Michelle Loubon

Part II

Sway­ing ma­jes­ti­cal­ly, Roy­al Palms beck­oned in­den­tured labour­ers to Brechin Cas­tle Sug­ar Es­tate at Cou­va. Prof Brins­ley Sama­roo in­di­cat­ed they served as sign­posts be­fore T&T was ush­ered in­to the mod­ern era. Two rows of state­ly, ex­cep­tion­al­ly tall Roy­al Palms lead to the home of Heights of Gua­napo, Waller­field, Ari­ma cou­ple Aisha and Jagdeo Singh. Paus­ing from wash­ing down her yard, Aisha dis­ap­peared be­yond the man­go tree. Hounds bay­ing at his feet, Singh emerged from the east­ern side of his house. Armed with his 'cut­lish' sheath neat­ly tucked at his side and tall boots cov­ered in mud, Singh cut a pic­ture of a typ­i­cal rur­al labour­er.

Ad­mit­ted­ly, he had been busy tend­ing his crops in the ver­dant land which pro­duces a cor­nu­copia. Don­ning the hat of Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer (PRO) North­ern Range 1 Val­ley View Or­gan­i­sa­tion, Singh re­lat­ed a litany of woes plagu­ing the com­mu­ni­ty of the Heights of Gua­napo-his slice of par­adise for the past 35 years. It was iron­ic be­cause most of the com­plaints hinged on the ex­is­tence of the Gua­napo dump and re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties at the com­mu­ni­ty's "eco­nom­ic hub". Chief among them were the ob­sta­cles placed on the road­way by res­i­dents who earn a liv­ing from the Gua­napo land­fill, pop­u­lar­ly known as "the dump".

Singh said: "I can't help but talk about the road. Peo­ple are block­ing the road with items from the dump. We can't come out with­out risk­ing dam­age to the ve­hi­cles. It is re­al non­sense." In­deed, Singh was not ex­ag­ger­at­ing since the ev­i­dence abound­ed. Slabs of cor­ru­gat­ed and scrap iron, pieces of wood, mounds of garbage and mis­cel­la­neous items strewn around dot­ted the road lead­ing to the dump. Tyres, fer­tile breed­ing ground for the dread­ed Aedes Egyp­ti mos­qui­to, lay in heaps. Laun­dry laid out on slabs of wood baked in the tor­rid heat. Squalid im­ages sur­faced on the patch­work. Singh added: "It was not so bad. But now with the in­creased ac­tiv­i­ty at the dump, it is get­ting worse and worse."

Al­though he main­tains the com­mu­ni­ty pays him a great deal of re­spect, Singh said: "Some youths don't like to work. They plac­ing a bar and charg­ing peo­ple $5 to pass." He felt the au­thor­i­ties need­ed to reg­u­larise the dump so it would not pose a chal­lenge to com­muters and res­i­dents alike. "They should pre­pare a place in the dump where they can store their goods so they do not have to place it on the roads." Singh re­mem­bered the days when the dump was a "hol­low gut­ter. To­day, Singh feels there is too much top soil coat­ing the man-made moun­tain of rub­bish.

Need for bet­ter roads

Boast­ing he had worked on 2,000 feet of road with the as­sis­tance of for­mer Ari­ma MP Pen­ne­lope Beck­les, Singh pro­duced the doc­u­ments as hard ev­i­dence. They had ben­e­fit­ed from a bridge. Yet, he felt more work needs to be done on the link road for the ben­e­fit of the com­mu­ni­ty. He en­vi­sions an as­phalt road snaking from La Re­treat Road to Ceme­tery Street to Heights of Gua­napo. Singh al­so pro­duced a doc­u­ment which was tak­en to Min­istry of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment (Na­tion­al Com­mis­sion for Self Help Ltd) to get as­sis­tance to im­prove the lives of res­i­dents and up­grade in­fra­struc­ture. The doc­u­ment iden­ti­fied the need for light­ing, bridges, pave­ments, prop­er light­poles and as­sis­tance with the ever­green grow box cul­ti­va­tion pro­gramme.

Among the oth­er re­quests were 800 feet of drains and a bridge 20 feet wide across El Ce­dro Riv­er. Singh said: "It has about 1,200 peo­ple, main­ly 300 chil­dren. We need bet­ter roads. They are over 60 years old and need to be repaved. With­out mak­ing di­rect ref­er­ence to the pover­ty af­fect­ing some mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty, he said: "Some of the chil­dren walk bare-foot­ed." The doc­u­ment even made rec­om­men­da­tions for a pre-school. The youth were not for­got­ten: re­quests for train­ing pro­grammes to hone their skills in agri­cul­ture, weld­ing, fab­ri­cat­ing, plumb­ing, ma­son­ry, sewing and sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ty. The cries of taxi dri­vers had not fall­en on deaf ears.

Singh said: "Taxi dri­vers com­plain about the wear-and-tear on their cars. They com­plain about the price of shocks and oil. Many times the car is dam­aged. They have to take it to the garage. There is dire need for bet­ter roads and in­fra­struc­ture." Singh al­so spoke about the need to change a cylin­der over­grown with bush­es. "The cylin­der is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing. One-eighth of it keeps re­ced­ing." To com­pound it, burn­ing cop­per posed a health haz­ard. He lament­ed "it was a dan­ger­ous prac­tice".

El Ce­dro Riv­er floods

Dur­ing the rainy sea­son or when­ev­er there is co­pi­ous rain­fall, the El Ce­dro riv­er floods. The re­sult would be dam­age to the nat­ur­al ecosys­tem, the riv­er be­com­ing pol­lut­ed, crops ru­ined and farm­ers los­ing in­come. Saga­cious Singh made use of the nat­ur­al im­agery. He said: "The riv­er does get green like man­go leaf. It does get brown like pi­men­to when it come down." Pass­ing by was an­oth­er res­i­dent, Dex­ter Ra­moutar. He looked like a woods­man who had just stepped out of a Grimm Hans An­der­son Fairy­tale. He earned his keep cul­ti­vat­ing three acres of plan­tains, av­o­ca­dos and or­anges. Ra­moutar said: "The riv­er does flood the place when it rains heav­i­ly. We need a prop­er bridge. They are sup­posed to start the ac­cess roads."

Prae­di­al lar­ce­ny

Fo­liage flour­ish­es. So, too, do fruits like pois doux and veg­eta­bles. Of­ten when the farmer has poured his sweat and blood in­to cul­ti­vat­ing his crops, thieves cart off the pro­duce. Singh said: "Prae­di­al lar­ce­ny is a big prob­lem. Peo­ple just walk in the land and take what they want." Quizzed on whether the young peo­ple were tempt­ed to work on the land, he said: "They want $200 a day. They com­ing to work for 8 am and by 8:30 am they want to go home. They much pre­fer to work on the dump." Singh had echoed a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment to Dr Roger Ho­sein. Ho­sein had knocked a poor work eth­ic from Cepep gangs

Singh said: "In Ma­yaro, they want to come to work at 8 am and fin­ish at 8:30 am." He reg­is­tered this ob­ser­va­tion dur­ing his pre­sen­ta­tion on Small Mi­cro­fi­nance In­sti­tu­tions and Rur­al De­vel­op­ment in a Pe­tro­le­um Pro­duc­ing Econ­o­my at the In­ter­na­tion­al Con­fer­ence on Pover­ty Al­le­vi­a­tion at UWI St Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, on Oc­to­ber 20. Over­seer­ing the com­mu­ni­ty, Singh not­ed the dump was their source of liveli­hood. He said: "The peo­ple, around 95 per cent of them, ben­e­fit from the dump. It is ben­e­fi­cial to them. It's all some of the peo­ple know, go­ing in the rub­bish."

Beau­ty of Heights of Gua­napo

Leav­ing be­hind his home­town of Ve­ga de Oropouche, Singh set­tled at Heights of Gua­napo. Rem­i­nisc­ing on his pi­o­neer­ing days, Singh said: "When I ven­tured in­to the com­mu­ni­ty, it was heav­i­ly forest­ed. Thick­ets of trees and cool al­coves dot­ted the land­scape." De­spite the chal­lenges, Singh loves his neck of the woods. "I just like the en­vi­ron­ment. I can sit on the hill. I can walk. I can see the ocean. I can see the hori­zon. It is nat­ur­al. It is ide­al for eco tourism." Ever­greens, volup­tuous paw paws, swathes of bam­boo, clus­ters of yel­low spi­ral shaped blooms and roucou trees en­hance na­ture's patch­work. Flocks of white birds soar­ing, par­rots screech­ing in cages and the odd cow moo­ing plain­tive­ly in the dis­tance con­tribute to the idyl­lic melange at Heights of Gua­napo.

Pover­ty al­le­vi­a­tion

Samuel said drainage projects will al­le­vi­ate pover­ty. He said: "The idea is to get projects in those ar­eas. All squat­ting set­tle­ments ex­ist in a realm of pover­ty. We are go­ing to be work­ing with some of the com­mu­ni­ty. I am sure peo­ple from the com­mu­ni­ty would get jobs and em­ploy­ment with projects like drainage." An­oth­er move will ad­dress the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of squat­ting set­tle­ments. Samuel adds: "The idea of a squat­ting set­tle­ment is to try and reg­u­larise peo­ple through land set­tle­ments. That is a big project. I have about six such set­tle­ments... as large as Pin­to. The whole of Pin­to is to be reg­u­larised-en­tire Ma­tu­ri­ta and De­mer­ara Road ar­eas. We are go­ing to do what we can to reg­u­larise peo­ple."

He feels those de­pressed com­mu­ni­ties have suf­fered from poor gov­ern­men­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He said: "I some­times ask my­self what on earth is go­ing on all these years. What was done with the pre­vi­ous rep­re­sen­ta­tion? The past gov­ern­ment ruled Ari­ma for "don­key years". Gua­napo is just one of the pover­ty-strick­en ar­eas we have to try to help." Samuel al­so en­vi­sions the de­vel­op­ment of eco-tourism. "The en­tire North­ern Coast is ripe for eco-tourism. I am very en­cour­aged Warn­er is deal­ing with the ac­cess roads. He is look­ing at fix­ing the en­tire Blan­chisseuse Road be­cause of the awe­some prospects for eco tourism." The Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre-a haven for or­nithol­o­gists and na­ture lovers-is lo­cat­ed on the Ari­ma Old Road to Blan­chisseuse.

• Next week: Res­i­dents have plans for Pe­na's church...