7 News Belize

Mas Camp Madness, Night One
posted (September 3, 2014)

The Carnival Road March is just ten days away and the hyped-up leadup to the big event started last night with the media rounds at the mas camps. Monica Bodden made it to three of them and she has this report:…

It is contagious and spreading rapidly - and so far it seems like there isn't a cure for the Carnival Fever.
The first night of the annual carnival mas camps started off with 5 junior bands –
From what we could see, things were intense as the revelers- all pumped up with energy -demonstrated some of their latest carnival moves in front of our camera.

Patricia Flowers– Trench Town Masqueraders

"This year Trench Town Masqueraders are portraying looking in the sky. When you look in the sky it is about our universe, the sun the stars the rain, the rainbow. And we also portray them as day and night."

Monica Bodden

"How many revelers taking part this year?"

Patricia Flowers

"Well we have 71 right now, but we need 75, so we still short of 4. But after tonight, we will get that."

Ian Young – Sunshine Masqueraders

"For this year our team is from invasion to nation. We chose that theme because for many years other carnival groups have been portraying bits and pieces of different cultures, so this year we decide to bring everything together and actually give a brief history of our country, where we stand and what we are all about. So over this side we have the Indians. Instead of using the Maya Indians, we are using Native American Indian, so there is a little bit of twist to it. If you notice we have the pink and blue. The Indians have the blue, which represents crystal waters and the pink represents the femininity because that is one of the queen's group, Queen Azalea which means crystal water. Over this side we have the pirates and the buccaneers, these were people who were sailing the coast line of Belize from Mexico all the way to Panama. And the British pirates to be exact, were stealing all the treasures from the Spaniards pirates. We wanted to use these specific colours in terms of purple and black. The purple represents the lost souls and the black represents the dark ages of the pirates or piracy. For the last group he have the multi-culture which is the nation. We went from invasion to nation, the last group represents the cultures we have in Belize. All of us coming together living as one in order to let our country become a developed country. The 4 cultures we are focusing on are the Garifuna, which is yellow. The Chinese, which is the gold and red. The Creole, for the Creole we decided to use the colours of the flag, so we went with red, white and blue. The Maya, which is the green and white."

Our next stop was at Jump Street Posse - where we spoke with Band Leader Marina Welcome who gave us a synopsis of her theme, Mystical Warriors of the Amazon.

Marina Welcome – Jump Street Posse

"We are doing Mystical Warriors of the Amazon. The first team is the Amazon Warriors, Princess Mia and the Amazon Warriors. You know when you go into the rainforest, you have to fantasise a bit. Stepping into the rainforest you will meet Princess Mia and her warriors protecting the rainforest. They become the Amazon Warriors because in their time, the female was separated from the males, they only meet when they are mating, so that is why they are the warriors. Princess Mia's mother was Queen Harmonia. When you go deeper in the rainforest, it wouldn't be a rainforest if they weren't any beautiful flowers, that is why we come up with black orchard, the butterflies, the lily, the red-bell, that's all you going to meet in the rainforest. And when you go a little deeper, a rainforest cannot be a rainforest without Zoo-loos. So that's when you are going to meet Kamadela the King, and his warriors, the Zoo-loos."

Duane Moody, Channel 5 News

"Tell me about going into the competition this year, how secure you feel with regards to sticking to criteria and being creative with it."

Marina Welcome

"You can see what I got, and I am very confident in what I do. My costumes are unique, they are original. As you see it, you know exactly what you are seeing. I have a lot of confidence in that."

Tonight, the journey continues as Monica and CAMERA MAN Codie Norales are visiting four more camps, the Evolution Mas Band, the Pickstock Carnival Band, Mother Nature and Erotic Mas Band.

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