Carnival Parade in Nordstetten
Sunday, 22nd January 2006

by Elanza E. van der Merwe

Nari!... Naro!... Nari!... Naro!... the crowd chanted, building up to a captivating, exciting atmosphere. On a quite chilly 22 January our long expected visit to the Carnival Parade in the town of Nordstetten became a reality that exceeded all our greatest expectations.

With numb fingers and toes we all marched down a street to what would become our "safe" standing place for the day. The rule of the day, we were told, was to stay "zusammen", for in a crowd of round about 4000 spectators it's easy to get lost. As always, our excursion had to be started with some food and most of the group bought something - hotdogs, Glühwein, chips etc. - to fill that empty space and ward of the cold.

At approximately half past one the action started, with 35 clubs parading their colourful, unique traditional costumes, depicting witches, ghosts, bees, jackals, wolves, striped things with whips, gigantic straw men, friendly-looking witches, warthogs, etc. These are the best descriptions I can find for them, but they have to be seen in real life to appreciate their strange beauty. Each community's performance was completed by a marching band playing vibrating tunes, successfully leading into the next performance.

Initially everyone clinged to one another each time a scary-looking and -sounding creature stalked us or jumped up from behind, seeking safety in numbers. Elzebet and I, however, soon realized that looking scared was not the correct tactic at all… We learnt this after I'd been captured and tied up by 3 very scary-looking white ghost-like creatures. Luckily one of the spectators freed me with a pocket-knife afterwards. After this little incident we adopted the smile-and-try-to-look-like-you-don't-care approach, combined with asking for sweeties.

This seemed to limit our attacks to having our hair ruffled, to being hit with broomsticks and other similar objects, or showered with confetti or seeds, but for poor Fran it didn't seem to work as well as for us… She certainly had the X-factor - be it a good or bad quality would be debatable - and was constantly grabbed and wrestled with in the street! Or maybe it was the South African flag on her face?

Themba, Tipa, Muzi and even Noloyiso joined in the parade once or twice, while Armin gave us all a good laugh when he switched roles, swinging a surprised witch around in the air. Miriam, Anita, Mel and Sumari were also captured a few times and put into bags of straw from which they had to be freed afterwards. Anita was also caught with metal chains and taken into one of the "mobile" homes or cages of the creatures, where she was punished with alcohol.

To recapture all of the incidents in this report would be time-consuming and just not the same as being there and experiencing it all. Do check out the photo's of this exciting, memorable day! It is a day in my life I will never forgot and I trust our group feels the same!