Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

What be­gan as cher­ished child­hood mem­o­ries and a love for Christ­mas has blos­somed in­to one of Cen­tral Trinidad’s most unique her­itage at­trac­tions.

For founder and cu­ra­tor Clive Teemul, the Co­coa Pa­ny­ol Mu­se­um in Flana­gin Town is far more than a col­lec­tion of an­tiques. It is the sto­ry of his life, his com­mu­ni­ty and a mis­sion to pre­serve a way of life that is slow­ly dis­ap­pear­ing.

Vis­i­tors of­ten ask Teemul what in­spired him to cre­ate the mu­se­um. His an­swer al­ways be­gins in a mod­est two-bed­room wood­en home, where sim­ple fur­ni­ture, hand­made pieces and fam­i­ly tra­di­tions shaped his ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the past.

Among his ear­li­est in­flu­ences was an el­der­ly neigh­bour af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as “Nen”, who was born some­time in the 1890s. As a child, Teemul spent much of his free time in her home, sur­round­ed by the sights and sounds of an ear­li­er era.

Look­ing back, he be­lieves those ex­pe­ri­ences laid the foun­da­tion for what would even­tu­al­ly be­come the mu­se­um.

“Those things helped to mould me and set my mind in that di­rec­tion,” he said.

A Christ­mas pas­sion

Teemul said Christ­mas played an equal­ly im­por­tant role in shap­ing his vi­sion.

Grow­ing up, cel­e­bra­tions were mod­est. There were no elab­o­rate dec­o­ra­tions, ex­pen­sive toys or daz­zling light dis­plays. In­stead, the sea­son re­volved around home­made food, fam­i­ly to­geth­er­ness and the warmth of neigh­bours shar­ing the fes­tiv­i­ties.

When he be­gan teach­ing in 1985 and earned his own in­come, he slow­ly start­ed buy­ing Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions. Every year he added some­thing new, de­light­ing his nieces and nephews, who ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed see­ing what “Un­cle Clive” would un­veil each Christ­mas.

“It was more of en­joy­ing, at this stage in life, what I was not able to have for my­self in ear­li­er years,” he said.

Tragedy sparks a new be­gin­ning

Fol­low­ing the deaths of his moth­er, Dol­ly Teemul, in 2012 and his fa­ther, Son­ny Teemul, in 2015, Teemul chose not to leave his trea­sured Christ­mas dis­plays packed away.

In­stead, he took them to the sec­ondary school where he teach­es and trans­formed the li­brary, and lat­er the art room, in­to mag­i­cal Christ­mas dis­plays.

Stu­dents helped build Christ­mas vil­lages, while teach­ers or­gan­ised sto­ry­telling ses­sions and snacks, cre­at­ing mem­o­rable ex­pe­ri­ences for chil­dren.

As he qui­et­ly watched stu­dents in­ter­act with the dis­plays, Teemul no­ticed some­thing pro­found.

He could recog­nise the chil­dren who en­joyed fes­tive cel­e­bra­tions at home and those ex­pe­ri­enc­ing such joy for the very first time.

Those ob­ser­va­tions con­vinced him that the project need­ed to grow be­yond the class­room.

Birth of the Co­coa Pa­ny­ol Mu­se­um

In 2016, Teemul and his stu­dents cre­at­ed a much larg­er Christ­mas vil­lage on the school grounds, at­tract­ing not on­ly stu­dents but al­so res­i­dents from the sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty.

The fol­low­ing year, he in­tro­duced the theme “Trib­ute to the El­der”, dis­play­ing vin­tage house­hold items that en­cour­aged old­er vis­i­tors to rem­i­nisce while shar­ing sto­ries with younger gen­er­a­tions.

The over­whelm­ing re­sponse con­vinced him that the com­mu­ni­ty need­ed a per­ma­nent mu­se­um.

Search­ing for the right name, Teemul re­flect­ed on the in­flu­ence of the Co­coa Pa­ny­ol peo­ple, de­scen­dants of Venezue­lan mi­grants of mixed Amerindi­an, African and Span­ish her­itage who set­tled in Trinidad’s co­coa-grow­ing dis­tricts dur­ing the 19th cen­tu­ry.

Their tra­di­tions helped shape many of Trinidad’s Christ­mas cus­toms, in­clud­ing parang, pastelles, food and folk cul­ture.

The name Co­coa Pa­ny­ol Mu­se­um was born, pay­ing trib­ute to that rich cul­tur­al her­itage.

Grow­ing through com­mu­ni­ty sup­port

Ini­tial­ly, the mu­se­um con­sist­ed of bor­rowed arte­facts dis­played dur­ing sea­son­al ex­hi­bi­tions.

Even­tu­al­ly, Teemul brought the col­lec­tion home, where it steadi­ly ex­pand­ed in­to the per­ma­nent mu­se­um vis­i­tors en­joy to­day.

Com­mu­ni­ty events and na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tions fur­ther strength­ened pub­lic in­ter­est be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed ac­tiv­i­ties.

Iron­i­cal­ly, the pan­dem­ic al­so high­light­ed the val­ue of lo­cal tourism, as Trinida­di­ans be­gan ex­plor­ing at­trac­tions clos­er to home.

In­ter­est in the mu­se­um surged.

Teemul con­tin­ued ex­pand­ing the vis­i­tor ex­pe­ri­ence by in­tro­duc­ing cof­fee demon­stra­tions that cel­e­brate an­oth­er im­por­tant as­pect of rur­al Trinidad’s agri­cul­tur­al her­itage.

He cred­its the mu­se­um’s con­tin­ued growth to fam­i­ly mem­bers, vol­un­teers and vil­lagers who have sup­port­ed the project from its ear­li­est days.

Look­ing to the fu­ture

As the mu­se­um ap­proach­es its tenth an­niver­sary in 2027, co­in­cid­ing with Teemul’s re­tire­ment af­ter more than 41 years in ed­u­ca­tion, plans are al­ready un­der­way for fur­ther ex­pan­sion.

Fu­ture de­vel­op­ments in­clude a her­itage li­brary, work­shops, vis­i­tor shel­ters, im­proved na­ture trails, wheel­chair-ac­ces­si­ble fa­cil­i­ties and ad­di­tion­al tour guides to ac­com­mo­date in­creas­ing de­mand from schools and com­mu­ni­ty groups.

Teemul al­so hopes to weave the spir­it of Christ­mas in­to the mu­se­um’s ex­hibits through­out the year while pro­mot­ing re­cy­cling and re­pur­pos­ing by cre­at­ing dis­plays from dis­card­ed ma­te­ri­als, a re­flec­tion of old­er gen­er­a­tions who wast­ed lit­tle and val­ued every­thing.

“We want to pre­serve our her­itage and make these ex­pe­ri­ences last for­ev­er,” he said.

The mu­se­um wel­comes vis­i­tors of all ages, from pre-school chil­dren to uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents, fam­i­lies and se­nior cit­i­zens.

Group tours are avail­able by book­ing, and Teemul says every vis­i­tor be­comes part of the mu­se­um’s con­tin­u­ing sto­ry, a sto­ry built on mem­o­ries, com­mu­ni­ty spir­it and a deep re­spect for Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage.