Clean the city, respect the mas

Carnival in the City

Dara E Healy

Some searching dustbins like chicken hawk

For fry chicken bones and rotten pork

Some sleep in filth on the sidewalk

…Like the nation’s brain

Ent working again

Port of Spain

Down the drain

The nation’s brain ent working again

Port of Spain

Gone insane

– Chalkdust, Port of Spain Gone Insane, 1986

THE SHIFTING of Carnival away from the city centre has long been a source of distress for me. My cherished memories of Carnival are downtown – pushing pan with Despers down Frederick Street or standing amongst hundreds of people on Independence Square in the Jouvay (J'Ouvert) morning air.

A couple years ago, as I chipped with the All Stars sailor mas towards South Quay under a cloud-like halo of powder, those memories flooded back. For me, Carnival is inextricably linked with the heart of our city, with "downtown." Today Port of Spain is so dirty and unwelcoming, I hold on even tighter to the city of my childhood recollections. When will we clean our city, this ancestral space of mas and rebellion?

Last year, while I commended the launch of Carnival 2026 on the Brian Lara Promenade, I wondered what would happen after the selfies were posted and the media coverage was forgotten. I made the point that the launch was only the first step and that there should be “real efforts to recraft the city to honour those who sacrificed and gave their lives for Carnival. A festival that annually brings billions into our country and enriches us in countless other ways.”

However, beyond the formalities and revenue-earning power of the festival, it must be remembered that for a vast segment of our population, masquerade was spiritual and ancestral. This means that Carnival must be welcomed with the respect and ritual that are historically appropriate. Just as we would clean our homes or communal spaces for an important religious occasion or to welcome guests, keeping our city clean is integral to this understanding.

Confusingly, it seems that our inability to keep the city clean is not a recent problem. In 1841, almost 200 years ago, the report of a meeting between scavenging contractors and the Cabildo indicated that “in many places the footpaths are full of holes so that the water flowing from the houses accumulates in them, and forms a bluish black putrid mass, from which issues the most stagnant vapours.”

In documenting city slums in the 1930s, Michael Anthony wrote that “it was so common for dwelling places to be built of scanting and box-board, that when serious torrential rains hit Port of Spain in August 1933, one read in the newspapers of houses swept away by flood water.”

Our city is not represented much better in Chalkdust’s calypso from the 1980s. He begins his lament reminiscing about when Port of Spain was a place that one would dress up to go to shop, meet friends or other form of relaxation. With my child’s memory, I also recall the city being a place of wonder and excitement. Over time, I travelled to other parts of the Caribbean and the world and witnessed the different levels of care paid to their city centres – museums, sculpture, green spaces – and, as in Barbados, a site to honour citizens who contributed to the development of their nation.

Worse, we consistently disrespect the legacy of mas by our unsustainable approach to Carnival. In a nation already drowning in plastic, we persist in using materials such as glitter, shiny beads, gems and unimaginable quantities of single-use plastics. As children, we enjoyed finding bits of costume that we would refashion or repurpose. Today, I am aware of only one organisation that intentionally recycles costumes and I continue to see masqueraders leaving costumes of all sizes in the street after the festival. This "throw-way" attitude is antithetical or in complete opposition to the soul of Carnival which was originally about creating beauty with what was available.

Much of our culture, from pan to mas, calypso and traditional masquerades, emanated from the streets, alleys and hills above Port of Spain. We need to return Carnival to downtown, to the places and spaces that birthed this festival. But first, our city must be cleaned or the spirit of the mas will never bless us in the ways that I know it can. In the ways that I know we need.

Dara E Healy is a performing artist and founder of the Idakeda Group, a cultural organisation dedicated to empowering communities through the arts.