The Candy Man

“Kamelle!” We screamed for candy at the top of our lungs for three days. Successfully, I might add. We have a rather large bowl of chocolate bars, gummy bears, lollipops, popcorn, marshmallow twists and other delights sitting on our living room table.

Carnival is, in some ways, much easier than Halloween. No tromping from house to house in the dark. At Carnival the candies came to us. All we had to do was put a reasonable effort into looking silly and then showed up along one of the numerous parade routes in the area to scream for candy. It would literally rain down on us from horseback and floats. Old ladies would claw like little children to pick up the sweets. Sometimes there were full length chocolate bars. Also oddities like pens and plastic piggy banks, bracelets, and single roses. Tony was even handed a mini bottle of hard alcohol (proof that the event is not just for children).

The last five days are Carnival’s most lavish. But the holiday really begins on November 11 (A big theme is 11-11. That’s the hour and minute when events get underway, too). It’s the German equivalent to Mardi Gras and only takes place in Catholic regions of the country as a prelude to the start of Lent. The Rhineland puts on the best show with Cologne as Carnival central. Even a special and highly localized vocabulary is used. In Cologne and Bonn, people drink to “Alaaf!” which is absolutely not to be confused with the Dusseldorfer “Helau!” Every little village runs a parade (called a ‘train). And many of the staged events are highly programmed. There’s a prince and princess of ceremony, and their guards dress up like colonial soldiers on horseback.

Our section of Bonn, a town called Beuel, hosts a famous tradition of women empowerment. It hearkens back to the days when Beuel was the center of the laundry industry along the banks of the Rhine. One day a year, the kick off to the last harrah of Carnival, the washing women would quit work and storm City Hall to take over the reigns of power. Any man on the street wearing a tie is emasculated with a snip of the scissors. The tradition still exists in ceremonial form.

Despite all the chaos of drinking and funny costumes, Carnival is, in many ways, a highly choreographed event. One German guy I spoke to (now living in London) said he hates Carnival. “Too f%^#ing German,” he said. “Everyone acts like they’re going crazy but they don’t even start drinking before they’re supposed to at 11:11.” I will give him one thing. One of Bonn’s featured events was five hours of pronouncements, processions, and stage-led singing and dancing by the town politicos. Yawn. Needless to say, the average age there was over 60. Even a whole-roasted ox on a spit didn’t keep us for long.

Half the fun of Carnival is the costumes. Many are store bought, which might explain why there seemed too be an inordinate number of lions, broccoli, striped prisoners, nuns, and monks in the crowds. Also, we noticed that the Germans don’t seem to be operating under the same sensitivities towards race. Popular costumes were a Rasta hat with sewn-in dreadlocks and an afro wig with accompanying black face. Brown-skinned Native Americans were all over the place too and we are pretty sure the color washed off at the end of the evening. It’s also OK to go as a “Chinese” with black-slanted eyes. Some people also went as “German” in lederhosen, though for sure they weren’t poking fun of themselves since the Bavarians are foreigners to the Rhinelanders.

We felt a little like war survivors as we shouted for candy and scrambled for it underfoot. There was something deliciously unseemly to our begging. But who cares. What other occasion is there in the year when adults can behave like children? We’re waiting to see if everyone sobers up when Lent starts this week. Somehow, though, we suspect that’s the one tradition that gets dropped.