Andronette Blackburn attends to a young customer in Mr Barney’s Mini Mart in Aripo on Monday.
Photo: Angelo Marcelle

Majestic mountains stood guard over this pristine beauty as the whistling of birds broke the silence. This is Aripo in the Northern Range, home of Trinidad and Tobago’s highest mountain peak, El Cerro del Aripo, which reaches some 3,000 feet. It is also where the Aripo caves are found.

The Aripo caves, home to oil birds, are T&T’s largest cave system.
Bounding the Aripo River is the Aripo Savannah, part of the Aripo Savannah Scientific Reserve, one of the last remaining patches of natural savannahs in T&T. Aripo is also where much of T&T’s “greens” (watercress) comes from and farmers’ fields stretch for acres in the valleys, irrigated by the clear waters of the Aripo River.

Rich in natural wonders, Aripo is only about eight miles east of the bustling town of Arima, yet is virtually shut off from the rest of the island by a lack of public transportation. Last Sunday, the Sunday Guardian visited the tiny village where there are some 500 residents, many of whom are descendants of the indigenous Carina (Caribs) and Locono (Arawaks). Aripo was the name of a flat baking stone on which the indigenous people made bread, said Christo Adonis from the Amerindian Project Committee. While they live in the midst of a natural paradise, the Sunday Guardian got many tales of transportation woes, general government neglect, unemployment and underdeveloped human resources.

Some homes in Aripo don’t have pipe-borne water, despite the laying of lines more than two years ago. There is no health facility and a sick person must hire a vehicle to take him down the mountain to Sangre Grande or Arima. A long, winding road walled by mountains, so narrow in places that two vehicles cannot pass at the same time, leads to Aripo Village. This is the road that drivers of taxis and delivery trucks fear so much that they refuse to come into the village, Andronette Blackburn, operator at Mr Barney’s Mini Mart in Aripo said. The road was in a fairly good condition and the reason for their fear was not clear.

“Maybe they’re afraid of getting held up by bandits on the lonely stretch,” Blackburn offered. Villagers depend heavily on the mini-mart for their grocery supplies. “We have to hire somebody to go outside and get supplies. None of the big trucks, like Kiss, come in here,” Blackburn said. School absenteeism was also common in Aripo, for the same reason. There is no school bus, no public transport and few private taxis, students attending school in Arima and environs often stay at home because they cannot find a way out.
Village activist and businessman Benedict Valentine said, “My van is the buggy that carries people out on mornings and brings them back on evenings when they are suffering for a ride.”

In Aripo it’s a common sight to see residents hopping rides on the back of pick-up trucks that go in and out of the village for “greens.” Villagers are still waiting on the bus that Minister of Works and Transport Colm Imbert announced was assigned to Aripo a few months ago. “That we are yet to see. No bus ever came here,” Valentine said. Brian Juanette, head of communications at the Public Transport Service Corporation, admitted that such an announcement wwas made but said, “it as not feasible.” “The roads at Aripo made it very difficult for any of our buses to operate there. No maxi-taxi is willing to run the route either.”

River conch and lilies

Roy Kallicharan continues his grandfather and father’s tradition of planting watercress in Aripo, even against all odds. “One problem is water and greens need plenty of clean water to grow healthy and nice,” he said. “I made a dam near the Aripo River and I irrigate the field. But depending on the weather condition, it won’t grow at all.” Kallicharan said the cutting of vegetation near the source of the Aripo River also has affected the water quantity. The cost of chemicals and fertilisers is another ongoing headache.

“In 2007, one bag of Blau Korn was $180. Now it’s $500 and change. Swiper jumped from $80 a gallon to $300.” Kallicharan said it costs him $1,500 to grow 1,500 bundles of greens on one-and-a-half acres, which he sells in Sangre Grande and Arima. Efforts to get the Agriculture Ministry to fix the dilapidated access road leading to his farm have also proved futile, he said. Kallicharan even battles with nature, in the form of lilies and river conch, to grow his greens.

“The conch eat out the greens. I use copper sulphate to get rid of them. If you don’t take off the lily it will melt all your greens. I have to wash them out two, three times before I reap the crop.”
Only a handful of Aripo villagers are into watercress farming. The rest are unemployed. Asked why, Blackburn replied: “The trouble to get in and out of Aripo.” She said a lot of the youth know the Aripo Caves and nature trails, but there’s no avenue for them to use the knowledge. “The Tourism Ministry could use them as tour guides,” she suggested.