Stilt walking and fire breathing

My last-minute opportunity to go to Trinidad involved a chaperone opening for a school trip full of steel pan players led by their teacher Jim, who I know from his running the steel band I have been part of since 2001.  The group of middle and high schoolers were great travelers, causing no trouble (remember *I* was the one who got himself lost on the Savannah), so I got to piggyback on a ready-made itinerary full of events and educational activities far better than any tour I could have imagined.

Here is the leader of a "Moko Jumbie" troupe, which took time from their Carnival preparations to lead a great stilt walking workshop for the students.

At one point his phone rang from a bag on the ground, and someone had to reach up on tiptoes to hand it to him.  Guessing the reception was a little better up there.

That buckle should look familiar - the stilts are handmade, and he said the quick tightening airplane seat buckle worked like a charm.

Here he is playing with some ballet poses.  They are describing how parades can be tricky, when people get too close and run into the stilts, and that they are accompanied by a couple of minders on the ground, to help traffic control and to perhaps cushion a fall.  The man in light blue is my friend Newton, who grew up in Trinidad and is one of those people who seems to know everyone.  His tireless planning and favor-pulling made everything happen on this phenomenal trip.

Every one of the students that tried the 2' stilts was able to stay up and walk around after a few minutes' adjustment.

We wondered how they were going to cross the fence - the leader was on slightly longer stilts and was able to lean and lift one leg at a time over the top.  I loved watching how utterly comfortable they were that high up in the air.  Note right at the end, the walker in the green shirt softly eases back into the fence without touching it, in complete control.

This guy was a bit of a firebug.

That's kerosene in the water bottle.

He backed away from every spray, but sometimes the flames raced close.  I saw him smearing vaseline around his mouth and goatee, and he drinks a gallon of milk both before and after, to counteract the bits of kerosene that make it down.

Even from 20 feet away, you could feel the hot blasts.  One thing this clip reminds me of is the way every waking minute (sleeping minutes too, actually) had a pulsing soundtrack.  I'm sure it's more pronounced around Carnival time, but you heard soca at all times wherever you were, from car stereos, storefronts, giant speaker racks pulled behind semis, portable Bluetooth speakers..  After a week of acclimation, it sounded strange after returning home and not hearing the soca bass beat thumping from a couple streets away.