Whey we goin'?

With the recent announcement regarding the use of the National Museum, I grabbed the opportunity to visit it this Wednesday. And I was both surprised and disappointed.

Surprised since the museum held some ancient treasures, among them a silver salver that was over 168 years old, as well as some fantastic sculptures and paintings in the art gallery.

But I can only hope the move to the Knowsley building (former home to the Foreign Affairs ministry) will bring good things. Like temperature, humidity and light controlled environments, interactive displays and guided tours. I included 'guided' tours since I had several questions about the exhibits but of course, in true Trini fashion, there wasn't a soul to be found when needed.

When I entered the building, and was presumably greeted by someone at 'Information', I tried to find out if she knew where the museum was being moved to, and her response was: 'If yuh did watch the news, yuh wudda know.' Er, excuse me? If I was a tourist, would that have been her response? Is this the kind of treatment we can expect at its new location?

According to the Trinidad Express, Vel Lewis, deputy permanent secretary in the Ministry, said that the relocation will be handled by professionals. However, from what I saw those 'professionals' are needed right now. Several of the exhibits are deteriorating as they are exposed to unnecessary light, dust and temperature variations since several areas have no air-conditioning. Some of the exhibits were clearly never touched after they were initially laid down. Who is in charge of restoration and maintenance, making sure that our history is not being destroyed? And the structure itself is showing its age and needs immediate attention.

While visiting the museum is free to the public, I couldn't take any pictures of the interior, which was understandable, but there weren't any brochures, guidebooks, postcards, etc that I could have kept as keepsakes.

Our museum needs a clearly defined mission and plan. All schools should be visiting, encouraging our children to learn their country's history, exhibits should be rotated and when not in use, stored properly. (While there, I saw a room with a hodgepodge of material that weren't being displayed, improperly stored, just thrown together.)

The museum deserves its proper place as it holds just a fraction of our history and we all know: 'you cyah know whey yuh going, if yuh eh know whey yuh come from.'