Keeping Up With The De Oliveiras: Carnaval

This year, Aimy participated in her first Carnaval. The theme for this year was Fables and Fairy Tales, and Aimy's class dressed up as the 3 Little Pigs in each of their 3 houses, and the teachers and parent volunteers were Big Bad Wolves. All of the children from the preschools and elementary schools of the city (about 950 according to the city's website) paraded from their campus to the rugby field parking lot, where they all showed off their costumes by parading around the Monsieur Carnaval set up in the centre, and then at the end, they threw confetti and watched as Monsieur Carnaval was burned.

A little background for those who are interested:
Carnaval is originally a Catholic celebration based around Mardi Gras and Lent. Mardi Gras (this year, it fell on Tuesday February 17th) is the last day that Catholics are allowed to indulge in fatty foods - hence the name Fat Tuesday - before the 40 days of Lent leading up to Easter. The tradition of dressing up and parading around is actually a pagan ritual that was integrated into Catholic culture. Since the winter holidays for our area fell between from Saturday February 14th and Monday March 3rd, the schools in the city decided to hold Carnaval after the holidays.

Burning Monsieur Carnaval is another ritual with pagan origins. The schoolchildren build an effigy that represents all the negative aspects of Winter (cold, sadness, poor crops etc.) and, by burning it, symbolically announce the end of Winter and welcome the warmth and colours of Spring.

Aimy was not feeling very well but still had a good time, especially when it came to throwing the confetti. I had Alixe in the baby carrier on my back and she too enjoyed watching, though she probably would have preferred to be out parading in costume with her sister!