Shal­iza Has­sanali and Michelle Loubon

Rev Ju­liana Pe­na, spir­i­tu­al ad­vis­er of for­mer prime min­is­ter, Patrick Man­ning, has been spot­ted at Lala­ja Road, Blan­chisseuse. Lala­ja Road is lo­cat­ed four-and-a-half miles along the Blan­chisseuse Main Road from Ari­ma. Sources spot­ted Pe­na in the yard where the di­lap­i­dat­ed, white co­coa house is lo­cat­ed, at the dead end of a forest­ed road called Old Pitch Road. There is a clus­ter of julie man­go trees near­by. The prop­er­ty is said to be owned by Pe­na's es­tranged hus­band Eu­ston De­venish. Emerg­ing from the bush­es, a sur­prised vil­lager told Sun­day Guardian, he greet­ed Pe­na some three weeks ago. A brief tete-a-tete en­sued, the vil­lager dis­closed. The source said she was seen gar­den­ing in the area. Most res­i­dents re­fused to di­vulge in­for­ma­tion on her where­abouts.

Vil­lagers de­scribed the co­coa house where Pe­na is re­port­ed to have found refuge as "a shack and not fit for liv­ing." When the Sun­day Guardian got to the co­coa house af­ter more than 30 min­utes of walk­ing along rugged ter­rain, Pe­na was nowhere to be found yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, sources said she was still in hid­ing in the rur­al com­mu­ni­ty. The co­coa house sits at ground lev­el. The weath­er-beat­en boards are fad­ing. Out­side, there is a blue bar­rel which catch­es rain wa­ter. At the back, a stain­less steel kitchen sink is lo­cat­ed ad­ja­cent to the wash sink and makeshift bath­room. PVC pipelines are at­tached to both sinks. To date, re­ports had said Pe­na trav­els ex­ten­sive­ly of­ten vis­it­ing coun­tries in Africa like South Africa and Swazi­land.

But re­cent in­for­ma­tion said Pe­na, who hails from Ari­ma Old Road, was back in T&T. Since word spread like wild­fire that she had been linked to the con­struc­tion of the Light­house of The Lord Je­sus Christ church at Heights of Gua­napo, Ari­ma she could not be lo­cat­ed. Her fam­i­ly mem­bers and mem­bers of her for­mer Je­sus The Light of This World Con­gre­ga­tion said they did not know where Pe­na is.

Es­tranged hus­band: I can't re­call see­ing her

A stone's throw be­fore the co­coa house is a white bun­ga­low that be­longs to an­ti-quar­ry ac­tivist, Gem­ma "Duchess" Hemp­son. A group of young Unit­ed States-based re­searchers study­ing fish­es like gup­pies and wabine in the area around the Asa Wright Na­ture Cen­tre said, "We rent the house from Duchess." They said they pay De­venish for park­ing close to the co­coa house when they ac­cess the area to do their re­search. When con­tact­ed about his wife's where­abouts, De­venish laughed hearti­ly. He said, "I don't know. That doesn't make sense. I don't un­der­stand that. I am not aware of that." Quizzed on his thoughts on Gov­ern­ment's probe on Pe­na's use of State funds to fi­nance her over­seas trips through the coun­try's for­eign mis­sion, he said, "I don't have a clue. I am at a loss just as you.

LEFT: Ju­liana Pe­na's broth­er catch­es up on the news of the probe in Sat­ur­day's Guardian.

"I don't think they are se­ri­ous­ly go­ing af­ter her. I don't see why they can't get in touch with her. Asked whether he had seen her re­cent­ly, he added, "I can't re­call." Broth­er: She is in­no­cent

The broth­er of Ju­liana Pe­na, who wished to re­main anony­mous, said, "She is in­no­cent." Un­der the shade of a palm tree at Ari­ma Old Road, he said, "We are all con­cerned for her." He had a hint of a for­eign ac­cent. "But we know the Lord will take care of her. She has al­ways put her faith in him." Quizzed on her wher­abouts, he said, "I don't know. Even if I knew I would not say. I can't say any­more. I will get in trou­ble with my fam­i­ly." He ad­mit­ted he was un­aware of the probe. When he was hand­ed a copy of the Guardian, he looked at the pho­to of his sis­ter and smiled.

Mean­while, oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers closed the front doors. A small child ap­peared on the ve­ran­dah. Pe­na's moth­er was spot­ted peep­ing from be­hind the win­dows of a front room. Ef­forts to con­tact for­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter, Paula Gopee-Scoon proved fu­tile.