Viva Carnival!

Of all the wonderful people we have met at La Fruta, one who deserves special mention is a man named Jimmy.  Jimmy is in his early fifties, with a lengthy, genuine salt-and-pepper beard, kind, wise eyes, and a wiry physique.  He came to visit us at La Fruta one afternoon, and immediately made his impression felt with timely, well-placed advice, an eagerness to work and make necessary improvements (fixing tools, preparing food, you name it), and the age-old ability to captivate an audience with a story.  Jimmy taught us an incredible amount – not only about practical things, but about history, about perspective, and about spirituality.  He is a professor of Arts at the University, where he practices – among other things – puppetry with marionettes.  He has spent significant time in Mexico, living with indigenous peoples there and cultivating his spiritual and cultural philosophies, and his ability to transfer this information to others is incredible.  He also taught us much about La Fruta, as he was good friends with Santiago’s mother Maria, and lived there many times in the past, when the farm was in different form.

Jimmy

The reason Jimmy is so relevant, aside from what I just told you, is that he recently served as our guide in one of the most incredible events in which we have ever participated.  Carnival is a well-known festival which occurs throughout South America. The most well known is in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil – it is the biggest party in the world – but another location known well to people in Latin America (especially Colombians) is in Baranquilla, which subsequently holds the claim for “second biggest” party in the world.  Carnival occurs the weekend before Ash Wednesday, and serves as a release for all worldly pleasures imaginable, as people prepare for their fasting and spiritual cleansing which begins with Lent (on Ash Wednesday, for those less versed in Christianity - I had to look it up). 

Jimmy invited us to attend Carnival with him in Barranquilla.  He explained that he had a place for us to stay, and that we could help him with a display that he had been working on for the event.  We were extremely excited to assist him, and (of course), to take part in the festivities of this exceptional event.  We arrived as a group of about 8 occidentals (westerners), and found Jimmy in a roadside café in the town of Puerto Colombia, about 15 KM outside of Barranquilla.  He welcomed us warmly, and we drank a few beers and discussed life at La Fruta, his time at the University, and eventually, the upcoming carnival.

What we hadn’t realized before is that the ‘display’ Jimmy had been working on was actually at 60-foot-long snake, to be held and danced around by puppeteers (us) through the streets of Barranquilla as part of the biggest Carnival in Colombia.  We weren’t going to see the party, we were going to be in the center of it, feeding it energy through the crowded streets.  Now at this point, we were excited, but naturally a bit of trepidation crept in as well, realizing that we would be front and center as a bunch of ‘gringos’ in a crowd of (in this case) drunk, rowdy Colombians who enjoy the practice of throwing flour in the faces of any and everyone (apparently it’s a Carnival tradition).  We joined Jimmy for the walk from the café to a small community on the outskirts of the town, where 20 or 30 artisans and hippies live in tents overlooking the rolling waves of the Caribbean Sea.  We climbed atop of a brick building and slept on its wooden roof in tents and hammocks, listening to Mother Nature’s breathing – the calm before the storm.

We awoke with the sun, and while some of us meditated, some did yoga, some rolled back over, Jimmy journeyed to the community and prepared some coffee for us.  We walked to the town and had some breakfast, and there we found the party bus which would bring us to Carnival.  Alongside the bus, we saw the head of the Serpent, taller than me and four times as wide.  It took four of us to move it.  This would be quite a day.

"Ay Que Rico" Our aubuelo capitans enjoying the party

On the bus we met some other people who would help us during the festival – this included two unicyclists, and two older, drunk, lively gentleman dressed in sailors costumes.  Together we made quite a team, as we headed to the festival and partook in some of the local cane spirit beverage called Aguardiente.  When we arrived, we departed the bus amidst thousands of performers dressed in all manner of costume. With floats and displays each consisting of its own speakers and music, there were numerous motorized parties going on at once.  We carried the snake to our entry place in the carnival, and then began our costume procession.  We painted our faces, covered ourselves in talc (we were told if we covered ourselves, we would save the more aggressive attacks later), and took in the experience.  After the months of solitude and tranquility at La Fruta, the energy of the party - with competing music blaring from oversized speakers, performers bustling in preparation, and hawkers managing to communicate about their wares above it all - it was quite an event.  I was getting excited now, finally catching up to Claire, who had been full of energy for weeks talking about Carnival.

one of the many colorful groups participating in the carnaval

Before the parade started, we set up the serpent.  As usual, things went wrong.  Both supports for the head broke, and we had to scramble to find branches to make new supports, but in the end we prevailed.  As the line began to move, we jumped into action, wheeling the head onto the street, with 7 or 8 people lined along the length with poles, dancing and weaving the body behind.  We were among one of the only displays in the Carnival made privately and by hand in the original tradition of Carnival, and the sheer size, color, and decoration of the serpent were spectacular.  The event was made more impressive by the history and significance of the Serpent in the indigenous cultures of the area, a story dictated to us eloquently the night before by Jimmy.

As we weaved through the streets, people rose and shouted with excitement at the spectacle.  Encouraged by the energy, we became more energetic, dancing around the support poles, yelling things such as ‘Viva Baranquilla’, and ‘Viva Carnival’, and pumping our hands to entice the crowd.  In the end, the serpent-gringo combination was quite successful, and we received a welcoming from the thousands upon thousands of spectators lining the streets of the parade.  At times we circled the snake, and wrapped around the performers on either side of us, engulfing the monocyclists amidst the circle, or a man inside a metal ball, and on some occasions, even men on stilts towering above us like giants from a fantasy film.

Jimmy's wise-beyond-his-years son Valentin joined us as well

The entire walk took about 4 hours, and we covered a lot of ground as we walked through the city – never stopping, but rather dancing and weaving and circling the colorful serpent.  We faced some opposition from drunk members of the crowd, shouting things about ‘Gringos’ or other offensive comments, but this energy was quickly overwhelmed by the colorful serpent and the spiritual Guerrero (warrior) Jimmy at its lead.  




We arrived at the end of the parade exhausted, covered in sweat and paint and talc and dirt, and elated from it all.  Jaime had told us that the serpent, which was made painstakingly, by hand, with the help of many people both Colombian and foreign, was a symbol of unification through diversity.  Certainly, the multicultural, multinational, multiaged, and multiethnic group guiding the serpent was an appropriate representation.  Attending Carnival would have been an experience to remember, but being a part of it while assisting our friend to spread a message of peace and collaboration made it the experience of a lifetime.

the next day we worked with Valentina and her partner Joao to make a stop-motion video celebrating the snake. Wiggling our bodies in unison and eventually plunging into the refreshing Carribean