The theme for Dominica's carnival, 1998 energized a somewhat wary population into proving how naturally great and unique Dominica's carnival is and was. Castaway's Souse and WCK fete on Dimanche Gras was a nice gathering of family and friends who enjoyed the rum punch and souse as much as possible. WCK's music was hard to resist and slowly but surely people gathered on the tennis courts and danced until a beautiful sunset reminded most people to go home and rest.

Some adventurous and die-hard Dominican fans and souls collected in St. Joseph's village to enjoy the spirit of St. Jo's raw, natural and spontaneous people. And what a fete! St, Jo's carnival was in full swing with lots of masks and sensay costumes milling about...the big truck loaded and swinging with people...WCK and First Serenade songs encouraging the crowd to get higher. But the one song which had everybody going was the "Oooh ya ya ya" song and boy did the crowd start rolling with that one!! St. Jo went wild but they still were not as wild as the Roseau posse which sang "oooh ya yah" even while "chippin" to the lapo kabwit beat on j'ouvert morne.

What a j'ouvert it was. The Hummingbird Inn's traditional midnite jing ping was a warming prelude to the Swinging Stars who were in perfect form at the Fort Young where ex- pats, returning Dominicans, new Dominicans, guests and tourists gathered as they waited to greet the morning. The rising anticipation led to a full showing of Dominicans pounding the road, hips swaying ands heads nodding a positive rhythm and beat as the lapo kabwi drums called out to everyone to jump out of bed and jump to beat in the street! By 6 am j'ouvert morne Roseau was almost crowded -people jumping, people watching, people laughing and people having a naturally great time. And lapo kabwit bands were everywhere so one didn't have to walk far to find one. As for the costumes, or drag queens, they were on every street corner encouraging the crowd to let loose and lose their inhibitions!

Which by the time the parade of bands started, around 10 am on Monday morning, inhibitions were being lost at a fast rate. The parade of bands were colorful and the carnival queen and contestants carried themselves well. The costumes are becoming more and more risque though Dominica's unique carnival will always reflect its rustic charm. The crowds were not plentiful as in years past nor were they unruly and it seemed like people were doing their best to keep a watchful eye over everyone. In fact the costume bands on Monday appeared more orderly than previous years. Thus prompting the surprising comment from one of Dominica's new citizens....."I wish it hadn't been so regimented!"

Apparently though, the people who had slept through the night and were well rested with their beauty sleep were satisfied with the show. Some of us had too much fun with the lapo kabwit j'ouvert bands and felt that the daytime was the right time to sleep a little before the evening jump-up. Most felt like the evening jump-up just wasn't long enough but Earl Etienne, one of Dominica's premier artiste, felt that it was sufficient and stated, "We need more costumes and the hours should be limited. It was nice but more costumes and bands are needed. We need to forget the block-o's and up and down the road....lets get back to more costumes and parties all over the place. Open the gates for Carnival City and let people jump and jam there. There is just too much violence...with more people involved in bands and costume parades then there will be less violence and it will look nice...but I enjoyed my carnival. Still, if we start organizing now and look for sponsors and keep the costs down, say $50 for a person..then that would be a good thing and there would be less violence." So, by 8 pm on Monday the music stopped and people wandered the streets a bit dazed and confused...why so early?!?! But then everybody knew the reasons why...some were thankful as it gave them a chance to sleep, others were upset as they needed to keep the spirits flowing.

A few visionaries decided to bring back tradition and have parties after the early ending on Monday. The general mood was one of contentment. People had a good time, they were determined to have a good time - after all, that is why they came back to Dominica, or stayed in Dominica, or visited Dominica for carnival - it's unique! As one Dominican professional brought up in England who recently decided to move back home enthusiastically proclaimed, "That was the best Carnival I have ever experienced. I have been to Notting Hill's carnival, Trinidad's carnival, Barbados' Crop Over several times. In fact I used to travel far just to make carnival. But Dominica's carnival is the best...it was my first time and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The people are great!"

On Tuesday it was quite obvious that more people decided to participate in the festivities and the music seemed to get wilder and louder as the crowds in their various t-shits jumped and "propelled" themselves through the streets. WCK and First Serenade pulled large numbers of people who were kept cool throughout the day with free drinks! As the evening dawned the crowds increased and climaxed around 6 pm. From then on people began to really lose their inhibitions while the intoxicating effects of the music and energy fueled them on. The impending 8 pm cut-off time encouraged most participants in Carnival to have a last lap and round around 7:30 pm. At 8 pm sharp the music stopped and people milled about in the roads...tired but satisfied. Carnival was great in ‘98!

Katrina Finucane will be adding more to this Roundup as her memory clears...

Each year as Carnival comes to Dominica, people put aside their duties and obligations and rev up their spirit to take advantage of a special occasion. From the young hopeful Carnival Queens in their elaborate costumes, to the sedate pudgy cruise ship tourists watching from the sidelines, Carnival has something for everyone, connecting humanity through the webwork of dreams.

Carnival '98 offered new challenges and opportunities for Dominica. With the kick-off at Festival City bringing violence to the forefront of the media's attention, it looked as if things were getting off to a bad start. But so many people had worked hard to make this the "best "carnival ever that the negative vibes could not win out. Although the 8 pm curfew may have dampened some spirits, it added a touch of reality to the celebrations -- everyone has to go home and get back to work sooner or later.

This year, many businesses sponsored bands contributing to the community participation; new costume designers flaunted their stuff, adding more sparkle and flash to the jump-up than ever before; and the sensays were out in force, reminding us of the traditional carnival celebrations (how do they wear those costumes without melting?!). Taking all of this in, young and old flocked to the streets of Roseau to prove that they could celebrate in style.

Carnival is a time when everyone can let his hair down and forget about the serious side of life for a while. Now as the nation goes back to work, most people do so with renewed vigour and enthusiasm, having temporarily shed their woes in the streets of Roseau. And as we carry on with our day-to-day toils, we know that we can get by, because only 51 weeks from now we will escape once again into the sights and sounds of Carnival '99!

Vézyé Tifi

Carnival was naturally great in La Plaine. It all started off with a dance at the Stone Disco which is located on the peak of the village, on the Sunday night. The dance went on till in the early hours of the morning. At about 6:30 a.m, the same band was on the road for j'ouvert, It lasted for about 3 hours.

All during the day, one could find, men dress up all in black, with black masks (Band Mauvais) roaming around the village, from home to home. In the afternoon all the band mauvais, came together to form groups and put on a small show for the onlookers. There was also a T-shirt band on the road, which was the first ever T-shirt band held in La Plaine, they followed the band which came back out in the afternoon. The band played heated music, the band and instruments were originally from St. Thomas. On Monday the band stopped at 8:15 p.m. The following Tuesday was the same.

Jessica Stedman

It had long been my ambition to put as much of Carnival as possible on the Web. The first year I was really into the Web, 1996, was the first that I put pictures (still images captured from camcorder) of Carnival on the Web on the same day (you might remember this image).

Subsequently, and with the advancement of video streaming technology, the real hope was for live audio and video, but alas, despite valiant efforts from Fred White at CaKaFete, there's not a great deal one can acheive with dial up access to the Net.

Nevertheless, webcams have always inspired me, and with the Delphis office being right on the Carnival route, some kind of CarnivalCam was a must. Here's how we did it...

1) Plug in a standard camcorder (in our case a Panasonic IQ Palmcorder, 1993 vintage) into...

2) a video digitising card. This wonderful piece of hardware (an internal card) from Miro let you capture stills or entire clips from video or TV .

3) Point the camera at the street and let NetSnap do the rest. The beauy of this software is that it takes care of everything: you just tell it how often to capture the image and where to upload (FTP) it.

4) In our case we let NetSnap upload the image to the closest server. The reason for this was the need for frequent uploads - it would always be quicker to upload to 'next door' than to where the Delphis web site sits (California).

Though the speed and reliability of our connection varied throughout the day (we changed to upload frequency from every 15 seconds to every 30), and the responsiveness of the web site may have left something to be desired, the feedback has all been very posititve. The page recorded over 6,00 hits in the two days and the site recorded three times the number of hits for both days than a normal day (see our site statistics page).

One of the amazing things about it all was that it really only came together on the Sunday before Carnival. Having decided to use software called ISpy, it was a last minute decision to switch to NetSnap, and thanks to them for prompt processing of our online order!

It didn't all go smoothly - much panic was caused when the Pentium 200 PC booted up on Tuesday without recognising sound or video capture card. Taking out the network card solved that one.

Above all, we've laid the groundwork for much more for not only Carnival '99, but other events throughout the year. Stay tuned!

Steve McCabe