Carnival

Today is Ash Wednesday, the third and final day of Carnival here in Brazil. For the second year running the famous parades have been cancelled, causing loss of revenue to a large number of people and businesses. These parades are a wonderful spectacle and are professionally organised and run and people come from all over to watch them.

When I was young, in the 60´s, I seem to remember Carnival being quite different, you actually took part instead of just watching.. There were loads of street parades, every district appeared to have one but they were smaller, amateur affairs. There were also loads of parties everywhere, from clubs to restaurants to homes. You would go out dancing, come home at dawn, sleep for the day then be off out again. After three days of this you needed Ash Wednesday to recover! Costumes were worn and confetti and streamers were everywhere. People carried squeezie bottles containing sangue do diabo (devil´s blood) with which they squirted you, it was a bright red liquid which became colourless as it dried, and lança perfume ( a sort of perfumed ether) in aerosols which were also squirted. If this got in your eyes it was very painful and people wore special little transparent masks to protect themselves. Both these substances were eventually banned but still appeared for a number of years. 

I think we used to enjoy Carnival more then, nowadays there appear to be far less parties and people seem to regard it more as an extra long weekend rather than an opportunity to dance the night away.

Ah, those were the days!

Photo by Matheus Frade on Unsplash