Kevon Felmine

It has been a week of agony for Diego Mar­tin, Pe­tit Val­ley and Care­nage res­i­dents vic­tims of last Sat­ur­day's se­vere flood­ing and land­slides in which two lives were lost. Yes­ter­day it was more sad­ness for some who al­so had to pay fi­nal re­spects to 66-year-old Solomon Brit­to, of Up­per La Puer­ta Av­enue, Diego Mar­tin, who died af­ter he was swept away by land­slides. His fu­ner­al ser­vice took place at the Evan­gel Taber­na­cle Church, Rich­plain Road, Diego Mar­tin. But un­der all the tur­moil, hun­dreds of res­i­dents were able to smile once again as 2012 Olympic javelin gold medal­list Keshorn Wal­cott and his fel­low Olympians brought re­lief ham­pers to over 200 peo­ple at the Diego Mar­tin Swim­ming Pool. Oth­er ath­letes in­clud­ed 4x400 re­lay sprint­er Machel Ce­de­nio and marks­man Roger Daniel. The ath­letes em­barked on the first day of thi­er na­tion­wide mo­tor­cade, start­ing at the Crowne Plaza Ho­tel, Wright­son Road, Port-of-Spain, and made their way through St James be­fore head­ing in­to Diego Mar­tin. There was no mas­sive pub­lic au­di­ence on the streets as on Mon­day be­cause it was a work­day.

How­ev­er, some came out of their busi­ness­es, wav­ing minia­ture na­tion­al flags, to cheer on the ath­letes. As Wal­cott and the oth­er the ath­letes be­gan to give out ham­pers, many re­cip­i­ents were more in­ter­est­ed in get­ting his au­to­graph or hav­ing their pic­tures tak­en with him. He said he was hap­py to take part in the event, not­ing that many peo­ple were dis­traught by the floods and land­slips in the area. Asked what it meant to bring re­lief to the peo­ple, he said: "I don't think that I am re­al­ly bring­ing re­lief to them. I am just help­ing out with the pro­ce­dures, that is giv­ing. I am glad to help with each and every­thing. I know the peo­ple are feel­ing re­al­ly bad about what had hap­pened to them, so I am just thank­ful that I can help." Wal­cott said he was pleased with the re­cep­tion giv­en to him by the res­i­dents and added he was cop­ing with the at­ten­tion he had been get­ting. He said: "Well, I am just glad that every­one is hap­py with what I have done. I am proud to have rep­re­sent­ed my coun­try and I did great for the na­tion so I am just proud of my­self. "The at­ten­tion is nor­mal. I don't re­al­ly study it that much. I know it was com­ing along with the medal. While in Lon­don I was try­ing to pre­pare for it. "The oth­er guys were telling me about it so I pre­pared men­tal­ly, par­tial­ly, for it. So things are re­al­ly go­ing good right now." Cen­de­no said it was a great feel­ing to see the peo­ple smil­ing again.

The young sprint­er added: "It feels pret­ty good see­ing every­body here smil­ing. We know they were sad­dened by the land­slides and all the rains. "So we just came to bring re­lief to every­one and every­one is just hap­py, so that makes me proud to see these hap­py faces on every­one here." But while af­fect­ed res­i­dents were de­light­ed with the ges­ture, the mem­o­ries of their homes be­ing rav­aged by na­ture's fury con­tin­ued to haunt them. Sylvia Ram­di­al, who spoke with a trou­bled voice, said too many bad things had hap­pened over the past week. She said while be­ing hap­py for the ham­per she was bur­dened by the lost of her friend, Brit­to. "Well I hope we don't get noth­ing like this again. I pray that God will save this coun­try," she added. Brit­to's niece, Natasha Not­ting­ham, was un­able to feel over­joyed as she missed her un­cle's fu­ner­al ser­vice to meet with a Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (HDC) of­fi­cial who had come to see her fam­i­ly's ru­ined home. She said while she ap­pre­ci­at­ed the ges­ture, her fam­i­ly would not be able to use it be­cause they were stay­ing at the Di­a­mond Vale Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre, where there were no fridges or stoves.

How­ev­er, she was pleased with the treat­ment she and her fam­i­ly got from the Red Cross, say­ing all the food they had re­ceived was al­ready cooked. She de­scribed yes­ter­day's acts by Wal­cott as un­selfish. She added: " I think it is re­al­ly amaz­ing that some­one so young has such great wis­dom. I mean he is 19. You will be think­ing to buy a brand new car or some­thing. "I think it was very com­mend­able of him. He is so un­selfish and self­less to share with peo­ple in need." Asked how life has been with­out a home, she added: "It is trau­ma­tis­ing. Right now we are sleep­ing on pods, not that I am com­plain­ing. "I mean it is bet­ter than our home but sleep­ing on the pods is very hard. It's hard be­cause it's an open area. It's not like it's en­closed, it's not pri­vate. Every­body is hav­ing that same ex­pe­ri­ence."