I know what you are thinking, but don't make the mistake I did the first time I saw Expreso Vegano written on the side of a bus. There are only a handful of people in this country that know what a vegan is. There is no way they would name a bus line after veganism and there is definitely no vegan carnival here. Vegano is the demonym for somebody from La Vega, a city that has existed in some shape or form since Christopher Columbus founded it in 1494. La Vega is the capital of Caribbean carnaval and a town that literally doubles in size each Sunday during February to celebrate carnaval. This is word that is synonymous with light beer, loud music, loud costumes, cow stomach beating implements and fights.
Before anyone coming from Santo Domingo can enjoy the light beer, they must first drive through the roadblocks. Pentecostals in the DR are just as opposed to carnaval as the rest of the country is crazy about it. There is about a kilometer of road as you enter La Vega lined with t-shirted proselytizers reminding the soon to be debauched travelers that prayer is free. These signs and t-shirts soon give way to beer stands. The streets are usually packed by 11 am and by 12 there is a carpet of yellow beer cans covering the ground. Why can't we all be like Belgian monks and admit that beer and prayer go very well together.
The music is not so much heard as felt and seen. It beats on your eardrums so loud that you choose to ignore the pain and focus how the sound affects the rest of your body: vibration in the legs and thumping in the chest. The side street you enter is a sound tunnel. Waves pulse through the people as if they were water. Sound rushes through the green tent and masked partiers dance or try to force their way through the sweaty crowd. There are more minivans than I have ever seen in this country before, but not the kind you drive your kids to football practice in. Customized rear hatch doors complete with carbon fiber tweeters, woofers and subwoofers pump the pollution out quicker than the tail pipes. The hoods are open to allow the engines to cool as best they can as they run at capacity to power these van sized speakers. Two vans side by side pummeling the dancers mercilessly with sound.
The costumes are not so much seen as heard. They creep up behind you and something in the middle of your head tells you a googly eyed demon is coming down the street. Everything is fluorescent: pink, green and purple. Some of these costumes cost a months wages and all of them cause at least a days worth of sweat to pour out in just a few minutes. They have to get them drycleaned after each time they wear them so that they will be fit to wear the next week.
It is violence to all the senses. If the music feels like a beating the actual beatings are worse. Each costumed vigilante carries what looks like an under-inflated balloon on the end of a rope. Once upon a time these were cow stomachs, now they are plastic, but they still hurt. The vigilantes wear batting gloves and take running starts at the crowd. The next wave of costumes is always harolded by people running away from the whips. They leave large yellow bruises for weeks, but still, the crowd taunts them leaving their rear ends exposed to the whippers.
There is enough swinging of whips and beer drinking and crowding in of people that sooner or later the short fuses will burn out. A tall muscular young man with long curly hair is puffing up his chest and pointing ("tu y yo"). Maybe its over a girl, but nobody can really tell. All the crowd can do is sense the impending blows. The shorter, stockier man has finally had enough and cold cocks him in the face. The crowd bellies out around them and the scare crow looking youth is being tossed around by his hair and beaten in the face. After a minute or two, the bigger guys have made it to the fighters and pull them off each other. The winner runs off while the scare crow bubbles out words through a swollen face to anyone who will listen, but no-one can hear.
The senses are overloaded. A couple minutes in the heart of carnaval explains why Dominicans shout rather than talk, dance rather than walk, and devour rather than eat or drink. Calling this old tradition vibrant would be so inadequate that it would be ironic. Some parties go off like dynamite, this one goes off like an a-bomb.
The music is not so much heard as felt and seen. It beats on your eardrums so loud that you choose to ignore the pain and focus how the sound affects the rest of your body: vibration in the legs and thumping in the chest. The side street you enter is a sound tunnel. Waves pulse through the people as if they were water. Sound rushes through the green tent and masked partiers dance or try to force their way through the sweaty crowd. There are more minivans than I have ever seen in this country before, but not the kind you drive your kids to football practice in. Customized rear hatch doors complete with carbon fiber tweeters, woofers and subwoofers pump the pollution out quicker than the tail pipes. The hoods are open to allow the engines to cool as best they can as they run at capacity to power these van sized speakers. Two vans side by side pummeling the dancers mercilessly with sound.
The costumes are not so much seen as heard. They creep up behind you and something in the middle of your head tells you a googly eyed demon is coming down the street. Everything is fluorescent: pink, green and purple. Some of these costumes cost a months wages and all of them cause at least a days worth of sweat to pour out in just a few minutes. They have to get them drycleaned after each time they wear them so that they will be fit to wear the next week.
It is violence to all the senses. If the music feels like a beating the actual beatings are worse. Each costumed vigilante carries what looks like an under-inflated balloon on the end of a rope. Once upon a time these were cow stomachs, now they are plastic, but they still hurt. The vigilantes wear batting gloves and take running starts at the crowd. The next wave of costumes is always harolded by people running away from the whips. They leave large yellow bruises for weeks, but still, the crowd taunts them leaving their rear ends exposed to the whippers.
There is enough swinging of whips and beer drinking and crowding in of people that sooner or later the short fuses will burn out. A tall muscular young man with long curly hair is puffing up his chest and pointing ("tu y yo"). Maybe its over a girl, but nobody can really tell. All the crowd can do is sense the impending blows. The shorter, stockier man has finally had enough and cold cocks him in the face. The crowd bellies out around them and the scare crow looking youth is being tossed around by his hair and beaten in the face. After a minute or two, the bigger guys have made it to the fighters and pull them off each other. The winner runs off while the scare crow bubbles out words through a swollen face to anyone who will listen, but no-one can hear.
The senses are overloaded. A couple minutes in the heart of carnaval explains why Dominicans shout rather than talk, dance rather than walk, and devour rather than eat or drink. Calling this old tradition vibrant would be so inadequate that it would be ironic. Some parties go off like dynamite, this one goes off like an a-bomb.
