Guyana Edition
Mash Day leads today's complete edition for Guyana.
Daily Edition
Official observances, world days, local context, and everyday celebrations for people who need something worth reading, sharing, or talking about today.
The main event: costumed bands parade through the streets competing for prizes. The costumes are enormous, the music is deafening, and the rum is flowing. Children ride on their parents' shoulders, and every band has a theme that is either patriotic or satirical, never both.
Guyana's biggest festival, celebrating becoming a republic in 1970. "Mashramani" is from an Amerindian word meaning "celebration after hard work." Floats, costumes, calypso competitions, and the whole country dances in the streets. The word everyone uses is "Mash," and it is the one day when every Guyanese person, at home or abroad, wishes they were in the streets of Georgetown.