Jesse Ramdeo

Flash­ing smiles filled their faces so much that they were im­print­ed in the masks worn by all 29 Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­als who fi­nal­ly touched home soil at the Port of Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, af­ter dis­em­bark­ing the Car­ni­val Fan­ta­sy cruise ship.

Just af­ter 3 pm, a shut­tle ves­sel was seen mak­ing its way to the cruise ship docked in wa­ters off the Gulf of Paria. Near­ly an hour lat­er, it was ob­served mak­ing its way back to the Cruise Ship Com­plex where the repa­tri­at­ed na­tion­als were al­lowed their first foot­ing on home soil in months.

Af­ter be­ing brought to land in batch­es, all 29 na­tion­als, ful­ly out­fit­ted in haz­mat suits, were quick­ly loaded on­to a PTSC bus and an­oth­er un­marked bus be­fore be­ing whisked away to the Na­tion­al Rac­quet Cen­tre in Tacarigua, where they will un­der­go a 14-day manda­to­ry quar­an­tine.

The na­tion­als were un­able to con­tain their ju­bi­la­tion as they left the venue, wav­ing and show­ing two thumbs up to mem­bers of the me­dia cov­er­ing their ar­rival. One in­di­vid­ual was even seen drap­ing a T&T flag out­side one of the bus­es.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on the con­di­tion of anonymi­ty hours lat­er, one of the repa­tri­at­ed na­tion­als said they felt great to be back home but were find­ing it dif­fi­cult to ad­just to the con­di­tions at the step-down fa­cil­i­ty.

“We’re all hap­py to be home but still feel stressed about hav­ing to do quar­an­tine for two more weeks af­ter do­ing it for over two months,” she said.

Police escort returning T&T nationals from the Carnival Fantasy to the National Racquet Centre Tacarigua after returned home yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Ac­cord­ing to the crew mem­ber, Gov­ern­ment could have moved with more alacrity in fa­cil­i­tat­ing the re­turn of them­selves and many oth­ers stuck out­side T&T’s bor­ders.

“We were the last Caribbean coun­try to be repa­tri­at­ed by the com­pa­ny. The Gov­ern­ment did not want to co­op­er­ate well with the com­pa­ny, we were out­side the bor­der since May 31st as they de­nied us en­try the day we ar­rived. We had to beg to come home.”

The woman added that quar­an­tine con­di­tions at the Rac­quet Cen­tre were al­so dif­fer­ent from that on­board the Car­ni­val Fan­ta­sy. She ex­plained that while each per­son was made to stay in sep­a­rate rooms as a means of en­forc­ing phys­i­cal dis­tanc­ing on the ship, at the cen­tre peo­ple were oc­cu­py­ing “cu­bi­cles and shared bath­rooms.”

Now that the na­tion­als are inch­ing clos­er to be­ing with their loved ones, some have al­ready set their sights on reac­quaint­ing their taste buds with some lo­cal favourites.

“Every­thing, KFC, Roy­al Cas­tle, ... we were now jok­ing about it as we can have pack­ages de­liv­ered to us,” she said.

The 29 na­tion­als were among hun­dreds of cruise ship work­ers who have been clam­our­ing for Gov­ern­ment’s in­ter­ven­tion to re­turn home af­ter they be­came strand­ed in coun­tries where they op­er­ate when T&T shut its bor­ders in March.

There was very lit­tle in­for­ma­tion about the ar­rival of the ves­sel in­to T&T’s wa­ters and the pres­ence of na­tion­als on­board. Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young told Guardian Me­dia he grant­ed an ex­emp­tion to the ves­sel for bunker­ing at Pointe-a-Pierre. The ves­sel left Mi­a­mi on May 17 and made sev­er­al stops in the Caribbean to drop off pas­sen­gers in The Ba­hamas and Haiti be­fore ar­riv­ing in T&T’s wa­ters.

Police officers in hasmat suits responsible for handling returning nationals from the Carnival Fantasy leave the Port of Port-of-Spain yesterday.

KERWIN PIERRE

An­oth­er 345 T&T na­tion­als aboard the Roy­al Caribbean’s Vi­sion of the Seas are await­ing of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion on when they will be al­lowed to re­turn home. Of­fi­cial com­mu­ni­ca­tion has been sent to the cruise line’s ex­ec­u­tives by Young re­quest­ing that the ves­sel be used as a quar­an­tine fa­cil­i­ty when they ar­rive in T&T shores. Both par­ties are cur­rent­ly in com­mu­ni­ca­tion on the is­sue. Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer Dr Roshan Paras­ram has al­ready de­nied an in­for­mal re­quest for the quar­an­tine pe­ri­od to be­gin be­fore the ves­sel ar­rives in lo­cal wa­ters.

Sev­er­al of the crew mem­bers aboard the ves­sel have lament­ed the sta­tus of their men­tal, emo­tion­al and phys­i­cal health while stuck out at sea, adding that they have since felt a sense of aban­don­ment by the Gov­ern­ment.

Mean­while, the Min­istry of Health yes­ter­day clar­i­fied that it will con­tin­ue to foot the bill for cit­i­zens placed in quar­an­tine. How­ev­er, it not­ed that it is cur­rent­ly ex­plor­ing “the pos­si­bil­i­ty of per­mit­ting a very lim­it­ed num­ber of per­sons to re­turn and cov­er for them­selves, the costs of be­ing quar­an­tined un­der state su­per­vi­sion.”

“The cat­e­go­ry that it is en­vis­aged that may be ac­com­mo­dat­ed un­der this rubric, are work­ers whose jobs out­side of Trinidad and To­ba­go were per­formed, and com­plet­ed, and their em­ploy­ers are will­ing to pay for their re­turn and the costs of ac­com­mo­da­tion. The num­ber of those that may be fa­cil­i­tat­ed in this cat­e­go­ry would still be lim­it­ed by the num­ber of suit­able avail­able ac­com­mo­da­tions. Al­so, all re­turn­ing na­tion­als are to abide by the na­tion­al quar­an­tine pol­i­cy as di­rect­ed by the Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer.”