Last week I was driving around town to get groceries. It wasn’t my most lucky day, I might add. I wanted to get home as fast as possible because I left a sick husband (flu) there and I wasn’t fully up and running myself.
But somehow I kept running into delays. I had to drive to a supermarket far away to get something we really needed and I spent ten minutes waiting for a traffic light that decided that my lane wasn’t going anywhere and then five minutes to get out of that lane without getting into an accident and take a detour.
And then the road was blocked, just before I arrived at the supermarket and again when I tried to get off the parking lot with my car full of food.
But… My goodness. That last delay…
It’s Carnaval here, you know. They love their parties and holidays here, but Carnaval is the most important. It’s part of the quest for a culture of their own, started fifty years ago. The parades we still have were actually initiated by Dutch people (I read a book about the Curaçao Carnaval a few weeks ago), but they shaped it into something really special and authentic. It’s a real community party, out on the streets, where everyone can join in. They save up for it all year and there are several parades spread over two weeks. (I blogged about it before: here and here)
This one was very special though. The local nursing home decided to have it’s own parade (I don’t know if they do this every year), with their own truck. Loud music on a truck is essential for a good parade, they say (in the big parade, every group has its own truck). I guess they could never do the big parades since that would mean spending hours and hours in the hot afternoon sun. But they still didn’t want to miss out. So there they went, wheelchairs and all. At the end of the parade, I even spied a bed and there was a bus following with people that I assume weren’t able to be out there. But there they were, celebrating their own Carnaval party.
I parked my car and just enjoyed the view and those happy, happy faces.
It brought a smile on my face too. And maybe a bit of a tear in my eyes.
