SEC-S17W3: "National Festival"

Greetings,
To all the people in this community, I hope you all are doing great. I am here to drop my participation for the season 17 week 3 of steemit engagement challenge on the topic that says "National Festival".

I still remain @tripple-e, but before I start answering the contest questions, let me invite my friends @beewrites @yancar @bela90 to join in this engagement.

Festivals: These are events that a particular community Celebrates through feasting and merriment in order to mark or honour a particular culture and traditions. These festivals could be cultural, religious and even music festivals. Where a lot of people would come from far and wide to graced the occasion. Sometimes the indigenes who staying far away would come home just to be a part of the celebrations.

Now, let's look at the contest questions;

👉What is the national festival of your country? How did it start

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The national festival of my country is known as "Calabar Carnival". It is the biggest street party in Africa. And the name of my country is Nigeria. I know most of you must have heard or watched it online and even witnessed it live, because a lot of people used to come from all over the world to graced this great epoch events.

Calabar Carnival started way back in 2004 by a great former governor by name Donald Duke who is from a state called "Cross River State in Nigeria. My country has over 36 states, so Cross River State is one of the states., so back to what I was saying, the essence of the carnival is to promote the local economy and also make the country a center of attraction and a tourist center.

This Calabar Carnival has a very outstanding display of African's culture and heritage through their music, drama, dances and even in their creativities. And all these could be seen or reflected in their costumes, the carnival floats and their make ups as well.

👉How is this festival celebrated? Are there any special rules for celebrating it?

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This festival is celebrated annually, that is towards the festive periods like December. They just want it to blend with the spirit of Christmas where everyone would be in the mood for celebrations and merry making.

I think they are always some rules for the participants, they get a form to register, go through the three months rehearsal periods, in order to learn and be conversant with all the moves, dances steps and acrobatic displays.

I am always a spectator, as I don't live close to join in the rehearsal, so needless of me to register. So I always go there as a spectator to feed my eyes and have fun.

👉Are there any special outfits or foods for celebrating your national festival?

Yes, there are special outfits called "costumes" worn, for uniformity sake and beautification, every participants must appear in that uniform. As you can see from the pictures below 👇. And there are no special food. It is a street party, it is not something we sit down at one place to dine and wind. We move with the carnival floats, they only have strategic positions or stop points where judges are positioned and performed for them to be rated.

👉Tell us about your favorite memory from celebrating your national festival.

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Oh my God! The memories I had from attending carnivals, although I don't attend it every year, I had mad fun and exciting moments, I got to meet friends, met new faces of people, make friends with some. Then most of the celebrities I do see from the screen I saw them during the carnival and I felt so good seeing them.

For the whole state to be shot down for a whole, all road blocked preventing vehicles from passing, shows how big the event has always been.
Carnival in Calabar is one experience you need to have my darlings.