RYAN BA­CHOO

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

When Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo was in­au­gu­rat­ed last Mon­day at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah as this coun­try’s sev­enth Head of State, lit­tle was known about the man who sat next to her at the cer­e­mo­ny. He is now to be known as His Ex­cel­len­cy Ker­wyn Gar­cia and he has been mar­ried to Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo for the last 24 years.

Life for this pri­vate man, who has prac­ticed as an at­tor­ney in civ­il ad­vo­ca­cy ar­eas for three decades, has just tak­en a very dif­fer­ent turn.

“I’ve had a very pri­vate life and I have val­ued that pri­va­cy. One of the chal­lenges about be­ing mar­ried to the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic is that one has to yield some­times, I imag­ine more of­ten than one might like, to the need to in­ter­face with the pub­lic in re­la­tion to the du­ties that one is called up­on to per­form. I am will­ing and I hap­py to do that,” Gar­cia said in his first in­ter­view yes­ter­day.

It might be sur­pris­ing to many that Gar­cia has been able to stay out of the spot­light for such a long time. He has watched his wife serve in many dif­fer­ent roles in pub­lic ser­vice for more than two decades while his fa­ther, An­tho­ny Gar­cia, served as Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter af­ter be­ing elect­ed to the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in 2015 as the MP for Ari­ma.

“I mean to be quite frank I be­lieve in try­ing to do one’s best in one’s par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances. I sup­pose you could say I try to blos­som wher­ev­er I’m plant­ed,” he said.

Gar­cia’s roots in Ari­ma keep him ground­ed and con­nect­ed with east Trinidad. He told the sto­ry of his moth­er hav­ing to get a pass to get through a Black Pow­er march in 1970 to get to the Ari­ma Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal to give birth to him. He at­tend­ed Ari­ma Boys’ Gov­ern­ment School, was bap­tised at the San­ta Rosa RC Church, and was an acolyte at the Mal­abar RC Church.

“So as Hol­ly Be­taudi­er might have said I’m Gens Arime,” he said.

Both his par­ents, as well as his sis­ter, were teach­ers. Gar­cia took a dif­fer­ent route in­to law, study­ing the first year of his de­gree at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St Au­gus­tine be­fore com­plet­ing his next two years at Cave Hill in Bar­ba­dos. As an avid crick­et fan, the pitch that sits in the mid­dle of the uni­ver­si­ty ex­cit­ed him. When he’s talk­ing about crick­et, he’s West In­di­an and boasts at Cave Hill he ei­ther watched or played cork ball crick­et every day.

Gar­cia, who en­joys read­ing books on busi­ness, must now bal­ance his pri­vate law prac­tice with his du­ties as First Gen­tle­man. His wife has made no se­cret of the fact that she wants him in­volved in many of the ini­tia­tives she pitched dur­ing her in­au­gur­al ad­dress to the na­tion, name­ly cul­ture and the arts.

“It’s go­ing to be a chal­lenge. I was say­ing to Her Ex­cel­len­cy just this morn­ing that my head is spin­ning be­cause I have all of these re­spon­si­bil­i­ties I con­tin­ue to have to dis­charge to my clients and then I have to get my head around all of the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of First Gen­tle­man but Her Ex­cel­len­cy and I have al­ways sup­port­ed each oth­er 110 per cent and through­out our mar­riage and I ex­pect I will have her sup­port and she will have mine and I have no doubt we are go­ing to ease in­to this just fine,” he said.

That mu­tu­al sup­port proved im­por­tant dur­ing the tran­si­tion of pow­er this year. From the Prime Min­is­ter’s nom­i­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Kan­ga­loo, the Op­po­si­tion had ob­ject­ed to the choice as Kan­ga­loo was at the time Sen­ate Pres­i­dent.

He said: “We are hu­man be­ings, all of us, and all of us feel hurt and feel pain. I think the chal­lenge has been for us to rise above it and not just to rise above it as though it is some­thing to be brushed away and not tak­en on but to try to un­der­stand it, to try to em­brace it, and that has been our jour­ney.”

Gar­cia says they had to wel­come it “as part of the na­tion­al ta­pes­try.”