Bissau Carnival (21 images)

Guinea Bissau Carnival pictures, Bissau Carnival photos

The Guinea-Bissau Carnival explodes onto the streets of the capital Bissau during February when the weather is also at its most pleasant.
The carnival takes place over the four days before Lent, is like no other. Although traditionally a Christian celebration, less than 10% of Bissau Guineans call themselves Catholic; the rest worship either Allah or the spirits of the islands and forests. Today's carnival, which has...
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Guinea Bissau Carnival pictures, Bissau Carnival photos

The Guinea-Bissau Carnival explodes onto the streets of the capital Bissau during February when the weather is also at its most pleasant.
The carnival takes place over the four days before Lent, is like no other. Although traditionally a Christian celebration, less than 10% of Bissau Guineans call themselves Catholic; the rest worship either Allah or the spirits of the islands and forests. Today's carnival, which has been going for as long as anyone in the city can remember, is, as one long-time Portuguese resident put it, about "local ethnic traditions combined with a Portuguese date." Guineans have taken an imported religious festival and used it as an excuse to have a very big, cultural celebration.
There is no electricity in the country, and petrol is too expensive for most people to afford. So there are no motorised cavalcades of elaborate expensive costumes or amplified music, as in the grand carnivals of Rio or Venice. Instead, hundreds of groups representing the country's various different tribes charter wooden boats and battered trucks and, wearing costumes made of shells, cow horns, leaves, or the blown-up spined husk of boxfish, pour into the city to show off their culture.
The Republic of Guinea-Bissau is a country in western Africa, and one of the smallest states in continental Africa. It is bordered by Senegal to the north, and Guinea to the south and east, with the Atlantic Ocean to its west. Its size is nearly 37,000 square kilometres (14,000 sq mi) with an estimated population of 1,600,000. Formerly the Portuguese colony of Portuguese Guinea, upon independence, the name of its capital, Bissau, was added to the country's name to prevent confusion with the Republic of Guinea. Guinea-Bissau's GDP per capita is one of the lowest in the world.
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