A kaleidoscope of wild colour and vibrating hips swirled slowly -- ever so slowly --along Lake Shore Blvd. W. yesterday as Caribana enchanted the city for its 39th year.
By Michele MandelYou've got to love a parade that doesn't really get underway until almost four hours after its scheduled start time and yet still has an estimated one million revellers dancing along under the hot sun without complaint.
And why not? All you had to do was close your eyes for a moment, feel the cool breeze from the water's edge, smell the spicy aroma of jerk chicken and allow the pulsing calypso beat to slip through your skin and you were, for an afternoon at least, transported to the islands -- and island time.
"It's like coming to Jamaica for the day," said a swaying Kuara Harrod, 40, who travelled here from Vineland for Caribana. "It feels like you're somewhere in the Caribbean."
Giant, multicoloured dragons, peacocks and lions of meticulously sewn sequins and feathers floated down the road from Exhibition Stadium toward the Boulevard Club, and like the old wave at the baseball game, as soon as each mas band's music could first be discerned, the waiting crowd along the route would instantly begin to move their bodies to its addictive call.
And as singer Shakira notes in her top hit these days, "Hips don't lie."
It may be known by its longer title in this outing --the Toronto Caribbean Carnival -- but it is still Caribana to the rest of us, in all its vibrant and unhurried glory. "Caribana's such a great tradition for Toronto," Mayor David Miller said yesterday, doing his level best to move to the rhythm alongside his daughter Julia. "You see people from everywhere -- plus the food is great."
Petrisse Mason rode the bus in from New York. "This is my first time and I love it," the 21-year-old said, her body shaking expertly to the beat. "I'm (originally) from Trinidad, so to hear them celebrating my music is great."
For Cuban-born Ludmilla Garcia, the sun and the sounds were almost nostalgic. "It reminds me of home a little bit," said the 26-year-old, who was experiencing her first Caribana since arriving in Toronto a year ago.
Former Etobicoke-Lakeshore MP Jean Augustine was enjoying her own wave of nostalgia as she rode one of the first floats. When Caribana first began in 1967, she was wearing a costume and dancing her way from Varsity Stadium down to the lake.
"In the beginning it was just our community getting together and celebrating," she recalled.
OUTFITS GOT SMALLER
"Now it is a real multicultural and multiracial event that represents Canada. The thought then was to have something to celebrate the centennial. Little did anyone think that 39 years later, it would grow to this."
Augustine still has that very first costume with its little satin dress and cape of green, yellow and red but she is quick to insist it was nothing like the teeny-weeny sequined bikinis and elaborate headdresses worn now.
"In the first year we had nothing as skimpy as today," she laughed. "We didn't show our belly buttons."
Yesterday, of course, there was no shortage of bare skin shimmering with gold dust as the flamboyant masqueraders moved to the hot music and the crowd looked on in awe. "I just love to watch," said Zenida Ermitano, 53, who has come down to the parade most years since arriving from the Philippines. "It's very slow but we're still enjoying it. I like the costumes and the dancing," she added with a laugh, "when they shake their booty."
It's keeping those hips moving which must be the key to looking young.
Friends Tessa Davy, 54, and Annette Gibbs, 57, have been masqueraders for more than 30 years. In their $130 gold lame costumes, complete with white capes and gold plume headdresses, they look like women half their age.
"It's the fun, that's what it's about, letting go and having a good time," said Davy, explaining why she is still out there dancing after all these years.
As for her family, "they think mom's crazy," she chuckled. "We are party animals and they have a hard time keeping up with us."
Both women have high pressure jobs: Davy is a nurse and Gibbs is a vice-president with Sun Life. "It's a form of catharsis so you can get up Tuesday morning and face the world again," Gibbs said, while taking a quick lunch break before getting back to the parade. It purges your soul."
ON A MANHUNT
For Heather Fleet, Caribana draws her for different reasons. "I live in a farm town near Grimsby so to come to Toronto is like going to Las Vegas," she said. "I'm Native and I like to come out to all different cultural things."
The 40-year-old nurse may be a fan of reggae and salsa but there was another reason she came to Caribana this year -- she wanted to find herself a Caribbean man.
"I just love their music. I love their culture. They're more hip and," she giggled, "the sex is really good."
As the afternoon wore on, those who knew better than to arrive at the stated start time of 10 a.m. began to stream in to watch the rainbow of 35 floats, with the crowd standing five-deep at some points along the route.
Colin Gero's one complaint was that with the barricades, he felt too separated from the revellers. "In Montreal," said Gero, 36, "you can get up close and jump up with everybody."
The barriers didn't bother Marcia Rumble, who brought her family here from Maryland. "I love it," enthused the 33-year-old mother of three, who left Jamaica for America four years ago.
'CAN WE LIVE HERE?'
"It teaches them about unity, seeing all the races coming together as one and living together as one. I would love to live here. I told my husband, 'Please can we live here?'"
It is a cliche, of course, repeated so often about this multicultural city that we long ago became blase about how special it is. And yet it is through the eyes of a visitor that you realize again how lucky we are. A parade celebrating Caribbean culture and there dancing along are Torontonians from every corner of the globe.
For a moment, at least, you can almost forget the troubles that plague us.
"We're here to celebrate music, culture, people coming together," said Erril Rudder, the 43-year-old's braid dancing in the hot wind as he twirled to the pulsing beat. "Enough with the violence and that nonsense. We're here to celebrate as one people and so far everything's looking good."
