Pe­ter Ray Blood

My 15-day va­ca­tion was like an elixir but, now that I am back in of­fice for just five days, I can do with an­oth­er ab­sence from du­ty, this time much longer. This no­tion was plant­ed when I met a po­lice part­ner of mine in the air­port on his way to At­lanta and he told me that he too was on va­ca­tion; not for 15 days, not for a month, but for six months. Now, that's what I call a re­al va­ca­tion-nev­er had one of those my en­tire work­ing ca­reer. I had a re­al ta­ban­ca while away, es­pe­cial­ly as I missed so many things I want­ed to at­tend, like con­certs by The Mar­i­onettes and The Ly­di­ans. But, on the eve of my de­par­ture I was able to at­tend two ex­treme­ly en­joy­able events-one be­ing the cook-off or­gan­ised by the Ad­ver­tis­ing So­ci­ety at the Queen's Park Oval. In­vit­ed to sit as a judge to 15 of the coun­try's top ad­ver­tis­ing com­pa­nies by Lor­raine Ros­tant, the evening was a culi­nary de­light, and even­tu­al­ly won by Col­lier, Mor­ri­son & Bel­grave (CMB) with their Cre­ole Mas­sala Bac­cha­nal. Al­so im­press­ing were Ad­van­tage with its Goat in Heat, OGM Com­mu­ni­ca­tions with What a Load of Bull, Ros­tant DDB with De Wickedest Swine, and Ross with So­meSt­ings Fishy. The oth­er event I got to was the launch of Car­ni­val 2011 through the streets of Port-of-Spain. Fol­low­ing close­ly on the heels of the im­mense­ly en­joy­able Pan Re­lay up Laven­tille Hill the pre­vi­ous Sun­day, this event proved to be yet an­oth­er de­light­ful way to spend a Sun­day evening. With­out go­ing too much in­to the en­tire thing, I must men­tion the great mu­sic pro­vid­ed by Neal & Massy Trinidad All Stars and St James Tripo­lians, as well as the sur­prise live per­for­mances by Su­perBlue and Ben­jai aboard DJ Joy Pro­duc­tion's truck. I was al­so im­pressed by the huge num­ber of young peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing in the cos­tume as­pect of the pa­rade.

I said it when I first vis­it­ed as a child, and I'll say it again half a cen­tu­ry lat­er, "To­ba­go is the best kept se­cret in our na­tion." I spent the last wee­of my va­ca­tion in the sis­ter isle and fell in love all over again with her beau­ty. Some­thing which amazed me 50 years ago and con­tin­ues to do so is the feel­ing of safe­ty one ex­pe­ri­ences in To­ba­go, as op­posed to Trinidad. Back then peo­ple went out and left their win­dows and doors open at night, sans bur­glar proof­ing. To­day, de­spite the crime and the high fig­ure of 12 mur­ders for the year, many peo­ple still do. In fact, my dri­ver while I was there nev­er locked his car, and one night even left the keys in the ve­hi­cle. An­oth­er of To­ba­go's en­dur­ing pos­i­tives is the friend­li­ness and hos­pi­tal­i­ty of its peo­ple, like THA-em­ployed counter clerk Si­mone Mar­tin at the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al's Of­fice in Scar­bor­ough. This pret­ty and pe­tite young woman, by her evolved cus­tomer ser­vice skills, is an as­set to the pub­lic ser­vice. This hos­pi­tal­i­ty was al­so demon­strat­ed by every­one I en­coun­tered, like Blue Crab Restau­rant own­ers Ken­neth and Al­li­son Sardinha; Pe­ter and Louise Phillips in Ba­co­let; Kirk and Pinky Sa­landy of Pa­tience Hill; my dri­ver Steve Brown; hand­craft sales­woman Stel­la of Cas­tara; and, the ven­dor who sold me the DVDs in Scar­bor­ough. I was lit­er­al­ly dumb­found­ed last Sat­ur­day when Steve took me on an is­land tour af­ter hav­ing a break­fast that con­sist­ed of black pud­ding, car­rot co­conut bake and home grown To­ba­go co­coa tea. Al­though I am still pay­ing the price with in­sect bites for this trip, it was worth every kilo­me­tre and bite. Our first stop was Fort George, ma­jes­ti­cal­ly over­look­ing Scar­bor­ough Har­bour, vis­it­ing Cas­tara, Rox­bor­ough, Par­latu­vi­er, Pem­broke and Mt Dil­lon as well. Any­time you go to To­ba­go, make sure and take a dri­ve through the rain­for­est in these ar­eas. The on­ly oth­er Caribbean is­land I've vis­it­ed that is as green is Do­mini­ca. It was in the rain­for­est that I won­dered why hasn't suc­ces­sive cen­tral gov­ern­ments and the THA not an­nounced to the world that our na­tion pos­sess­es this na­tion­al trea­sure.

The down­side

My one dis­ap­point­ment of To­ba­go is the ne­glect of the is­land's cap­i­tal by the both the cen­tral gov­ern­ment and the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly. Scar­bor­ough is in need of some ur­gent and ex­ten­sive restora­tion as there are too many un­sight­ly, ram­shackle wood­en struc­tures, es­pe­cial­ly on the cap­i­tal's main street; one even has a card­board awning. Com­pared to the de­vel­op­ing Canaan dis­trict, with its huge Gulf City Shop­ping Mall and Movi­eTowne, Scar­bor­ough is an eye sore. Come on Orville, Ash­worth and Ver­nel­la, Scar­bor­ough is cry­ing out for your at­ten­tion. Aside from the au­then­tic in­dige­nous cui­sine, To­ba­go is blessed with, and some of the most beau­ti­ful black women on the plan­et, the flo­ra and fau­na of To­ba­go is so breath­tak­ing it would con­vince the most ex­treme athe­ist that God does ex­ists, that He cre­at­ed na­ture...and is prob­a­bly a To­bag­on­ian.