Once a year you give me permission the fly above your judgement so you may enjoy me

…. You think.

My body is also a topic of conversation when I walk into a room. Family members and friends all feel the need to tell jokes about my body.

She would not allow the creeping doubts from the previous months to dampen her spirit. Not while she had the rum in her system. She bobbed and weaved to make her feathers dance some more and so the stage lights could pick up the glitter on her skin

Soca takes over my body. Dressed in black and white, teenagers and young adults from all around the island are there to celebrate the death of King Vaval. Doing the helicopter with a small towel, singing and dancing behind the music truck, my cousin and I enjoy these last free-spirited moments.

I never really took part in Mash again, either as a participant or bystander, until University. You see, despite what the Wikipedia article on Mash says, the celebration was a very racially divided one. Sure, many ethnicities lined the parade route, although conservative families didn’t do even this, but the persons in the parade were largely Guyanese of African heritage

It have people who, when they play mas does get tired, does need to pee, does complain they foot burning them. Not her. And though she was the kind of can’t mash ants girl who never let no man pass his place with her – the very cliché of a stoosh bank employee, Carnival was different.