This is the whole delegation from Santiago, standing in the blistering heat of Monte Plata. I'm the third from the right.
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Me, masked
And now, the (almost) full effect. Imagine me with gloves on to hide the giveaway hands and a couple of bladders for whacking. Also, eventually we got new morcillas (sausage-belts) in sequined fabric. And I added more mirrors and buttons.
Paid to be a pig
2/21 – 2/24/06
Continuing my all-Casa de Arte week, on Thursday night I attended a program commemorating the anniversary of the murder of Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó, the DR’s answer to Che Guevara. Most likely, Caamaño would be just as familiar a face to us if the U.S. hadn’t supported the military coup d’etat that ousted Juan Bosch, the first constitutionally elected president here in over 30 years, and then come in 1965 to brutally stamp out the grassroots revolution that followed. Apparently, Johnson got scared by the new 1963 constitution which prohibited monopolies as well as excessive landholding, causing him to cry, “Commies!” Anyway, Caamaño was on the side of the Constitutionalists, who fought against both the military triumvirate and the US forces, and very briefly became president after they threw out the military men. After voluntarily stepping down to allow for free elections once again, he went into exile in Cuba, where he became pals with Fidel and Che. (Apparently, Castro has called Caamaño and Che two of the most important political figures of the 20th century.) Balaguer was elected with the help of US support and a terrorist campaign he led together with other Trujillo cronies against, which killed off about 350 political activists in the first half of 1966. As I found out in last Tuesday’s film showing, the violence only continued under Balaguer’s rule, and Caamaño worked on gathering strength to lead a guerrilla force back into the DR to kill or overthrow Balaguer. He and his guerrilleros did land in the south in 1973, only to be captured and murdered by Balaguer’s men. So his fate was much like Che’s.
All this history is basically covered up here – students definitely don’t learn about it in school, as a few students in the audience bitterly pointed out. But there are still plenty around who actually fought in the “April War,” and are happy to talk about it with any who will listen. Indeed, you could hardly shut them up at this event! (Anyone looking for a good, revolutionary oral history project?) Thus, Caamaño is far from forgotten. In fact, there is a piece of graffiti on a wall at one of the biggest intersections in Santiago that reads, “Caamaño vive” (Caamaño lives). So the next day I went out and bought the documentary, “Abril: Trinchera de honor.” At least I can correct my own ignorance on the subject.
The next couple of days were spent in confusion, as I went back and forth between trying to correct my book manuscript and running to the tailor’s to make sure my carnival costume was actually getting done. Also had to go by Tonito’s on Saturday to put foam and elastic on my mask and make it useable; this meant I also caught part of the Confraternos dance team’s reggaetón-heavy rehearsal. Also had to purchase a bunch of mirrors, buttons, etc to decorate my outfit. The costumes did get done, but not until only a few hours before Sunday’s parade. We frantically hot-glued jingly bells and all the other adornments, just managing to get out the door with our half-decorated jumpsuits at the tail end of the parade. Man, will all that crap on those things weigh about 20 pounds! And that’s not counting the mask! It’s tiring to walk and dance for miles in the costume, but it’s also more fun than going costumeless, I found. As soon as you put the mask on, you are a different person; you have to BECOME the lechon. And a lechon is always dancing, jumping, moving around. Everyone wants to take pictures of the lechon. Some people want the lechon to give them or their friends a vejigazo. (Can anyone say, sadomasochism?) And some people want to throw confetti straight into the lechon’s mask, getting little pieces of paper into their eyes and noses. OK, that only happened once, but it was decidedly uncomfortable. Bad, bad spectators! As it turned out, though, our security force was pretty useful, rum and all. Aside from the confetti incident, they did a good job of keeping people out of our way and diffusing problems. Do you know what they are armed with, for our protection? No? Give up? Meat thermometers. Seriously. At least one was; he showed me, apparently so I would know I was safe from attacks by frozen turkeys. Or from people. Whatever.
Because of our late start, the streets were so crowded with both lechones and spectators that much of our time on Las Carreras was spent standing still. We still were far from the monument as the sun was setting, and it didn’t look like we would get any closer any time soon, so we just turned around and headed for home. Actually, our awesome disco pickup had turned around long ago – whether it was stalled, out of gas, or on fire again, I’m not quite sure – but we found it again near the other end of the boulevard, waiting for us to give it a push. Back at the ranch, otherwise known as Betania and Julio’s house, we celebrated by removing our sweat-drenched costumes and drinking beer.
I was really beat after all that walking, dancing, and all. I slept better than I’d done in a long time. All the better for visiting the cockfights on Monday. While working at home in the morning, Rafaelito had called me to cancel my usual afternoon accordion class because he had to go play at the cockfights with his son, Raul. Because it so happened that over breakfast I’d been thinking to myself, “I haven’t been to the galleras in a loooooong time. I really should go again soon,” I invited myself along. It didn’t work out quite as planned, though: the plan had been to go around 4:00. But when I got to his house at 4:00, it soon became 5:00, and then we found out from Raul that we didn’t need to go until after 6:00. Was I ever bored! Finally, finally we made it out of there, though, with Rafaelito’s son Nixon (currently accordionist for Frandy Sax, formerly with Krisspy) and helper Manaury in tow.
On the way over we discussed places in the US and how long it takes to drive from one to the other; Nixon’s European tour, when he and Krisspy played in Holland, France, Spain, and Switzerland; and the nice sunset. We had plenty of time because the gallera we were going to, “Gallera El Palo,” was on the other side of Navarrete – maybe a 45 minute drive. On the way we passed by the Navarrete graveyard where Nico Lora, the foundational Dominican accordionist, is buried. When we arrived, we found a crowded parking lot, plenty of Roman friends and fans, stray dogs, and pig heads. (They were serving roast pork with casabe.) I didn’t partake of the cadaver, but the Romans and the dogs did. It was amazing how many people were there, considering it was in the middle of nowhere. Seeing them eat, though, I got hungry too so we went to investigate the situation in the gallera’s kitchen. They were only serving friend pork, chicken, and tostones, so I ordered a plate of tostones with tostones. Fried plantains are good, but did not a meal make. Still, I felt better than I did, at least until I got stung by a wasp. Unbelieveable! I don’t think I’ve ever been stung by a wasp in my life until now. And I hope never to be stung by another. It is still hurting, itching, and hot to the touch today. Also, the armpit is not the best place in the world to be stung. I recommend avoiding it if you have a choice.
We stole some ice from the “cooler” (actually a leaky wooden crate with cold beer inside) to stem the swelling, and then I felt better for a while. Soon I was distracted by the music, anyway: Raul was playing with La Seleccion, a band I’ve always liked, although as Nixon pointed out, the bass got “cruzado” (crossed, or out of sync) at one point. For the grand finale, all three Romans played together: Raul and Rafaelito on dual (dueling?) accordions, and Nixon on güira; and Nixon and Rafaelito on accordion and Raul on saxophone … it was sort of a musical chairs game, since they all play all the instruments. Everyone loved this, and all pulled out their cell phone cameras at the same time, trying to get close to the stage to snap a picture. This made it hard for me to get my own pictures, because I kept getting arms and phones in the way, but I did what I could. Afterwards, we all caravanned back to Rafaelito’s house, where Carmen made some crab and plantains for us. It was a good end to my evening, and the beginning to theirs, as from there Rafaelito was going straight on to his regular Monday gig at Rancho Merengue.
On Wednesday, as I was running around getting things done I got a call from some carnival characters that I should really get up at 6 AM the next day. If you know me at all, you know this is not something I am inclined to do and I’m not even sure the last time I voluntarily got up at that ungodly hour. But eventually they talked me into it, with the promise of seeing a new place, meeting carnival groups from all over the country, and of course free food. We were even going to get paid! I never thought I’d make money as a lechona, but there you are.
Still fretting about my alarm clock for the next day, I made my way to the house of Gaspar Rodriguez, the host of a TV merengue típico show, for an interview. He lives in Gurabo, a section on the outskirts of town that I’d never actually been to. When I got there, I found him, his son, and a visiting musician holed up in his own mini video studio searching through his enormous video collection for clips to show on a merengue memories segment the next week while supervised by a giant – and quite good – oil painting of Tatico Henriquez. In this way, I found out the (for me) very exciting news that he has video footage of the late greats Nico Lora, Guandulito, and El Negrito Figueroa. This is historic stuff, and he’s promised to make me a copy. I was also surprised to find that the guest musician was my favorite bass player I’d never met, El Che, who played on the bootleg Siano Arias recording that is responsible for getting me hooked on this stuff. I told him this story, and it turned out he’d never even heard the recording himself. So I whipped out my handy iriver and played it for him. He thought it was good, too. We watched videos for a while as Gaspar’s wife served us coffee and loaned me some Chinese ointment for my wasp sting. Then we had a very interesting and educational interview about merengue típico and mass media, which will probably be continued on a later date. He also asked me to come down and play a tune on his program on March 11. Yikes! I need to practice… but how, with all this carnival business going on??
Afterwards, I met up with Matthew, a schoolteacher and ga-ga musician who had agreed to loan me some books. And since he had been thinking of going to the same event I was planning on attending that night, we headed over together. Over at the Museo Folklorico Tomas Morel, the wacky folklore museum, they were slated to be handing out the annual prizes given to the best carnival masks and dolls of the year. The backyard had been set up with a small stage, a bunch of folding chairs, and stands where the event sponsors (Rica beverages and Bermudez rum) were handing out free drinks. Good thing, too – we had to stand in the back while the MCs went on and on, handing out raffle prizes (I didn’t win, but my neighbor from the Casa de Arte did), and bringing up amateur singers. What was this, Dominican Idol? The woman who did La Lupe was quite good, but the very gay pop singer, very entertaining in other ways, was unfortunately painfully out of tune. Matthew gave him a pink rose from one of the raffled flower arrangements anyway, but that was about all I could take, especially since I had to get up so early the next day, and couldn’t even see the nominated art works from my post. Oh well.
I woke up completely disoriented at 6-bloody-AM but somehow got myself out the door and over to Betania’s house. We drove our masks and outfits over to the carnival HQ where the bus was waiting, brought the car back to Betania’s, and walked back again with our fellow Confraterno Joel, stopping to buy some Johnnycakes (that’s yaniqueques in Dominican) for the low, low price of 1 peso each, and piling on the bus, finally leaving Santiago only an hour later than the planned departure time (that’s on time in Dominican). A total of fourteen of us were going, including representatives of Los Condes de la Bahia, Los Emperadores, Los Frailes, and ourselves, as well as a couple of “unaffiliated” lechones like Jose Reyes and Humberto Cruz.
The ride down was pretty uneventful. We listened to merengue típico, bachata, and salsa, slept, chatted, stopped for breakfast at a roadhouse in Bonao (not very good, but much better once they changed our cold, mealy French fries for fresh fries), and actually made it in record time to Monte Plata – a trip which involved going down to the capital and then coming back up through Sabana Grande de Boya, where a cooperative savings group stopped our bus to give us soda and hard candy. As it turned out, we’d been hired to give a parade in honor of the Juegos Nacionales, the Dominican answer to the Olympics, which would be ending the next day. These games are supposed to be held every three years in a different town, which receives the benefits of new stadiums and freshly paved roads (though some note that towns can have a hard time keeping these up after the games, due to lack of funds). However, the 2003 games were skipped because then-president Hipolito Mejia didn’t want to spend the money, so these were the first in six years. When we got there, we walked around the complex, taking in some girls’ Tae Kwon Do and the end of a baseball game. For the games, the country is divided into six regions that compete with one another: North, South, East, Capital District, “5th region” which is whatever province is hosting, and “6th region,” which is Dominican residing outside the country. Interesting how migrants now constitute their own province.
Next we headed back to the local Casa de Cultura to wait for the food to show up, as a free lunch for the participants was part of the plan. In the meantime, we checked out masks belonging to other groups, such as the bulls from Monte Plata and the so-called “papeluses” from Salcedo – their costumes made entirely of colorful crepe paper, with animal-like masks in equally bright colors. Then somebody found the palos drums, and several of our group started playing. But no one would step up to sing. So then Jose took off and found the real paleros – a trio of local old guys who could really play. We danced for a bit, but then they had to get back to work.
After a lunch accompanied by really crappy reggaeton sung in a weird semi-computerized voice, it was finally time to get ready. We were taken to a nearby school, where each group had a classroom to use as a dressing room. Not that they afforded any privacy, what with the open windows with local kids peeking through. They went around to each classroom asking where we were all from, what was this, and what was that, and making off with any bells that fell off the costumes. It was pretty cute. Even there in the classroom, though, we could tell it was going to be a difficult day, as in the shade of indoors we were already sweating up a storm in our heavy costumes. It was incredibly hot and humid and I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like in Monte Plata in July if this was their February weather! Sure enough, once we took an exploratoryturn around the neighborhood we found out it was indeed hell – appropriately enough, since we’re supposed to be devils. And even worse, since we didn’t have our own music truck as in Santiago, neither did we have any water. I ran into a colmado, mask and all, at one point to buy some, but his entire supply was frozen. Just as well – I stuffed it inside my outfit to cool me off and melt itself. It helped a little, though not as much as one might think because the heat was so intense.
After this introductory tour we returned to our school HQ and rested for a few minutes, giving me a chance to snap some photos of groups from other towns and chat briefly with the Montecristi delegation. Hitting the road for the second time wasn’t much better than the first, except that eventually some water did appear. And rum. And children, asking questions about where we were from, how much our masks cost, and all that. Understandably, many kids were frightened of all the masked devils and cracking whips, especially since they probably hadn’t seen the likes of us in this town before. One tiny little girl of maybe 18 months was being consoled by her grandmother, who was explaining, “it’s OK- they’re really people in there!” I happened to have my mask off at the moment and she pointed, “see? Look at her face!” I waved at the kid, but she still looked pretty uncertain as to what my true nature might be.
Kilometers later, when we finally arrived at the sports complex, it was all we could do to keep walking, much less dance. Luckily, our thoughtful bus driver had followed us and met us at the end of the route. It was challenging to strip of our sweat-soaked costumes and pull on pants again, but it sure felt good, and the beer and bachata we enjoyed at a picturesque green-painted, wood-slatted bar was sure refreshing. The bus on the way back was decidedly more quiet than it had been on the way down, as we tried to sleep and get rid of the pounding sun-induced headaches. We stopped at the same Bonao roadhouse for dinner: this time, the choices were sandwiches of ham and cheese, ham and ham, or cheese and cheese. I, of course, opted for the latter, covered as usual in Dominican special sauce (mayo and ketchup).
We didn’t sleep much after that stop, though. Somewhere between Bonao and La Vega, we came upon a broken down bus on the side of the road and dozens of uniformed school kids milling about at 10:00 at night. They filled us in: the group was from Santiago - El Ingenio, in fact – and had been having bus trouble all the way back from their fieldtrip to the capital, so they were getting back late anyway when some more bad luck occurred in the form of a flat tire. The driver got out to change it, and the big bus tire exploded in his face – not a pretty sight, and one that had traumatized some of the children. The driver had already been carted off to the hospital, but a girl who seemed to be suffering from shock or something was still waiting there amongst the rest. Our bus was pretty full already, but we offered to take one or two on, so they sent the sick girl and a teacher with us. We took a detour and dropped them off at the hospital in La Vega, where we nearly had some bus trouble ourselves as we discovered the hard way that our vehicle was too tall to fit into the carport at the emergency entrance. Needless to say, we were pretty happy to finally get back to Santiago.
Continuing my all-Casa de Arte week, on Thursday night I attended a program commemorating the anniversary of the murder of Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó, the DR’s answer to Che Guevara. Most likely, Caamaño would be just as familiar a face to us if the U.S. hadn’t supported the military coup d’etat that ousted Juan Bosch, the first constitutionally elected president here in over 30 years, and then come in 1965 to brutally stamp out the grassroots revolution that followed. Apparently, Johnson got scared by the new 1963 constitution which prohibited monopolies as well as excessive landholding, causing him to cry, “Commies!” Anyway, Caamaño was on the side of the Constitutionalists, who fought against both the military triumvirate and the US forces, and very briefly became president after they threw out the military men. After voluntarily stepping down to allow for free elections once again, he went into exile in Cuba, where he became pals with Fidel and Che. (Apparently, Castro has called Caamaño and Che two of the most important political figures of the 20th century.) Balaguer was elected with the help of US support and a terrorist campaign he led together with other Trujillo cronies against, which killed off about 350 political activists in the first half of 1966. As I found out in last Tuesday’s film showing, the violence only continued under Balaguer’s rule, and Caamaño worked on gathering strength to lead a guerrilla force back into the DR to kill or overthrow Balaguer. He and his guerrilleros did land in the south in 1973, only to be captured and murdered by Balaguer’s men. So his fate was much like Che’s.
All this history is basically covered up here – students definitely don’t learn about it in school, as a few students in the audience bitterly pointed out. But there are still plenty around who actually fought in the “April War,” and are happy to talk about it with any who will listen. Indeed, you could hardly shut them up at this event! (Anyone looking for a good, revolutionary oral history project?) Thus, Caamaño is far from forgotten. In fact, there is a piece of graffiti on a wall at one of the biggest intersections in Santiago that reads, “Caamaño vive” (Caamaño lives). So the next day I went out and bought the documentary, “Abril: Trinchera de honor.” At least I can correct my own ignorance on the subject.
The next couple of days were spent in confusion, as I went back and forth between trying to correct my book manuscript and running to the tailor’s to make sure my carnival costume was actually getting done. Also had to go by Tonito’s on Saturday to put foam and elastic on my mask and make it useable; this meant I also caught part of the Confraternos dance team’s reggaetón-heavy rehearsal. Also had to purchase a bunch of mirrors, buttons, etc to decorate my outfit. The costumes did get done, but not until only a few hours before Sunday’s parade. We frantically hot-glued jingly bells and all the other adornments, just managing to get out the door with our half-decorated jumpsuits at the tail end of the parade. Man, will all that crap on those things weigh about 20 pounds! And that’s not counting the mask! It’s tiring to walk and dance for miles in the costume, but it’s also more fun than going costumeless, I found. As soon as you put the mask on, you are a different person; you have to BECOME the lechon. And a lechon is always dancing, jumping, moving around. Everyone wants to take pictures of the lechon. Some people want the lechon to give them or their friends a vejigazo. (Can anyone say, sadomasochism?) And some people want to throw confetti straight into the lechon’s mask, getting little pieces of paper into their eyes and noses. OK, that only happened once, but it was decidedly uncomfortable. Bad, bad spectators! As it turned out, though, our security force was pretty useful, rum and all. Aside from the confetti incident, they did a good job of keeping people out of our way and diffusing problems. Do you know what they are armed with, for our protection? No? Give up? Meat thermometers. Seriously. At least one was; he showed me, apparently so I would know I was safe from attacks by frozen turkeys. Or from people. Whatever.
Because of our late start, the streets were so crowded with both lechones and spectators that much of our time on Las Carreras was spent standing still. We still were far from the monument as the sun was setting, and it didn’t look like we would get any closer any time soon, so we just turned around and headed for home. Actually, our awesome disco pickup had turned around long ago – whether it was stalled, out of gas, or on fire again, I’m not quite sure – but we found it again near the other end of the boulevard, waiting for us to give it a push. Back at the ranch, otherwise known as Betania and Julio’s house, we celebrated by removing our sweat-drenched costumes and drinking beer.
I was really beat after all that walking, dancing, and all. I slept better than I’d done in a long time. All the better for visiting the cockfights on Monday. While working at home in the morning, Rafaelito had called me to cancel my usual afternoon accordion class because he had to go play at the cockfights with his son, Raul. Because it so happened that over breakfast I’d been thinking to myself, “I haven’t been to the galleras in a loooooong time. I really should go again soon,” I invited myself along. It didn’t work out quite as planned, though: the plan had been to go around 4:00. But when I got to his house at 4:00, it soon became 5:00, and then we found out from Raul that we didn’t need to go until after 6:00. Was I ever bored! Finally, finally we made it out of there, though, with Rafaelito’s son Nixon (currently accordionist for Frandy Sax, formerly with Krisspy) and helper Manaury in tow.
On the way over we discussed places in the US and how long it takes to drive from one to the other; Nixon’s European tour, when he and Krisspy played in Holland, France, Spain, and Switzerland; and the nice sunset. We had plenty of time because the gallera we were going to, “Gallera El Palo,” was on the other side of Navarrete – maybe a 45 minute drive. On the way we passed by the Navarrete graveyard where Nico Lora, the foundational Dominican accordionist, is buried. When we arrived, we found a crowded parking lot, plenty of Roman friends and fans, stray dogs, and pig heads. (They were serving roast pork with casabe.) I didn’t partake of the cadaver, but the Romans and the dogs did. It was amazing how many people were there, considering it was in the middle of nowhere. Seeing them eat, though, I got hungry too so we went to investigate the situation in the gallera’s kitchen. They were only serving friend pork, chicken, and tostones, so I ordered a plate of tostones with tostones. Fried plantains are good, but did not a meal make. Still, I felt better than I did, at least until I got stung by a wasp. Unbelieveable! I don’t think I’ve ever been stung by a wasp in my life until now. And I hope never to be stung by another. It is still hurting, itching, and hot to the touch today. Also, the armpit is not the best place in the world to be stung. I recommend avoiding it if you have a choice.
We stole some ice from the “cooler” (actually a leaky wooden crate with cold beer inside) to stem the swelling, and then I felt better for a while. Soon I was distracted by the music, anyway: Raul was playing with La Seleccion, a band I’ve always liked, although as Nixon pointed out, the bass got “cruzado” (crossed, or out of sync) at one point. For the grand finale, all three Romans played together: Raul and Rafaelito on dual (dueling?) accordions, and Nixon on güira; and Nixon and Rafaelito on accordion and Raul on saxophone … it was sort of a musical chairs game, since they all play all the instruments. Everyone loved this, and all pulled out their cell phone cameras at the same time, trying to get close to the stage to snap a picture. This made it hard for me to get my own pictures, because I kept getting arms and phones in the way, but I did what I could. Afterwards, we all caravanned back to Rafaelito’s house, where Carmen made some crab and plantains for us. It was a good end to my evening, and the beginning to theirs, as from there Rafaelito was going straight on to his regular Monday gig at Rancho Merengue.
On Wednesday, as I was running around getting things done I got a call from some carnival characters that I should really get up at 6 AM the next day. If you know me at all, you know this is not something I am inclined to do and I’m not even sure the last time I voluntarily got up at that ungodly hour. But eventually they talked me into it, with the promise of seeing a new place, meeting carnival groups from all over the country, and of course free food. We were even going to get paid! I never thought I’d make money as a lechona, but there you are.
Still fretting about my alarm clock for the next day, I made my way to the house of Gaspar Rodriguez, the host of a TV merengue típico show, for an interview. He lives in Gurabo, a section on the outskirts of town that I’d never actually been to. When I got there, I found him, his son, and a visiting musician holed up in his own mini video studio searching through his enormous video collection for clips to show on a merengue memories segment the next week while supervised by a giant – and quite good – oil painting of Tatico Henriquez. In this way, I found out the (for me) very exciting news that he has video footage of the late greats Nico Lora, Guandulito, and El Negrito Figueroa. This is historic stuff, and he’s promised to make me a copy. I was also surprised to find that the guest musician was my favorite bass player I’d never met, El Che, who played on the bootleg Siano Arias recording that is responsible for getting me hooked on this stuff. I told him this story, and it turned out he’d never even heard the recording himself. So I whipped out my handy iriver and played it for him. He thought it was good, too. We watched videos for a while as Gaspar’s wife served us coffee and loaned me some Chinese ointment for my wasp sting. Then we had a very interesting and educational interview about merengue típico and mass media, which will probably be continued on a later date. He also asked me to come down and play a tune on his program on March 11. Yikes! I need to practice… but how, with all this carnival business going on??
Afterwards, I met up with Matthew, a schoolteacher and ga-ga musician who had agreed to loan me some books. And since he had been thinking of going to the same event I was planning on attending that night, we headed over together. Over at the Museo Folklorico Tomas Morel, the wacky folklore museum, they were slated to be handing out the annual prizes given to the best carnival masks and dolls of the year. The backyard had been set up with a small stage, a bunch of folding chairs, and stands where the event sponsors (Rica beverages and Bermudez rum) were handing out free drinks. Good thing, too – we had to stand in the back while the MCs went on and on, handing out raffle prizes (I didn’t win, but my neighbor from the Casa de Arte did), and bringing up amateur singers. What was this, Dominican Idol? The woman who did La Lupe was quite good, but the very gay pop singer, very entertaining in other ways, was unfortunately painfully out of tune. Matthew gave him a pink rose from one of the raffled flower arrangements anyway, but that was about all I could take, especially since I had to get up so early the next day, and couldn’t even see the nominated art works from my post. Oh well.
I woke up completely disoriented at 6-bloody-AM but somehow got myself out the door and over to Betania’s house. We drove our masks and outfits over to the carnival HQ where the bus was waiting, brought the car back to Betania’s, and walked back again with our fellow Confraterno Joel, stopping to buy some Johnnycakes (that’s yaniqueques in Dominican) for the low, low price of 1 peso each, and piling on the bus, finally leaving Santiago only an hour later than the planned departure time (that’s on time in Dominican). A total of fourteen of us were going, including representatives of Los Condes de la Bahia, Los Emperadores, Los Frailes, and ourselves, as well as a couple of “unaffiliated” lechones like Jose Reyes and Humberto Cruz.
The ride down was pretty uneventful. We listened to merengue típico, bachata, and salsa, slept, chatted, stopped for breakfast at a roadhouse in Bonao (not very good, but much better once they changed our cold, mealy French fries for fresh fries), and actually made it in record time to Monte Plata – a trip which involved going down to the capital and then coming back up through Sabana Grande de Boya, where a cooperative savings group stopped our bus to give us soda and hard candy. As it turned out, we’d been hired to give a parade in honor of the Juegos Nacionales, the Dominican answer to the Olympics, which would be ending the next day. These games are supposed to be held every three years in a different town, which receives the benefits of new stadiums and freshly paved roads (though some note that towns can have a hard time keeping these up after the games, due to lack of funds). However, the 2003 games were skipped because then-president Hipolito Mejia didn’t want to spend the money, so these were the first in six years. When we got there, we walked around the complex, taking in some girls’ Tae Kwon Do and the end of a baseball game. For the games, the country is divided into six regions that compete with one another: North, South, East, Capital District, “5th region” which is whatever province is hosting, and “6th region,” which is Dominican residing outside the country. Interesting how migrants now constitute their own province.
Next we headed back to the local Casa de Cultura to wait for the food to show up, as a free lunch for the participants was part of the plan. In the meantime, we checked out masks belonging to other groups, such as the bulls from Monte Plata and the so-called “papeluses” from Salcedo – their costumes made entirely of colorful crepe paper, with animal-like masks in equally bright colors. Then somebody found the palos drums, and several of our group started playing. But no one would step up to sing. So then Jose took off and found the real paleros – a trio of local old guys who could really play. We danced for a bit, but then they had to get back to work.
After a lunch accompanied by really crappy reggaeton sung in a weird semi-computerized voice, it was finally time to get ready. We were taken to a nearby school, where each group had a classroom to use as a dressing room. Not that they afforded any privacy, what with the open windows with local kids peeking through. They went around to each classroom asking where we were all from, what was this, and what was that, and making off with any bells that fell off the costumes. It was pretty cute. Even there in the classroom, though, we could tell it was going to be a difficult day, as in the shade of indoors we were already sweating up a storm in our heavy costumes. It was incredibly hot and humid and I don’t even want to imagine what it’s like in Monte Plata in July if this was their February weather! Sure enough, once we took an exploratoryturn around the neighborhood we found out it was indeed hell – appropriately enough, since we’re supposed to be devils. And even worse, since we didn’t have our own music truck as in Santiago, neither did we have any water. I ran into a colmado, mask and all, at one point to buy some, but his entire supply was frozen. Just as well – I stuffed it inside my outfit to cool me off and melt itself. It helped a little, though not as much as one might think because the heat was so intense.
After this introductory tour we returned to our school HQ and rested for a few minutes, giving me a chance to snap some photos of groups from other towns and chat briefly with the Montecristi delegation. Hitting the road for the second time wasn’t much better than the first, except that eventually some water did appear. And rum. And children, asking questions about where we were from, how much our masks cost, and all that. Understandably, many kids were frightened of all the masked devils and cracking whips, especially since they probably hadn’t seen the likes of us in this town before. One tiny little girl of maybe 18 months was being consoled by her grandmother, who was explaining, “it’s OK- they’re really people in there!” I happened to have my mask off at the moment and she pointed, “see? Look at her face!” I waved at the kid, but she still looked pretty uncertain as to what my true nature might be.
Kilometers later, when we finally arrived at the sports complex, it was all we could do to keep walking, much less dance. Luckily, our thoughtful bus driver had followed us and met us at the end of the route. It was challenging to strip of our sweat-soaked costumes and pull on pants again, but it sure felt good, and the beer and bachata we enjoyed at a picturesque green-painted, wood-slatted bar was sure refreshing. The bus on the way back was decidedly more quiet than it had been on the way down, as we tried to sleep and get rid of the pounding sun-induced headaches. We stopped at the same Bonao roadhouse for dinner: this time, the choices were sandwiches of ham and cheese, ham and ham, or cheese and cheese. I, of course, opted for the latter, covered as usual in Dominican special sauce (mayo and ketchup).
We didn’t sleep much after that stop, though. Somewhere between Bonao and La Vega, we came upon a broken down bus on the side of the road and dozens of uniformed school kids milling about at 10:00 at night. They filled us in: the group was from Santiago - El Ingenio, in fact – and had been having bus trouble all the way back from their fieldtrip to the capital, so they were getting back late anyway when some more bad luck occurred in the form of a flat tire. The driver got out to change it, and the big bus tire exploded in his face – not a pretty sight, and one that had traumatized some of the children. The driver had already been carted off to the hospital, but a girl who seemed to be suffering from shock or something was still waiting there amongst the rest. Our bus was pretty full already, but we offered to take one or two on, so they sent the sick girl and a teacher with us. We took a detour and dropped them off at the hospital in La Vega, where we nearly had some bus trouble ourselves as we discovered the hard way that our vehicle was too tall to fit into the carport at the emergency entrance. Needless to say, we were pretty happy to finally get back to Santiago.
Thursday, February 16, 2006
At the Carnaval Popular talk
Me in the middle, Rafael Almanzar (folklorist and director of the Casa de Arte) at left, and Jorge Guigni, the instigator of San Cristobal's Carnaval Popular at right.
Nicolas Den Den
Here is the dancing bear, accompanied by guira. (You can't see his "trainer" here, but he is being held by a leash)
Zapatero
Here is Rafaelito the carnival shoemaker, cutting out a sole for one of my shoes. His helper is lacing my completed boot and his son is relaxing on a pile of bags at the top.
Ouch
2/16/06
Seemingly cured at last of the evil cold, I made it out to hear some music on Friday. With friends from the Centro Leon, I went to see Kerubanda at Las Vegas, a giant rancho típico on the highway to Navarrete best remembered as the site of “El Retorno,” El Prodigio’s triumphant return to the stage in 2004 (I was there for that, too). Querube isn’t the greatest accordionist out there, but his band is sure good – they are in fact all the musicians that were with El Prodigio, pre-retorno. Anyway, how much more could you really expect from a convicted murderer? No joke – he really was in prison a few years ago, but apparently his sentence was suddenly cut short when he married a woman with influential politicians in the family. Go figure. Anyway, murderer or not it was fun to dance to, and fun to watch others dancing, especially this very small man with a tall woman who had his very own bouncy style. (Did he think that by jumping we might think he was taller?)
Carnival update: our costumes still not done, we switched to a different, hopefully speedier, tailor. I did finally get my custom-made carnival shoes, though, which went well with my official Confraternos shirt I wore to the parade on Sunday. The carnival group association had decided finally to go down to the official parade route along Las Carreras, in the hopes that this would spur the Federation into paying out the promised funds on Monday. However, if they don’t comply, the plan is for everyone to dress in black for next Sunday’s parade and walk the whole route in silence up to the Monument, following behind the Los Muertos group and their Impala of Death, in protest of this ill treatment.
Carnival update #2: I finally got a lesson in whip usage on Sunday from the two teenage Confraternos, who got a kick out of my lousy technique. I did get progressively better, though, after perhaps 20-30 minutes of practice on Tonito’s severly potholed street. The old men across the street enjoyed watching and commenting on my progress, as did the children on the block, whose whip expertise was far superior to my own. They kept trying to trick me and make me think my whip was sounding pretty good by cracking theirs at the same time I tried to do mine. Sorry, but I will not fall into that trap! When I suck, I know it!! At any rate, by the end my whip was making a noticeable sound, though nothing close to the deafening sonic boom of my friends.
Every Sunday that takes us closer to the grand finale at the end of the month gets progressively crazier. Coming down through Pueblo Nuevo things looked pretty much like last week, except that more groups were wearing costumes instead of t-shirts. There were neon-colored Pueblo Nuevo style masks covered in fluorescent flowers, there was a group whose horns were instead arms reaching up with claws on the end, a few stray vegano and animal-faced devils, and many more in more traditional lechon attire. I also saw a Nicolas Den Den – a traditional dancing bear character – appear for the first time.
When we got to Las Carreras, though, tons of people were lined up to see, dancing and throwing confetti around to amuse themselves. A few groups had set up stands, kind of like mini carnival centers for dancers and lechon wannabes to gather at. The military band participated for the first time this season, marching a circular route up and down Las Carreras. The first official bladder-whacks or vejigazos were going on, as well. I myself received my first vejigazo from a small child. Also, one stray lechon had joined up with Los Confraternos for the day, and perhaps suffering from a short guy’s complex, he felt the need to hit everyone who crossed his path – and some innocent bystanders – absolutely as hard as possible. Those bladders are HARD and people were not happy! He was kind of scary, but I did like his outfit. Like many of the “traditional” outfits, it was all ribbons, mirrors, and bells on the front, but featured cartoon characters rendered in sequins on the back. On each leg he had a Bart Simpson in devil form.
The funniest moment of the day came at the end of our Carreras route. It had been predetermined that we would not continue to the monument today but turn around at Sabana Larga, a sort of compromise to show the Federation that while we were attempting to hold our end of the bargain, we still weren’t happy with their fiscal policy. Anyway, when we reached Sabana Larga a vigorous debate was going on. Repreesnting the Centro de la Cultura on one side was Enegildo – remember him? He’s the guy who thinks the hat makes the man – and representing the barrio carnival participants on the other was Polanquito, the tiny yet frighteningly lively 75-year-old lechon. Enegildo was getting red in the face as he frantically told all the lechon groups coming down the street to “keep going! KEEP GOING!!!” (Presumably, it would look bad for him if carnival didn’t make it to the monument this year, especially since the banners lining Las Carreras all the way up to the monument show that Presidente beer is a Santiago carnival sponsor.) Meanwhile, Polanquito, mask off, was practically bouncing off the walls of parade observers in telling us to “Turn! TURN!!!” Apparently, Polanquito hefts more influence in carnival circles, as we all turned around.
Aside from that, and a minor delay as we waited for our pathetic disco lite pickup truck to recover its strength, this Sunday’s parade went mostly as expected. However, I suffered mightily for my whipping practice in the night and for the next several days. Man, that uses muscles I don’t think I’d ever located before. I am both excited and worried about finally wearing my very heavy costume and mask next week. How will my shoulder muscles hold up? Check in next week for your next carnival update!
On Monday, I learned me another merengue: El Cuento Comparon. I’d been reminded of how much I liked it after having heard Querube play it on Friday. And then, having so enjoyed the film at the Casa de Arte last week, I returned on Tuesday for another. This time my friend Almanzar was playing a documentary on violence under the Balaguer regime. Everyone always talks about how bad Trujillo was, but one seldom hears talk these days about Balaguer. Although only in power for 12 years, as compared to Trujillo’s 31, Balaguer managed to have over 3000 Dominicans killed or “disappeared” for political reasons during his first eight years in office (1966-1974). In early 1971, papers reported one killing every 48 hours. It was really frightful, yet one still sees Balaguer supporters around today. Just when I was wondering about this, the film’s narrator said, “You may be wondering why so many Dominicans still vocally defend Balaguer.” Hey! He was reading my mind! The answer he gave was, “look at how someone has made his money, and you will find why he supports Balaguer.” Another parallel with the Trujillo years. The evening ended on a high note, however, when Almanzar thanked all the international folks in the audience for coming to see the film: 2 French, 2 Argentines, and me representing the US of A. Before there could be any misunderstanding of my position, he quickly explained, “She’s American, but a progressive! She doesn’t want to even know about Bush!” For this, I got a round of applause! (For those who are wondering, W is absolutely the most hated US president in history, at least around here, and I think in most of Latin America. The second most hated by Dominicans would be Johnson, since he ordered the invasion of the DR in 1965. The most popular are Kennedy and Clinton.)
Wednesday I had another excellent lunch at the Roman house: rice with stewed pigeon peas, salad, batter fried fish filet, and bacalao (dried, salted codfish stewed with peppers and onions). I then showed some of the transcriptions I’ve done of típico accordion parts to Rafaelito by having my computer play them back. He was very pleased with them and wants me to make more. But our chat was cut short when he got a call from an old friend in Puerto Plata with the news that the friend’s daughter had died suddenly of a heart attack. I left to allow Rafaelito to get ready to drive to the coast for the funeral. Then I myself had to go and get ready for tonight’s Fiesta de Palos, again at the Casa de Arte. I don’t have photos for you of this one, because tonight I decided to videotape instead, but you can look at the pics from the last time. I think I got some good dancing & playing on tape. I also got some dancing and playing in myself – they gave me a wood block to bang out clave rhythms on, and I even learned a couple of choruses to sing. Here is one cryptic lyric: “La india eh, La india ah. La india vive debajo del agua.” The Indian woman lives under the water? What?? Is this some sort of ciguapa story? I don’t know, but perhaps I can fill you in sooner rather than later. I exchanged numbers with the palos group who agreed to call me to come to a rehearsal and learn to play some palos rhythms with them. They also want to create an accordion-palos fusion number. Should be interesting.
Seemingly cured at last of the evil cold, I made it out to hear some music on Friday. With friends from the Centro Leon, I went to see Kerubanda at Las Vegas, a giant rancho típico on the highway to Navarrete best remembered as the site of “El Retorno,” El Prodigio’s triumphant return to the stage in 2004 (I was there for that, too). Querube isn’t the greatest accordionist out there, but his band is sure good – they are in fact all the musicians that were with El Prodigio, pre-retorno. Anyway, how much more could you really expect from a convicted murderer? No joke – he really was in prison a few years ago, but apparently his sentence was suddenly cut short when he married a woman with influential politicians in the family. Go figure. Anyway, murderer or not it was fun to dance to, and fun to watch others dancing, especially this very small man with a tall woman who had his very own bouncy style. (Did he think that by jumping we might think he was taller?)
Carnival update: our costumes still not done, we switched to a different, hopefully speedier, tailor. I did finally get my custom-made carnival shoes, though, which went well with my official Confraternos shirt I wore to the parade on Sunday. The carnival group association had decided finally to go down to the official parade route along Las Carreras, in the hopes that this would spur the Federation into paying out the promised funds on Monday. However, if they don’t comply, the plan is for everyone to dress in black for next Sunday’s parade and walk the whole route in silence up to the Monument, following behind the Los Muertos group and their Impala of Death, in protest of this ill treatment.
Carnival update #2: I finally got a lesson in whip usage on Sunday from the two teenage Confraternos, who got a kick out of my lousy technique. I did get progressively better, though, after perhaps 20-30 minutes of practice on Tonito’s severly potholed street. The old men across the street enjoyed watching and commenting on my progress, as did the children on the block, whose whip expertise was far superior to my own. They kept trying to trick me and make me think my whip was sounding pretty good by cracking theirs at the same time I tried to do mine. Sorry, but I will not fall into that trap! When I suck, I know it!! At any rate, by the end my whip was making a noticeable sound, though nothing close to the deafening sonic boom of my friends.
Every Sunday that takes us closer to the grand finale at the end of the month gets progressively crazier. Coming down through Pueblo Nuevo things looked pretty much like last week, except that more groups were wearing costumes instead of t-shirts. There were neon-colored Pueblo Nuevo style masks covered in fluorescent flowers, there was a group whose horns were instead arms reaching up with claws on the end, a few stray vegano and animal-faced devils, and many more in more traditional lechon attire. I also saw a Nicolas Den Den – a traditional dancing bear character – appear for the first time.
When we got to Las Carreras, though, tons of people were lined up to see, dancing and throwing confetti around to amuse themselves. A few groups had set up stands, kind of like mini carnival centers for dancers and lechon wannabes to gather at. The military band participated for the first time this season, marching a circular route up and down Las Carreras. The first official bladder-whacks or vejigazos were going on, as well. I myself received my first vejigazo from a small child. Also, one stray lechon had joined up with Los Confraternos for the day, and perhaps suffering from a short guy’s complex, he felt the need to hit everyone who crossed his path – and some innocent bystanders – absolutely as hard as possible. Those bladders are HARD and people were not happy! He was kind of scary, but I did like his outfit. Like many of the “traditional” outfits, it was all ribbons, mirrors, and bells on the front, but featured cartoon characters rendered in sequins on the back. On each leg he had a Bart Simpson in devil form.
The funniest moment of the day came at the end of our Carreras route. It had been predetermined that we would not continue to the monument today but turn around at Sabana Larga, a sort of compromise to show the Federation that while we were attempting to hold our end of the bargain, we still weren’t happy with their fiscal policy. Anyway, when we reached Sabana Larga a vigorous debate was going on. Repreesnting the Centro de la Cultura on one side was Enegildo – remember him? He’s the guy who thinks the hat makes the man – and representing the barrio carnival participants on the other was Polanquito, the tiny yet frighteningly lively 75-year-old lechon. Enegildo was getting red in the face as he frantically told all the lechon groups coming down the street to “keep going! KEEP GOING!!!” (Presumably, it would look bad for him if carnival didn’t make it to the monument this year, especially since the banners lining Las Carreras all the way up to the monument show that Presidente beer is a Santiago carnival sponsor.) Meanwhile, Polanquito, mask off, was practically bouncing off the walls of parade observers in telling us to “Turn! TURN!!!” Apparently, Polanquito hefts more influence in carnival circles, as we all turned around.
Aside from that, and a minor delay as we waited for our pathetic disco lite pickup truck to recover its strength, this Sunday’s parade went mostly as expected. However, I suffered mightily for my whipping practice in the night and for the next several days. Man, that uses muscles I don’t think I’d ever located before. I am both excited and worried about finally wearing my very heavy costume and mask next week. How will my shoulder muscles hold up? Check in next week for your next carnival update!
On Monday, I learned me another merengue: El Cuento Comparon. I’d been reminded of how much I liked it after having heard Querube play it on Friday. And then, having so enjoyed the film at the Casa de Arte last week, I returned on Tuesday for another. This time my friend Almanzar was playing a documentary on violence under the Balaguer regime. Everyone always talks about how bad Trujillo was, but one seldom hears talk these days about Balaguer. Although only in power for 12 years, as compared to Trujillo’s 31, Balaguer managed to have over 3000 Dominicans killed or “disappeared” for political reasons during his first eight years in office (1966-1974). In early 1971, papers reported one killing every 48 hours. It was really frightful, yet one still sees Balaguer supporters around today. Just when I was wondering about this, the film’s narrator said, “You may be wondering why so many Dominicans still vocally defend Balaguer.” Hey! He was reading my mind! The answer he gave was, “look at how someone has made his money, and you will find why he supports Balaguer.” Another parallel with the Trujillo years. The evening ended on a high note, however, when Almanzar thanked all the international folks in the audience for coming to see the film: 2 French, 2 Argentines, and me representing the US of A. Before there could be any misunderstanding of my position, he quickly explained, “She’s American, but a progressive! She doesn’t want to even know about Bush!” For this, I got a round of applause! (For those who are wondering, W is absolutely the most hated US president in history, at least around here, and I think in most of Latin America. The second most hated by Dominicans would be Johnson, since he ordered the invasion of the DR in 1965. The most popular are Kennedy and Clinton.)
Wednesday I had another excellent lunch at the Roman house: rice with stewed pigeon peas, salad, batter fried fish filet, and bacalao (dried, salted codfish stewed with peppers and onions). I then showed some of the transcriptions I’ve done of típico accordion parts to Rafaelito by having my computer play them back. He was very pleased with them and wants me to make more. But our chat was cut short when he got a call from an old friend in Puerto Plata with the news that the friend’s daughter had died suddenly of a heart attack. I left to allow Rafaelito to get ready to drive to the coast for the funeral. Then I myself had to go and get ready for tonight’s Fiesta de Palos, again at the Casa de Arte. I don’t have photos for you of this one, because tonight I decided to videotape instead, but you can look at the pics from the last time. I think I got some good dancing & playing on tape. I also got some dancing and playing in myself – they gave me a wood block to bang out clave rhythms on, and I even learned a couple of choruses to sing. Here is one cryptic lyric: “La india eh, La india ah. La india vive debajo del agua.” The Indian woman lives under the water? What?? Is this some sort of ciguapa story? I don’t know, but perhaps I can fill you in sooner rather than later. I exchanged numbers with the palos group who agreed to call me to come to a rehearsal and learn to play some palos rhythms with them. They also want to create an accordion-palos fusion number. Should be interesting.
Friday, February 10, 2006
masks
Masks for sale! The ones in the middle with the flowers on the horns are a new style that's come to represent the Pueblo Nuevo neighborhood.
Street Vendor
These guys just pop up somehow along the parade route... this one is selling mini-masks and bladders for whacking people with (at left).
A Tale of Three Carnivals
2/8-2/10/06
On Tuesday I took my runny nose and achy head for an outing. We went down to the meeting of the carnaval associacion in the barrio of Pueblo Nuevo in order to meet some of the other lechones, old and new. They have weekly reunions in a community hall decorated with AA posters, cartoon characters, a big plaster statue of the Virgin, and vocabulary words for kids in order to discuss matters of Carnaval economics and intergroup frictions. It started off in a very picturesque and very Santiago manner, since the power was out. I briefly interviewed Umberto, a lechon with 48 years of experience, out on the sidewalk as the sun went down. When we finished it was too dark to see, and someone had to go inside to feel around for some spare candles. Once found, the meeting got started inside by candlelight.
Four official types sat at a table in front: the president of the association, a young guy; Umberto; Polanquito, a tiny 75-year-old with a seemingly unlimited supply of lechon energy; and the head of the traditional comparsa of the Indios. About 15 others were scattered around the room, one representative of each local carnival group; Jose Reyes, representing the unaffiliated lechones; the woman who will – gender atypically - play Nicolas the Bear this year; and me, who technically should not have been allowed since Betania was already there to represent my group, Los Confraternos. But they let me hang out anyway an eavesdrop. Tonight the main issues were: what to do about the abysmal money situation, and consequently what to do about the parade route.
Apparently, the city-wide Federation of carnival groups receives a large sum of money from various sponsors in order to make carnival happen, and a large portion of this is meant to be doled out in small sums to the various carnival groups, to help cover expenses such as rental of the “disco light” (local term for a truck with speakers and DJ mounted in the bed) and purchase of water for participants. No money this year has made it to any of the groups, all of which consist of people at the lowest rungs of Santiago’s socioeconomic ladder – except for one. Los Jardines Metropolitanos, the comfortably middle-class neighborhood where I myself live, have their own group lechones, who seldom see eye to eye with the rest of the city’s carnivalescos. The fact that most groups complained about the lack of financial support caused Los Jardines to accuse them of “being in it for the money,” an accusation that couldn’t be more ridiculous considering the fact that even with the sponsor funds, the costs of costumes and masks are completely separate and must either come out of participants’ own pockets or whatever they are able to make through fundraising dances and raffles. (Our representative at the Federation meeting also told us the Jardines group kept calling the rest of us ‘barriobajeros,’ a condescending term meaning ‘those from the low neighborhoods,’ and that he was frankly tired of it.) Even beyond the mismanagement of money, the Federation has other problem: the committee of carnival heads, almost all members of Santiago’s either intellectual or economic elite, have still not fulfilled their social obligation of naming a Carnival queen or designating a day for the final parade and costume competition.
All of these problems have led the groups to decide on a boycott of Las Carreras boulevard and the Monument area, which is where carnival activities traditionally are meant to take place. This was a nearly unanimous decision, the only dissenting voice coming from – you guessed it – Los Jardines. Thus, last Sunday when the rest of us were in Los Ciruelitos, the Jardineros were all alone on Las Carreras! At any rate, this week the decision was to take Carnaval to a different barrio. Everyone would meet in the park of the neighborhood Ensanche Bolivar, head down through our home base of Pueblo Nuevo, finishing up on Las Hermanas Mirabal, a tree-lined divided avenue that is the western half of Las Carreras. From there, we of course would not continue down Las Carreras but follow our own routes back home. Business concluded, everyone rearranged their chairs into a circle for a more informal chat. This went on for about another hour, during which I was introduced to all. Afterwards, I made arrangements to meet up with a few of the protagonists later in the week for interviews and we all went along our merry ways.
Typically, the planned-on interviews did not pan out, but another one did. I dropped in on Ellys, the first woman to dress up, to talk to her about her experiences as a lechona. This was satisfyingly informative. For the rest of the week, I mostly just laid low, reading and writing at home in the hopes of recovering for Sunday’s activity.
My second acalentamiento and the first official day of Carnaval here in the DR went much better for me than the last one, since I finally seemed to have kicked the cold/flu/Martian death virus that I’d been wrestling with. Los Confraternos convened at Betania’s house, our official HQ. We’d decided not to meet the rest in Parque Bolivar – since after leaving the park the parade route would pass right by the house, it seemed pointless to go up only to come back down. Our costumes were far from ready – a visit to the tailor on Friday found that out of the 6 or 7 complete costumes we’d ordered, only 2 legs had been completed - but we all had official Confraternos t-shirts to wear. The 9 lechones, myself included, wore red; the teenage dancing girls wore grey and green; and our security force wore classic black. Jose Reyes also decided to join our team for the day, since the other independent lechones seemed not to be dressing up today. Some of the guys helped him put on his heavy costume, rum was broken out, the kids practiced cracking the whips as loudly as possible, and then… we waited. And waited. And waited. Betania’s husband Julio had taken off to go search out a “disco light” for us and the quest didn’t seem to be going well.
When the first revelers began to pass by, we decided we’d better get ourselves ready anyway. Two of the girls took the official banner and positioned themselves in front. After these went the ten or so dancing girls with their t-shirts knotted at midriff height, then the lechones with whips, and then those of us who were going whipless. A line of security got behind us, and a few others went up front and at the sides, though with the bottles of rum they were passing around, I wasn’t sure how much help they would be in the event of a carnivalesque emergency.
After at least half the parade went by, at last Julio made his appearance, together with a DJ and a bunch of speakers bungee-corded into the back of a rather ramshackle pickup. Woo-hoo! Finally we could get the show on the road, and we fell into the line of action – only 2 hours later than the planned meeting time of 2:30. But this actually turned out to be a good thing, as the searing heat of 3 PM had been replaced by a pleasant breeze can light cloud cover. It took another two hours to complete the route. We danced to our disco light past parts of Pueblo Nuevo I’d never seen, with brightly-painted wooden houses no different from the ones one sees way out in the country and tiny sidewalk food stalls that strangely reminded me of some 3-foot-wide soup and crepe restaurants I’ve seen in Soho. It was actually a very pleasant route, and all the participants seemed to know most of the barrio children and parents that were out to watch the show. Our feet got tired, but the endless supply of rum and little baggies of water kept us going.
When we got down to Las Hermanas Mirabal, it became a major traffic jam. It was barely a parade anymore, and more of a standing-around-in-place type of thing. I greeted our rear neighbors, Los Muertos, who in their black capes, hats, and white face paint would easily fit into any Halloween party. Los Condes, a group wearing a variety of military uniforms, greeted me, as I’d met the leader at Tuesday’s meeting. We bought some ice cream from a Haitian vendor. I met the man who made my mask. Everyone’s disco light music got all mixed up. We held up traffic. Jose and the other lechones in costume alternately frightened and entertained small children. We generally had a good time. I didn’t see Los Jardines.
Eventually, we made it down and back the avenue, and then everyone went their separate ways. Los Confraternos followed a circuitous route back into Pueblo Nuevo. Going up a hill, we began to notice a strong burning smell. Some part of the truck was definitely aflame. We made it as far as a dusty, low-lying street probably prone to flooding where one of our members lived and then called it an evening, at least as far as the sad pickup was concerned. As the sun went down, though, it seemed like we might as well take advantage of the DJ and so he kept spinning tunes for us to dance to – carnival merengues, reggaeton, and finally some típico. We got down until the last of the rum finally disappeared, and then the guys got together to give the truck a push-start (it didn’t seem to work particularly well) before hoofing it back to Betania’s. All in all, I think it could be considered a job well done.
On Tuesday I returned to the Centro Leon for an afternoon availing myself of their library, reading an interesting book about the African roots of Dominican vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Really, I was just biding time until the evening, when I would be able to continue my carnival education via a panel discussion on the more famous carnival of La Vega to be held on the Centro’s patio. And I was biding my time for quite a while since, unusually for this joint, this event was running on Dominican time. Anyway, eventually things got rolling. First La Vega’s military band played a rousing march, and the discussants took their seats. The panel consisted of Rafael Emilio, the Centro’s director; a lawyer and former king of the Vegan carnival; the head of Los Broncos, a seminal group of Vegan devils; and later on, an elected official of La Vega.
The Vegan carnival is a big deal here because it has the first documented instance of carnival in the New World, making it a 500-year-old tradition, and it’s therefore gotten recognition from UNESCO as a heritage site. Consequently, it gets more tourists than any other Dominican carnival, necessitating the construction of a “Diablodromo” (like Rio’s Sambadrome), and the inversion of gazillions of corporate dollars. Before 1980, there were only individual devils and no groups, and masks were made of papier-mache like ours in Santiago. In 1980, Los Broncos formed, started making group costumes (the same design and colors for all members) and looking for funding. Trying to make the masks more impressive, they started using animal teeth in the mouth instead of papier-mache ones. After some years of that, they moved on to acrylic ones. Today, the masks are acrylic and generally made by formally trained artists. The Broncos now number 44 members, and there are a ton of other groups just like them. Each person who participates in the parade wears an outfit that, together with the mask, runs upward of $40,000 pesos ($1300 US) and can only be used once. The money for these comes from sponsors like banks or beer companies. Afterwards, the costumes are sold to other towns in the region, which presumably recycle them by using them in their own carnivals the next year.
Carnival in La Vega is huge. Veganos are justly proud of it, particularly the devils themselves, who apparently throw epic parties in their “Cuevas,” group headquarters they construct anew each year. And the costumes are undeniably impressive, as we found out when nine members of the Broncos came out. Enormous, crazy masks with huge teeth, bloodshot eyes, and a crown of ostrich feathers. Puffy pants and sleeves and a sort of cape in the style of a Renaissance Spanish gentleman, made out of sequined fabric, brocades, metallics, and with jingly bells, so you know they’re coming with their bladders, to give you an enormous and painful vejigazo. Luckly, they didn’t hit us, just danced around to a carnival tune provided by the (literal) military brass.
Although I was thrilled by the Broncos costumes and amused by their antics, I started to feel uneasy during the question-and-answer session that followed. The Vega politician was proudly pointing out that “in the carnaval vegano, you won’t see any disco light, or t-shirts or baseball caps.” Then an audience member, a Santiaguera, asked how we in Santiago might be able to make our carnival more colorful and as successful as the Vegan one. Wait a minute… are they saying our carnival isn’t good enough? Is the Vegan carnival better because it’s more costly and less modern-looking? People seem to think the carnaval vegano is more traditional because it doesn’t have the sound systems and the team t-shirts. But is traditional defined more on looks or on sentiment? Carnavalescos in Santiago are participating in the way they always have – making their own decisions on what kind of music they want to hear, how to show their barrio pride, what kind of costumes will best express their carnival spirit and the current state of Dominican society and culture. Isn’t that “traditional,” even though it does include huge speaker towers blasting reggaeton and ugly old Chevy impalas carrying Muertos in polyester capes? I started getting nervous that people were going to try to change our carnaval, and that if I come back to participate in five years I’ll have to go ask Presidente beer for support first. If that’s the will of the people, then so be it, but what if that means that the Jardineros get their way in everything and the people who are the backbone of today’s carnival in Santiago – the poor and working-class – have no say in how they represent themselves? These are all big questions.
On Wednesday I took a day off from Carnival matters in order to pay Rafaelito a visit for purposes of a re-interview. I had a bunch of questions that had come up since the last time we did one, and I wanted to go over some terms I thought I understood but wanted to confirm. Eventually I had to go and get some lunch though, and when I came back his other musicians were arriving for a rehearsal. I stayed for it, wanting to hear some new tunes, and it also gave me the opportunity to find out more about the rhythms the congas play and how they interlock with the tambora.
On Thursday I was back to carnival business, however, since Rafael Almanzar, the local Santiago folklorist and a friend of mine, had invited me to come by and see a film they were showing at the Casa del Arte about carnival in San Cristobal. This was yet another whole new perspective on the business: while Santiago is the people’s carnival, and La Vega is the showy, expensive carnival, San Cristobal is a carnival revival. The guy who’d made the short film we saw had come up from San Cristobal to talk to us about it. He explained that in the 1970s he’d been involved in a local activist theater group, and while putting on a Bertolt Brecht, of all things, they got the idea of bringing carnival back to this city in which it had almost completely died out during the Balaguer years. (Balaguer had prohibited mask use during his 12-year rule, reasoning that the commies might be able to use them to commit their horrible acts of social equality in anonymity; this meant all mask-makers went out of business and many lost interest in carnival altogether.)
Carnival furthered the theater group’s political goals because it is the only celebration in which “the people” themselves are both actors and audience, and neither the state nor the church interfere (ideally). They decided to officially name the San Cristobal version the “Carnaval Popular,” underscoring the idea that, although corporate interests could get involved by contributing funds and selling their products to carnival goers, the only ones who would have a say in how the carnival actually went were the townspeople, the participants. It first took place in 1980 and is now going strong. All the usual carnival personages – Roba la Gallina, diablos, indios, africanos, etc – are well-represented; other older characters (el caiman, el toro) have been revived; and new characters make an appearance every year. Even the lechones are there, in a group started by a Santiaguera who moved down south. Well, it was an interesting film and an even more interesting talk, being that it contrasted so completely with what I’d seen and heard on Tuesday. Carnival certainly gives one a lot to think about.
On Tuesday I took my runny nose and achy head for an outing. We went down to the meeting of the carnaval associacion in the barrio of Pueblo Nuevo in order to meet some of the other lechones, old and new. They have weekly reunions in a community hall decorated with AA posters, cartoon characters, a big plaster statue of the Virgin, and vocabulary words for kids in order to discuss matters of Carnaval economics and intergroup frictions. It started off in a very picturesque and very Santiago manner, since the power was out. I briefly interviewed Umberto, a lechon with 48 years of experience, out on the sidewalk as the sun went down. When we finished it was too dark to see, and someone had to go inside to feel around for some spare candles. Once found, the meeting got started inside by candlelight.
Four official types sat at a table in front: the president of the association, a young guy; Umberto; Polanquito, a tiny 75-year-old with a seemingly unlimited supply of lechon energy; and the head of the traditional comparsa of the Indios. About 15 others were scattered around the room, one representative of each local carnival group; Jose Reyes, representing the unaffiliated lechones; the woman who will – gender atypically - play Nicolas the Bear this year; and me, who technically should not have been allowed since Betania was already there to represent my group, Los Confraternos. But they let me hang out anyway an eavesdrop. Tonight the main issues were: what to do about the abysmal money situation, and consequently what to do about the parade route.
Apparently, the city-wide Federation of carnival groups receives a large sum of money from various sponsors in order to make carnival happen, and a large portion of this is meant to be doled out in small sums to the various carnival groups, to help cover expenses such as rental of the “disco light” (local term for a truck with speakers and DJ mounted in the bed) and purchase of water for participants. No money this year has made it to any of the groups, all of which consist of people at the lowest rungs of Santiago’s socioeconomic ladder – except for one. Los Jardines Metropolitanos, the comfortably middle-class neighborhood where I myself live, have their own group lechones, who seldom see eye to eye with the rest of the city’s carnivalescos. The fact that most groups complained about the lack of financial support caused Los Jardines to accuse them of “being in it for the money,” an accusation that couldn’t be more ridiculous considering the fact that even with the sponsor funds, the costs of costumes and masks are completely separate and must either come out of participants’ own pockets or whatever they are able to make through fundraising dances and raffles. (Our representative at the Federation meeting also told us the Jardines group kept calling the rest of us ‘barriobajeros,’ a condescending term meaning ‘those from the low neighborhoods,’ and that he was frankly tired of it.) Even beyond the mismanagement of money, the Federation has other problem: the committee of carnival heads, almost all members of Santiago’s either intellectual or economic elite, have still not fulfilled their social obligation of naming a Carnival queen or designating a day for the final parade and costume competition.
All of these problems have led the groups to decide on a boycott of Las Carreras boulevard and the Monument area, which is where carnival activities traditionally are meant to take place. This was a nearly unanimous decision, the only dissenting voice coming from – you guessed it – Los Jardines. Thus, last Sunday when the rest of us were in Los Ciruelitos, the Jardineros were all alone on Las Carreras! At any rate, this week the decision was to take Carnaval to a different barrio. Everyone would meet in the park of the neighborhood Ensanche Bolivar, head down through our home base of Pueblo Nuevo, finishing up on Las Hermanas Mirabal, a tree-lined divided avenue that is the western half of Las Carreras. From there, we of course would not continue down Las Carreras but follow our own routes back home. Business concluded, everyone rearranged their chairs into a circle for a more informal chat. This went on for about another hour, during which I was introduced to all. Afterwards, I made arrangements to meet up with a few of the protagonists later in the week for interviews and we all went along our merry ways.
Typically, the planned-on interviews did not pan out, but another one did. I dropped in on Ellys, the first woman to dress up, to talk to her about her experiences as a lechona. This was satisfyingly informative. For the rest of the week, I mostly just laid low, reading and writing at home in the hopes of recovering for Sunday’s activity.
My second acalentamiento and the first official day of Carnaval here in the DR went much better for me than the last one, since I finally seemed to have kicked the cold/flu/Martian death virus that I’d been wrestling with. Los Confraternos convened at Betania’s house, our official HQ. We’d decided not to meet the rest in Parque Bolivar – since after leaving the park the parade route would pass right by the house, it seemed pointless to go up only to come back down. Our costumes were far from ready – a visit to the tailor on Friday found that out of the 6 or 7 complete costumes we’d ordered, only 2 legs had been completed - but we all had official Confraternos t-shirts to wear. The 9 lechones, myself included, wore red; the teenage dancing girls wore grey and green; and our security force wore classic black. Jose Reyes also decided to join our team for the day, since the other independent lechones seemed not to be dressing up today. Some of the guys helped him put on his heavy costume, rum was broken out, the kids practiced cracking the whips as loudly as possible, and then… we waited. And waited. And waited. Betania’s husband Julio had taken off to go search out a “disco light” for us and the quest didn’t seem to be going well.
When the first revelers began to pass by, we decided we’d better get ourselves ready anyway. Two of the girls took the official banner and positioned themselves in front. After these went the ten or so dancing girls with their t-shirts knotted at midriff height, then the lechones with whips, and then those of us who were going whipless. A line of security got behind us, and a few others went up front and at the sides, though with the bottles of rum they were passing around, I wasn’t sure how much help they would be in the event of a carnivalesque emergency.
After at least half the parade went by, at last Julio made his appearance, together with a DJ and a bunch of speakers bungee-corded into the back of a rather ramshackle pickup. Woo-hoo! Finally we could get the show on the road, and we fell into the line of action – only 2 hours later than the planned meeting time of 2:30. But this actually turned out to be a good thing, as the searing heat of 3 PM had been replaced by a pleasant breeze can light cloud cover. It took another two hours to complete the route. We danced to our disco light past parts of Pueblo Nuevo I’d never seen, with brightly-painted wooden houses no different from the ones one sees way out in the country and tiny sidewalk food stalls that strangely reminded me of some 3-foot-wide soup and crepe restaurants I’ve seen in Soho. It was actually a very pleasant route, and all the participants seemed to know most of the barrio children and parents that were out to watch the show. Our feet got tired, but the endless supply of rum and little baggies of water kept us going.
When we got down to Las Hermanas Mirabal, it became a major traffic jam. It was barely a parade anymore, and more of a standing-around-in-place type of thing. I greeted our rear neighbors, Los Muertos, who in their black capes, hats, and white face paint would easily fit into any Halloween party. Los Condes, a group wearing a variety of military uniforms, greeted me, as I’d met the leader at Tuesday’s meeting. We bought some ice cream from a Haitian vendor. I met the man who made my mask. Everyone’s disco light music got all mixed up. We held up traffic. Jose and the other lechones in costume alternately frightened and entertained small children. We generally had a good time. I didn’t see Los Jardines.
Eventually, we made it down and back the avenue, and then everyone went their separate ways. Los Confraternos followed a circuitous route back into Pueblo Nuevo. Going up a hill, we began to notice a strong burning smell. Some part of the truck was definitely aflame. We made it as far as a dusty, low-lying street probably prone to flooding where one of our members lived and then called it an evening, at least as far as the sad pickup was concerned. As the sun went down, though, it seemed like we might as well take advantage of the DJ and so he kept spinning tunes for us to dance to – carnival merengues, reggaeton, and finally some típico. We got down until the last of the rum finally disappeared, and then the guys got together to give the truck a push-start (it didn’t seem to work particularly well) before hoofing it back to Betania’s. All in all, I think it could be considered a job well done.
On Tuesday I returned to the Centro Leon for an afternoon availing myself of their library, reading an interesting book about the African roots of Dominican vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Really, I was just biding time until the evening, when I would be able to continue my carnival education via a panel discussion on the more famous carnival of La Vega to be held on the Centro’s patio. And I was biding my time for quite a while since, unusually for this joint, this event was running on Dominican time. Anyway, eventually things got rolling. First La Vega’s military band played a rousing march, and the discussants took their seats. The panel consisted of Rafael Emilio, the Centro’s director; a lawyer and former king of the Vegan carnival; the head of Los Broncos, a seminal group of Vegan devils; and later on, an elected official of La Vega.
The Vegan carnival is a big deal here because it has the first documented instance of carnival in the New World, making it a 500-year-old tradition, and it’s therefore gotten recognition from UNESCO as a heritage site. Consequently, it gets more tourists than any other Dominican carnival, necessitating the construction of a “Diablodromo” (like Rio’s Sambadrome), and the inversion of gazillions of corporate dollars. Before 1980, there were only individual devils and no groups, and masks were made of papier-mache like ours in Santiago. In 1980, Los Broncos formed, started making group costumes (the same design and colors for all members) and looking for funding. Trying to make the masks more impressive, they started using animal teeth in the mouth instead of papier-mache ones. After some years of that, they moved on to acrylic ones. Today, the masks are acrylic and generally made by formally trained artists. The Broncos now number 44 members, and there are a ton of other groups just like them. Each person who participates in the parade wears an outfit that, together with the mask, runs upward of $40,000 pesos ($1300 US) and can only be used once. The money for these comes from sponsors like banks or beer companies. Afterwards, the costumes are sold to other towns in the region, which presumably recycle them by using them in their own carnivals the next year.
Carnival in La Vega is huge. Veganos are justly proud of it, particularly the devils themselves, who apparently throw epic parties in their “Cuevas,” group headquarters they construct anew each year. And the costumes are undeniably impressive, as we found out when nine members of the Broncos came out. Enormous, crazy masks with huge teeth, bloodshot eyes, and a crown of ostrich feathers. Puffy pants and sleeves and a sort of cape in the style of a Renaissance Spanish gentleman, made out of sequined fabric, brocades, metallics, and with jingly bells, so you know they’re coming with their bladders, to give you an enormous and painful vejigazo. Luckly, they didn’t hit us, just danced around to a carnival tune provided by the (literal) military brass.
Although I was thrilled by the Broncos costumes and amused by their antics, I started to feel uneasy during the question-and-answer session that followed. The Vega politician was proudly pointing out that “in the carnaval vegano, you won’t see any disco light, or t-shirts or baseball caps.” Then an audience member, a Santiaguera, asked how we in Santiago might be able to make our carnival more colorful and as successful as the Vegan one. Wait a minute… are they saying our carnival isn’t good enough? Is the Vegan carnival better because it’s more costly and less modern-looking? People seem to think the carnaval vegano is more traditional because it doesn’t have the sound systems and the team t-shirts. But is traditional defined more on looks or on sentiment? Carnavalescos in Santiago are participating in the way they always have – making their own decisions on what kind of music they want to hear, how to show their barrio pride, what kind of costumes will best express their carnival spirit and the current state of Dominican society and culture. Isn’t that “traditional,” even though it does include huge speaker towers blasting reggaeton and ugly old Chevy impalas carrying Muertos in polyester capes? I started getting nervous that people were going to try to change our carnaval, and that if I come back to participate in five years I’ll have to go ask Presidente beer for support first. If that’s the will of the people, then so be it, but what if that means that the Jardineros get their way in everything and the people who are the backbone of today’s carnival in Santiago – the poor and working-class – have no say in how they represent themselves? These are all big questions.
On Wednesday I took a day off from Carnival matters in order to pay Rafaelito a visit for purposes of a re-interview. I had a bunch of questions that had come up since the last time we did one, and I wanted to go over some terms I thought I understood but wanted to confirm. Eventually I had to go and get some lunch though, and when I came back his other musicians were arriving for a rehearsal. I stayed for it, wanting to hear some new tunes, and it also gave me the opportunity to find out more about the rhythms the congas play and how they interlock with the tambora.
On Thursday I was back to carnival business, however, since Rafael Almanzar, the local Santiago folklorist and a friend of mine, had invited me to come by and see a film they were showing at the Casa del Arte about carnival in San Cristobal. This was yet another whole new perspective on the business: while Santiago is the people’s carnival, and La Vega is the showy, expensive carnival, San Cristobal is a carnival revival. The guy who’d made the short film we saw had come up from San Cristobal to talk to us about it. He explained that in the 1970s he’d been involved in a local activist theater group, and while putting on a Bertolt Brecht, of all things, they got the idea of bringing carnival back to this city in which it had almost completely died out during the Balaguer years. (Balaguer had prohibited mask use during his 12-year rule, reasoning that the commies might be able to use them to commit their horrible acts of social equality in anonymity; this meant all mask-makers went out of business and many lost interest in carnival altogether.)
Carnival furthered the theater group’s political goals because it is the only celebration in which “the people” themselves are both actors and audience, and neither the state nor the church interfere (ideally). They decided to officially name the San Cristobal version the “Carnaval Popular,” underscoring the idea that, although corporate interests could get involved by contributing funds and selling their products to carnival goers, the only ones who would have a say in how the carnival actually went were the townspeople, the participants. It first took place in 1980 and is now going strong. All the usual carnival personages – Roba la Gallina, diablos, indios, africanos, etc – are well-represented; other older characters (el caiman, el toro) have been revived; and new characters make an appearance every year. Even the lechones are there, in a group started by a Santiaguera who moved down south. Well, it was an interesting film and an even more interesting talk, being that it contrasted so completely with what I’d seen and heard on Tuesday. Carnival certainly gives one a lot to think about.
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