What a country. You would think that we’ve only just started to play mas on the streets instead of having done so since 1834. You know Carnival is coming when controversies start to flare up and you see City Corporation officials doing the moonwalk. What we would like to know however, is if the law is the law and it was therefore always against the law, why were portable toilets on top of trucks, popularly known as ’wee wee’ trucks ever allowed to become popular and in regular use, in the first place.
However, notwithstanding the fact that it is against the law, it actually makes sense to have these things for people’s convenience in a band. Someone, who is against these portable toilets, described to me the sight of doubles and Suppligen being thrown to masqueraders in the hot sun and having to jump behind the stench of their portable toilets after the quick and inevitable result. But I think that is the exception. Mas players who don’t have access to these facilities tell a tale of having to look for inevitably dirty bars, dark corners, grass that may not necessarily be tall and so on, because portable toilets are sadly lacking along the mas route.
And just look at how many Carnivals we’ve spawned and how many across the Caribbean take their cue from us, You don’t even have to wonder if these masqueraders get better treatment, we know they do.
So it’s interesting to see the Public Health Department of the Port of Spain Corporation now has come to the realisation that the law exists to be invoked and be moved (no pun intended) enough, to quote in their letter of August 18, 2009, which was sent to the to NCBA by the District Medical Office of Health,
’The following is sent for your information, please be guided accordingly
’Portable Toilets:
’Public Health Ordinance Chapter 12 No.4 Section 70 (1) (b) specifies that ’any privy so foul or in such a state or so situated as to be a nuisance or injurious to health’
’The present system employed by some bandleaders poses a health hazard and as such the practice of ’wee wee trucks’ should be discontinued.
’The alternatives for accommodation for masqueraders on Carnival days are the use of sites, to the determined by the Association in collaboration with the Local Health Authority (POS Corporation where ’portable toilets’ can be situated.’
The reality is that most of the big bands who use these portables, already have their contractual arrangements with their providers in place, so it seems like the Corporation was trying to close the door after the horse had long escaped. These bands have big sponsors as well and the portable toilets are part of the all-inclusive package which they offer. So the law can’t interfere with that, or can it? The next day , after the exclusive story appeared, the Mayor was saying something like, dialogue is still taking place. So is the law really the law? Will bandleaders be without their ’wee wee’ trucks for Carnival 2010 or will what seems to be the current moonwalk position subsequently taken by the Corporation see a compromise for the ’wee wee’ trucks. We women will have to keep our fingers crossed. How
I wish the women who played mas in 1868 could come back to tell us how they made out on the streets when they played mas. According to John Cowley in his book Carnival Canboulay and Calypso the newspaper reports of the time indicated that in 1868 there were seven bands of women ’parading the streets in fantastic dresses’. These bands of black women from the street had names like Black Ball, Dahlia, Don’t-Care-A-Damm, Magenta, Maribun, Mousseline and True Blue.
These bands had their male counterparts, the women had batons and the men were stickfighters and there was fighting in the streets wherever they appeared. So maybe no one would have approached them while they did their business. Who would have dared to interfere with a woman from the Maribun band? But we are in the 21 century, not the 19th, Carnival is also a large revenue earner and so many women enjoy playing mas, they need to be safe. There are no longer stickfighters to stand guard.
The City should take this into consideration when putting public facilities in place.
So Carnival is definitely approaching. This weekend will see another band launch and its the turn of Wee International to present Treasures of the Caribbean down at Crews Inn, Chaguaramas from 4 p.m. to 7 pm. And Southex the organiSers of the Chutney Soca Monarch has put out its calendar of events.
You can continue to send your comments on this series titled Finding The Mas to
djohn@trinidadexpress.com
