02.14.08 kulturnatib

Pride parade

When you are told that a certain festival parade is the third biggest of its kind in the world, next only to the Rio de Janeiro Carnival, the New Orleans Mardi Gras and that, moreover, this parade is 54 years old this year in a city that is also, this year, celebrating its 400th birthday then, it cannot be helped that your expectations simply shoots through the roof.

Still, you pipe in, rather wanly, about this festival parade in your city. Sinulog, it's called, you say. It is the biggest festival parade in your country. Well, you admit, its not that old, its only been around for, you rake your brain, perhaps 25 years. But, its good, you submit.

It has been compared favorably -- by partisans, yes -- to the Rio carnival but not to the one you have just been told about. Sorry, you apologize, neither you nor anybody else in your country you know has heard of this parade you have been invited to experience.

We'll see, you say, giving credit to the fact that this parade is somewhat different. Actually very different. This is the parade for a winter festival that celebrates the customs and culture of winter in this region of this country known for its fierce winters. This has led to it being referred to, not so jokingly, as having only two seasons: winter and the next winter.

As such, unlike the Rio Carnaval or the New Orleans Mardi Gras or even Sinulog that has some kind of religious reference, this winter festival has an entirely civic, social or public health reason behind it.

From the earliest beginnings of the realization that disease and sickness have a social dimension it has been known that winter and the forced confinement that it results in produces depression and other sicknesses, a syndrome called 'cabin fever.'

The prescription to this then is to spend some time outdoors. The more, the better. So, this festival that happens every first three weeks of February and the parades that happen in the second and third weekends was organized.

The Sinulog also has two parades, although the first one, is really a religious procession. This, like the first of the two Quebec Carnival parades, is for families. Here, the similarities between the Sinulog and the Quebec Carnival become more different.

Mostly because, freed from religious trappings and constraints, the locals here are simply more forthright in calling their two parades, unofficially, the family parade and the drunken parade.

So, it was to the family parade I was invited. It's going to be different, I was told. After all, this is the city's 400th birthday and despite some setbacks -- the Pope has declined the invitation to say mass here, among other disappointments -- it is determined to show that it knows how to celebrate big time.

Right away it is different for me. To stand outside in subzero, freezing temperature is different. But, you're waiting with some 300 people at this particular street corner along the 4 kilometer parade route, the collective body heat somehow keeps the cold at bay. Then it starts to snow.

In the meantime, something familiar entertains the crowd as they are increasingly getting impatient. Some enterprising person walks around selling some gadget that lights up when waved about. It is not cheap. But it sells. Fast. Soon, other people are selling other things. But they are just a handful. At the Sinulog easily a tenth of the crowd is made up of these itinerant vendors.

Almost an hour after the announced time, the parade arrives, led by more vendors selling stuff. This time, though, they were 'official vendors' selling 'official carnival items.' They are not a big hit with the crowd.

But, where are the bands, the loud music, the noise, you wonder? Then you see the electronic equipment hoisted on this forklift vehicle. Music is issuing forth from the speakers. You can't tell what it is. It's not loud enough.

Then you see young people in costumes, bringing huge drafting instruments. They are prancing about with no discernible pattern or choreography. No, they line up. They dance, if you can call it that. Then they move on.

More young people. More prancing about. More forklifts with electronics and lights that get lifted up and brought down. There are the giant puppets, made to move about with the aid of a mobile construction crane. There are the floats whose themes or relation to what the over-all theme for the celebration you cannot establish, which you do not know beforehand anyway.

Later, enjoying the refuge of a hot cup of coffee, you are told that there wasn't much after you left. That was basically it. That was it? Yes, but you missed the bon homme du carnaval. The mascot of the carnival. A snowman. No, not a giant one. A regular one. I missed that?

You didn't want to be rude. After all, you are still a guest. You let the locals do the talking. It wasn't good; not impressive; it was better before, etc. The local press, chipping in the following day, was more diplomatic: It needed oiling.

Now, you wonder, why after all the years of trying to be away from the city during Sinulog, you miss it and, somehow, something wells inside you that could only be pride.