Then there was the issue of straining the cari. There was Inez and Auntie’s cari, plus two 5-gallon buckets donated by the Duncan family (my goodness, they are all gems). I didn’t know it, but Lucy was feeling ill all day. I ran around, looking for a strainer and then for more sugar to add to the rice wine, it was strong and needed a little more flavor; we also had to strain out the rice and transfer it to different buckets. Franzea had set a 15 gallon barrel for her birthday, which she ended up sharing to another birthday girl between hers and mine, and so with the same rice, just adding sugar and water, we set it again for my own birthday, in the barrel borrowed by Marva. So by Saturday, it was good to go. Lucy in the meantime, cooked some pacoc, which is made from tasso which has been boiled and then grinded. My birthday lunch, just for us.
I come back from getting sugar and Lucy has Desrine, who lives in the house behind the bush in my backyard, straining the cari. Cari is made from cassava (as is farine). It is scraped, grated and then mixed with the parched leaves of the cassava plant (and some water) and left to ferment for at least three days. Then when you’re ready to drink it, you add water through it and strain it, manually, with a manari, which is a hand-woven device, or by using a mesh-made device, sorta like gold miners used to use. You’re left with balls of fibrous cassava waste, which you throw away. Depending on how long it’s set and how fine the strainer is, you’ll get either sweet cari or strong cari, you’ll get thick cari (a meal in a cup/bowl) or fine cari. Two 5-gallon buckets plus the two smaller buckets mixed with water added up to fill that barrel we set the rice wine in, and the rice wine was moved into the 5-gallon buckets and other various buckets I rounded up. I run up to Caiman House to get more mugs and to charge my mp3 for music. By this time, “3 or 4” had long passed.
I go to shower, when I come out, Marva is there, too, along with Franzea and Mark is chopping weeds in my yard. Marva goes with me to start inviting. See, it’s not enough to talk about the party in advance and tell them they’ll have to come by – people don’t consider themselves a special invitee unless you go and invite them – right before the party. So, me and Marva go. We go to Alicia’s house and invite them, then to James George’s house to invite Auntie Madeline and then the George family since they were right there. Then we go to Anthony’s house and invite he, and then Flora’s house since she was there. She gives me a birthday lukanani (fish). Fish in tow, we go to the Duncan house and sit and gaff and take a half mug of strong cari juice and a shot of wine. Whew. We go to some others, and forget some others, too, then we go to Melvina’s, Vilma’s and Shaira’s (Maisie’s sister in laws) and return to find Ashley, Bryan, Jose (who was delivering the cake), Mike and Felix (who delivered a bucket of jamun wine – jamun is a local berry) out in front of my house with Franzea, Lucy and Mark. The moon lit the party scene, and inside was only lit by my one lantern.
It’s getting dark, and people slowly start arriving. Shamir finally arrives with two big speakers, a 12 volt battery, an inverter and his own mp3 and music starts. We talked about forming an ultimate playlist, one that included the customary forro that everyone likes and would dance to – Forro Boys, Forro Gyga and Premos de Forro - but also other current hits such as Banda Calypso, DJ Maluco, Akon, Rhianna. And of course, I wanted to enlighten them to my own music, too. It’s funny, most people just want to listen to Forro Gyga, the current fave, but really, that can get old and there are only so many songs you can listen to. So, Sham and I figure there’s a good equation to playing the music, one that would enable him to not have to go change things up all the time, plus would keep a good groove and people from complaining/suggesting. My theorized ratio of music is 3:2:1 – 3 hot forro songs, 2 other hot songs, and 1 of my own songs. Some of the artists have music that all sounds the same, which is good to keep up a nice dancing momentum, but it can get redundant and/or tiring, so this would keep people on their feet (pun intended) and fresh. All this musical theorizing was moot, however, because, you know, the playlist was never made and so we listened to what we had.
A couple people had mugs of their own to share out how they wanted – Special special invitees, you could call them – Ashley and Mike/Hamzad being them. There’s a few ways to share out drinks at parties. One is what we were doing so far. Give mugs to a select few people and they are free to drink and share out with whoever they like, if they like. Usually when a new person comes into the mix, someone will share a shot/drink or simply their cup with them until they get their own. This is ideal, because it allows people to drink at their leisure and not feel pressured to get dosed up, and it cuts down on the work on the host. Then, there’s the mobile community bucket approach. The host and whoever he or she gets to help share out, walks around with an open bucket, usually 3 gallon or so, a dipper cup and a drinking cup and shares out cups of the drink. They’ll keep cycling around the crowds and they have to keep on their toes for new arrivals, keeping in mind whose already drank and trying to pace the drinks, taking into account how strong the drink is and how much drink there is to share out. You want to space it out evenly (or not, depending). Then lastly, if perhaps the people don’t have much to share out or don’t want a big to-do, there’s the stationary community bucket approach, where it’s set on The Table, maybe next to the music, and people can come up and take a cup when they want. And, the host and those sharing out are usually given a portion of what they share out; it’s a risk to share out, as those are the ones who are most likely to get the most influenced.
Lucy and Franzea were supposed to be around to help me share out – I’ve only been on the receiving end of drinks, and being always a Special Invitee, I’m always offered more than my fair share of drinks from the hosts as well as party goers. I had no idea how long my drinks would last. Lucy, though, went for a nap because she wasn’t feeling well, then Franzea went home to bathe – CRAP! Alicia and her mother, Alma, were one of the first guests to arrive and I immediately pull Alicia to help share out. She quickly jumped in and began to help, what a doll. She was on mobile bucket duty for the night. Drinks were pooled into actual pitchers, and then recycled soap power buckets, paint buckets and bowls. Once there was a modest gathering of people around, it became time for the speech: the words of welcome, where you play down your humble selection of drinks and encourage good behavior. Prayer is optional. So, got that out of the way, then Franzea came back and we shared out the cake to as many people as possible.
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