J ouvert Shape and sound. That s how you orient yourself in the blackness of the wee morning hours. Carnival Sunday night or rather early Monday morning many are taking to the streets straight from the Dimanche Gras show in the Savannah. Many more are emerging from the floodlights and bright sounds of the mega-fetes. Still others have tumbled bed-warm and drowsy from quiet neighbourhoods.
Darkness is the costume.
It is February 26, 2001. Port of Spain. Tragarete Road, outside the Oval. Steelbands are starting to move on the road. With no interlude, the music crashes around you.