BRAZIL: Ever dreamt of the Rio carnival? Ever dreamt of being in the the carnival in Rio? Ciara O'Sullivan did ... and was a little overshadowed by Naomi Campbell
Last night I was the living embodiment of a UN Millennium Goal in the form of a giant droplet of water. With nothing but pale blue and white gauze strips and a whole load of glitter for protection, I stepped in to Rio de Janeiro's Sambadrome for the first time and the adrenalin rush practically paralysed me.
The booming samba music drowned out the cheers of the crowds and the only thing I could think of was how to look like a prize-winning drop of fresh water while singing about the importance of eradicating poverty and disease.
Wearing white knickers and a gigantic silver and blue breastplate topped with metre-wide epaulettes culminating in oversized silver taps on my shoulders, I was convinced I was quite the Brazilian samba queen but as I later discovered, things were not exactly as they seemed last night.
The complex costume had been collected days previously from Eliani who, in just one month, had made hundreds of hand-sown magical costumes for their local Portela samba school. Portela claims to be Rio's oldest school and despite past successes they haven't taken the Carnival title in over 20 years.
This year was supposed to be different. The UN had joined forces with the school to create a theme based on the Millennium Goals, eight agreed social objectives for world governments to aim towards by 2015. Things like improving education, healthcare and environmental protection were among the notions that had to be brought alive in 5,000 costumes and written about in a catchy samba rhythm for everyone to learn.
Attracted to the aspirations of the theme, my friends and I chose our costume by scrolling through the school's website and picking the most fetching-looking one modelled by the tanned girl with the washboard stomach.
Little did I know.
I had some vague recollection of Eliani muttering instructions about assembling the rig-out but I hadn't been paying much attention when I drove off in a cab full of blue glitz last Saturday. Only last night, hours before the big parade of our school, did I realise that it was not at all obvious how to become a living UN Millennium Goal.
My fellow carnival-virgins and I gathered excitedly to get ready for our debut. After some debate we settled on holding the large, silver, mock shower-head in our hands, placing the main swathe of watery fabric to the front and wearing the magnificent foot-high crown at a jaunty angle on our heads.
Off we went on the metro and swished confidently down the street. It's Rio for God's sake, a bum cheek or bunda, as it's known here, is nothing to get prudish about. There are naked girls parading in front of us, so what if your white stretch underwear is on show to the world?
It's clearly how it's supposed to be. Wrong.
Within minutes of assembling outside the Sambadrome, we spotted fellow water droplets but, mysteriously, not their bundas. The costume, it transpired, was designed to be worn entirely the other way around. The shower-head was, in fact, an appendage tucked firmly into a panel and deliberately covering one's rear.
When this minor issue had been redressed we took our place among the scornful members of our "wing", trying to look like we knew exactly what to expect next. The wait had begun. I found myself standing beside a man from Wexford sporting a pair of tight, white underpants and a mere six blue plastic water drops for decency. He'd lived in Brazil for 30 years and parades with Portela every year, always in the same wing but in a different costume each time. Last year he was an indigenous tribesman. He said it was much more comfortable than being water. Now one o'clock in the morning and with no sign of anything happening, I found myself dreaming of being a tribesman without four-inch white heels. Frankly it was getting very difficult to manoeuvre with shoulder taps.
Then it happened, and the three-hour wait ended. Suddenly, we were being propelled forward by a deafening drum beat from behind us, the bateria was pounding the samba rhythm and we started to sing the words of the song we had been swotting all day. With no notion at all of what had gone before us or indeed what was to follow, I was inside, dancing along through the stadium passageway with thousands singing along and I was in heaven.
It ended all too soon but I was convinced that we were amazing, Portela would win, the UN Millennium goals would be achieved in five not 10 years, fresh water would abound for everyone on the planet and we would be special guests next year!
This appears to have been a little off the mark.
The morning papers tell of how our lead float burnt down the night before the parade and was replaced by a wingless eagle that shamed the school's name unforgiveably. The eighth Millennium Goal float didn't even make it into the stadium and a whole wing of people dressed as Sergio Viera de Melo were left running like stragglers at the end to catch up with Nelson Mandelas and Mother Teresas.
And what's this I hear of super-models? Naomi Campbell making a guest appearance wearing little more than a diamond earring?
What about me? Didn't you see me dance and sing and be like a river of water not just a droplet?
Perhaps next year I'll return in another organic form and then we will take the title, or at least that's become my millennium goal.