Last year, Kariculture.net (new webmagazine dedicated to Caribbean culture) came, for the first time, to the competition area of the “Dimanche Gras” carnival parade, located at the entrance of Frébault street in Pointe-à-Pitre, where had been put a red carpet and terraces. We needed a lot of courage and cold blood to stay there and make photos and videos of the various groups. Indeed, we do not count the number of unpleasant comments that we heard from some “audiovisual employees”, the number of times where these people stood on purpose in front of our camera to prevent us from making pictures and videos or the number of times they came to tell us frankly to go out around the carpet, then after the carpet.
So, we realized that this famous red carpet seemed to be for the two major radio and television on the island; we did not know that the carnival of Guadeloupe – a popular and free event – had been “privatized” by these people! Kariculture.net is an online magazine which has the same status than all French important online magazines so we stayed there and we continued working to offer 2018 carnival pictures to our readers from Guadeloupe, France, all over the world (specially the United States). Because we were determinated not to give in, in the end, these zealous employees calmed down…
This year, we chose to innovate. Indeed, we came to the area of departure of this big parade in the the district of Lauricisque in Pointe-à-Pitre. At 12 o’clock, the opening was launched. We could talk, joke and laugh with carnival lovers from various groups and congratulate them. Over there, there was no microphone, no television camera, the atmosphere was very cool… It must be noted the participation in the parade of the 1st and 2nd Runner-up of the Mother’s Queen, the Queen and the 1st Runner-up of the King of the 2018 Paris Tropical Carnival. We attented a symphony of colours and sounds which staged themes such as nature, water, global warming and extinction of the bee, local production, the fire at the University Hospital of Guadeloupe and its consequences, peace, love, music, cinema etc.
Around 4:30 pm, the 40 “snare drum groups” and “mask groups” from several cities and towns of the island had already started the parade and we had already photographed them. The great majority of the 100 000 spectators gathered all along the 5-km-route – around this famous red carpet – waited until 10:00 pm to see them. Kariculture.net was already with the “skin groups” that had begun their parade at 7:00 pm…
In this second part, we publish an album with 100 pictures of 23 “snare drum groups” and “mask groups”: Anthuriums (Trois-Rivières), Volcan (Basse-Terre), Atout Band (Petit-Bourg), Kasika (Capesterre Belle-Eau), Kréyòl Stars (Capesterre Belle-Eau), Sa Ki La (Sainte-Anne), Pirouli Band (Baie-Mahault), Pikanga (Baie-Mahault), Sénat All Stars (Pointe-à-Pitre), Van Lévé Super Stars (Sainte-Rose), Restan La (Le Gosier), Yo Menm (Sainte-Anne), Mas an Nou, Tout’ Génération Mass (Le Moule), Tonshi Mass (Pointe-à-Pitre), ADN Mass (Les Abymes), J. Mas (Petit-Bourg), Mass Lapwent (Pointe-à-Pitre), Ata-Faya (Sainte-Anne), Reality Bimass (Baie-Mahault), Asoto Guinen (Haiti), Family Band (Haiti) and Bagad Karukéra (Brittany, France).
