After being kidnapped at sea and held captive in a Venezuelan forest for over a month, 17-year-old Kenrick Morgan has heightened his ambition to join the Coast Guard so that he can protect others from suffering the same fate.
Morgan, a student of the Moruga Secondary School, is expected to write this year’s CSEC examination. He said with piracy becoming more frequent and his experience as a victim, he wants to protect the nation’s borders. Although he has lost a whole month of classes, he said he will be pushing harder with his studies.
“I go to school still. I plan to go to school and see what I get. I wanted to come out an army man or a coast guard. I don’t think that might come through. I don’t know. I am praying. My family is praying, my mother is praying, everybody is praying,” Morgan said.
Morgan and his cousin Kendall Singh, 23, of Basse Terre Village, Moruga returned to Trinidad on Tuesday after their families negotiated with the captors for an exchange.
Morgan’s family paid US$700 in food supplies and US$1300 cash and a bucket of KFC. Singh’s family paid US$12,000, two televisions, two boxes of engine oil, a cell phone and a tablet.
It was a relief for the two families as the kidnappers had initially demanded US$40,000, then US$20,000 and five iPhones.