Gail Alexan­der

The view from Nel­son Street is gen­er­al­ly sim­i­lar to most oth­er parts of in­ner city east­side Port-of-Spain.

It's steam­ing hot, not al­ways or­der­ly, but no less colour­ful. As oth­er types of views go in the cap­i­tal these days, it is al­so just as mixed-al­ter­na­tive­ly bel­liger­ent, plead­ing or ap­pre­hen­sive-re­gard­ing the state of emer­gency as in var­i­ous oth­er "hot spot" ar­eas. Yes­ter­day, af­ter Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans spent three days in the Red House palaver­ing over ex­tend­ing the state of emer­gency, a num­ber of Nel­son Street's youth­ful res­i­dents faced mag­is­trates in the courts around the cor­ner from Par­lia­ment. Sev­er­al blocks across town their neigh­bours, friends, rel­a­tives and as­so­ciates were watch­ing life go by in the broil­ing mid­day sun.

The east Port-of-Spain com­mu­ni­ty of Na­tion­al Hous­ing Au­thor­i­ty apart­ment blocks was among the first ar­eas where per­sons were de­tained in search and seizure ex­er­cis­es by se­cu­ri­ty forces. Now, two weeks in­to the emer­gency and head­ing in­to a three-month stretch, Nel­son Street is ad­just­ing to life with spo­radic po­lice raids. Yes­ter­day, limers were in their usu­al spots. Peo­ple looked out from bal­conies.

With­in the heart of the blocks, most ar­eas of the "Gaza" (a fe­male res­i­dent's term) were qui­et. Peo­ple were hang­ing about in var­i­ous cor­ners. The own­er of a 24-hour par­lour on the street, says: "At least I could open longer now with this (re­duced) cur­few. I couldn't do no busi­ness at all last week."

Push­ing back long se­mi-straight dread­locks, the man in white T-shirt and red track pants re­lat­ed how he has seen Nel­son Street change from the time he was born there in 1957 to date. He says: "I re­mem­ber goat used to be pass­ing and pigs was in the Dry Riv­er. Per­son­al­ly I don't mind the emer­gency. We old­er, we don't be out much. But the set­ta peo­ple they pick­ing, they poor, they is just pawns in the game. "You have to wor­ry about how things be­ing done and how the po­lice and them han­dling it apart from break­ing down peo­ple door. "My broth­er in Bel­mont had a house-break­ing. He ask the po­lice who come to see him about tak­ing ev­i­dence for foren­sic check­ing. You know they tell him 'dat is for TV.'"

He adds: "We have a Third World po­lice force. So you have to wor­ry about po­lice might be deal­ing with who 'squeal­ing' with in­for­ma­tion on them self." An old­er gen­tle­man in a pink po­lo shirt and a neon green vest over it, ex­changes a Mus­lim greet­ing with a short­er man, wear­ing thick gold chains heavy enough to sink the Hy­att. "I liv­ing around here or else I wouldn't be able to wear this," the younger man ex­plains.

"I don't like the crime sit­u­a­tion that was go­ing on be­fore but I don't like what go­ing on now ei­ther. How do you dif­fer­en­ti­ate gang­ster from an or­di­nary man? "Two weeks ago some­body else might have robbed me or robbed you or might have had a lit­tle co­caine to sell. But those per­sons' means of liv­ing are be­ing tak­en from them with the state of emer­gency and their men­tal­i­ty changed. Is like los­ing your job, they be­come des­per­ate."

He adds: "If Kam­la claim­ing to take them out as she say, how will they do that? There are so many core prob­lems in this sit­u­a­tion. "Yes­ter­day I saw a lit­tle boy hid­ing his toy gun and I'm sure this is learned be­hav­iour as he might have seen an old­er per­son do­ing re­cent­ly." The old­er man warns: "You will get en­e­mies try­ing to clean up what they (po­lice) leave back." Fur­ther around the court­yard, a slim fe­male, hair plait­ed wear­ing the stan­dard male uni­form -white vest and three-quar­ter shorts-is al­so sport­ing the type of heavy gold jew­el­ry as the young man. She's slim to the point of be­ing flat-chest­ed. Tat­toos on her left arm are fad­ed. Serene and smil­ing oc­ca­sion­al­ly, she doesn't say much but her girl­friend, who looks at her ador­ing­ly, is an­gry: "They take my broth­er, he on­ly 19. Dey say he in a gang. The boy home sleep­ing, just so, they take him!" the girl­friend de­clares.

Steps away, a group of women and tod­dlers are sit­ting around with a lone male who hides nei­ther his con­cerns with the emer­gency nor his ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty. "They should call a snap elec­tion now, though! We doh see these peo­ple til elec­tion time and then we get­ting free jer­sey we could buy we­self, he says. Cheryl, who looks all of 21, makes an ap­peal with the sad­ness of some­one old­er than her years.

She's just come from the court where her broth­er ap­peared ear­li­er. Cheryl says about 25 per­sons from Nel­son Street were de­tained. "We glad the crime stop, peo­ple in the area glad, yes, but is how they pick­ing up every­body, in­no­cent and guilty. They should do it the right way not crash­ing in peo­ple place," says Cheryl. "I fright­en," she adds, claim­ing that af­ter tak­ing pic­tures of some se­cu­ri­ty forces drink­ing in a bar, she re­ceived a mes­sage not to "go on TV and talk again."

"We hope Kam­la put some sort of train­ing in the area for girls too, not just boys. From 17 up who ent go­ing to school. We need it in the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tres here," Cheryl adds. Her friend, in a bright pink top, is fret­ting about her stove. She said: "When they come Thurs­day, they open up the whole stove I just buy-take it apart and ran­sack the whole place. "The tai­lor next door, they throw way all the man cloth," she says. A stout woman, hold­ing one of the five-plus tod­dlers play­ing with­in the group, adds: "We suf­fer­ing. We have po­lice break­ing down door and tak­ing up every­body, but in the mid­dle of this when Kam­la down the road last week shak­ing hands with cer­tain peo­ple and giv­ing keys for house, she didn't know who she was shak­ing hands with," she says.

En route out of Nel­son/Gaza, a big group of men are clus­tered mid­way in one block: "Nah, nah, no­body here have any­thing to say, is on­ly pipers here, pass through," says one.