RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Rich in both his­to­ry and cul­ture, the fish­ing vil­lage of Guayagua­yare lies at the south­east­ern­most end of Trinidad, where the At­lantic Ocean brings both seren­i­ty and hope­less­ness to hun­dreds of res­i­dents.

While the sea of­fers a source of food and recre­ation, the force of the waves has bat­tered many hous­es, leav­ing fam­i­lies dis­placed.

Guayagua­yare has a pop­u­la­tion of 2,000 peo­ple and was per­haps the first vil­lage that Christo­pher Colum­bus saw when he came to Trinidad on Tues­day, Ju­ly 31, 1498, on his third voy­age. More than half of the com­mu­ni­ty earns its liveli­hood in fish­ing and oil drilling while the oth­ers feed off the dense forests of the Trin­i­ty Hills or the Three Sis­ters, which gave Trinidad its name.

The com­mu­ni­ty al­so se­cured its place in T&T's his­to­ry of the oil in­dus­try as it was where the first com­mer­cial­ly vi­able wells were drilled by Ran­dolph Rust and Lee Lum in May 1902.

To­day, Guayagua­yare res­i­dents feel they are "for­got­ten peo­ple". With ma­jor oil and gas com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing from Point Ga­le­o­ta in­clud­ing bpTT, Rep­sol, Trin­i­ty Oil, BHP Bil­li­ton, and Na­tion­al En­er­gy, vil­lager Mal­colm Lind­say said com­mu­ni­ty projects have not been reach­ing the peo­ple of Guayagua­yare with­in re­cent times.

"These com­pa­nies earn mil­lions of dol­lars from op­er­at­ing out of Point Ga­le­o­ta but no­body both­ers with the peo­ple of Guayagua­yare. Look at where we bring in our boats. We have no lights, no wa­ter, and prop­er fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties," Lind­say said.

He said the drains in Guayagua­yare were in des­per­ate need of clean­ing.

"The MP knows about our prob­lems. We have no prop­er place to store our en­gines. They build a fish­ing port for us but no­body has ac­cess to the lock­ers," Lind­say said. He was re­fer­ring to a US$5-mil­lion fish land­ing fa­cil­i­ty which was con­struct­ed in 2014 as part of the $80-mil­lion Point Gale­to port. How­ev­er, the fa­cil­i­ty was poor­ly con­struct­ed and has nev­er been used by the fish­er­men be­cause the pier where their boat dock is eight feet high and the force of the At­lantic bat­ters their boats.

Lind­say said there was no prop­er har­bour and no place to step out of their boats to get on­to the pier.

"We feel we be­hind God's back. We have no ice for our fish stocks so we are at the mer­cy of the ven­dors who pay us next to noth­ing for our fish­es," Lind­say said.

On a reg­u­lar day, flocks of cor­beaux can be seen on the beach feed­ing off hun­dreds of pounds of boni­to fish­es dis­card­ed on the beach. The fish ven­dors pay as lit­tle as $1 per pound for boni­to or some­times it goes free. Most times it is sim­ply thrown out of the boats. Boni­to is not a pop­u­lar fish on the east coast and many ven­dors refuse to buy it be­cause it does not sell.

Car­ol Rav­el­lo, who worked for nine years as a fish­er­woman, be­lieves if the Gov­ern­ment in­ter­venes, boni­to can be stocked and used to man­u­fac­ture pet food. She said the fish­es could be used to make tasty burg­er pat­ties which can be sold or even ex­port­ed to earn for­eign ex­change.

"What is the point of wast­ing all these boni­to? It could be used," Rav­el­lo said.

She ex­plained that oth­er types of fish­es such as carite, king­fish, salmon, and cav­al­li are re­gard­ed as the ex­pen­sive fish, but fish­er­folk say they are sold as cheap­ly as $10 to $15 per pound and then resold for $25 to $35 per pound.

She al­so said the off­shore en­er­gy in­dus­try has af­fect­ed the sta­bil­i­ty of fam­i­ly life in Guaya.

Kir Guy, an­oth­er fish­er­man said if the Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed cold stor­age fa­cil­i­ties and a prop­er port, they will be able to fetch a good price for their catch.

He not­ed that the high price of gas was mak­ing fish­ing un­fea­si­ble for many.

"Plen­ty of us in debts but no­body tak­ing us on," Guy said.

With over 3,000 fish­er­men in the vil­lages of Or­toire, Grand La­goon, Church Road, Stone Bright, Plai­sance, and Guayagua­yare, Guy said there should be a gas sta­tion cater­ing on­ly to fish­er­folk. Cur­rent­ly, there is on­ly one gas sta­tion in the Ma­yaro area and fish­er­men have to fight with mo­torists for fu­el.

"They should build a gas sta­tion for fish­er­men alone. Bring back the reg­u­lar gas," Guy added.

Mean­while, Rav­el­lo said in­fi­deli­ty in Guayagua­yare was an ac­cept­ed part of life. Some of the vil­lage men who are for­tu­nate enough to get a job off­shore are of­ten un­faith­ful to their wives, and Rav­el­lo said it was un­der­stood in the vil­lage that men were sup­posed to have out­side women.

"If you get mar­ried to a man in Guaya, ex­pect that he will be un­faith­ful. Most of the women in Guaya know this and we ex­pect it to hap­pen. The men don't cheat with oth­er women in Guaya, most times they have their side chicks in the Ma­yaro area," Rav­el­lo re­vealed. She said the in­fi­deli­ty does not ex­ist on­ly with men but al­so with women.

"This is a hid­den se­cret in the vil­lage which no­body likes to talk about but it's true. If your man is work­ing off­shore, it is ex­pect­ed that you will cheat. This is how it goes in this area," Rav­el­lo said.

Ero­sion de­stroy­ing homes

On the east­ern coasts, more than 25 homes are in dan­ger of col­lapse. Coastal ero­sion has caused slip­pages in sev­er­al ar­eas leav­ing some hous­es on the brink. Nicky Sankar and her fam­i­ly are among the worst hit.

"Every­day I look out at the sea and I won­der if one day soon our home will be de­stroyed," Sankar said. Dur­ing high tide, the sea comes all the way up to her son's bed­room.

Sankar said the In­sti­tute of Ma­rine Af­fairs, the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit, and var­i­ous min­istries have vis­it­ed them but de­spite nu­mer­ous promis­es, they were nev­er re­lo­cat­ed. Paul Rat­tan's home is al­so on the brink of a 160-feet precipice.

"The house can fall any­time now. No­body cares and every day the sea comes in clos­er," Sankar added.

Julie Ed­wards said a re­tain­ing wall to the back of her home col­lapsed 20 years ago and the sea has been inch­ing clos­er to her home. "The sea has al­ready tak­en my neigh­bour's house and every day I am fear­ful that mine will go too." She said her neigh­bour Murel­da Win­ches­ter died six years ago from wor­ry. To­day, the sea cas­cades in­side Win­ches­ter's aban­doned house.

Head of the Coastal Pro­tec­tion Unit said ar­eas in the East in­clud­ing Man­zanil­la Beach (be­tween Man­zanil­la Point and Radix Point) Guayagua­yare Vil­lage and Calma­pass were se­vere­ly af­fect­ed by ero­sion. Asked whether there were plans to re­lo­cate af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ty, Gray-Bernard said, "Re­lo­ca­tion of im­pact com­mu­ni­ties or prop­er­ties is one of the so­lu­tions avail­able for ad­dress­ing the im­pacts of coastal ero­sion and flood­ing."

$15 m to re­con­fig­ure ex­ist­ing fish port fa­cil­i­ties—Ramb­harat

How­ev­er, MP for Ma­yaro Rush­ton Paray said con­trary to the res­i­dents' claims, en­er­gy com­pa­nies have been do­ing pos­i­tive work in Guayagua­yare.

"While there has been quite a re­duc­tion in the CSR pro­grammes of sev­er­al En­er­gy Com­pa­nies, un­der­stand­ably so, there are sev­er­al pro­grammes which see in­vest­ment in sport, ed­u­ca­tion, and so­cial in­ter­ven­tion. While Guayagua­yare may not be tar­get­ed, Ma­yaro on a whole does re­ceive sup­port. One may ar­gue with the quan­tum and ap­pro­pri­ate­ness of the pro­grammes, but I sus­pect the de­ci­sions are based on as­sess­ments of need in the com­mu­ni­ty," Paray said.

He agreed that the Ma­yaro Guayagua­yare Road is in dire need of re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion.

"I have made rep­re­sen­ta­tion for the resur­fac­ing of sev­er­al seg­ments, how­ev­er, we keep get­ting patch works. The Min­istry of Works ac­tiv­i­ties on the main road and drains are vir­tu­al­ly ab­sent. With re­gards to side roads and Sec­ondary drains, the Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion is bur­dened with a lack of fund­ing lead­ing to of­ten slow and un­time­ly re­spons­es. As of to­day, our ve­hi­cles at the MR­CRC are ground­ed since no re­leas­es were made to fa­cil­i­tate the in­spec­tion of these ve­hi­cles," Paray added.

Min­is­ter of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Clarence Ramb­harat said it will take a fur­ther $15 mil­lion to re­con­fig­ure the ex­ist­ing fish port fa­cil­i­ties. He said he was aware of the res­i­dents' con­cerns.

"I have im­proved the area by putting in lights, wash­room fa­cil­i­ties and they could ac­cess the ex­ist­ing port if they want to use the lock­ers or to get ice," Ramb­harat said.

En­tre­pre­neur­ship op­por­tu­ni­ties abun­dant—MP

Paray al­so said the op­por­tu­ni­ty for en­tre­pre­neur­ship was in abun­dance.

"Very few peo­ple are step­ping for­ward to make it hap­pen. We are for­tu­nate to have MIPED ( bpTT Spon­sored SME Fi­nanc­ing Agent) in Ma­yaro to sup­port small busi­ness­es. When I speak at meet­ings, school PTA, vil­lage coun­cils I en­cour­age res­i­dents to come to me with their ideas and we will as­sist in get­ting their ideas in­to busi­ness plans and find­ing the ap­pro­pri­ate fi­nanc­ing. There is no short­age of op­por­tu­ni­ties, but our young peo­ple must want them. We can't force any­one in­to it," he said.

He al­so said down­stream busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties in the fish­ing sec­tor was al­so avail­able.

"There are two ma­jor fish­ing as­so­ci­a­tions in Ma­yaro and I stand ready and will­ing to guide and sup­port in what­ev­er area as­sis­tance will be need­ed," Paray added.

On its web­site, bpTT al­so said it has been in­vest­ing in the Guayagua­yare com­mu­ni­ty. Un­der its Brighter Prospects pro­gramme, bpTT pro­vides sec­ondary and ter­tiary lev­el schol­ar­ship awards to stu­dents from the Ma­yaro/Guayagua­yare re­gion. Since the open­ing of the UWI Open Cam­pus, vil­lagers have ac­cess to uni­ver­si­ty lev­el qual­i­fi­ca­tion with­in the com­mu­ni­ty a re­al­i­ty. Guayagua­yare res­i­dents al­so have ac­cess to the Ma­yaro Ini­tia­tive for Pri­vate En­ter­prise De­vel­op­ment (MIPED) which is a mi­cro­fi­nance loan fa­cil­i­ty that al­so of­fers busi­ness plan­ning ser­vices to its clients. MIPED be­gan in 2001 when bpTT made an ini­tial cap­i­tal in­vest­ment of $7.2 mil­lion in the pro­gramme. It has now grown to be­come a $50-mil­lion re­volv­ing fund in the com­mu­ni­ty, with 2,000 in loans giv­en out and 4,000 jobs cre­at­ed.