Disclaimer The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer's view in anyway.
Dirt, filth, garbage, refuse, waste, leavings. Ankle deep, bin full, heaps of it, spread out all over. The carnival village: Stinking toilets, overflowing feces, urine, piss all around. Unbelievable: said the visitor, disgusting: said the tourist, incredible: said the timeshare man. I do not so much convey my own opinion, although it is the same as the above, as well as the opinion of people that surround me. Follows here some opinions of people that saw it. One said this; "Me, as a visitor and a person who has seen the past, I know that most local people now live in nice houses. Made of blocks and bricks, with windows and running water, electricity and a waterproof roof. These people do not really appreciate that luxury. When they have a party, they built shacks like their forefathers lived in and they behave like wild animals, get drunk and throw garbage all around. Another one said this: Carnival originally is a celebration after a month of fasting. One does not have sex, abstains from drinking alcohol, from eating expensive and rich foodstuffs, and is modest in everything. That is the month before carnival. The party is the ending of a month of serious contemplation of God and His creation, to celebrate and to give thanks. Here, nobody fasts, not even for a day. The party therefore has lost its significance and has become nothing but a wild feast of mindless people that go about like a ship that has lost its rudder. As the meaning of the celebration has been lost, the party itself has become an ugly ting.' These facts are worth contemplating. For the next year I will have a few suggestions. The committee that steers the whole village collects a good amount of money. Where that goes to, I do not want to know this time, but for next year It should have to go to a cleaning crew on a daily basis, to clean up constantly in the village. Just like after the parade has passed, some very good guys pick up the debris; that should also be done in the village grounds. Bins should be emptied constantly, the toilets should be supervised and kept clean. That is such a disgusting degrading fact of the carnival organizers, that they get no compliment out of me. Oh, no. Spoken to locals, black, red and white, all agreed that the organizers where to blame for the filth and stink. I am of another meaning, slightly; I say all are to blame; the parents that did not teach the children to be neat and clean, the children that did not teach their parents to behave, the politicians that did not organize a way for their unthinking subjects to dispose of' their energy correctly, the religious leaders that did not prepare the partygoers before the party of the true meaning of carnival. Ask anyone, and all will say that this year something was not there. Something un-definable, unspeakable, something spiritual. Zest, conviction, integrity, spontaneity, motivation. It was like without direction, without hope. We have to open our eyes and minds to the reality and fix this knowledge in our hearts for next year. To make sure that we progress towards separate status and show the rest of the world that we are not a bunch of filthy pigs and that we can celebrate in style next year, artfully and splendidly. For some it may have been fun, but splendor there was none.
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