Love and lies

In what is I'm sure time-honoured tradition, I split up with someone (again) during carnival. I soon discovered this is nothing. Another friend, having been seeing a guy for a while who told her how much he loved her, etc, was excited to meet up with him when he got in touch.

When she arrived there, he was already kissing another girl, and asked her what she was doing there to boot.

If love is tough here at the best of times, carnival is easily the worst of times. The sheer drunkness of most folks makes fidelity an impossibility, while "carnival kisses" are a solid part of the experience.

Something strange I've observed here: flirtation is a daily way of life (and I'm in favour of that, it definitely makes the day go more smoothly) but so is jealousy. It's much less common for people to have friends of the opposite sex, generally because their partners won't accept it. I was often asked "amigas or amigos?" (the female and masculine of the word) when I told my fella I was out with friends.

As usual in this country, them's the rules and very restrictive they are too, but there is always a way round them. It's not unusual to see catfights between women in the streets, as despite feeling this jealousy keenly themselves people still cheat like nobody's business.

The trail of a few half-hearted blocos continues today, and into the weekend, but many people will have woken up today, quite possibly hungover, probably going back to work, and in some cases, contemplating the fact that their fling/relationship/marriage is now in tatters. That's carnival for you.