With the “Guadeloupe International Cycling Tour”, carnival is one of the events that attracts the largest number of people of all ages. Pictures of the parade of Sunday, January 27 in Pointe-à-Pitre illustrate this article.
Guadeloupe, now a territory of less than 400 000 inhabitants with nearly 60 000 people who get the minimum social values therefore who live below the poverty line (1 026 euros per month in France and Europe) and with a juvenile delinquency that has developed in recent years needs to lick its wounds.
Of course, the internationally famous band, Kassav’, by the voice of its famous guitarist Jacob Desvarieux, has sung in 1984 “Zouk la sé sèl medikaman nou ni” (Zouk is the only medecine we have) but over 30 years later, Guadeloupe needs other medecines to treat its new pains. So, it must be noted that carnival is also become a medicine that allows people to face up to the difficulties of modern life. Thousands of people join carnival groups to let off steam, to exist and many save their meagre income to make their various costumes. That’s precisely this precious freedom, this absence of political takeover that slows down full integration of carnival into the economy of Guadeloupe as is the case in many islands in the Caribbean…
The hospital, is the street…
From November, excitement is rising because the groups start to rehearse their music. Some carnival lovers welcome New Year’s Day with a great relief because the carnival season opens with the famous “ben démaré” in the sea and the parades of the groups begin the first Sunday of January to end Ash Wednesday.
During carnival, people forget the social pressure. The mostly physical complexes disappear. For example, overweight, obesity that, in normal times, are experienced as a big handicap become invisible. Women like men do not hesitate to show their body with all its imperfections because they agree to wear quite daring costumes. What courage! And curiously, the crowd makes no criticism, there is no pejorative word. It’s carnival, everything (or almost) is forgivable!
Because the spectators also come to take medecine by attending these parades in the streets every weekend. If some do not hesitate to put folding chairs on the sidewalks, the majority stand along the streets for hours to see the groups pass, they no longer feel their pain (rheumatism, osteoarthritis, sciatica etc). Carnival lovers’ joy is infectious. Like a battery, the morale of everybody is recharged…
