Friday, July 20 2012

THE Tobago Heritage Festival moves up a notch this weekend with a slew of activities planned.

Later today, Tobago will play host to the Heritage Food Fair at the Gardenside Street Car Park which will be utilised to host the event from 11 am to 4 pm.

It is expected that a wide variety of Tobago foods and dishes will be on sale as well as foods from outside of Tobago. The Heritage Committee has invited all Tobagonians, visitors and workers in and around Scarborough to visit the food fair today to surely find the right kind of meal to satisfy any hunger and culinary taste.

Later this evening, Roxborough will host and welcome ten beautiful young ladies who will be vying for the 2012 First Citizens Bank (FCB) Miss Heritage Personality crown. As with the opening night production last weekend, where Brian Mac Farlane was contracted to assist, the services of Ian Lee, a representative of the Miss Universe were utilised with the Miss Personality show in order to lift the standard.

The windward district of Tobago for some reason truly supports these kinds of shows and together with the crowds travelling up there to witness the event, the Heritage Festival Committee is anticipating another similar success to the opening night.

Last year’s winner was Khadisha Kent who represented “Bago House of Kulture Stars”. Tonight, these ten beauties will seek to replace Kent and reign for one year:-

Cavel Gordon - De Kulture Klub Ensemble; Christelle London - Heart Beat Folk Performing Company; Kalifah Hislop - Carnbee/Mt Pleasant; Keifa Des Vignes - Moriah; Kemba Winchester - Bago House of Kulture Stars; Mandisa Jack - Mason Hall Village Council Folk Performers; Shenise Jack - L’Anse Fourmi; Shenelle Felix - Les Coteaux Close Connection;

Tekeisha Charles - Charlotteville Folk Performers and Trudy Ann Baptiste of Speyside

Venue for tonight’s pageant is the Cyd Gray Stadium and start time is 8 pm.

Tomorrow, the action shifts to arguably the biggest attraction on the heritage calendar, The Ole Time Tobago Wedding in Moriah. Put aside all the traffic chaos and congestion on the roads leading into Moriah that is part of the experience to see a tradition old time wedding, it is still a momentous occasion and it is still getting bigger according to persons associated with the festival.

Wedding ceremony is at 1 pm, Moriah Moravian Church Hall, then to the “cake & wine” at Community Centre and finally to the reception at the Recreation Ground.

Mason Hall will be hosting “games we used to play” on Sunday at the Mason Hall Recreation Ground from 1.30 pm. This will come after the street parade at 11 am. Some of the games people will be engaged in are marble pitching, box cart, skipping rope (which is really skipping vine people used to pull from the bush), morals, hop-scotch, rounders and many more games. Mason Hall will first have a road race at 6 in the morning to kick start their heritage day celebrations.

The scenic and beautiful seaside village of Charlotteville will next Monday host the village trek and treasure hunt. These serve to take persons on a mini tour of the village pointing out all the places of importance, including a historic perspective on Charlotteville.