RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The foot-thump­ing, rhyth­mic echoes of bon­go drums filled the air on the hill­side of Em­ba­cadere yes­ter­day, where a solemn gath­er­ing of mourn­ers as­sem­bled to bid a fi­nal farewell to Kern Eti­enne, the WASA work­er who died eight days ago af­ter be­ing buried alive in­side a trench.

The fu­ner­al took place at the Em­ba­cadere Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre near the sea­side, a place that Eti­enne fre­quent­ed count­less times.

With a brass hold­er and plate on top as well as an um­brel­la, Eti­enne’s black cas­ket was wheeled in­to the swel­ter­ing com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre, where Bap­tist rites were solemn­ly per­formed to cel­e­brate his life.

Rev­erend Moth­er Jody Bac­chus-Watts and Eti­enne’s spir­i­tu­al broth­ers from the Courts of Melchiezdek School of Teach­ing evoked a sense of uni­ty and shared grief among the mourn­ers as they drummed, danced and sang “Send me Away.”

Some mourn­ers wore black tee shirts em­bla­zoned with the words “How’s Your Love life?”—a phrase Kern of­ten used as a warm greet­ing. Oth­ers wore red tee shirts with the words “Jus­tice for Kern”.

De­liv­er­ing re­marks at the fu­ner­al was WASA act­ing CEO Kelvin Ro­main, who re­ceived re­sound­ing ap­plause when he as­sured mourn­ers the in­ves­ti­ga­tions would re­veal who was re­spon­si­ble for Eti­enne’s un­time­ly demise.

“We await the find­ings to as­cer­tain re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and learn from this trag­ic in­ci­dent. It must not hap­pen again. I ex­tend sym­pa­thy, and I hope he finds eter­nal rest with God, his fa­ther,” Ro­main said.

He as­sured that WASA was com­mit­ted to pre­vent­ing such a sit­u­a­tion from re­cur­ring and en­cour­aged those in at­ten­dance to mir­ror Eti­enne’s cheer­ful dis­po­si­tion and strong work eth­ic.

His voice heavy with grief, Ro­main ex­pressed his deep­est con­do­lences, say­ing, “This is nev­er an easy thing. This trag­ic pass­ing has been felt by every­one through­out the au­thor­i­ty. One can hope we find com­fort in his mem­o­ries.”

He added, “Kern was a part of the au­thor­i­ty for nine years and he rep­re­sent­ed the best of us, hard­work­ing, will­ing, dili­gent, friend­ly and al­ways smil­ing.”

Ro­main urged mourn­ers to ho­n­our Eti­enne’s mem­o­ry.

“We should all strive to achieve his work eth­ic dur­ing his short and im­pact­ful life. Do not let his lega­cy be in vain. Many of us are de­mand­ing an­swers. Why did we lose a mem­ber of our fam­i­ly? Sep­a­rate in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing to see how this hap­pened,” Ro­main said.

San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris al­so ex­tend­ed his heart­felt con­do­lences to the griev­ing fam­i­ly, em­pha­sis­ing the com­mu­ni­ty’s un­wa­ver­ing sup­port.

Re­fer­ring to Eti­enne’s moth­er, Joyce Grant-Roberts, Par­ris said, “The week be­fore, Miss Joyce came to see me. We nev­er know when God will call us home. This is a tragedy. The city of San Fer­nan­do is hurt. My pres­ence here sym­bol­is­es that we are here with the fam­i­ly. I’ve on­ly heard good things about Kern.”

Eti­enne’s aunt Er­i­ca Mal­oney re­mem­bered him as a “qui­et bac­cha­nal­ist,” a man who adored his two daugh­ters and con­sis­tent­ly pro­vid­ed for his fam­i­ly.

She shared, “Kern grew up shel­tered, the kind of child who would al­ways win an ar­gu­ment. He was not a greedy child, al­ways shar­ing. He was a qui­et bac­cha­nal­ist, a qui­et but lov­ing child. He was a hard­work­ing young man who lived with his moth­er and sib­lings. He was al­ways smil­ing and he loved to crack jokes on peo­ple.”

Eti­enne was buried at the Roodal ceme­tery fol­low­ing a pro­ces­sion.

An au­top­sy done on Eti­enne’s body re­vealed he died from a bro­ken spine be­cause of the weight of the dirt. Eti­enne was stand­ing in­side the 12-foot trench when it col­lapsed on him. A plac­ard was placed on the spot where he died. His death has prompt­ed in­ves­ti­ga­tions by both the Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency (OS­HA) and WASA.