Crossing continents

Ava Guan, 11

Milbourne Lodge, Esher, Surrey

The scent of spices hit me like a powerful wave. Loud music seeped into my ears from within the crowd. I was at the Notting Hill carnival for the first time. I still remembered when me and my mother first stepped down from the huge boat that had brought us here. Grimacing, I remembered the churning of the froth-tipped waves far below and the queasy feeling that I got every time the boat rocked. Dizzy with seasickness, I had almost fallen down the stairs. My head had lurched, and it felt had felt weird not to be rocking. Oh, and then there were the rats.

There, I saw my first white person. He had helped us down from the ship. He smiled at us, but from the way he smiled, I don’t think that he was pleased to see us. Suddenly, I had heard someone calling my name. My mother and I had turned around in surprise. My father stood there.

Journeying to England from Jamaica had been difficult. My father had got on a different ship, but luckily, we had found each other.

My mother had heard of this festival, and we had come here hoping for some Jamaican traditions and food. The sharp smell of the spices made my nostrils tingle. It was all so familiar, including the loud, pounding drums that were slowly making their way towards us.

The sound of the drums was coming from a huge carriage roughly made of wood and structured a bit like a small double decker bus – I had seen those for the first time a few days ago. The people on the carriage were singing and dancing with the crowd and wore some amazing costumes. Their costumes were very colourful and highly decorated. There was a woman with a bright green and blue dress. It had feathers that protruded from the back and were at least a metre long. She looked a bit like a peacock, and she paraded her costume with pride, shouting lines from traditional Jamaican songs.

There were stalls with Caribbean food, like Baigan Choka (roasted eggplant), spicy jerky (one of my favourites) and Sancocho. We bought some jerky and an amazing pineapple drink that we found. The drink was the most perfect shade of amber, and we drank it out of a pineapple cut in half. It tasted like pineapples combined with the sea, I thought. It was frothy like the sea.

Everyone was shouting or singing, and some people had party poppers and chemicals in a tiny white ball which made a loud ‘BANG!’ when thrown on the ground. It seemed that everyone was trying to make as much noise as possible.

After our meal and drink, we danced to some of the songs and sang along to the parts that we knew. It was a little strange to have reminders of home while in an unfamiliar country.