Carnival Tabanca is an affliction and the Carnival Gateway is your cure

Two Trinis walk into a Metro station late at night, one male, one female wearing nothing but what can only be referred to as tightie whities, hospital shoes, fish headpieces and some sort of wing contraption. What sounds like the beginning of a joke is a true story of two people from Trinidad and
Tobago (T&T) who wished to experience Brazilian carnival. Yet the journey to the start of the samba parades in Rio de Janeiro’s Sambradrome began even before my husband and I (yes, we were the Trinis in the story) reached Rio; it began when we booked and paid for our costumes online, marvelling at the ease with which we were able to access the Rio experience. Now, with the launch of the Trinidad and Tobago Carnival Gateway Portal, you too can have a good story to tell without having to go as far away as Rio. Welcome to Carnival in T&T.

The T&T Carnival is one of the largest and most well-known festivals in the Americas along with Rio Carnival in Brazil, and T&T’s local masquerade industry in particular has become one of the flagships of the Carnival landscape, highlighting the country’s creativity and creating a more vibrant economy. Your journey to experience Carnival in T&T will begin when you access the newly launched Carnival Gateway Portal.

A product of the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF) financed project “ICT Innovations for the Development of the Masquerade Industry of Trinidad and Tobago”, the Carnival Gateway Portal was developed by the Trinidad and Tobago Coalition of Services Industries (TTCSI), with co-financing from the National Carnival Development Foundation (NCDF).  The Carnival Gateway is your secure; online; one stop shop to access all Carnival-related goods and services in T&T, whether you are a masquerador looking to buy a costume or a supplier hoping to sell your products and services globally, the Carnival Gateway is the place to go. For those of you who have experienced the joys of Carnival in T&T, you can listen to soca through the music podcast and enjoy their Carnival Tabanca mix.  If you don’t know what tabanca means oxforddictionaries.com defines it as, “a painful feeling of unrequited love, typically for a former lover and causing unbalanced or violent behaviour” so yes, Carnival Tabanca is a serious affliction and the Carnival Gateway is your cure.

Carnival 2016 is almost here; go to http://www.carnivalgateway.com/, peruse your options and add T&T carnival 2016 to your bucket list. I promise we won’t make you wear a fish on your head… unless of course you really want to.

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