Yvonne Ba­boolal

When you are in La Sei­va in Mara­cas Val­ley, St Joseph, you feel con­stant­ly over­awed by the green moun­tains which loom every­where over the small vil­lage in the val­ley. Much of La Sei­va, a stone's throw from An­drews Uni­ver­si­ty af­fil­i­at­ed Uni­ver­si­ty of the South­ern Caribbean, op­er­at­ed by the Ad­ven­tist Church, is cra­dled in the moun­tains of the North­ern Range. The Mara­cas/St Joseph Riv­er run­ning at the side of the vil­lage adds to the feel­ing of cool­ness. It is in this once sparse­ly-pop­u­lat­ed vil­lage where ve­hi­cles hard­ly passed, that the af­flu­ent now want to live.

The well-paved road di­vides La Sei­va on one side, in­to posh hous­ing de­vel­op­ments like River­side Gar­dens and Mara­cas Gar­dens which have brought new res­i­dents to the vil­lage and, on the oth­er side, those who "born and grow" there. While the new de­vel­op­ments may have brought ben­e­fits to the area, vil­lagers are fear­ful of new en­vi­ron­men­tal dan­gers that have arisen. Res­i­dents spoke of the pro­tec­tive­ness of the moun­tains which have stood over them all their lives but now be­com­ing prime hous­ing spots. Tri­cia Ram­sumair, who runs a pop­u­lar shop in the vil­lage, rem­i­nisced, "Long time, here used to be so nice. There was hard­ly traf­fic," she said, re­fer­ring to the ve­hi­cles that sped con­stant­ly up and down the road. The pop­u­la­tion has since grown to be­tween 7,000 and 10,000.

TOP LEFT: Shirley Selvon, a La Sei­va Vil­lage com­mu­ni­ty ac­tivist.

LEFT: Part of the moun­tain stripped bare for a hous­ing de­vel­op­ment.

TOP RIGHT:The Mara­cas Val­ley/St Joseph Riv­er–no longer used by vil­lagers.

RIGHT: Will­mot Ab­erdeen, vil­lage coun­cil mem­ber.

Moun­tains be­ing de­stroyed

"Unau­tho­rised en­try strict­ly for­bid­den," the sign on the gal­vanised fence in La Ba­ja warned. Be­hind the wall, a part of the moun­tain lay stripped of its cloth­ing of veg­e­ta­tion "like if you take a knife and pass it across," a vil­lager said. This is a new hous­ing de­vel­op­ment that is be­ing con­struct­ed in La Sei­va, re­port­ed­ly by a man with PNM links. The project, which was start­ed two years ago, was tem­porar­i­ly halt­ed af­ter a protest by the Mara­cas Val­ley Ac­tion Com­mit­tee.

Many of the pro­test­ers in­clud­ed farm­ers who had been plant­i­ng toma­toes and cu­cum­bers on the land. Ac­cord­ing to for­mer La Sei­va vil­lage coun­cil pres­i­dent, Barthol Selvon, the hous­ing de­vel­op­ment may do some good, af­ter all. "This was a slash and burn area. It was al­ways bare of veg­e­ta­tion. There used to be a fire on this part of the moun­tains every year. "The hous­ing de­vel­op­ment may bring drainage and trees."

Pol­lu­tion

Pol­lu­tion of the vil­lage's riv­er, once a chief source of recre­ation, is one of the wor­ry­ing side ef­fects of hous­ing de­vel­op­ments in La Sei­va, Selvon not­ed, how­ev­er. The riv­er's clear wa­ter trick­les over boul­ders but it's a de­cep­tion, vil­lagers say. Hap­py splash­es and laugh­ter are no longer heard here and not a soul was seen in the riv­er last Mon­day.

"No­body bathes in the riv­er any more," Selvon said. "If you bathe, you're bathing at your own risk." His wife, Shirley, re­called when catch­ing fish in the riv­er and mak­ing a cook was a reg­u­lar pas­time of vil­lage youth. "My chil­dren learnt to swim in that riv­er." Selvon said mal­func­tion­ing sewage treat­ment plants from the hous­ing de­vel­op­ments re­lease raw waste in­to the wa­ter. "Some­times, you even get the scent," he said. Quar­ry­ing high­er up the moun­tain al­so brings down residue which has changed the con­tent and colour of the wa­ter, vil­lagers say.

An­ti-crime ban­ners on the mul­ti-pur­pose court.

Crime

"Chil­dren of the val­ley say we will stop crime." The ban­ner was at­tached to the fence of the mul­ti-pur­pose court in Cen­tre Trace, where a num­ber of youth lounged around. One young man said the hous­ing de­vel­op­ments, while neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ing the en­vi­ron­ment, pro­vid­ed work for them. "Plen­ty youths up here un­em­ployed. Cepep and URP have their squad al­ready." He point­ed out, "We're not delin­quents or thieves." Crime, some vil­lagers say crept in­to the vil­lage in 2006 and has been a grow­ing prob­lem ever since.

Selvon said a mur­der in Cen­tre Trace rocked the val­ley in 2006 and vil­lagers got to­geth­er and walked the streets pray­ing for nine days. Shirley said peo­ple did not want to come to the com­mu­ni­ty cen­tre in Cen­tre Trace where there is a home­work cen­tre, li­brary and a Gov­ern­ment mon­ey-lend­ing fa­cil­i­ty for small busi­ness­es. She said with the help of Crime Stop­pers, vil­lagers fought against crime in the area. "The poster on the fence of the court is one we en­tered in a Crime Stop­pers com­pe­ti­tion." The Selvons said af­ter their prayers and ef­forts, there was no ma­jor crime in La Sei­va.

Tri­cia Ram­sumair at­tends to cus­tomers from be­hind bur­glar-proof­ing.

The con­tin­u­ing pet­ty crimes, break-ins and rob­beries, are enough to want to make oth­er res­i­dents pack up and leave, how­ev­er. "If I could get out, I will," a res­i­dent said. "There is too much crime. There was even a rape." Will­mot Ab­erdeen, a top mem­ber of the vil­lage coun­cil, said while La Sei­va is filled with green­ery, there is no "green recre­ation­al space" for vil­lagers. "We used a piece of land in Moun­tain View but it was sold and the new own­er has been seek­ing to re­strict vil­lagers from us­ing it." He said the coun­cil has been try­ing to get the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide a prop­er recre­ation­al park for vil­lagers.