I’ve never experienced anything like it before, but what fun! Last Sunday I was invited to join the revelers at the Café Bet Kolen – home of the “de vèrrekesstaawers” carnival club. I felt I had stepped into another world! The café was full of people of all ages, the majority of them dressed in outlandish costumes. Most of the men wore very strange headgear. I was fascinated by the group that sported a lavishly sequined black and white cock’s comb affair, adorned with several pheasant plumes more than a metre long. They looked ridiculous! – but that seemed to be the idea.

In fact the different groups seemed to have gone to great lengths to parade themselves in the most outrageous costumes. There was an incredible assortment of funny hats, badges, gongs, medals, chains and other accoutrements that made the gathering a kaleidoscope of way-out designs and clashing colours.

Enveloping this visual experience was the booming big band sound of music. I watched in fascination as one group of energetic musicians after another took the platform and pounded out a variety of music on an assortment of tubas, trombones, drums, trumpets and other instruments. It seemed to be a great community occasion, with children running around everywhere and young and old people greeting each other warmly. Others were dancing around in long lines together, or simply standing and jiggling in time to the music.

We were greeted by our host with two small knitted pigs, symbols of the vèrrekesstaawers club, which we had to pin on our shoulders. I was amazed to learn that this jolly occasion was just a fore-taste of what is to come when the Carnival itself takes place at the end of February – and that similar fore-tastes have been taking place since the end of November! I understand that the Carnival itself is a four-day affair, during which wine and beer will flow like water, and nobody will go to work.. I look forward to this event with great anticipation!

The only gatherings in my country that come anywhere close to what I experienced at this event are family occasions such as weddings and the kurova guva – a ceremony which takes place a year after a person has died to bring the wandering soul back into the village. These ceremonies last for two or three days – with lots of food and drink. But nobody dresses up and there are no bands. A few people beat the drums while others dance and sing – but that is all.

Alas, such gatherings are yet another casualty of the crisis in Zimbabwe, and rarely take place any more. Not only do people not have any spare money to buy the food and drink necessary, or the fuel to travel the long distances to their villages, but the paranoid government of President Robert Mugabe has outlawed any gathering of more than five people without permission from the police.

Restrictive new laws aimed at crushing the emerging opposition were introduced three years ago in flagrant denial of people’s basic human right of assembly.

Having attended the practice session on Sunday, I am now ready for the main Carnival!


All columns by Wilf Mbanga

Wilf Mbanga, one of the founders of the independent Zimbabwean daily newspaper "The Daily News", is currently living in Tilburg, the Netherlands. He writes about the differences between Tilburg and Harare. His column is printed weekly in "Het Brabants Dagblad".