Notting Hill Carnival

I wove my way through a crowd of people and sat down on the curb beneath a row house, sliding as close as I could physically get to the building. I made sure to stick my head as far back as possible to avoid the torrential downpour coming from above. There was about a foot of overhang from the roof. Finally, some relief. My face might stay dry, but my legs would sit unmoving, wet, taking the brunt of the storm. In this section of the neighborhood, it was either take shelter here, or stand under a street food tarp with cooks harassing me to buy their overpriced food.

I was ankle deep in water at the Notting Hill Carnival in London, also known as the largest festival in Europe. What had started in 1964 as a celebration for the London-based Afro-Caribbean population to celebrate their heritage, has since turned in to a massive, communal celebration for all who wish to show solidarity between all cultures and ethnicities. I was excited to try the infamous Caribbean food (being a huge foodie), and I’d heard good things about the colorful floats in the parade, but as fate would have it, I would only catch the tail end of the parade due to the rainstorm.

I'd forgotten my umbrella, which was turning out to be much more of an inconvenience than I’d previously reckoned. It's just water, you'll be fine. That was my Southern-California-girl mentality shining through, because in Southern California, it rains delicately, like butterflies fluttering against your windshield. In England, it rains like an angry, old, blustering dragon.

Don’t get me wrong. I do love a good rain, and California is in the middle of a devastating drought, so water falling free from the sky is welcome any time in my eyes. However, with no umbrella and only a pair of thin canvas shoes to shield my wet feet, I felt particularly annoyed at myself for being so unprepared.

After a few minutes, the rain slowed enough for me to feel as though I wouldn’t be fighting gravity in order to keep walking forward. My full bladder pounded against my lower abdomen. Those 3 cappuccinos I’d had earlier were taunting me, here, in the middle of a storm, with no bathroom in sight. I scanned the street, and saw a long line forming outside of a port-a-potty.

When I’d arrived at the carnival an hour earlier, I’d been stunned at the dismal amount of people I saw on the street. I just figured the rain deterred a good portion of the normal carnival population. However, the bathroom line suggested anyone and everyone to ever exist were waiting for a toilet at that exact moment.

Just as I'd given in to the notion that I would stand and wait for a port-a-potty, and just as rain water started to creep through my jacket (and my subsequent 3 layers underneath), I saw a very small sign (”Toilet, downstairs”) with an arrow pointing towards cement steps that led into what I could only imagine was a basement. I looked around and no one was in line, from what I could see from street level. Perhaps there was a reason no one was standing in line. It seemed too good to be true.

As I slowly followed the cement steps downward and went underground, I gleefully noticed an open door and a line of a total of ONE person in front of me. The bathroom was the first room on the right in the hallway; there were arrows leading the way. I smelled the orange-blossom-bergamot of Earl Grey, thinking someone must be drinking tea.

A young woman sat at a small table immediately to my right, with a ‘£1 donation’ sign and a mason jar. "Tea or coffee?"

I slipped my frozen hand into my wet purse and extracted enough change to make one pound. 

”Excuse me?" Was she talking to me? I looked around.

"Would you like coffee or tea?" She looked at me and tapped her foot impatiently, like she'd been here all day. “Sorry to snap. I just want to have it ready for you when you’re done with the toilet.”

"I'll have tea, please. Thank you."

Someone came out of the bathroom and a man from deep within one of the other rooms in the house rushed in, exclaiming he needed to refill the toilet paper container before I went in. Oh, so this was someone’s house. It didn’t really look like a house. It was underground, and there were no visible windows. But as my eyes scanned the hallways, I noticed frames with family pictures in them. Dog toys were scattered all around the beige carpet.

"Robert! One tea!" The woman yelled, then turning to me. "After you're done with the loo, you can go right, down the hall, into the kitchen. We have a few things to nosh on and your tea will be waiting. Feel free to stay as long as you'd like. We know it's miserable out there."

I thanked her and went to the bathroom. Afterwards, I went down the hall to the kitchen, and drank my hot tea. It warmed my hands, and I appreciated that the world consisted of people like this couple who opened up their home to carnival strangers, especially those of us who needed to use the bathroom and warm up.

As I got to know Robert and Nora (the impatient one who actually turned out to be wonderful), I learned that the couple were recently married, that they rent the bottom level of this house, that they have a total of one window, four small dogs, and one baby on the way. Before I left, they even let me borrow an old, flimsy umbrella someone had left at their house months ago. Apparently, I was the only person at the carnival that day to forget my umbrella.

As I walked back into the rain, now shielded by a thin piece of plastic and stomach full of hot tea and pastries, I was ready to try that overpriced beer and food. People drunkenly stumbled around me and smiled, for no good reason other than we were here, in this together, and we were making the best of it. I approached a food stand and the bearded man behind the big wok of cooked cabbage looked me over, taking in my appearance. “For you, my lady, it’s free.”

I missed most of the parade (and a lot of floats had ended early due to the weather). But I ended up staying for another four hours, cold and wet, but pretty blissfully happy. Thanks to the kindness of some strangers, both the ones I encountered on the street, the food vendors, and the couple with the delightful little escape from the rain underneath the very street I stood on, my time at the carnival had been unexpected. But more importantly, my faith in humanity had been completely restored.