvert doesn't mix. By the time I was ready to eat my chit was destroyed by water and paint and was in pieces.
- The cup was "moody". It changed color by temperature. That wasn't expected and was a pleasant surprise. It's the little things with me. Best of all, the cup was covered. This jouvert I didn't have to fight with the paint or the powder while having my drink.
- We expected the telephone case to be one of those plastic waterproof cases but it was actually a sealed plastic bag courtesy of Great Value. Hear nah, we all laughed! BUT that is actually the best thing to protect your phone while at a jouvert after those waterproof cases. Telephone cameras work excellent while in them. It was just the shock factor of what we were expecting vs what we got....
Small thing. Jouvert is not a fashion show. We go with the intention of getting dirty but it was worth mentioning.
On to the event itself.
I can't remember the time we got to the venue but the sun was up. I want to believe we got there around 7:30 and hung out drinking and talking a bit and walked in around 8. For 3 of us on the team, there was a problem with the green wristbands for the drinks. They weren't snapping closed propertly. The solution was to give us a yellow wristband for our writsts, tie the green wristband somewhere on our person and keep our cups. Sounded good to me.
As we walked in, we were greeted by a paint station.
Here you picked your color poison. There was just enough water in the paint to not make it stick (or smell, thank God). We made several trips to this station.
When I saw the size of the bar, I figured that within the next hour or two that it would be a problem getting a drink but it never was. As soon as I approached the bar, I was attended to immediately. There was honestly NEVER a line. Whenever there was a crowd at the bar, you came to quickly realize that the crowd was just liming there and not waiting to be served.
I am not sure of all the DJ's as I only got there by 8 or so but I got there in time to hear Jay Dot, Rocksteady, DJ Bonez, House Arrest and DJ J Rocca.
The DJ who played the rap/hip hop is the only one that I could have gone without hearing. Don't know who exactly it was but he played rap and slow songs and said it was "for the ladies". Hear nah, I'm a lady and had no desire to hear the slow songs. I patronized the rap/hip hop but that too I could have done without. This is JOUVERT and no matter how you'd like to spin in, JOUVERT is a Caribbean event and we want to hear CARIBBEAN music. Period. There were those that fully enjoyed it but for me personally, I did not. Then there was the neverending struggle for DJ's. DJ House Arrest had to keep the crowd's attention when newer soca selections were being played so he had to resort to the commercial songs but I understood that it had to be done as he learned the crowd. I thank God that he didn't have to go so deep to play "Palance". In closing, when the truck began to move DJ J Rocca was playing and as it was near to the end, he let loose on the newer songs. The song that mash up the place for me was:
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!
All in all, The People's Jouvert in West Palm Beach was great. West Palm Beach Police said that "this was the easiest festival" they've had to manage. Job well done guys, you get an 9 out of 10 (from me). The event was SAFE and without incident or injury. I thought this was going to be an annual thing but the birdies have told me that it will be twice a year and not trying in any way to compete with the Miami Carnival jouvert in October. This is just something to scratch the jouvert itch that many of us have. I plan on being there for the rest. West Palm Beach, I didn't know allyuh had it in yuh!!!!
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