"One One Cocoa Full Basket"

For those of your planning on spending time in the sister isle of Tobago during the July and August, plan to make The Tobago Heritage Festival one of your 'must see' events. The festival is in its 22nd year, and as usual, the village productions use various aspects of the main theme of the festival in their individual presentations.

The two week long festival started with the opening night theatre production on Friday 13th July at the Dwight Yorke Stadium Car Park (Tobagonians are still waiting for anything even remotely resembling a Queen's Hall or professional theatre space) and continues with the presentations of thirteen villages this year.

This year's opening night production was a collage of Tobago cultural traditions in song, dance, food, proverbs and superstition, but one that lacked proper structure in terms of the script writing and stage direction, so visitors and locals alike were sometimes lost and confused as the story evolved, and there seemed to be no proper link with the theme nor the title of the show ("Full Ah To De Brim"). The ambiance created, however, was beautiful: there were baskets overflowing with cocoa, water fountains and miniature models of water wheels used on plantations.

The Moriah Ole Time Wedding is one of the most popular events during the festival, but this year's attendance seemed one-third that of last year. Perhaps because it was too early on the programme, or because many have been complaining of the inadequate facilities and poor public relations - and this has finally begun to have an effect on the numbers. (The wedding and reception are free, while the stage production costs $20 for adults, so I'm thinking it's not likely that economic downturn would have such a drastic effect on numbers).

I'm hoping the other presentations have much more to offer in terms of quality scripts and better event management, but really it seems as though more work needs to be done to have persons properly trained, so that the festival can continue to add value not only in economic terms, but also in terms of capacity building and social development within individual villages.

The Tobago Festival Committee has a website at which you can get further information about this year's Heritage Festival, including the calendar of events:
http://www.tobagoheritagefestival.com/