The Barbados Crop Over festival came to an end last month with many Guyanese joining the thousands of visitors to the island for a high-energy, events-packed week and many are urging fellow citizens to go experience the diversity of the carnival-like celebrations for themselves.
“I had a ball! For me, it is different in that there is so much to choose from during the one festival. There is something for everybody and from every age group. The best was the Foreday Morning J’ouvert and the Rise Barbados [concert],” Guyanese teacher Grace Alert told the Stabroek News as she viewed the season’s culmination event – the Grand Kadooment Parade.
“This is about the 6th time for me and I always encourage others to forget anything negative they were told about Barbados and come see it for themselves. The parties are different during this time, and as compared to back home, you are moving to different locations; not just standing up in one place all the time. It is not just the parties, you also get to see the similarities and differences in culture, through this festival…,’ she added.
For sisters Oksana and Oneisha Cox, their first time at the festival, it was all they imagined and more, and they, too, will be encouraging their friends to join them for a repeat next year.
The younger Cox, Oneisha, said that her favourite activity was the Kadooment Day “Jump”, and although her sister is more reserved, she, too, enjoyed all of the parties they attended.
Diamond, East Bank of Demerara leather craftsman Bertram, whose father is Barbadian said that he visits his parents every year to assist them since during the period their business is at its busiest but he also tries “to get some sporting [partying] in and use it as a lil holiday”. The family had a booth at the Bridgetown Market Day event where many stalls lined the Mighty Grynner Highway with a variety of local products and foods.
Corentyne, Berbice couple, the Arokiums, stayed at the Turtle Beach all-inclusive resort and they related that the highpoint for them was horseracing at the Barbados Derby, held on August 1st.
A retired female British Police officer told this newspaper that she did not expect horseracing to be such a big event in the Caribbean island she was visiting for the first time. Sharing her experience, she said that she was “blown away” by the hospitality of the people and would also be visiting again.
Stabroek News was part of a nearly 50-member team from around the world that was hosted by the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. (BTMI), from July 31st-August 9th, to gain a first-hand experience of the festival. The BTMI is one of the agencies responsible for marketing the nation’s tourism industry.
Events included beach parties, the Foreday Morning Fete, all-inclusive concerts, catamaran cruises, a t-shirt decoration and designing workshop, and even a gym ‘wuk-up’ session at Powerhouse Studios, to prepare revelers for the Grand Kadooment parade.
Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley also hosted a fete and partied and took photos with guests throughout the evening where the island’s culinary talent and cuisine was also on showcase.
Ministers of her government set aside formal work and they also joined revellers at events hosted, making clear to patrons that on those days their titles were put away so that everyone was comfortable enough to have fun.
At the Grand Kadooment parade, both persons participating and viewing from the sidelines, danced to the music blaring on the large boxes from trucks. Barbadian singer Quan De Artist’s ‘Waistline’ won this year’s Crop Over Road March for his popular party song ‘waistline’.
The Grand Kadooment Day culminates the season’s festivities and it is done as masquerade Bands make their way from Warrens to Spring Garden Highway “with revellers dressed in sequin costumes decorated with colourful feathers, jewels and bright accents; dancing behind music trucks and moving bars. The finale of Crop Over’s events makes this the island’s most exciting day of the year.” Visitbarbados states.
The Crop Over summer festival is Barbados’ most popular and colourful festival, its Barbados.org website states with its origins dating back to the 1780’s, a time when Barbados was a big producer of sugar. At the end of the sugar season, there was always a huge celebration to mark the culmination of another successful sugar cane harvest – the Crop Over celebration.
VisitBarbados informs that the over 200-year-old tradition honours the end of the sugar cane season. The six-week festival celebrates all that is Bajan with dusk till dawn parties, arts and crafts markets and a culinary-driven street fares.
“The Crop Over celebration recalls our colonial past when sugar cane was king, and creativity abounds with indigenous art, craft, calypso, flower festivals, folk concerts and revelry at Foreday Morning. But it is Grand Kadooment – the climax of the festival – which generates the most heat, energy and colour!” it states.
“The event is great fun for everyone, even if you’re watching the masqueraders from the sidelines and not “jumping” in a costumed band. Revellers, among whom are countless international celebrities, including our very own megastar, Rihanna, make their way through the streets in a kaleidoscope of colour to the Spring Garden Highway, where the party continues well into the night with more revelry, music, food and fireworks, set against the picturesque backdrop of Brighton beach,” it adds.
