Al­though I have lived all of my 67 Years in Trinidad and To­ba­go, the last six be­ing in To­ba­go, and be­lieved that I knew most im­por­tant things of my Coun­try, I was very sur­prised to learn that there are so many Fes­ti­vals be­ing cel­e­brat­ed in To­ba­go when I read a re­cent­ly pub­lished "Let­ter to the Ed­i­tor" in a re­cent dai­ly news­pa­per. For those per­sons who may not have read it: In ad­di­tion to the An­nu­al Two-day Pre-lenten Car­ni­val there are many Fes­ti­vals in­dige­nous to To­ba­go. These in­clude the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val.

The Buc­coo Vil­lage East­er Tues­day Goat Rac­ing Fes­ti­val, the Mount Pleas­ant Goat Rac­ing Fes­ti­val, the Buc­coo Vil­lage "Sun­day School," the Blue Food Fes­ti­val at Bloody Bay , the To­ba­go Culi­nary Fes­ti­val at Pi­geon Point, the Kite Fly­ing Fes­ti­vals at Spey­side and at Ply­mouth, the Fish­er­man's Fes­ti­val at Char­lot­teville and nu­mer­ous, al­most month­ly, Vil­lage Har­vest Fes­ti­vals. Is the Min­is­ter for Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and his PP Gov­ern­ment aware of these In­dige­nous To­ba­go Fes­ti­vals?

A ma­jor de­fi­cien­cy in all of these fes­ti­vals is an ab­sence of ad­e­quate ba­sic in­fra­struc­ture and am­meni­ties to ac­com­mo­date a large num­ber of vis­i­tors to the re­spec­tive vil­lages. With the ex­cep­tion of Ply­mouth where, to ac­com­mo­date the large num­bers of per­sons who at­tend­ed the Ply­mouth Jazz Fes­ti­val (for­mer­ly the To­ba­go Jazz Fes­ti­val) some im­prove­ments and up­grad­ing were con­duct­ed on the Play Field, the roads, the street light­ing and in the con­struc­tion of a Car Park (out­side the vil­lage) has any at­tempt been made by the THA to de­vel­op these Fes­ti­vals to an ac­cept­able stan­dard.

It is good to note that al­though the Ply­mouth Jazz Fes­ti­val has not been held in re­cent years, the in­fra­struc­ture has re­mained for the con­ve­nience, and use of the vil­lagers. It was mon­ey well spent. In my opin­ion, should mon­ey be spent on the de­vel­op­ment of fa­cil­i­ties at these Fes­ti­val sites, be­gin­ning with the "Sun­day School" at Buc­coo Vil­lage, that will be an ex­cel­lent in­vest­ment to the ben­e­fit of the peo­ple of Buc­coo and that of the peo­ple of To­ba­go. The de­vel­op­ment of oth­er Fes­ti­val sites, es­pe­cial­ly those for vil­lages used dur­ing the "To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val" can be the next pri­or­i­ty.

Car­ni­vals in near­by Coun­tries

In a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view, the Min­is­ter of To­ba­go De­vel­op­ment, The Hon­or­able Ver­nel­la Al­leyne-Top­pin in re­sponse to a ques­tion on near­by com­pet­ing Car­ni­vals, stat­ed that the plan to hold an­oth­er Car­ni­val in To­ba­go in Oc­to­ber did not co­in­cide with any oth­er Caribbean Car­ni­vals. Here are some of the Car­ni­vals which al­though be­ing held in months oth­er than Oc­to­ber are, in my opin­ion, still vy­ing for the lim­it­ed time and re­sources of "would be" trav­ellers, in­clud­ing re­turn­ing na­tion­als.

There is Bar­ba­dos "Crop Over," Grena­da "Spice Mas," St Vin­cent (Vin­cy Car­ni­val), St Lu­cia Car­ni­val, and oth­er less­er known Car­ni­val-type Fes­ti­vals: eg "Jun­canoo" in the Ba­hamas, Fur­ther, in North Amer­i­ca, from which we will ex­pect most of our vis­i­tors, there is the Trinidad-style "Labour Day" in Brook­lyn, "Carib­ana" in Toron­to, Mi­a­mi Car­ni­val, Philadel­phia Car­ni­val and more re­cent­ly Bal­ti­more Car­ni­val.

In ad­di­tion, it is ap­par­ent that the Min­is­ter for Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism and his PP Gov­ern­ment has not giv­en con­sid­er­a­tion to the fact that the month of Oc­to­ber is one of the wet­ter months in the year. Maybe hav­ing a day al­lo­cat­ed for a "Trinidad-style" Car­ni­val dur­ing the To­ba­go Her­itage Fes­ti­val will not on­ly give a boost to this Fes­ti­val but will be cost ef­fec­tive. The THA has stat­ed that it is not in favour of a Sec­ond Car­ni­val in To­ba­go but why are so many To­bag­o­ni­ans silent on this mat­ter? The time to hear the opin­ions of more To­bag­o­ni­ans on this is­sue.is long over­due.

Neil Alexan­der

Via e-mail