AN­GE­LO JE­DIDI­AH

an­ge­lo.je­didi­ah@guardian.co.tt

In keep­ing with an­nu­al tra­di­tion, thou­sands braved the steep, wind­ing roads of Paramin, Trinidad, for the 16th edi­tion of Parang on D Hills.

Host­ed by the Paramin Cul­tur­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion (PCO) at the John Mad­er Grounds, the pop­u­lar parang par­ty was al­ready in full swing well be­fore its sched­uled 7 pm start. Hun­dreds of parang lovers ar­rived ear­ly by jeep and shut­tle, some dressed in el­e­gant at­tire, oth­ers opt­ing for com­fort—both per­fect­ly suit­ed to the sea­son and the oc­ca­sion.

Younger pa­trons cap­tured the mo­ment with phones held high, shar­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence across so­cial me­dia, while more sea­soned parang vet­er­ans set­tled com­fort­ably in­to beach chairs, bev­er­age in hand, ready for the long but mer­ry night ahead.

Due to traf­fic chal­lenges, the first parang band, Vo­ces Jóvenes, ar­rived lat­er than ex­pect­ed, tak­ing the stage just be­fore 9 pm. The de­lay, how­ev­er, did lit­tle to damp­en spir­its. For the two hours pri­or, the DJ’s steady stream of parang clas­sics kept the crowd en­er­gised and in high spir­its.

Among the rev­ellers was France na­tive Syl­vain Leblanc, who has worked in T&T since ear­li­er this year and is set to de­part in a week.

Ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a true Tri­ni Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion, he said, was the fi­nal item on his lo­cal buck­et list.

“I am look­ing for­ward to the at­mos­phere of Trinidad—the lime, the sense of com­mu­ni­ty, every­one em­brac­ing each oth­er. We are vibes; there is vibes here!” Leblanc told Guardian Me­dia.

Many vis­i­tors joined lo­cals, “danc­ing and pranc­ing” side by side, with sev­er­al fa­mil­iar faces al­so spot­ted in the crowd.

Though a som­brero at­tempt­ed to dis­guise him, for­mer Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) mem­ber of par­lia­ment and health min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh’s un­mis­tak­able dance moves and bound­less en­er­gy en­sured he did not go un­no­ticed.

Deyals­ingh, who was ac­com­pa­ny­ing vis­it­ing friends, said they were keen to ex­pe­ri­ence the event, adding with a laugh, “Have the time now.”

“This is the first time I am back here af­ter about 15 years, so I am thor­ough­ly en­joy­ing it. The at­mos­phere is fan­tas­tic. I had my first pastelle, I had my first paime—I ab­solute­ly love it!” he said.

Asked whether he planned to stay un­til the cus­tom­ary 4 am wrap-up time, his re­sponse was em­phat­ic: “I stay­ing for as long as pos­si­ble, broth­er—the vibes just start up!”

Al­so in at­ten­dance were Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment MPs Colm Im­bert, Mar­vin Gon­za­les and Symon de No­bri­ga. No cur­rent Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress gov­ern­ment min­is­ters were present.

Food ven­dors lined the perime­ter of the venue, of­fer­ing lo­cal Christ­mas del­i­ca­cies, while Paramin res­i­dents wove through the crowd sell­ing large bun­dles of chive and oth­er fresh green­ery.

For non-food ven­dors, how­ev­er, “Roger the Craft-man” proved a ma­jor hit, sup­ply­ing hand­craft­ed wood­en per­cus­sion in­stru­ments such as mara­cas (shak-shak) and toc-toc, en­cour­ag­ing pa­trons to ful­ly im­merse them­selves in the rhythms of the night.

“Since in­cep­tion, we here. We are guar­an­teed busi­ness on nights like these. Peo­ple come with the in­ten­tion to buy,” said busi­ness own­er Tecla Patrick-Wells.

She not­ed that the toc-toc usu­al­ly out­sells oth­er items dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son due to its sim­plic­i­ty and ease of use.

As mid­night ap­proached, PCO pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Kurt Ce­les­tine un­der­scored the im­por­tance of the event to both the Paramin com­mu­ni­ty and the na­tion’s cul­tur­al her­itage—one of the key rea­sons ad­mis­sion re­mains free.

How­ev­er, Ce­les­tine said stag­ing this year’s event proved par­tic­u­lar­ly chal­leng­ing due to the ab­sence of spon­sor­ship from reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tors, in­clud­ing the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board and oth­er cor­po­rate spon­sors, all of whom cit­ed eco­nom­ic con­straints.

He ex­pressed grat­i­tude to Carib Brew­ery Lim­it­ed and sev­er­al small lo­cal busi­ness­es for their sup­port, not­ing that it cost $345,000 to stage this year’s event, which con­tin­ues to grow in size and at­ten­dance.

“I think it would be ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­try, es­pe­cial­ly the Min­istry of Tourism, to pro­mote an event like this,” Ce­les­tine said.

“This year we got no help from them, but we would want them to re­al­ly part­ner with us mov­ing for­ward.”