Carnivale

I prepared you for carnivale, but it was I who was not prepare for the festivities. All week the pot has been boiling with excitement throughout the town as tourist slowly amass. Thursday was finally the day the town burst out with its glorious beginning to this year’s carnival. At ten in the morning festivities began with a town parade. It was quite an arrangement of themes that trampled down the town’s cobble stone streets. Every child in town that is old enough for school was in the parade with their class dressed in some kind of costume that matched a certain theme I can only imagine the teacher had selfishly picked. Where is the democracy among 1^st graders? Lady bugs, Marry Poppins, mice and rats, world ethnicities, royal families. These were among just a few of the many different themes shown. A couple rouge paraders had some pretty clever outfits. My two favorite were Berlusconi and his mistress and the town mayor being protected by a fake security guy(funny because no one was trying to get close to the mayor). Each of the classes created a float that was hauled by a vehicle. Inside the vehicles were usually 2 men that were doing a social service to Bosa. Once in a while the truck would stop and they would hand out little cups of wine to whomever stepped up to bat. Of course they took a few shots for themselves. There is nothing like a drinking driver and a drinking back seat driver among a completely packed crowd. Nothing can go wrong in this scenario. I guess nothing can go wrong because this is a yearly occurrence. Enough practice drunk driving and you have to be good at it, right?

The next night got a whole lot weirder for me. After working that day, we went down to the main square around five at night and stood our ground. Quickly crowds gathered as if gravity had shifted to my body. People were hovering all around me with anxious eyes. A part was wondering if the Bosa people had thought I was gonna give them a show as the new comer in town. Luckily just as I was about to fart the alphabet the show started. “Show” doesn’t do justice to what I saw. There were five or six different groups of dressed characters playing roles and creating a spectacle. The first was a group of guards and flag throwers making nice sounds and aesthetic acrobatic throws with their flags. The rest of the “show” was different men dressed as sheep, goats, herders, boars and maids acting out different parts of an old story that represents what carnivale really is. The costumes were just so intricate and wonderful that you can tell that this carnival really means something to this town. I can’t wait for tomorrow.

Moral of the story, if you cant wait, then go to sleep.