RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Years ago, Pa­lo Seco was a unique mul­ti­cul­tur­al melt­ing pot, draw­ing peo­ple from across the Caribbean, as well as ex­pa­tri­ates from the Unit­ed States and Cana­da who came to work in the pe­tro­le­um in­dus­try.

To­day, how­ev­er, much of that vi­bran­cy has fad­ed. Pa­lo Seco has stag­nat­ed, with res­i­dents strug­gling to find em­ploy­ment, sport­ing and recre­ation­al spaces falling in­to dis­use, and the com­mu­ni­ty be­ing used as a route for drug traf­fick­ing and mi­grant smug­gling.

The bun­ga­lows at Beach Camp, where oil­field work­ers, man­agers and their fam­i­lies once lived, are now large­ly aban­doned. Ten­nis courts have be­come over­grown, while the once-man­i­cured grounds have been re­claimed by bush­es and wild trees.

Be­yond them, oil pipelines and pump­ing jacks re­main scat­tered across the land­scape, re­minders of the area’s cen­tu­ry-old pe­tro­le­um her­itage.

But these are not the on­ly fa­cil­i­ties that have been lost.

The Pa­lo Seco Velo­drome, once a ma­jor sport­ing venue that at­tract­ed cy­clists from Trinidad and To­ba­go and over­seas, is no longer the hive of ac­tiv­i­ty res­i­dents re­mem­ber. Back in 2023, $40 mil­lion was al­lo­cat­ed to up­grade the fa­cil­i­ty, with com­ple­tion card­ed for Jan­u­ary 2025, but by April 2025, be­fore the gen­er­al elec­tions, the con­trac­tor stopped work, and the project was nev­er com­plet­ed.

For 87-year-old Samuel Fras­er, this de­cline has af­fect­ed youths neg­a­tive­ly, leav­ing them idle.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Fras­er said the re­spect young peo­ple once had for their el­ders had al­so di­min­ished.

In front of his home, huge trees have grown, block­ing out the sun­light.

“Petrotrin used to main­tain the roads long ago, but now no­body here to cut down the bush­es, and look how it grew to be,” he said.

Fras­er said he be­lieved the changes in the com­mu­ni­ty got worse when mar­i­jua­na was le­galised, as some youths have be­come more in­clined to use the drug rather than fo­cus on find­ing work.

“I tell them we have ba­by with beards in Pa­lo Seco,” he said.

Fras­er said he could no longer en­joy a drink at a near­by bar be­cause of the smoke from peo­ple us­ing mar­i­jua­na.

“Peo­ple will smoke weed and you get­ting that smoke up in your face, so I does buy my lit­tle drink and stay home,” he said.

Fras­er re­mem­bers a very dif­fer­ent Pa­lo Seco.

He worked in the oil­fields as a pipe fit­ter, earn­ing $1.06 a day.

“We used to car­ry these pipes 36 feet long and run with it. We were strong and hard-work­ing,” he re­called.

He al­so re­mem­bers when trains passed through Pa­lo Seco and the sur­round­ing lands pro­duced an abun­dance of fruit.

The lush lands yield­ed man­goes, tanko beans, cher­ries, plums, pom­mer­ac, cit­rus, pom­me­cythere and ba­nanas.

Fras­er said life was sim­pler then, with res­i­dents look­ing out for one an­oth­er.

But as the pe­tro­le­um in­dus­try changed and em­ploy­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties de­clined, so too did some of the fa­cil­i­ties and pro­grammes that once sup­port­ed the com­mu­ni­ty.

Among those lost were vo­ca­tion­al train­ing pro­grammes that taught young peo­ple prac­ti­cal skills.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Cheyenne Charles, who has lived in Pa­lo Seco for 39 years, agrees that the com­mu­ni­ty has lost much of its ap­peal be­cause of a lack of op­por­tu­ni­ties, par­tic­u­lar­ly for young peo­ple.

Charles de­scribed Pa­lo Seco as stag­nant and said res­i­dents had be­come de­mo­ti­vat­ed.

“I’m be­ing hon­est, I do re­al­ly like the area, but you ba­si­cal­ly have to take your­self out­side the area to re­al­ly see some type of progress. It just re­al­ly have noth­ing for the youth,” she said.

Charles said the com­mu­ni­ty once had fa­cil­i­ties that gave res­i­dents places to meet, so­cialise and par­tic­i­pate in ac­tiv­i­ties.

“It don’t have like a sa­van­nah for the youths to recre­ate, and peo­ple here are too di­vid­ed. We don’t have a vil­lage coun­cil or ac­tiv­i­ties in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre,” she said.

She re­mem­bers when peo­ple trav­elled from afar to par­tic­i­pate in Pa­lo Seco’s vil­lage games and oth­er sport­ing events at the velo­drome.

But since the clo­sure of Petrotrin in 2018, res­i­dents say there has been lit­tle up­keep of some of the fa­cil­i­ties and sur­round­ing com­mu­ni­ty spaces.

A sport­ing lega­cy

Gas­ton Philip, who has lived in Pa­lo Seco for al­most 20 years, al­so be­lieves the velo­drome should be re­stored.

He re­mem­bers East­er cy­cling events that at­tract­ed com­peti­tors and spec­ta­tors from across the coun­try, as well as in­ter­na­tion­al rid­ers.

“It used to be re­al peo­ple and it was nice. It was al­ways good,” Philip said.

The fa­cil­i­ty, he said, pro­vid­ed more than sport.

It gave young peo­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties to par­tic­i­pate in foot­ball, cy­cling and oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties, while al­low­ing small en­tre­pre­neurs to sell food and oth­er goods dur­ing events.

“There was a place for foot­ball, cy­cling, you know, and even en­tre­pre­neurs could go in and they was do­ing things so that peo­ple would be em­ployed by sell­ing their stuff and things,” he said.

Philip said re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion work on the fa­cil­i­ty had be­gun but was sub­se­quent­ly halt­ed.

He wants the project com­plet­ed.

“If they could open that velo­drome back, I feel it will be some­thing good to keep the youths and them oc­cu­pied and out of the road and thing,” he said.

But Philip be­lieves the loss of sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties is on­ly part of the prob­lem.

He is equal­ly con­cerned about the dis­ap­pear­ance of vo­ca­tion­al train­ing.

Pa­lo Seco once had a trade school where young peo­ple could learn skills in­clud­ing wood­work­ing and me­chan­ics.

“They used to do wood­work and they used to do me­chan­ics, all these things,” Philip said.

The pro­grammes pro­vid­ed an al­ter­na­tive for young peo­ple who strug­gled with tra­di­tion­al aca­d­e­m­ic ed­u­ca­tion.

Philip re­called young peo­ple leav­ing the pro­gramme with prac­ti­cal skills that en­abled them to find em­ploy­ment or be­come self-em­ployed.

“A lot of peo­ple come out from there and was prop­er­ly well em­ployed by them­selves be­cause they make them­selves self-em­ployed and things,” he said.

Pa­lo Seco al­so had a youth camp where young peo­ple were taught farm­ing and oth­er prac­ti­cal skills.

Philip said those pro­grammes gave young peo­ple some­thing pro­duc­tive to do.

But those op­por­tu­ni­ties have since dis­ap­peared.

He be­lieves the loss is par­tic­u­lar­ly sig­nif­i­cant at a time when skilled trades re­main in de­mand.

“I would en­cour­age the youths and them to get in­to more trade,” Philip said.

“Me­chan­ic and things are work I should find the youths, and them should try to get in­to be­cause it’s some­thing that caus­es some­thing on road every day, and for years it has been here, and it needs fix­ing. Peo­ple need to fix their cars.”

Philip, who has worked as a trades­man, be­lieves young peo­ple should be en­cour­aged to learn prac­ti­cal skills that could pro­vide them with a liveli­hood.

Liv­ing off the land

De­spite the con­cerns, res­i­dent Anil Pus­tam, who lives in a quaint house near Beach Camp, said he con­tin­ues to en­joy life in the qui­et vil­lage, sur­round­ed by agri­cul­tur­al lands and close to the coast.

Show­ing off his prized hunt­ing dogs, Pus­tam said he was grate­ful to live in an area sur­round­ed by nat­ur­al beau­ty.

He said the mud vol­ca­noes and rur­al vil­lage set­ting of­fered an es­cape for peo­ple seek­ing a qui­eter en­vi­ron­ment.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Resh­ma Phillip, said that al­though Pa­lo Seco has lost some of its land­marks, in­clud­ing the Brazil­ian nut trees that once stood promi­nent­ly in the area, there are still rea­sons for peo­ple to vis­it.

Resh­ma op­er­ates Phillip’s Food Cor­ner, where she sells home­made fried rice, co­conut bake, sa­da roti, fry bake and a va­ri­ety of lo­cal­ly pre­pared veg­eta­bles and meat dish­es.

She said she gets some of her pro­duce from res­i­dents who cul­ti­vate crops in the area.

“In Pa­lo Seco, what’s nice about it, too, is that we have a lot of home­made peo­ple around that are do­ing all the plant­i­ng and things, so we get goods from them al­so,” Resh­ma said.

The near­by Erin fish land­ing area al­so pro­vides ac­cess to fresh fish.

For Resh­ma, the com­mu­ni­ty’s quiet­ness is an ad­van­tage.

“This area is very qui­et, so all the neigh­bours stay to them­selves,” she said, adding that res­i­dents gen­er­al­ly sup­port one an­oth­er and the com­mu­ni­ty has enough re­sources to sus­tain small busi­ness­es.

She said Pa­lo Seco’s nat­ur­al land­scape could al­so pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for tourism, as the com­mu­ni­ty is home to sev­er­al mud vol­ca­noes.

At Anglais Point near Beach Camp, mud for­ma­tions form part of a land­scape shaped by Trinidad’s ac­tive ge­ol­o­gy.

The area’s mud vol­ca­noes and coastal en­vi­ron­ment have at­tract­ed vis­i­tors in­ter­est­ed in see­ing the bub­bling mud and min­er­al-rich de­posits be­fore con­tin­u­ing to Pa­lo Seco Beach.

Resh­ma said the min­er­al-rich clay as­so­ci­at­ed with the mud vents could po­ten­tial­ly sup­port small well­ness and skin­care busi­ness­es, while guid­ed tours could bring in lo­cal rev­enue.

Geo­sci­en­tist Xavier Moo­nan said re­cent off­shore ge­o­log­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty off Beach Camp, Pa­lo Seco, has added an­oth­er di­men­sion to the area’s nat­ur­al at­trac­tions, with seabed ex­tru­sions and coastal mud for­ma­tions draw­ing at­ten­tion to Trinidad’s con­tin­u­ing ge­o­log­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty.

But turn­ing Pa­lo Seco’s nat­ur­al as­sets in­to an eco­nom­ic op­por­tu­ni­ty would re­quire in­vest­ment.

Res­i­dents say they first need bet­ter roads, in­clud­ing James Trace, trained tour guides and an up­grade to Beach Camp and oth­er sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties, such as the velo­drome, to re­vi­talise the area.