Khara Per­sad

Could Bel­mont's rich his­to­ry and im­por­tant land­marks pro­mote cul­tur­al tourism in T&T? Con­ser­va­tion­ists and ac­tivists plan on com­ing to­geth­er to brain­storm ways to de­vel­op the birth­place of T&T Car­ni­val in­to a bustling and lu­cra­tive tourist des­ti­na­tion, sav­ing the area's his­toric sites in the process. The Free­town Foun­da­tion of Bel­mont, a group ded­i­cat­ed to the pro­tec­tion of the its lega­cy, along with Cit­i­zens for Con­ser­va­tion, led a tour of the area last Wednes­day to sen­si­tise the pub­lic to its plans, which in­clude build­ing a Bel­mont mu­se­um and re­source cen­tre.

The morn­ing's knowl­edgable tour guide and pres­i­dent of the foun­da­tion, El­ton Scant­le­bury, ed­u­cat­ed a small group of re­porters and ac­tivists about Bel­mont's his­to­ry, point­ing out a hand­ful of land­marks that ought to be pre­served. As the maxi drove along Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road, Scant­le­bury trans­formed in­to an an­i­mat­ed, Bel­mont know-it-all, as he re­galed the group with facts and in­ter­est­ing anec­dotes about the town. "This piece of land here had one of the most...they had a silk cot­ton tree here that, you know, you had a lot of mys­ter­ies go­ing on at the silk cot­ton tree."

This fa­mous tree which stood at the cor­ner at Bel­mont Cir­cu­lar Road and Queen's Park East was as­so­ci­at­ed with obeah. "As a young man, I don't know what mys­ter­ies it held, be­cause we used to run down to the silk cot­ton tree and get the five cents...and we gone by Louis and we go and buy mau­by. "If it was obeah we took it as our obeah." The first stop on the trip was the home of the late world-renowned wrestler Cyril Cor­nelius Joseph, bet­ter known as Ray Apol­lon or the Gold­en Apol­lo in the wrestling ring. His cousin Orville Joseph now oc­cu­pies the sim­ple, wood­en home, filled with pieces of an­tique fur­ni­ture. It was built in the 1800s by his great-grand­fa­ther, who was a car­pen­ter. "I have the dis­tinc­tion of liv­ing where I was born," he boast­ed.

He said the house was ex­pert­ly built, as it al­lowed con­stant, nat­ur­al ven­ti­la­tion, elim­i­nat­ing the need for air-con­di­tion­ing. He said that was for­ward think­ing at its best, and T&T had lost its way in that re­gard. "We fol­lowed the il­lu­sion of progress and all we did was put up build­ings with­out feel­ing. Con­crete and glass and steel...We start­ed to build hous­es in­stead of build­ing homes."

Cop­per mas­ter Ken Mor­ris's home and old work­shop were al­so open to the group, as his son Glen­don Mor­ris en­ter­tained ques­tions about the im­por­tance of preser­va­tion.

"Dur­ing the years, every­body has been telling me don't break down the build­ing. I have to re­store it. It has a lot of his­to­ry."

Sur­round­ed by old Car­ni­val relics and a clut­tered work desk in his garage, where he is cur­rent­ly build­ing the coat of arms for T&T's em­bassy in Chi­na, Mor­ris said the grey, wood­en house, which rests on slabs of con­crete, was about 135 years old.

He said it had the po­ten­tial to be a mi­ni-mu­se­um, as al­ready tourists would pass by to see where the orig­i­nal met­al­work for Car­ni­val cos­tumes be­gan.

Can cul­tur­al touris­m­make mon­ey?

While the old-time ar­chi­tec­ture is beau­ti­ful and the call for its restora­tion and con­ser­va­tion is valid, the ques­tion of whether peo­ple would pay for an or­gan­ised tour of Bel­mont was raised.

In­de­pen­dent fundrais­ing con­sul­tant Joanne Butch­er said, "Ab­solute­ly."

She said cul­tur­al tourists spend more time and mon­ey in an area, and so it was wise for the coun­try to in­vest in mak­ing Bel­mont open and avail­able to them in an or­gan­ised way.

"Not every­one wants to go lie on the beach," she said ve­he­ment­ly.

Butch­er, from Mi­a­mi, has worked on the de­vel­op­ment of Mi­a­mi Beach to make it much more than a par­ty des­ti­na­tion.

She said re­search showed the val­ue of art, her­itage, cul­ture and cui­sine as be­ing ben­e­fi­cial to the coun­ty's econ­o­my. She cit­ed sta­tis­tics too, say­ing Mi­a­mi-Dade coun­ty's arts and cul­tur­al in­dus­try makes about US$922 mil­lion every year, based on a study com­plet­ed by the coun­ty's De­part­ment of Cul­tur­al Af­fairs.

Butch­er, who was vis­it­ing fam­i­ly for a few days and was a part of the tour group, said cul­tur­al tourists were not in­ter­est­ed in com­mer­cial shop­ping malls or chain stores, and looked for­ward to mak­ing con­nec­tions to places they vis­it­ed, which would bode well for their pos­si­ble re­turn.

"Cul­tur­al tourists want to go to a coun­try and have a re­al ex­pe­ri­ence. They will stay for four to five days. And be­cause of the lo­cal cul­ture at­tach­ment, they would be more like­ly to come back."

She said tourists who have no fam­i­ly roots in a coun­try would not know where to vis­it un­less guid­ed.

"With­out di­rec­tion where would they go? Around the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah and what? Have TGIF?"

One stop along the three-hour tour that stood out to Butch­er was a vis­it to the Ra­da com­pound and ceme­tery along An­toine Lane. Ra­da is a West African re­li­gion from Da­homey, now called Benin. It is a closed com­pound where an­nu­al cer­e­monies two weeks be­fore Car­ni­val oc­cur, re­plete with tra­di­tion­al drum­ming, chant­i­ng and spir­it pos­ses­sion.

She said: "I had nev­er heard about that be­fore. And I bought the book that was avail­able to learn more. And that's ex­act­ly what I am talk­ing about."

Scant­le­bury sold copies of A Ra­da Com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad by An­drew Carr to in­ter­est­ed guests.

Mor­ris said it was plain to see that Bel­mont had a rich past, and he sup­port­ed any move to im­mor­talise its her­itage.

"Bel­mont is al­most a for­got­ten city, but it could be some­thing more. Some­thing big­ger."

Did you know?

The coun­try's first Pres­i­dent Sir El­lis Clarke was born in Bel­mont.

Bel­mont was in­clud­ed in the Port-of-Spain Bor­ough in 1899.

It was the first area in Trinidad to be pop­u­lat­ed by for­mer African slaves, who had worked the co­coa and cof­fee es­tates in the area. Be­cause of this, Bel­mont used to be known as "Free­town."

Bel­mont Val­ley Road is com­mon­ly short­ened by most res­i­dents to just "Val­ley Road." In oth­er words, peo­ple will know you're from out of town if you say the for­mer.

The Ra­da com­mu­ni­ty, which prac­tised the re­li­gion of the Da­home­an peo­ple, set­tled in Val­ley Road in 1868. The com­mu­ni­ty still ex­ists, though it is much small­er. The ma­jor­i­ty of the com­mu­ni­ty has mi­grat­ed to Cana­da.

Abo­je­vi Za­h­wenu, pop­u­lar­ly known as Pa­pa Na­nee, the Da­home­an man who start­ed the Ra­da com­mu­ni­ty, came to Trinidad as a lib­er­at­ed African, but was held to be made a slave. He was freed and tak­en to Free­town. He then bought the land in Val­ley Road and de­vel­oped the com­pound.

Ca­lyp­son­ian Daniel Brown, aka Trinidad Rio, mu­si­cian Roy Cape, and the box­er Gen­tle Daniel, were raised in the Bel­mont Or­phan­age, al­so known as the St Do­minic's Home.

Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans David Rud­der and The Mighty Shad­ow were born in Bel­mont.