La Bande de Bergues

In the North of France the grand finale of the Carnaval season (which lasts approx. 3 months and includes somewhere between 30 and 50 different celebrations) is capped off with La Bande de Bergues. Seeing as we had missed all the other major celebrations – i.e. Carnaval de Dunkerque which is the largest – because of our trip to Spain, this was something we couldn’t pass up. We had been invited by one of the other English assistants to meet him and some of his students there. They had a much more intimate understanding of how the festivities were coordinated so it was a great opportunity to have locals showing us the ropes. From the little bit of information we could gather before the event it was quite clear that to arrive sans some kind of bizarre costume would definitely be frowned upon. The general idea for a déguisement for the men is to come up with the most sleazy um…”lady of the night” outfit possible, and girls usually sported flashy bright colors, or dressed as an animal.

Seeing as this was another relatively last minute decision – and we were already low on funds from our Ibiza trip – we had to scale our costumes down to a simple wig/hat ensemble (one of Joel's students was nice enough to help Kathryn out with a bit of face paint to get her more in the Carnaval spirit). The town of Bergues is only about a one hour train ride from Lille, and SNCF was obviously prepared for debauchery when selecting the train to use. It looked like a Paris metro train that spent the last 10 years rusting in a junk yard, and as the hour of departure grew closer it became clear they knew what they were doing. Wave after wave of red-lipped, faux fur coat wearing, dirty wigged partiers began pouring onto the train, sloshing bottles of liquor and beer, and disregarding the posted “Non Fumer” signs.

The train ride was a great introduction to the kind of people we could expect to encounter for the rest of the day. As the train was pulling away from the station three French guys – dressed to impress – sat down across from us, and began applying the finishing touches to their costumes. Including lipstick, rosy cheek makeup, and…well just take a look ----->>> They were really pumped for La Bande. They even explained the reason for the celebration and the story behind dressing up like prostitutes. Apparently the tradition started hundreds of years ago with the fisherman of the town. They would come back from weeks or months out to sea, and would be in the mood to party. They would get all liquored up and dress as women to attract the ladies of the town out to join them. Seemed logical.

Another thing our friends on the train taught us were the words to some of the songs everyone was singing. As soon as they stepped foot onto the train not a moment passed without someone belting out a song, and the rest of the group joining in. Everyone knew all the words to every single song. There had to be close to a dozen of them. This came in handy later in the day because they were the songs of Carnaval, and all of them were constantly being played and sung by everyone throughout the entire festival. They were blasting from speakers aimed out people’s apartments that overlooked the streets, and played by roaming miniature marching bands that circled the city.

It turned out to be a beautiful day with hardly a cloud in the sky, but even with the sun shining it couldn’t have hit more than 30°F all day. As we began to pull into Bergues station the train started going nuts banging on the ceiling, stomping on the floor and rocking the train car almost to the point of tipping it off the tracks (I’m sure it never came close to actually derailing, but they were going wild). One by one people poured (some staggered) off the train and instantly formed a line along the fence to “relieve” themselves. This was something that became quite a common sight along the streets of Bergues as Port-o-Johns were few and far between. We also heard a story from someone we met there that a friend had gone into one of the scarce portable toilets, and had it subsequently turned over on its side by a drunken group of partiers. After hearing that bit of information we decided to avoid them at all costs.

Waiting for us on the other side of the tracks was our friend and a couple of his Seconde students. After introductions we headed off to one of the students homes where a group of friends met up before all of us heading out into the insanity that was La Bande. First I want to make it perfectly clear that everyone was dressed up. Men, women, children, young, old, and really old it did not matter so I was happy that we at least had something of a disguise. Another thing was that cheap faux fur coats were a dime a dozen; so next year if we get the chance to do this again I’ll most definitely be sporting one of those (both for the fashion and the warmth). We spent the first hour or so mingling in the Grande Place where a majority of people we congregating before La Bande started. We had a couple of drinks and met a few other assistants who had ventured into town for the celebration. Finally we were dragged off by the students leading us around to go find La Bande.

Now I’ve mentioned this Bande a couple times now, and if you are unfamiliar with it I’ll explain: La Bande is a big march of almost everyone in the village. It is led by one of the aforementioned mini-marching bands. Everyone links arm-in-arm in rows that stretch from one side of the street to the other, and then begin marching while singing the different songs of Carnaval. There must have been about 20,000 people all dressed up. Another tradition of La Bande is to carry around one of two things: either an umbrella (but not just any umbrella). I’m talking about an umbrella that has been duct-taped to the end of the longest pole that one can find. Some people we carrying umbrella’s that had to reach over two stories in height. The second option was to carry a similarly modified feather duster. In fact these we so common that there were signs around the train tracks cautioning to be aware of one’s umbrella because if they came in contact with the electrified wires overhead that powered the trains there was the probability of electrocution.

Another tradition of La Bande that caught us relatively by surprise (we had been informed about it just not told when it would occur) was called Le Rigodon. It is part of La Bande and occurs rather spur-of-the-moment which made it very difficult to avoid. The way it works is at certain points during the march everyone comes to a stop. This usually happens in streets that have people hanging out windows waving and taking pictures. Sometimes (I’m guessing if there isn’t enough people there to watch) they pick the pace back up again and continue on their way. However, there are other times when all hell breaks loose, and I did notice that there is a certain song that is played when this happens. The band starts playing again and instead of everyone continuing forward, the people at the front begin pushing backwards while the people at the back start pushing forwards. What results is utter chaos. Everyone gets smashed up against one another almost to the point of asphyxiation, and then starts moving as one back and forth stomping on each other’s feet and legs and occasionally jumping up and down. If it weren’t for the shear lack of space countless participants would end up trampled on the ground. Being a bigger guy I was less concerned for myself, and more concerned for the teenage girl behind me. She was smashed so tight I was worried she couldn’t breathe, and at times I could tell she was literally lifted off the ground while moving with the crowd (this happened to Kathryn as well which was the last straw for her, and after that we decided to hang towards the rear of the pack to keep out of the ruckus).

La Bande continues for most of the day, but we could only take about an hour or so of marching along with them. We spent the rest of the day as spectators as we explored the city of Bergues. It is actually a really interesting village in itself. It is one of the oldest towns in the Pas de Calais region of France, and is still totally surrounded by a medieval wall and moat. In fact we had to cross a drawbridge (guarded by cops stopping people with open containers of alcohol from entering before they had consumed them) just to enter. Our train was scheduled to take us back to Lille at about 9pm that evening, but on account of the freezing cold and biting wind we decided to catch an earlier one. All together it was an immensely fun time, great company, and a whole lot of drunken weirdo French people dressed up as dirty hookers. I can’t wait to do it all again next year!

A bientôt,

Jordan and Kathryn