I found in my archive glowing reports on Jouvert Morning from 2014 and 2009, so it’s either I didn’t participate in the years in between or I didn’t write! I think I also remember one very disappointing Jouvert Morning with just one band and one disco truck, as the event almost died…but I have to report it is well and alive!
Some friends said let’s go, it’s full of music, 12 bands, and I was immediately sold, sipping my coffee in the back of a pickup truck all the way to San Nicholas.
Traffic was light, though one frontal accident slowed it down towards Savaneta, and parking was easy, check.
By the time we got to the YMCA the parade was well underway, it left at 4am, sharp, and rolled briskly down the street, with just a handful of people shuffling behind each band.
Our stop at the Winter Garden for a beer was identical to the one in 2009 and 2014, with the same regulars glued to the bar. Cutting through the main street to the head of the parade we missed, we noticed that the street was in dire need of a good clean up from an earlier happening. What’s the matter? You are usually so good about cleaning.
By the time we got to the entrance of our defunct refinery the parade was thick and lively with the largest group of dancers shuffling behind the inside, with N’Fusion, and a disappointing few for Oreo, Youth Xtreme and D’Licious. I remember how popular these bands were in past years, now only their diehards remain.
At the end of the parade on our way back to Lago Sport Park Tsunami did not disappoint, their music was great, no crazy bass pounding, just the sound that we craved to wrap up an excellent party shortly before 9am.
Thank you Mrs. De Couteau for the Johnny Cakes and Salt Fish, which we enjoyed while parking on her sidewalk.
Jouvert morning was totally amazing, the pajamas, the hair rollers, chamber pots, bedroom slippers, fancy negligees, baby-dolls, orange body paint, baby powder, blue body paint, pampers, pacifiers, bathrobes, plastic shower caps, the men in drags, the chollers, the Police commissioner his eyes closed in devotion to the music, his legs dancing, it was a true tribute to Aruba’s joy of life and its insatiable appetite for parties, from which you depart wasted, wet, sweaty, tired, in broken shoes, swollen feet, with an aching back!
We missed Le Grove, where were you? We missed Upgrade music, where were you? The refinery’s aroma of butane gas was thankfully missing. The Flashback band looked depressed.
The Failures and lead singer Mingo dished out their traditional charming mélange recruiting Teolinda and Lulu Bang Bang to entertain the crowd with ear-pleasing steel pan music and a vuvuzela.
San Nicholas was very appealing last night, congratulations Aruba for a well organize, totally safe, extremely enjoyable night, thanks to the Police force, thanks to SMAC, my friends tell me it would not have been possible anywhere else in the world, because everything we do out on the street on Jouvert Morning would be considered illegal elsewhere in the world, Viva Aruba, Viva Jouvert!
PS. Leave more trash containers next year. Thanks for clean public rest rooms!
