Venezuelans celebrate after registration in Trinidad & Tobago

(Trinidad Guardian) Venezue­lans who risked their lives to cross the ocean in search of a bet­ter life in Trinidad are now cel­e­brat­ing hav­ing com­plet­ed reg­is­tra­tion, which al­lows them to live and work in Trinidad for a year.

The process ran smooth­ly yesterday as reg­is­tra­tion con­tin­ued for a sec­ond day at the Achiev­ers Ban­quet Hall in San Fer­nan­do. Un­like Fri­day, there were no lines stretch­ing out of the build­ing. Most of the Venezue­lans wait­ing for reg­is­tra­tion stood in the shade un­der a tent. Venezue­lan De­lores Lee sold empanadas and drinks.

Among those cel­e­brat­ing were Michael Alexan­der Perez Gar­cia, Car­los Ed­uar­do Ro­driguez, and Car­los Mon­tesinos. Short­ly af­ter they col­lect­ed their reg­is­tra­tion re­ceipts, they walked over to Club 2000 to buy beers.

“This is our cel­e­bra­tion. We are very hap­py. Af­ter­ward, we will look for­ward to work,” Gar­cia said. He added that Trinida­di­ans had opened up op­por­tu­ni­ties for them and they were very grate­ful.

Ronal­do Ramirez and his cousin Gre­icer Castil­lo were so hap­py that they bought choco­late and a drink for this re­porter.

“We want to say thanks. We are hap­py to find some op­por­tu­ni­ty here. In Venezuela, life is dif­fi­cult,” Ramirez said. He said his daugh­ter and his wife are still in Venezuela but he was hop­ing that they too could come to Trinidad.

Sev­er­al Trinida­di­an men with their wives and girl­friends al­so ar­rived at the fa­cil­i­ty for reg­is­tra­tion. Among them were Kevin Ram­per­sad, his wife, Mar­i­an­gle Toli­do and their one-year-old ba­by, Aina.

Ram­per­sad said he was re­lieved that the process was run­ning smooth­ly.

Mean­while, busi­ness­es in the area ran a brisk trade as the Venezue­lans re­quired pho­to­copy­ing, print­ing and in­ter­net ser­vices.

Out­side Photo­fu­sion Ltd, a print shop and dig­i­tal pho­to stu­dio lo­cat­ed near­by, about 30 Venezue­lans stood in a neat line wait­ing.