Aba Luke

An un­ex­pect­ed hol­i­day saw thou­sands of peo­ple from across the na­tion gath­er at var­i­ous key points in east Trinidad to catch a glimpse of Olympic gold medal­list, 19-year-old Keshorn Wal­cott. From Pi­ar­co to To­co, pa­tri­ots were seen ju­bi­lant­ly ex­press­ing na­tion­al pride. Some chant­ed, "To­co, To­co," while oth­ers danced to the rhythms of so­ca and ca­lyp­so mu­sic em­a­nat­ing from the many bars along the road­way. For hours the crowds wait­ed. Some were ex­haust­ed and oth­ers sim­ply basked in the joy of an­oth­er hol­i­day in T&T-the fif­teenth for the year that would see us ranked among the top ten na­tions with the most hol­i­days on the cal­en­dar, ac­cord­ing to http://www.tourism-re­view.com www.tourism-re­view.com.

Be­tween San­gre Grande and To­co, the sights were quaint, as chil­dren, some wear­ing just their un­der­wear, stood at the side of the road­way pa­tient­ly await­ing the mo­tor­cade that came hours lat­er. Many greet­ed passers­by with cheers of joy and typ­i­cal Tri­ni warmth. Res­i­dents of To­co were hap­py to wel­come vis­i­tors from across the coun­try. Their smiles and greet­ings said it all. On the com­pound of the To­co Com­pos­ite school they wait­ed for the ar­rival of their To­co hero.

The voice of an­oth­er To­co favourite, Patrice Roberts, erupt­ed in song, as a he­li­copter flew over­head, cir­cled the area and land­ed on the field be­hind the school. There were ex­pres­sions of hope that maybe the air­craft was car­ry­ing Wal­cott. They were dis­ap­point­ed.

Stage side, Roberts told the crowd that she was hap­py to be home, not­ing that it had been a while. She then belt­ed out some of her hit songs, among them her new sin­gle, A Lit­tle Wine. Kes the Band fol­lowed and brought a lev­el of en­er­gy that could be felt for miles. He called on Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to show love for their coun­try. Di­ef­fen­thaller took a few sec­onds from his en­er­getic per­for­mance to fo­cus on the hu­mil­i­ty of Wal­cott. The artiste who gave T&T an Olympic an­them in We Are Con­querors com­mend­ed Wal­cott on his hu­mil­i­ty, adding that the en­tire Olympic ath­let­ic team had shown tremen­dous mod­esty. His words were met with cheers of pride by peo­ple who had come from var­i­ous parts of T&T to give the Olympic gold medal­ist a true hero's wel­come. Af­ter 9 pm there was still no sign of Wal­cott and his en­tourage and some peo­ple be­gan leav­ing. Oth­ers stayed de­ter­mined to wel­come and pay trib­ute to Wal­cott no mat­ter how late he ar­rived.