Shas­tri Boodan

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

On To­ba­go’s west­ern coast, where the turquoise wa­ters of Buc­coo Bay gen­tly kiss a long stretch of qui­et shore­line, it is easy to un­der­stand why res­i­dents be­lieve their beach ri­vals—and even sur­pass­es—the is­land’s more fa­mous des­ti­na­tions.

Un­like the bustling crowds at Store Bay and Pi­geon Point Her­itage Park, Buc­coo of­fers calm wa­ters, open spaces and a slow­er pace that has long de­fined vil­lage life.

Yet be­neath the peace­ful scenery lies a com­mu­ni­ty yearn­ing for re­new­al.

Guardian Me­dia spent time speak­ing with res­i­dents, com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers and his­to­ri­ans, all of whom shared the same con­cern: Buc­coo pos­sess­es world-class at­trac­tions but lacks the co­or­di­nat­ed ef­fort need­ed to re­store its place as one of To­ba­go’s pre­mier tourism des­ti­na­tions.

‘The love for Buc­coo not there any­more’

Lo­cal politi­cian Nick­o­cy Phillips be­lieves Buc­coo’s de­cline is not be­cause it lacks at­trac­tions, but be­cause it lacks vi­sion.

Phillips points to the vil­lage’s unique as­sets—the on­ly goat rac­ing com­plex in Trinidad and To­ba­go, one of To­ba­go’s finest beach­es and a rich cul­tur­al his­to­ry—yet says these trea­sures re­main large­ly un­der-pro­mot­ed.

“There has been no re­al mar­ket­ing strat­e­gy for Buc­coo,” Phillips said. “No­body is telling our sto­ry.”

Phillips be­lieves re­spon­si­bil­i­ty does not rest sole­ly with the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly.

“The com­mu­ni­ty al­so has to play its part,” Phillips said.

“There are very few ac­tiv­i­ties through­out the year. Af­ter East­er goat rac­ing, every­thing goes qui­et.”

Phillips en­vi­sions reg­u­lar fes­ti­vals, cul­tur­al events and shows for cruise ship vis­i­tors, in­clud­ing ex­hi­bi­tions show­cas­ing Buc­coo’s in­ter­na­tion­al­ly known goat rac­ing tra­di­tion.

“When cruise ships ar­rive, no­body even or­gan­is­es a small goat rac­ing ex­hi­bi­tion. That’s a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty.”

Phillips says years of po­lit­i­cal di­vi­sion have al­so weak­ened com­mu­ni­ty spir­it.

“Buc­coo used to be about neigh­bours help­ing neigh­bours,” Phillips re­called.

“Dur­ing goat race week­end, the en­tire vil­lage came to­geth­er. Every­body shared food and drinks and cel­e­brat­ed to­geth­er.

“To­day, that love has dis­ap­peared.”

De­spite his dis­ap­point­ment, Phillips re­mains op­ti­mistic.

“What Buc­coo needs is com­mu­ni­ty work, prop­er mar­ket­ing and peo­ple com­ing to­geth­er again.”

A fam­i­ly sto­ry that be­came To­ba­go folk­lore

At 79 years old, Ed­wina Joseph, Phillips’ moth­er, car­ries mem­o­ries that few oth­ers can.

She is the daugh­ter of Samuel Joseph, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known across To­ba­go as “Sam­birod”—the man many be­lieved died, on­ly to re­turn home alive.

Ac­cord­ing to Joseph, her fa­ther suf­fered a se­ri­ous fall in 1951 and lapsed in­to a co­ma. He was pro­nounced dead and trans­ferred to the mor­tu­ary while fu­ner­al prepa­ra­tions be­gan.

Her moth­er, preg­nant with their youngest child, had al­ready be­gun prepar­ing for bur­ial.

Then came the as­ton­ish­ing twist.

An­oth­er hos­pi­tal pa­tient in­sist­ed on see­ing Samuel’s body. While stand­ing in the mor­tu­ary, he no­ticed move­ment be­neath the sheet.

Giv­en a stick to test his sus­pi­cion, he placed it in Samuel’s hand.

The un­con­scious man gripped it.

Doc­tors rushed him back in­to surgery, where they dis­cov­ered he had nev­er died.

Joseph was on­ly four years old and at­tend­ing kinder­garten when teach­ers in­formed her that her fa­ther had died.

Hours lat­er, the unimag­in­able hap­pened.

“He came back home,” she said.

Samuel Joseph re­cov­ered, fa­thered two more chil­dren and lived un­til 1978.

“Peo­ple still talk about it to­day,” she said. “It’s true. He came back alive.”

Re­mem­ber­ing the birth of Sun­day School

Joseph al­so wit­nessed an­oth­er piece of Buc­coo his­to­ry.

Long be­fore Sun­day School be­came To­ba­go’s sig­na­ture Sun­day night at­trac­tion, it was sim­ply a gath­er­ing of mem­bers of Buc­coo’s folk the­atre move­ment.

Every Sun­day in the late 1960s, per­form­ers met to re­hearse.

Af­ter prac­tice end­ed, vil­lagers stayed be­hind to so­cialise, dance and en­joy them­selves.

They jok­ing­ly called the gath­er­ing “Sun­day School.”

Over time, those in­for­mal limes evolved in­to one of To­ba­go’s biggest week­ly cul­tur­al events, draw­ing vis­i­tors from across Trinidad and over­seas.

To­day, Joseph says, the ex­cite­ment has fad­ed.

“In my 79 years liv­ing here, the last two years have been the worst,” she said.

“We used to have tourists every­where. Small shops were busy. The vil­lage had life.”

She al­so re­calls that be­fore goats raced through Buc­coo, don­keys com­pet­ed along Chance Street.

Her fa­ther and sev­er­al oth­er vil­lagers owned work­ing don­keys that trans­port­ed peo­ple and goods be­fore mod­ern ve­hi­cles be­came com­mon.

Ac­cord­ing to Joseph, it was Bar­ba­di­an vis­i­tor Sam Cal­len­der who first sug­gest­ed re­plac­ing don­key races with goat races - an idea that even­tu­al­ly be­came one of To­ba­go’s most recog­nis­able tra­di­tions.

Pre­serv­ing Buc­coo’s his­to­ry

Across from the Buc­coo In­te­grat­ed Goat Rac­ing Com­plex stands La Tar­taru­ga Restau­rant, home to the Buc­coo Mu­se­um.

In­side, Ital­ian-born Gabriele De Gae­tano has spent near­ly a decade as­sem­bling what may be the most com­pre­hen­sive data­base ever cre­at­ed on To­ba­go’s his­to­ry.

His jour­ney to To­ba­go be­gan af­ter he met his late wife, An­drea, while both were liv­ing in New York.

She left a suc­cess­ful Unit­ed Na­tions ca­reer to re­turn home and pur­sue her pas­sion for hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

To­geth­er, they opened La Tar­taru­ga in the mid-1990s.

Years lat­er, De Gae­tano’s in­ter­ests ex­pand­ed be­yond cui­sine in­to her­itage preser­va­tion.

Work­ing along­side his­to­ri­ans, ar­chae­ol­o­gists, li­brar­i­ans and re­searchers, he helped es­tab­lish the To­ba­go Her­itage Con­ser­va­tion So­ci­ety and painstak­ing­ly cat­a­logued his­tor­i­cal sites span­ning from In­dige­nous set­tle­ments dat­ing back to 500 BC through To­ba­go’s colo­nial his­to­ry to the present day.

The mu­se­um of­fi­cial­ly opened last Oc­to­ber af­ter nine years of prepa­ra­tion.

To­day, it wel­comes re­searchers, uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents, schools and de­scen­dants of To­bag­o­ni­ans re­turn­ing from the Unit­ed States, Cana­da and Britain to trace their fam­i­ly his­to­ries.

“We re­alised there was an in­creas­ing de­mand al­most every day,” De Gae­tano said.

He be­lieves her­itage tourism rep­re­sents one of To­ba­go’s great­est un­tapped op­por­tu­ni­ties.

Vis­i­tors, he says, should ex­pe­ri­ence far more than beach­es.

“They should vis­it farms, mu­se­ums, his­tor­i­cal sites and com­mu­ni­ties.”

His team con­tin­ues doc­u­ment­ing for­got­ten sto­ries from vil­lages across To­ba­go while trav­el­ling over­seas to archives in Britain, Por­tu­gal, Spain, France, Italy and Latvia in search of his­tor­i­cal records that deep­en un­der­stand­ing of the is­land’s past.

“We are rewrit­ing parts of To­ba­go’s his­to­ry,” he said. “Tech­nol­o­gy and re­search are al­low­ing us to ver­i­fy sto­ries that have nev­er been prop­er­ly doc­u­ment­ed.”

Ed­u­ca­tion, he be­lieves, must be­come the foun­da­tion of her­itage preser­va­tion.

“If we in­volve stu­dents and com­mu­ni­ties, we can cre­ate some­thing mean­ing­ful with the re­sources we al­ready have.”

New res­i­dents, new at­trac­tions

New­com­er to the com­mu­ni­ty Robin Be­har­ry, 54, has been liv­ing in To­ba­go for the past year. Be­har­ry stays in a house where the beach is his back­yard.

“I have a reg­is­tered up­hol­stery busi­ness and I am an as­set to the peo­ple here.”

Be­har­ry, who came from Fyz­abad, said he works most days and en­joys the calm life in Buc­coo.

An­oth­er main at­trac­tion in Buc­coo is the Heal­ing With Hors­es (HWH) Foun­da­tion, run by Veroni­ka Dan­za La-For­tune. She has done her fair share to at­tract vis­i­tors since HWH was es­tab­lished in 2010.

Vis­i­tors to HWH can learn about the rich her­itage of the foun­da­tion and en­joy rides along the beach and through the cool wa­ters.

Wait­ing for a re­vival

For many vis­i­tors, Buc­coo re­mains the gate­way to the fa­mous Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool.

But res­i­dents in­sist the vil­lage it­self de­serves to be­come a des­ti­na­tion.

Its beach re­mains one of To­ba­go’s hid­den gems.

Its goat races are un­like any­thing else in the Caribbean.

Its sto­ries stretch from mirac­u­lous tales of sur­vival to cul­tur­al tra­di­tions known across the is­land.

What res­i­dents say is miss­ing is not his­to­ry.

It is in­vest­ment, col­lab­o­ra­tion and a re­newed sense of com­mu­ni­ty.

For those who call Buc­coo home, restor­ing the vil­lage’s for­mer vi­bran­cy will re­quire more than Gov­ern­ment fund­ing.

It will re­quire neigh­bours re­dis­cov­er­ing the same com­mu­ni­ty spir­it that once trans­formed a sim­ple Sun­day re­hearsal in­to an in­sti­tu­tion known through­out To­ba­go as Sun­day School.

Buc­coo at a Glance

Lo­ca­tion: Buc­coo is a coastal vil­lage on To­ba­go’s south-west­ern coast, known for its scenic shore­line, fish­ing her­itage and close prox­im­i­ty to the world-fa­mous Buc­coo Reef and Ny­lon Pool.

Buc­coo Reef: One of To­ba­go’s most recog­nised nat­ur­al at­trac­tions, the reef is a pro­tect­ed ma­rine ecosys­tem and a ma­jor draw for vis­i­tors in­ter­est­ed in snorkelling, glass-bot­tom boat tours and ma­rine ex­pe­ri­ences.

Ny­lon Pool: A shal­low sand­bar lo­cat­ed with­in the Buc­coo Reef ecosys­tem, fa­mous for its crys­tal-clear wa­ters and the be­lief that swim­ming there has re­ju­ve­nat­ing ef­fects.

Buc­coo Goat Rac­ing: A unique To­bag­on­ian tra­di­tion dat­ing back decades, goat rac­ing has be­come one of the is­land’s most dis­tinc­tive cul­tur­al events. The an­nu­al East­er goat races at­tract vis­i­tors from across Trinidad and To­ba­go and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Sun­day School: To­ba­go’s icon­ic Sun­day night street fes­ti­val orig­i­nat­ed from in­for­mal gath­er­ings among mem­bers of Buc­coo’s folk the­atre com­mu­ni­ty in the late 1960s. It lat­er evolved in­to a ma­jor cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment event fea­tur­ing mu­sic, food and danc­ing.

Buc­coo Mu­se­um: Lo­cat­ed at La Tar­taru­ga Restau­rant, the mu­se­um doc­u­ments as­pects of To­ba­go’s his­to­ry, in­clud­ing In­dige­nous her­itage, colo­nial his­to­ry and fam­i­ly his­to­ries.

To­ba­go Her­itage Con­ser­va­tion: Re­searchers and his­to­ri­ans have worked to doc­u­ment and pre­serve his­tor­i­cal sites and sto­ries from across To­ba­go, in­clud­ing those con­nect­ed to Buc­coo.

Heal­ing with Hors­es Foun­da­tion: Es­tab­lished in 2010, the foun­da­tion of­fers vis­i­tors equine ex­pe­ri­ences, in­clud­ing beach rides, while pro­mot­ing con­nec­tion with na­ture and To­ba­go’s land­scape.

Com­mu­ni­ty Chal­lenge: Lo­cals say Buc­coo’s fu­ture de­pends on stronger in­vest­ment, im­proved pro­mo­tion, com­mu­ni­ty in­volve­ment and pre­serv­ing the vil­lage’s unique char­ac­ter.