Resh­ma Ra­goonath

While thou­sands of chil­dren head off to school to­day for the start of the new term, it will not be the same for chil­dren of fish­er­folk and oth­er peo­ple af­fect­ed by the oil spill along the south-west­ern penin­su­la.Res­i­dents of La Brea, as well as fish­er­men, fish ven­dors, oys­ter and crab catch­ers said yes­ter­day that they would be forced to keep their chil­dren at home be­cause of the oil spill, which be­gan on De­cem­ber 17.

Even if they could send their chil­dren to school, they said for the past two weeks they had not been able to earn mon­ey to get their chil­dren's school sup­plies.Yes­ter­day, Cof­fee Beach res­i­dent Dene­cia Gilbert, 25, ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that she would not be able to send her son Ra­mone Boodoo, three, to preschool to­day.Boodoo at­tends the Ear­ly Achiev­ers Preschool in Belle View, La Brea.

Gilbert, who sells weaves and does hair braid­ing for a liv­ing, said since the oil spill be­gan wash­ing ashore in La Brea on De­cem­ber 18, none of her clients had ven­tured in­to the com­mu­ni­ty."I not hap­py," Gilbert told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day."It af­fect­ing me be­cause he now start preschool. He start in Sep­tem­ber. He will be miss­ing out on a lot of im­por­tant things. It not good know­ing that he have to stay back and he now start preschool."

She said on­ly re­cent­ly she was able to get em­ploy­ment as part of the oil clean-up crew along the beach. How­ev­er, she said she still would not be able to af­ford to send her son to school any­time soon."I can­not af­ford to send him yet. He has trans­port to and from his school. I have to pay school fees and buy things for him to eat too," she lament­ed.

Ill­ness af­fect­ing some

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Vir­gil Gilbert, 33, said he would have to keep two of the three chil­dren now stay­ing with him at home be­cause of the oil spill.He said the chil­dren, aged sev­en and eight, re­spec­tive­ly, were un­well be­cause of their ex­po­sure to the oil spill."We have no Christ­mas, no New Year's and now no school," Gilbert lament­ed.

"I re­al­ly do not know about send­ing them to school be­cause it is re­al chaos here. They can­not go to school with all these big trucks in and out here all the time. It's chaos with he­li­copters fly­ing all the time. I was trau­ma­tised by this, much less for them." He said Cof­fee Beach was a small, peace­ful com­mu­ni­ty and they were not ac­cus­tomed to the lev­el of ac­tiv­i­ty they had wit­nessed in the last two weeks.

Gilbert lament­ed that chil­dren in the com­mu­ni­ty were falling ill, adding that he, too, ex­pe­ri­ences bouts of nau­sea at night when the nau­se­at­ing oil smell in­vades his home.

No school sup­plies bought

Asha Syl­van, 30, an oys­ter catch­er, of Di­a­mond Vil­lage, told the T&T Guardian she had no idea how she would send her chil­dren to school be­cause the oil spill had dashed her hopes of earn­ing a liv­ing in or­der to buy their school books."We want Petrotrin to give us some at­ten­tion too," she said."When I came here Wednes­day it was bad, but it get worse. All the man­grove roots cov­ered and all we see­ing is dam­age."

Syl­van, who joined the me­dia on a tour of the Aripero man­grove on Fri­day, point­ed to oil-cov­ered oys­ters she re­trieved from the man­grove. She said her liveli­hood, like the oys­ters, had died as the thick pools of oil con­tin­ued to creep in­to the man­grove.

Yes­ter­day, Ter­ril­isa Mod­este, 21, com­plained that since the oil spill start­ed af­fect­ing them, her daugh­ter Anas­ta­sia, one year and sev­en-months-old, had de­vel­oped a skin rash about the body. She point­ed to red blotchy ar­eas on the child's skin, which ap­peared in­flamed and swollen.Mod­este said she took the child to the Point Fortin Area Hos­pi­tal on Fri­day af­ter the child's skin be­gan itch­ing and turn­ing red, and she start­ed get­ting sick.

"They gave me a pre­scrip­tion for med­i­cine for her to drink and she used it yes­ter­day (Sat­ur­day) and to­day...I know it will take a lit­tle time, but I not see­ing any­thing hap­pen­ing," she said."It is not work­ing. She is un­com­fort­able, she does be scratch­ing it (her skin) all the time."Petrotrin has es­tab­lished a med­ical clin­ic at the La Brea Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre to mon­i­tor res­i­dents and con­duct rou­tine checks.

How­ev­er, yes­ter­day when the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the clin­ic, Petrotrin se­cu­ri­ty re­fused us en­try and pre­vent­ed the pho­tog­ra­ph­er from tak­ing pic­tures. At the time, a La Brea res­i­dent was be­ing at­tend­ed to by a nurse.