It was the last day of Christmas – 6th January. This is when Christmas decorations must come down and Trinidad is already preparing for the madness of Carnival. I got an email that there was a parang lime in Santa Cruz. So I packed my cooler and off I went to meet up with similar-minded friends.
Parang is a Spanish/Caribbean type of music featuring all manner of instruments including guitars, cuatros, drums, box bass, chac-chac, toc-toc, bottle and spoon, and singers of course. It is traditionally played during the Christmas season when the parranderos supposedly go from house-to-house providing entertainment in exchange for rum and Christmas fare. I’ve never experienced that but it’s certainly typical to have a parang band playing at a Christmas party. There are even parang competitions, with the competing band members dressing in colourful Spanish costumes.
In this case, the parang band was a just-for-fun band who used to do gigs and competed once upon a time. One of their members owns the Colibri Creative Centre of Light, which is a large events venue in Las Hermanas Estate in the peaceful valley of Santa Cruz, and this is where this parang cooler party was held. Everyone brought a snack to share and we danced (well swayed really) to the rhythmic beat. As well as traditional parang music, the band played soca-parang (similar to parang but with Trini-English words) and old time calypsos, to which we all sang along. It was a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, and it was free! Thanks, Wayne and the other parranderos.
