As the most north-east­er­ly vil­lage, To­co is Trinidad’s clos­est ge­o­graph­i­cal point to To­ba­go. Ac­cord­ing to the vil­lage’s fish­er­men, the boat ride takes 45 min­utes.

While that jour­ney is rel­a­tive­ly short, To­co’s his­to­ry goes back a long way.

Amerindi­an tribes in­hab­it­ed the area well be­fore the Eng­lish in­vad­ed Trinidad in 1631, end­ing the ini­tial Span­ish rule. While to­day, the To­co Main Road, like a black cri­bo snake, slith­ers its way up and along the north­east coast, the vil­lage was large­ly iso­lat­ed un­til 1930. Un­til then, there were no con­nect­ing roads.

The on­ly means of trans­port was the round-is­land steamship. Al­though to­day it re­mains close to a two-hour dri­ve from Port-of-Spain, the area’s unique and nat­ur­al beau­ty is enough of a pull to bring vis­i­tors from all over.

The rocks of the light­house of­fer a stun­ning, un­hin­dered view of the deep blue Caribbean Sea to the faint out­lines of To­ba­go’s hills in the dis­tance. Saly­bia Beach is tru­ly a hid­den trea­sure. Its wa­ter is serene and clear, light blue—rem­i­nis­cent of some of To­ba­go’s finest beach­es.

For 45 years, Josephine Lett has lived in To­co. For 30 years, she’s walked the sands of Saly­bia Beach, sell­ing nut­cake, sug­ar cake, and oth­er Trin­ba­go treats.

She al­so owns a gro­cery store on the oth­er end of the beach. The front of the gro­cery is plas­tered with posters of Lett. The signs read Black African Queen, Tourism En­tre­pre­neur, and Moth­er of this Beach.

Lett, per­haps more than any­one else, be­lieves in the po­ten­tial of Saly­bia Beach and To­co.

“I don’t know when you last went up to the light­house. It has been un­der re­pair for over ten years now, and they can’t fin­ish. There’s no sign to in­di­cate the place is un­der con­struc­tion, and this is the ex­pect­ed com­ple­tion date be­cause peo­ple are com­ing from abroad to see it. This is the piece of am­bi­ence peo­ple come to get be­fore they go back abroad and they leave dis­ap­point­ed.

“Look at the con­di­tion of this place—a main tourist at­trac­tion. It’s a di­a­mond. The en­vi­ron­ment is clean. The at­mos­phere is peace­ful. They are not mak­ing the most of it. It’s sad.

“What I would like to see is road im­prove­ment. I would like to see some bridges ex­pand and the roads widen. Look at To­co Sec­ondary School. It’s just a con­tain­er they have these stu­dents and staff in. It’s a dis­grace to see a man like Keshorn Wal­cott who has re­al­ly made a name for To­co on the world map and to have these chil­dren and staff in those kinds of con­di­tions in the same school he went to. Wa­ter is al­so a re­al crit­i­cal is­sue here. The clos­est fire sta­tion is in Grande. Plen­ty of things To­co needs,” she said.

Res­i­dents: Long list of prob­lems plagu­ing To­co

Sit­ting be­hind Lett’s shop, look­ing out at the sea, was a man in his mid-30s. A few feet in front of him, his wife and in­fant son played in the sand.

“To­co? It’s hard, boy. You have to leave here and go and do things. There aren’t many op­por­tu­ni­ties. The youths have to leave. The cul­ture is cor­rupt­ing it and spoil­ing things. The peo­ple and men­tal­i­ty. The head that the big­ger ones show the youth is a fail­ure.

“I don’t even want my child to grow up here. I am putting things in place to get out. Here is to come and re­lax. You have a beach house up here, and you come up for the week­end. It’s too much of a dis­ad­van­tage for your child. It’s sad,” he said.

On the oth­er side of Saly­bia Beach, five friends from To­co were lim­ing on a makeshift couch un­der the cov­er of a co­conut tree. One of the group’s mem­bers, Tafiya Rogers, is the co-own­er of the beach’s most pop­u­lar shop. It’s a wood­en red shack, no more than ten feet from the shore­line, sell­ing food and drinks.

To the de­light of some and the an­noy­ance of oth­ers, the shop is al­so known for pump­ing mu­sic. The shack is one of 16 with­out elec­tric­i­ty. In late 2022, T&TEC cut their sup­ply. The land is owned by the Whar­ton Es­tate and was leased un­til 2073.

Tafiya spoke pas­sion­ate­ly about life in To­co.

“I’ve lived here long enough to know what my com­mu­ni­ty needs. I have known here all my life. I trav­el and come back. And when I come back, I’m think­ing things would change, things would de­vel­op. Yeah, right. I can’t even tell you the last time we saw the PTSC bus run on a Sat­ur­day. And that used to be a thing.

“It have a lot of poor fam­i­lies that don’t even have cer­tain things to eat, to be able to send their chil­dren to school. They need some grants,” she said.

Tafiya said Saly­bia beach ven­dors like her­self have been mis­rep­re­sent­ed.

“Out of our pock­ets, we clean the beach. Just last week we paid a trac­tor to come and flat­ten the road. We have no elec­tric­i­ty, and if we don’t open, there are no fa­cil­i­ties for peo­ple to take their show­ers or bathe their chil­dren. If we are not here, this beach is rid­dled with garbage.

“I’ve seen Mick­ela Pan­day more than the MP. The Pa­tri­ot­ic Front has been up here more than the MP. There’s noth­ing for young peo­ple. They don’t even want to open up the school. Look, the school is still in a mess. There are no recre­ation­al sports. It doesn’t even have—if you go down Ceme­tery Street, if you go down Ed­die Hart, you have a lit­tle swing set—it doesn’t even have that. Noth­ing in To­co,” she lament­ed.

Tafiya’s friend Shep­pard agreed. He said the mon­ey is not trick­ling down. Shep­pard com­plained that peo­ple like him­self ben­e­fit­ted more when the late Ter­ry Ron­don was in of­fice.

“For­mer chair­man Ter­ry Ron­don used to have portable toi­lets on the beach. He used to send wa­ter trucks to fill up peo­ple’s tanks. Now? If you get two por­tapot­ties, you are lucky.

“The few lit­tle as­so­ci­a­tions it have in the area, they are all about them­selves. They don’t re­al­ly help the com­mu­ni­ty. If they get a lit­tle grant to keep a lit­tle foot­ball, they will make the prize as mi­nor as pos­si­ble and pock­et the ma­jor­i­ty,” he claimed.

Crime, loss of com­mu­ni­ty spir­it al­so is­sues

Not Like the Old Days Sit­ting un­der­neath the pop­u­lar To­co/Matelot junc­tion sign, Jab­ba spoke with a young man. He com­plained that the com­mu­ni­ty was not what it once was.

“You could say the youths are lost be­cause if you go through Cumana Vil­lage, you will see a set of young men lim­ing, and when you con­tin­ue to do that, you won’t get through with any kind of em­ploy­ment, so the eas­i­est thing to do is crime. We hard­ly get house­break­ings from with­in this area, but peo­ple from out­side come in and cre­ate it.

“We does have we house open, so when the town man sees that, it’s like nuts al­ready shelled. They just walk in. It was nev­er so. Broth­er, I used to leave my house open and go weeks in Ch­agua­nas. Watch how things change up, boy. Things are sup­posed to get bet­ter, and they are sup­posed to have more rea­son­ing, but the youth men re­al­ly have no rea­son­ing now. If an old man stick you up, you will live, you know, but if one of them youth men stick you up, that is straight lick down,” he said, shak­ing his head.

Jab­ba, in his late 60s, said when school was out, he used to take the vil­lage’s young peo­ple out fish­ing. He can’t do that now, he com­plained; every­body and every­thing has changed. “Some­times it’s a lot of bro­ken homes. This is where these is­sues stem from. You see em­ploy­ment when two peo­ple have to leave a house to make a dol­lar, es­pe­cial­ly at this time.

“If you have meet­ings with the par­ents, how many could come? I don’t know where to start, boy. Where could we start, boy?” he won­dered. 

Over at Pep­per Hill, an el­der­ly cou­ple, Pas­tor Clarence and his wife, Melin­da, live in a part board, part con­crete home.

They said they are safe from crime, but not oth­er is­sues.

“The re­al com­plaint we have is the road. WASA start­ed dig­ging and just left it there. It wors­ened, and it came right across the road. They are say­ing it’s a pipe.

“We have prob­lems with wa­ter. There is wa­ter in the line, but it is not pow­er­ful enough to go in the tank. They keep say­ing yes, they are send­ing the wa­ter. But they say one pump is work­ing, one down. The pipes are burst­ing,” Melin­da com­plained.

Pas­tor Clarence, known by al­most every­one in To­co, is more con­cerned by the state of the com­mu­ni­ty’s youth. The life­long To­co res­i­dent, the son of a fish­er­man, said while he’s seen To­co de­vel­op sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the years, it has brought chal­lenges.

“The young peo­ple, I pray for young peo­ple every day—Trinidad as a whole. They don’t have re­gard for old­er peo­ple now. It’s a big change there. Not every­body is in­volved in crime, but you’ll find the in­flu­ence is com­ing from out­side and in­ter­act­ing with the young peo­ple here.

“As a young boy, it had a love. My fa­ther was a fish­er­man, and when he caught fish, every­body in Pep­per Hill used to get fish. He used to make a gar­den, and when he took out pro­vi­sion, every­body had pro­vi­sion. It is not hap­pen­ing again. I had a gar­den, but they kept raid­ing it, and you can’t tell them any­thing,” he said.

Over­hear­ing the con­ver­sa­tion, a young man from Pep­per Hill, in his late teens, said young peo­ple in the area don’t want to be heard. He said many have been led astray.

“I find the po­lice should be go­ing around and talk­ing to peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty and ask­ing peo­ple about their prob­lems. That’s one of the things we need in the area. They should be go­ing around talk­ing to priests and lead­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty; not just look­ing for crime and do­ing road­blocks and that kind of thing.

“Around here you could do Cepep—clean up the road. It has op­por­tu­ni­ties. It al­ways has op­por­tu­ni­ties. This Sep­tem­ber, I am go­ing to UTT to do an agri­cul­ture pro­gramme and they are pay­ing me to go. The youths don’t want any­thing, broth­er,” he said.

MP Mon­roe:

Re­lief com­ing

MP for To­co/San­gre Grande, Roger Mon­roe, ad­dressed the is­sues raised by res­i­dents.

Wa­ter Prob­lems: “We have been hav­ing some chal­lenges from time to time, whether it is to deal with tur­bid­i­ty when we are deal­ing with bad weath­er or we have some un­war­rant­ed log­ging and in­ter­fer­ence up­stream from time to time that may cause the plant to shut down, or whether we have some ma­jor leaks that may ap­pear from dif­fer­ent places along the road­way, which we try to re­pair and keep the sys­tem up and run­ning.

“How­ev­er, what I could say is that very soon, through IDB fund­ing, the Tom­pire Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant and the Matu­ra Wa­ter Treat­ment Plant and those wa­ter treat­ment plants are go­ing to un­der­go ma­jor up­grades to mit­i­gate all those is­sues, even some pipeline re­place­ment projects to get rid of some of the age­ing pipelines. All of those works are al­ready on the work pro­gramme and we are just wait­ing for a fi­nal sign off and those work pro­grammes will start to mit­i­gate our wa­ter chal­lenges.”

 Roads: “We do in­tend to con­tin­ue road up­grades from the Va­len­cia Old Road ex­it all the way in­to To­co. The ex­pres­sions of in­ter­est were al­ready placed in the pub­lic do­main by NID­CO, and the ten­ders were al­ready closed off, and we should soon see the com­mence­ment of road­works head­ing that way in con­tin­u­a­tion of the road up­grades that start­ed in Va­len­cia.”

Op­por­tu­ni­ties for Youth: “Cur­rent­ly, there are a host of pro­grammes made avail­able through the Min­istry of Youth. How­ev­er, we have re­alised that be­cause of the ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion, it may be a lit­tle te­dious for some peo­ple to ac­cept it. I’ve spo­ken to the Min­is­ter of Youth and Na­tion­al Ser­vice, who has agreed that we are go­ing to use some of our cen­tres, be­tween Matu­ra and Matelot, and bring some of those pro­grammes to them. I have al­so en­gaged in con­ver­sa­tions, which will be fi­nalised pret­ty soon with an of­fi­cial at MIC to bring some pro­grammes as well there, which will al­low the young peo­ple in those parts to ven­ture in­to dif­fer­ent skill-based cours­es and what­not—both male and fe­male.”