Aba A Luke

The month of May promis­es to be an ac­tive and en­joy­able one for the rus­tic Blan­chisseuse com­mu­ni­ty.

This month, in com­mem­o­ra­tion of World En­vi­ron­ment Day 2011, the an­nu­al Red Earth Fes­ti­val heads deep in­to the North Coast to ex­pe­ri­ence some of the is­land's pro­tect­ed trea­sures. Fes­ti­val di­rec­tor, Mag­el­la More­au, told the T&T Guardian that Blan­chisseuse was gen­er­al­ly cho­sen be­cause of the fes­ti­val's or­gan­is­ers' de­sire to work with the com­mu­ni­ty.

She in­di­cat­ed that when fo­cus was placed on the area, as­sis­tance would come in the form of em­ploy­ment for many of the area's youth. The fes­ti­val was host­ed in Blan­chisseuse be­fore, and ac­cord­ing to More­au, since that time, many of the com­mu­ni­ty's un­em­ployed youth have re­ceived train­ing from TDC of­fi­cials to be­come tour guides for the area. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she not­ed, the fes­ti­val's 2011 theme, Run­ning Wa­ter 2, made Blan­chisseuse the per­fect place to host the event.

Prepar­ing for vis­i­tors

Res­i­dents of the quaint beach com­mu­ni­ty are cur­rent­ly in prepa­ra­tion mode, gath­er­ing their arts and crafts, prepar­ing their tasty cuisines, and gear­ing up for an in­flux of vis­i­tors for the fes­ti­val. Pres­i­dent of the Blan­chisseuse Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, Rox­anne Ma­troo, ex­plained that mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty were quite ex­cit­ed for the Red Earth Fes­ti­val, de­spite be­ing a bit hes­i­tant the last time around. "Some of the mem­bers were skep­ti­cal last year but it turned out well, and this year they are wel­com­ing it.

Every­one is ex­cit­ed," she said. With some 300 to 400 peo­ple ex­pect­ed to ar­rive from across the is­land and even from abroad, Ma­troo not­ed that the fes­ti­val, which will run from May 18- 22, stands to ben­e­fit the com­mu­ni­ty eco­nom­i­cal­ly. "Last year a lot of tourists came up here and the res­i­dents sold their food and arts and crafts. It helps the com­mu­ni­ty from an eco­nom­ic stand­point and it's very good for tourism," high­light­ed Ma­troo.

Lit­ter leavers, a chal­lenge

Hav­ing main­tained its qui­et and close knit char­ac­ter­is­tics over the years, Ma­troo said Blan­chisseuse was still a won­der­ful place to live. "Crime is min­i­mal and al­though the in­fra­struc­ture has de­vel­oped a bit, the place is still beau­ti­ful." She, how­ev­er, lament­ed that of­ten­time, vis­i­tors to the area were not mind­ful of the beau­ty that sur­round­ed them, and the hard work that went in­to pre­serv­ing the nat­ur­al per­fec­tion of the area. "One of the chal­lenges we face is the rub­bish that's left be­hind when peo­ple come to vis­it. We want peo­ple to come, vis­it and en­joy, leave their foot­prints but don't de­stroy it," she said. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Ma­troo in­di­cat­ed that lo­cals of the com­mu­ni­ty faced a bit of a chal­lenge, as big hous­es and in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment have hin­dered the res­i­dents' abil­i­ty to en­joy fa­cil­i­ties such as the Mar­i­anne beach, where most of the fes­ti­val's ac­tiv­i­ty will be staged.

"A lot of the beach­es have been blocked by peo­ple who build their homes, so that vil­lagers of the area now have to pay to park if they want to dri­ve to some of these fa­cil­i­ties," she said. Adding that the Ari­ma to Blan­chisseuse road is in ur­gent need of at­ten­tion by road works of­fi­cials, Ma­troo main­tained that de­spite these is­sues, there was still a great deal to mar­vel over in beau­ti­ful Blan­chisseuse. The Red Earth Fes­ti­val will fea­ture events such as Work­ing with the Earth, a clay work­shop on May 20 for pri­ma­ry school pupils of the North Coast area, a beach and riv­er clean-up ex­er­cise on May 21, a na­ture tour in­to the Yara for­est as well as an an­tic­i­pat­ed Seafood Fes­ti­val on May 22.

For fur­ther in­for­ma­tion, vis­it http://re­dearth­fes­ti­val.webs.com/