Tomorrow starts Carnaval in the Azores

Every year before Easter we have Carnaval. It is a 4 day event here around the islands but for now i’l talk about Island Terceira.

In Island Terceira the biggest focus of Carnaval are our theatre representations. Every town or social group makes a group we call “bailinho” which is what we call a group that represents specifically at this time of year.

These Bailinhos have various themes and they are meant to be funny to enteraint the people. They act on a stage in each town. Their are usually two parts in these plays, musical part and the actual play itself (usually frases that rime). This is one one the things you can see here around the island when Carnaval is around.

People work very hard the couple of months before Carnaval starts. Usually they start putting the play together around December and start rehearsing in January. The closer it get to the day the more rehearsals they have to make sure it is perfected.

This is a tired process for those that act because they have to go from town to town to show their play and sometimes they have to wait hours for the next play to finish and start theirs.

There is no schedule. They choose the towns they would like to represent in and just go their to wait their turn. Once they are finished they go off to the next town. Some must do their play at least 6 or 7 times a night. Keep in mind our Carnaval lasts 4 days. So it is 4 days of driving around and going town to town just to entertain our people.

This is something appreciated mostly by the adults. Their are not alot of teens or children that like to see these kinds of things.

Then we have our Carnaval parties, where bars usually hold special parties, people get dressed up and have fun. The last few years they have been closing down a road we have in the city center and fill it full of music. this is also a good way for the bars and coffee shops on the road to get some more clients.

This is without a doubt one of my favourite times of the year here.