Bavi­ta Gopaulchan

“Re­lieved” is how the forty-nine49 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als feel now that they have fi­nal­ly touched home soil from Mex­i­co.

The group of oil work­ers re­turned just af­ter 4 pm on Wednes­day at the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port, more than three months af­ter be­ing strand­ed in the Gulf of Mex­i­co. They were all tak­en to the Kapok Ho­tel where they will re­main in quar­an­tine for 14 days.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, Garvin O’Con­nor, one of the re­turn­ing na­tion­als in­di­cat­ed that the group was ad­min­is­tered COVID-19 tests yes­ter­day morn­ing and they were told they will be in­formed of the re­sults in ap­prox­i­mate­ly 36 hours.

“I am sure no one will test pos­i­tive be­cause we have been quite care­ful in Mex­i­co”, O’Con­nor said dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view.

Asked how he felt to fi­nal­ly be back home, O’Con­nor was lost for words. Af­ter breath­ing a sigh of re­lief, he an­swered, “It is calm­ing for me now be­cause there is no place like home."

He added, “I do not know why peo­ple leave Trinidad to go any­where else in the world."

Hav­ing been more than 2,000 miles away from his sons, O’Con­nor said he want­ed to use the time in quar­an­tine to plan the many mem­o­ries he wants to cre­ate with them once he has been giv­en the all-clear to re­turn home.

Al­so ex­press­ing ela­tion was Faria Ram­sa­roop, the wife of Clarence Ram­sa­roop who is an­oth­er re­turn­ing na­tion­al.

Guardian Me­dia caught up with Faria, her two daugh­ters and oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers who were all camped in their ve­hi­cles out­side the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port hours be­fore the group ar­rived.

“We are hap­py to be here to see that he is fi­nal­ly home af­ter 104 days,” Faria said.

She said every day that passed she called her hus­band at least three times dai­ly, each call more emo­tion­al than the last.

Hold­ing back tears in her eyes, Faria added, “It was very sad and com­pelling but the on­ly thing that had us go­ing was prayer and we pray every sin­gle day."

Ram­sa­roop’s two daugh­ters made ban­ners. The words, “Wel­come home dad­dy” were script­ed in pink glit­ter.

His six-year-old daugh­ter Court­ney told us she can hard­ly wait to play hide and seek with her dad, a game she is more than hap­py to lose.

The group’s com­pa­ny Artemis En­er­gy Lim­it­ed is bear­ing all costs for their ac­com­mo­da­tion at the Kapok Ho­tel.

Mean­while, 29 cruise ship work­ers who ar­rived in the coun­try aboard the Car­ni­val Fan­ta­sy on June 4, end­ed their 14-day quar­an­tine at the Tacarigua Rac­quet Cen­tre yes­ter­day, af­ter two neg­a­tive tests.