Olga by Marie-Therese Browne

Author:Marie-Therese Browne [Browne, Marie-Therese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marie-Therese Browne (Marie Campbell)
Published: 2011-06-30T16:12:21+00:00

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John Canoe: In the distance I can hear the music from the John Canoe celebrations which we’ll all go and join up with after lunch. John Canoe parades date back to slavery when Christmas was the only extended holiday the slaves had and it was a very special holiday for them. Some people say John Canoe was a great African chief and loved so much by his people that in his honour a festival is held every year. Men wear “John Canoe faces” which are masks worn by the performers.

One performer will wear a sort of house on his head, some wear a cow’s head, one or two of them wear the head of a horse, some of the men dress in women’s clothes and all are dancing in the streets accompanied by drums, tambourines, banjos, flutes or homemade musical instruments and there is lots of noise and dancing in the streets.

The Devil carries a pitchfork and wears a cowbell attached to his backside. On his head is a cardboard cylinder which rests on a flat square piece of cardboard and his entire costume is black. He pokes people with his pitchfork and frightens, not only children, but grown ups as well, me included sometimes.

Another performer plays Belly Woman, a pregnant lady who makes her belly move in time to the music. She is very funny and another character, Pitchy-Patchy, has the most colourful costume of all, with layered strips of brightly coloured cloth. He is very energetic doing handstands and cartwheels all the time

In the evening most of us will go to Winchester Park which will be just one mass of people, young and old, rich and poor, all determined to have a good time.

At the entrance to the park last year was a thirty foot Christmas tree brilliantly lit and flooded with coloured lights from a gigantic searchlight and there were different booths, some designed to look like English cottages and others had comic cartoons painted on them. In each booth there are usually games of chance and lots of ways of winning prizes.

There is always a special exhibition in the flower booth where the floral creations of school children are on display and when the Browney children were small, it was our custom to display our floral designs there. It’s one of my favourite booths and Maurice has told me that his floral design is on display this year. Dear Maurice, I can’t wait to see it.

But the booth I’ll head for first is the one with the fortune teller. I’m off to England soon, so I must find out what’s in store for me.

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