KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

As the first beats of so­ca thun­dered through the ear­ly morn­ing dark, Point Fortin came alive with colour, chaos and cul­ture.

The 2025 Bor­ough Day cel­e­bra­tions, mark­ing the cli­max of the bor­ough’s 45th-an­niver­sary fes­tiv­i­ties, trans­formed the sleepy oil town in­to a liv­ing, puls­ing can­vas of cre­ativ­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty spir­it.

By 4 am, the streets were thick with bod­ies—danc­ing, win­ing, and chip­ping to the hyp­not­ic thump of mu­sic trucks rum­bling through the South­ern Main Road. Paint, pow­der, and hands flew through the air in joy­ful re­bel­lion against the or­di­nary. And then came the rain.

But rather than damp­en spir­its, the down­pour on­ly deep­ened the bac­cha­nal. Rev­ellers wel­comed the show­ers like bless­ings, their cheers echo­ing through the bor­ough as they frol­icked in the wet­ting.

Some re­moved their shirts and lift­ed their hands to the sky, let­ting the rain min­gle with the paint on their skin in a mo­ment that felt al­most spir­i­tu­al.

“It was good—but hard,” con­fessed Deputy May­or Kwe­si Thomas, who ad­mit­ted the month-long cel­e­bra­tion was a lo­gis­ti­cal feat, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing an elec­tion sea­son.

“The on­ly hic­cup was Des­pers pulling out last minute,” he said, re­fer­ring to the Des­per­a­dos Steel Or­ches­tra’s abrupt can­cel­la­tion from the evening’s Pan on the Move show­case.

Yet if any­thing suf­fered, it wasn’t the vibe. From the in­ven­tive to the out­landish, cre­ativ­i­ty bloomed in every cor­ner of the J’Ou­vert crowd. One band show­cased dulì (tra­di­tion­al East Asian straw hats) and car­ried tuán­shàn (cir­cu­lar hand fans), blend­ing her­itage with mas in a unique cul­tur­al fu­sion.

An­oth­er stand­out was an “iron woman” who didn’t just play her in­stru­ment—she rode with it. Clang­ing rhyth­mi­cal­ly on an iron in­side a gro­cery cart re­designed to look like a car, com­plete with a li­cense plate, she rolled through the crowd like a queen of tem­po.

The spec­ta­cle on­ly grew grander as so­ca artiste De­von “Dev” Har­ris joined his Dev’s Bar­ber­shop Crew, turn­ing heads in a flam­boy­ant red roy­al sur­coat, gold­en boots, and a crown that glit­tered be­neath the street­lights. Mean­while, a group of rev­ellers turned part of the road­way in­to a sur­prise foam fete, spray­ing clouds of soap suds in­to the air. Yet an­oth­er band took a nos­tal­gic turn, don­ning old-school uni­forms—pleat­ed skirts, crests and all—as they danced through the streets like stu­dents on car­ni­val break.

Among those tak­ing in the rev­el­ry was re­cent­ly elect­ed Tu­na­puna MP Roger Alexan­der, spot­ted min­gling with the crowd and soak­ing in the Point Fortin ex­pe­ri­ence.

De­spite the rain cur­tail­ing the of­fi­cial end of J’Ou­vert by about 30 min­utes—wrap­ping up around 10.30 am—ACP Wayne Mys­tar, the Gold Com­man­der of the cel­e­bra­tions, was sat­is­fied with the out­come.

“We had close to 20,000 peo­ple and no ma­jor in­ci­dents,” he told Sun­day Guardian. One man sus­tained a mi­nor stab wound and was treat­ed at the Point Fortin Hos­pi­tal. Four oth­ers were de­tained for dis­or­der­ly con­duct for throw­ing bot­tles at a Church’s Chick­en out­let, but over­all, the day un­fold­ed with­out se­ri­ous dis­rup­tion.

Mys­tar cred­it­ed the strong se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence: of­fi­cers from the Port-of-Spain, Cen­tral and East­ern di­vi­sions joined the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, along­side units from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch, the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the De­fence Force.

As mid­day came, the tem­po shift­ed to tra­di­tion. Cul­tur­al mas­quer­aders took to the streets in the af­ter­noon, fol­lowed by the Pan on the Move show­case, which stretched in­to mid­night.

Of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised as a bor­ough in 1980, Point Fortin re­mains T&T’s small­est—but ar­guably one of its most spir­it­ed. Born of the oil boom, this re­silient com­mu­ni­ty has par­layed its in­dus­tri­ous roots in­to an an­nu­al cel­e­bra­tion of iden­ti­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, and joy.