So today Justin didn’t have school because of a “Holiday”. The holiday is called Carnival. The only way I can describe Carnival is that it is somewhat like Mardi Gras – without the beads. One of our friends had heard that there was a parade at 8:00 a.m.  The parade is supposedly some floats with people (locals) dancing around with them in crazy costumes. So Justin and I and three other of our friends went down to Portsmouth (the town it was in). We got there – no parade. So we asked someone when it was and they said 11:00 a.m.!!! Well we obviously couldn’t stay there till then because Justin and the others had to get back to study. But there was a large gathering towards the end of the street so we were like – lets see what’s going on down there! Oh my gosh – this was like nothing Ive ever experienced. Now I’ve been to Mardi Gras and I have to say I was more comfortable there than I was in the midst of all of this. First of all – it was ALL locals. The five of us were the only ones there not from Dominica. So right off the bat we felt out of place. And there were people dressed up alright – but not in the elaborate costumes we had heard of. There were men dressed as women and women dressed – well – inappropriately to say the least. And there was one LARGE man in a bikini that didn’t fit very well and he came up to us and asked if we were from Ross (the med school). We said yes. He then proceeded to turn around, pull down his bikini a little and showed us a “cut” he had. He asked us if we could stitch him up. Justin said “GROSS”. I can’t believe he didn’t get knocked out. We said no and headed the other way – the way we came. Then we came upon a fight in the middle of the street and a local ran up to us screaming “LEAVE!! LEAVE!!!” – because we were just standing there watching. Not sure why. He was also yelling “CALL THE POLICE”!!! So we imagined that everyone was just going to start knocking people out like a bar fight in the middle of the street – and that’s why he told us to leave. So Justin “thanked him” and we kept walking the other way. I found it very funny that Justin said “thank you” to the man. We then started the walk back home.

The above picture is of their “speaker system” at Carnival. Its just a bunch of speakers piled on the back of a truck.

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