In recent weeks, dozens of barns in the polder village of De Kwakel have been sawn, carpentered and painted. Quakers are working on their cart for the annual carnival parade, next Tuesday. This week NH was allowed to take a look at a team of old hands, who perform a carefully rehearsed act every year.
The team announced their arrival in a big press release. “Charles and Camilla will also come and most of us will become guards,” explains team member Sander Voorn. He’s in one of the guard’s houses the men made from planks of wood and mounted on the sides of the cart. On his head is an elongated colossus of papier-mache.
“We’re wearing an almost original guard’s hat,” he jokes. “There’s still black fur around it.” The large crown on the front of the trigger also needs a golden coat of paint. Because the tractor pulls the cart, the crown is the first thing the public will see next Tuesday.
Team member Dennis Pouw climbed a ladder to paint the top of the crown. He has been participating in the pageant since he was seventeen. “It’s just a habit. We used to participate in the children’s parade from school.”
Sander adds: “Many of us went to primary school together and see each other here every year. This is just a very nice activity. You are just having fun and it doesn’t have to be at its best.”
Over the years, everyone has been given their own task. Sander takes care of the details. Dennis Hogerwerf, a namesake, has perhaps the most important task: providing beer and music. “And when paper mache is involved, I always like to do it,” says Dennis. He has therefore put together the guard’s hats and carefully hidden a construction helmet in them.
Secret of De Kwakel
Where most younger groups will be busy drinking beer this coming Tuesday, Sander and his men have come up with a whole act again this year. “As a group with a small cart, we did another act in the beginning and that hit the mark. In the end, we actually really liked that. We really enjoy entertaining people.”
That is why there is a lot of practice with marching prior to the parade. And which of the men will be Camilla? “We didn’t want to dress up a man as a woman,” says Sander. “Then we thought of someone’s wife or girlfriend, but couples on a cart, that sometimes becomes a fight. We found someone, but that is De Kwakel’s secret at the moment.”