DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

With six days to go be­fore Car­ni­val, flights are ar­riv­ing with hun­dreds of pas­sen­gers ex­cit­ed to be in Trinidad and To­ba­go for the sea­son.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port yes­ter­day to get some in­sight in­to peo­ple’s fears and/or plans now that they have land­ed in the twin-is­land re­pub­lic.

A con­sen­sus from those en­ter­ing the coun­try is that de­spite grow­ing con­cerns about crime, they are not per­turbed by the prob­lem, which con­tin­ues to make na­tion­al head­lines.

Speak­ing dur­ing an in­ter­view af­ter she cleared im­mi­gra­tion, 59-year-old nurse prac­ti­tion­er in New York City, Carminie Ram­lal, said she had stopped par­tic­i­pat­ing in Car­ni­val but re­alised how much she missed it dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Fu­elled by this yearn­ing, she has re­turned since the fes­ti­val has been back on the cal­en­dar of events.

She ad­mit­ted that crime was wor­ry­ing, but Ram­lal said it did not per­suade her to change her mind.

“Of course, I have a lot of con­cerns, but we can’t let crim­i­nals take away what­ev­er qual­i­ty of life we have, so we’re here to make the best of it,” she said.

Ram­lal is look­ing for­ward to the fetes and home-cooked meals, which she be­lieves is tasti­er in her home­land.

Ac­com­pa­ny­ing Ram­lal was her cowork­er, 30-year-old Columbian med­ical as­sis­tant Ang­ie Pati­no. Pati­no said she looked for­ward to every­thing the sea­son has to of­fer and was al­so not dis­turbed by crime.

Sim­i­lar­ly, Guyanese na­tive Can­dice, a train op­er­a­tor in Brook­lyn, de­scribed her­self as a true so­ca fan. She said she was vis­it­ing for the first time for the mu­sic, food and vibe. Not­ing that crime was a se­ri­ous con­cern, she said she choos­es to not live in fear.

“Yes, with the crime and stuff but you have one life to live, you might as well live it to the fullest,” she said.

She al­so com­ment­ed on the ex­pense to play mas and par­ty for Car­ni­val. Can­dice said tick­et prices were ex­pen­sive which is why she bought her tick­et last year. How­ev­er, she be­lieves tick­et prices fluc­tu­at­ed be­cause some of her friends bought tick­ets a cou­ple weeks ago for the same price she paid.

Can­dice Jones from Rich­mond, Vir­ginia was ex­cit­ed to be back in the land of her birth and she, too, had no qualms about crime.

“To be hon­est, no, I don’t have any con­cern be­cause last year I felt so safe. I didn’t have any wor­ries, I was liv­ing my best life,” she said.

Nurse, Pearl Vi­dal, said she re­li­gious­ly re­turns to Trinidad and To­ba­go for Car­ni­val and plays mas. Speak­ing out­side the ar­rivals en­trance while wait­ing for her hus­band, Vi­dal said this coun­try is not unique in its crime woes.

“Lis­ten to me, lis­ten to me, it have crime all over the world. All over the world have crime so I don’t re­al­ly have a prob­lem with it,” she said.

Bev­er­ly Payne, a prop­er­ty man­ag­er, said she was ex­cit­ed to play mas and spend time with fam­i­ly. Asked whether she had any fears or con­cerns, Payne said “ab­solute­ly not. There’s crime every­where so, got­ta come home.”

Etwin Gor­don, an­oth­er train op­er­a­tor from Brook­lyn, said she al­ways re­turns for Car­ni­val. She said her sis­ter-in-law urged her to re­turn for the sea­son which was the de­cid­ing fac­tor. More­over, she echoed the sen­ti­ments of oth­ers that crime was not a phe­nom­e­non unique to this coun­try.

“The crime here is the crime any­where. It’s just that this is a small is­land,” she said.

As the na­tion pre­pares to par­ty for the next week, crime re­mains a crit­i­cal con­cern among res­i­dents. The mur­der rate has re­duced with 49 killings com­pared to 70 for the same pe­ri­od last year.

Last week, Min­is­ter of Tourism Ran­dall Mitchell boast­ed of im­proved ar­rival fig­ures with 140,033 peo­ple fore­cast to ar­rive in Jan­u­ary and Feb­ru­ary com­bined.

He al­so hit back at mas bands that claimed Car­ni­val par­tic­i­pa­tion was down due to crime, de­mand­ing that they pro­vide proof.