Yvonne Ba­boolal

"Take noth­ing but pho­tographs; leave noth­ing but foot­prints," the sign at Acono Junc­tion at Mara­cas Val­ley says. The warn­ing is about El Tu­cuche, T&T's sec­ond high­est moun­tain (Cier­ro del Aripo be­ing the high­est) which could very well soon have a tun­nel cut through it. The Works and Trans­port Min­istry's plan is to cut a tun­nel from Mara­cas Val­ley to Mara­cas Bay, run­ning be­neath El Tu­cuche. Res­i­dents of Cal­cut­ta, the fur­thest vil­lage in the foothills of El Tu­cuche, are not over­ly ex­cit­ed about the idea. Some were to­tal­ly against it, pon­der­ing the val­ue of such an ap­proach and wor­ry­ing about any dam­age the tun­nel might bring to the moun­tain. They would pre­fer to con­tin­ue to do the three-mile trek to Mara­cas Bay.

A few who head for the sea­side from the East­ern Main Road would be glad for the tun­nel, say­ing they would reach more quick­ly. "The tun­nel is for what?" Ho­sein Nakhid, 28, sit­ting at the side of a drain near the road, asked. Told it was to boost tourism, he asked again, "That's all?" With El Tu­cuche loom­ing over­head in the back­ground, he said, "Is a waste of mon­ey. I re­al­ly and tru­ly don't know what to say." Evan Her­nan­dez, 21, sit­ting near­by, walks the three miles to Mara­cas Bay or takes a taxi some­times. "It would be eas­i­er and faster with the tun­nel," he said.

RIGHT: Dood­nath Maraj. Pho­tos: jen­nifer wat­son

Youths needs em­ploy­ment

Dood­nath Maraj, 61, com­ing down the road from his peas and plan­tain gar­den on Nakhid Es­tate with a cut­lass and crook stick in hand, said, "They might de­stroy the beau­ty of the moun­tain. "Look how nice the moun­tain is." Lochv­inas Ben­jamin John, do­ing con­struc­tion work out­side the Mara­cas Sev­enth-Day Ad­ven­tist church, goes to the beach near­ly every day and he some­times takes three taxis to get there.

"I walk too. It takes two hours if you walk fast. I would be glad for the tun­nel." Robert "Fa­ther Youth" Farmer won­dered whether it was planned to hire any­body from the vil­lage to help with the tun­nel.

"A lot of youths need em­ploy­ment in the vil­lage," he said. He said many peo­ple go "out­side" and work and a lot are em­ployed with Cepep, but many of the 4,000 to 5,000 peo­ple re­main un­em­ployed. "For em­ploy­ment pur­pos­es, the tun­nel would be very help­ful. "But, the vil­lage needs so much help." Fa­ther Youth said there were al­ways land­slides in the vil­lage to fix and the young men play foot­ball on the road be­cause they have no recre­ation ground.

How much for­est go­ing to mash down?

David Nakhid, 30, asked: "How much for­est they go­ing to mash down, too?" Na­tal­ie Sinanan, co-own­er of the vil­lage's sports and recre­ation club, felt the tun­nel would be like a "good hide­out" for peo­ple. "Trinidad too small for tun­nel," said vice-pres­i­dent of the Acono Vil­lage Ac­tion Com­mit­tee, Sime­on Nakhid. "You see what hap­pen in Chile (min­ers trapped for 69 days)." Nakhid of­fered an al­ter­na­tive to the tun­nel. "They could build over­head roads in all the busy ar­eas and that would ease up traf­fic. And they could clean the same trail in El Tu­cuche."

ABOVE: Sime­on Nakhid in front a veg­etable stall at Cal­cut­ta.

Not­ing that he was a "born PNM" and that he swung in the last gen­er­al elec­tion, Nakhid con­tin­ued: "Mon­ey wast­ing on these things. It have so much pover­ty in T&T. "I don't think it will ben­e­fit any­body if they build a tun­nel go­ing to Mara­cas." Nakhid, who has been op­er­at­ing a red band maxi taxi for years, added: "I feel (Min­is­ter) Warn­er mak­ing a mis­take." Paul Nakhid, who runs a straight­en­ing and paint­ing garage in the vil­lage, con­sid­ers the tun­nel to be a waste of time and Ben Gor­don, co-own­er of the recre­ation club is con­cerned about the wildlife.

"Wild dog, ocelot, all bird species, the gold­en frog," Nakhid said, nam­ing some. He is con­cerned that sev­er­al springs feed­ing in­to the Acono Riv­er and the wa­ter plant in the vil­lage will be af­fect­ed as well. Cau­ra UNC coun­cil­lor, Prakash Bharath be­lieves the tun­nel will be be­gun at low­er Cau­ra Road and cut across a hik­ing trail to El Tu­cuche. Vil­lage ac­tivist, Ju­nior Howard, is fear­ful that it might al­so in­ter­fere with wa­ter sources in the moun­tain and dis­place res­i­dents who live along the main road be­low.

Humphrey's sug­ges­tion

Asked his opin­ion on the pro­posed tun­nel that the Works Min­istry wants to build from Mara­cas Val­ley to Mara­cas Bay, John Humphrey said a road was a bet­ter idea. He said he saw a view of Mara­cas from a ridge on the North Coast and it was most mag­nif­i­cent. "I sug­gest­ed to Warn­er that he goes in a he­li­copter and watch­es the view, too. "You will lose that with a tun­nel, but a road will give you that view." Warn­er said the area on the ridge was al­so a fan­tas­tic site for a ho­tel and sug­gest­ed that the road could be ex­tend­ed to Blan­chisseuse, Matelot and To­co.