Resh­ma Ra­goonath

While La Brea pupils turned up in their num­bers yes­ter­day for the start of the new school term, it was not the same for chil­dren liv­ing near oil-spill af­fect­ed Cof­fee Beach.That af­ter most of the par­ents di­rect­ly af­fect­ed by the De­cem­ber 17, 2013 spill opt­ed to keep their chil­dren away from school for vary­ing rea­sons yes­ter­day.When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed Cof­fee Beach yes­ter­day chil­dren were seen milling about out­side their homes dur­ing school hours.La Brea moth­er of eight, Char­maine Mon­tano, said her 12-year-old son stayed home from school be­cause his school was ex­pect­ed to re-open on Jan­u­ary 20.

How­ev­er, she said two of her nephews and her grand­daugh­ter stayed home be­cause they were feel­ing un­well."The chil­dren feel­ing sick. They throat hurt­ing them. We had to car­ry the chil­dren by the doc­tor. My son com­plain of chest pains and they did not do any tests, they just give me some­thing to rub on his chest. This is how they deal­ing with peo­ple in here, they un­fair," Mon­tano said.She said res­i­dents still have some hope that Petrotrin would "do right by them" and help the res­i­dents.While clean-up op­er­a­tions con­tin­ued in the area Mon­tano said they were still un­able to cook their own meals.She said the state-run com­pa­ny was pro­vid­ing meals for the res­i­dents and has set up a med­ical clin­ic at the La Brea Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­tre.How­ev­er, she be­lieves the res­i­dents should be re­lo­cat­ed to prop­er homes and should not have to be made to pay for some­thing that was not their fault.Mari­ah John, 13, Mon­tano's niece, said she did not at­tend school yes­ter­day be­cause she was not feel­ing well. She at­tends the Vance Riv­er RC Pri­ma­ry School.Yes­ter­day work­ers were seen ty­ing oil booms along the shore to trap oil. The sand on the shore, which was once cov­ered with a lay­er of oil, has re­gained its brown hue, a stark con­trast from the last two weeks when it was stained with black oil.

No dis­rup­tions in La Brea

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Tim Gopeesingh, in a ra­dio in­ter­view, in­di­cat­ed that there was no dis­rup­tion to schools in La Brea and it was busi­ness as usu­al on the first day of the new school term.

Yes­ter­day Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry me­dia re­la­tions of­fi­cer Yolan­da Morales-Car­val­ho con­firmed the schools in the La Brea area opened as ex­pect­ed and had a good turnout of stu­dents.She said at the La Brea Ro­man Catholic Pri­ma­ry School, Church Street, La Brea, 300 pupils at­tend­ed school out of a pop­u­la­tion of 376.Morales-Car­val­ho added the 76 ab­sent stu­dents could not be at­trib­uted to the oil spill that was af­fect­ing the south­west­ern penin­su­la."It (the ab­sent pupils) could be dif­fer­ent rea­sons. Some­times peo­ple trav­el and they claim could not get back in time for school," she ex­plained.She said 300 out of a pop­u­la­tion of 376 was "a pret­ty good turnout."When the T&T Guardian vis­it­ed the school last af­ter­noon the school's front gate was locked. A se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cer said the prin­ci­pal or­dered that no me­dia per­son­nel be al­lowed on­to the com­pound.Stu­dents were as­sem­bled in the school au­di­to­ri­um at that time with their teach­ers.At the Brighton An­gli­can Pri­ma­ry School, Main Road, La Brea, the turnout was al­so high. Out of a pop­u­la­tion of 202 pupils 144 turned up for school yes­ter­day.