Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Jour­nal­ist

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

Home to the hik­ing par­adis­es of Cumaca Cave and Tu­rure Wa­ter­steps, Cumaca has long of­fered vis­i­tors the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­plore the nat­ur­al beau­ty of North­east­ern Trinidad– away from the noise of ur­ban de­vel­op­ment fu­elled by the rich­es of oil and gas.

About 50 years ago, af­ter ex­ten­sive lob­by­ing, the vil­lage’s small group of res­i­dents got their wish, Cumaca Road was paved.

And in the years that fol­lowed, the parts of the vil­lage clos­est to Va­len­cia Road re­ceived an elec­tric­i­ty and pipe-borne wa­ter sup­ply.

But ac­cord­ing to many of Cumaca’s res­i­dents– be­lieved to be around 150 peo­ple in to­tal–there’s been no de­vel­op­ment in the area since.

And on top of be­ing de­prived, they said, they are no longer im­mune from the so­cial ills plagu­ing more de­vel­oped parts of the coun­try.

As one turns off Va­len­cia Road, on­to Cumaca Road, it be­comes im­me­di­ate­ly clear that the dri­ve or walk deep­er in­to the North­ern Range is go­ing to be a bumpy, dif­fi­cult one.

The ear­ly por­tion of the jour­ney isn’t bad–com­par­a­tive­ly, at least.

Con­crete homes, rel­a­tive­ly dis­tant apart, bound the edges of the road–their win­dows and doors shut tight.

It seems like any oth­er re­mote com­mu­ni­ty in east­ern Trinidad. That per­cep­tion changes as the road be­gins to wors­en. For every lone­ly is­land of smooth sur­face are mul­ti­tudes of deep crevices– full of peb­bles and large pieces of stone.

But the dri­ve still man­ages to of­fer seren­i­ty. The air breathes clean­er, lighter, and there’s an al­most per­fect si­lence. Cumaca still of­fers what is be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly rar­er– a glimpse of Trinidad’s na­ture, undis­turbed.

Around the halfway mark to the first main riv­er , which marks the be­gin­ning of the hike to Tu­rure Wa­ter Steps , is a small shop.

The shop of­fers sup­plies to oth­er vil­lagers, but these days, main­ly to the hik­ers stop­ping by in char­tered max­is.

On the pa­tio of the house above the shop, two res­i­dents and friends– Leon and Nigel– were dis­cussing life in Cumaca.

“You know how long we pray­ing that some­body, like your­self, will come through and see it. Noth­ing is be­ing done. Noth­ing. You see the strug­gle go­ing on up here? We don’t have wa­ter. We ain’t get wa­ter here in at least five years. We ei­ther use rain­wa­ter or ravine wa­ter to drink.

“That lit­tle drain you pass there, I scrape that. The pot­holes and stuff, we patch that. This is a for­got­ten area. And the tourism up here re­al nice for peo­ple. Be­cause if you go up on Youtube and type Tu­rure Wa­ter steps, you will see,” 30-year-old life­long res­i­dent Leon com­plained.

Leon’s friend and neigh­bour, 49-year-old Nigel, said he too hasn’t got­ten pipe born wa­ter in more than five years. He re­called a time when the road was in, at least, a de­cent state.

“Over a decade, since I was a lit­tle boy grow­ing up, part of this road was good and the road just keeps de­te­ri­o­rat­ing, and fur­ther up, worse. Right now, if they come up here look­ing for votes, they will get no re­sponse. None. Be­cause this is the on­ly time they know us.

“We fix our ve­hi­cle. As fast as you fix your ve­hi­cle, it’s like you are just wast­ing your time be­cause it’s the same thing go­ing to hap­pen with­in a month or two again. You could see how bad the road is. All the wa­ter runs on­to the road, and the wa­ter goes as high as your car bon­net,” he lament­ed.

They both com­plained of a lack of job op­por­tu­ni­ties, say­ing that one must go out to Va­len­cia in search of jobs. But even there they said is get­ting in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to find em­ploy­ment.

De­te­ri­o­ra­tion set­ting in

“The whole com­mu­ni­ty is de­te­ri­o­rat­ing. The road de­te­ri­o­rat­ing. Out­siders com­ing in and in­sid­ers go­ing out of the vil­lage. The road is not nice. It get­ting worse and then there was the flood that it had that caused the road to drop. Then it had two quar­ries up there, so the big trucks and ma­chin­ery dam­aged the road. When the big trucks pass, stones fall out and mash up your house glass, your ve­hi­cle glass.

“There isn’t even a recre­ation­al ground. There’s not even a shel­ter or bus shed so that you can shel­ter if you’re go­ing to the junc­tion and the rain starts to fall,” Cumaca res­i­dent Cyn­thia Marchant com­plained.

Cyn­thia in­her­it­ed the home built by her grand­moth­er - one of the first res­i­dents of the vil­lage.

She tried un­suc­cess­ful­ly to live out­side the vil­lage but re­turned to live with her grand­moth­er 65 years ago.

Life in Cumaca was so dif­fer­ent back then, she re­called. It was sim­pler. She’s nev­er had much mon­ey, she con­fessed. But now, her lone source of in­come is be­ing tak­en away.

She said, “I make my gar­den, but they are steal­ing all the crops. They are tak­ing it be­fore you har­vest it. It’s the young peo­ple from the oth­er side (Va­len­cia). When you leave your crops, when you go back to­mor­row, it is gone. It hard. I’m think­ing about leav­ing. If I get the mon­ey for the prop­er­ty, I gone. But go where? Go where?

“Trou­ble com­ing and meet­ing you in front of your door. Peo­ple have to be locked up in­side their homes. It had many times - just a few years ago - that I used to leave the front door open by mis­take and come back and see every­thing in or­der. Those days are gone,” Cyn­thia said, shak­ing her head.

When Guardian Me­dia ap­proached Cyn­thia to talk in her home, she was hes­i­tant and timid.

She lat­er con­fessed that her de­fault ap­proach to­ward strangers is now one of fear.

Crime has got­ten to such a state in the area, she said, that there was re­cent­ly a mur­der less than a mile away from her, and the de­liv­ery trucks no longer come at night.

“The flood dam­ag­ing the crops and the thieves do­ing the rest. From the gar­den, you are hear­ing gun­shots. You can’t even stoop down in the gar­den and pee - some­body watch­ing you. That’s what it reach to. It not easy. It not safe,” the pen­sion­er said.

As Cyn­thia spoke with Guardian Me­dia, her son, Chris­t­ian, chimed in.

In his 40s, Chris­t­ian sat bare­back, eyes blood­shot from a re­cent smoke, on the grey sur­face of the home’s con­crete dri­ve­way.

Next to him was his pair of house keys. Every time he goes out­side for some air he car­ries the key so that he can lock the door im­me­di­ate­ly when he comes back in­side.

“There are no op­por­tu­ni­ties for the youths. No projects, noth­ing. Things are get­ting worse with each day that pass­es.

“And these roads are ter­ri­ble. The sad part about it is the whole road lead­ing up in­to the for­est is owned by two gov­ern­ment or­gan­i­sa­tions– the re­gion­al cor­po­ra­tion and Min­istry of Works and Trans­port,” he said.

Cyn­thia agreed with her son, say­ing the con­di­tion of roads, a steady wa­ter sup­ply and poor drainage are all ma­jor is­sues, show­ing no signs of re­lief.

She said, “I have to beg him to help me cut an out­let for the wa­ter to pass- a drain.

“They not do­ing any­thing at all. Noth­ing. And they are laugh­ing at you when they get the vote be­cause they don’t have you to study. If we don’t de­vel­op it our own - for our­selves - noth­ing will hap­pen,” the pen­sion­er said in clos­ing.“ she added.

Sev­er­al oth­er res­i­dents com­plained about the same is­sues– the con­di­tion of the road, a prob­lem­at­ic wa­ter sup­ply and heavy flood­ing.

“I am here about four- and- a- half years . The state of the com­mu­ni­ty just get­ting worse. The flood­ing is bad too. The peo­ple de­vel­op the place, and they didn’t se­cure the drains. The wa­ter flows down on­to the road. It floods very bad­ly. The wa­ter digs up the road. From time to time, you would have a trac­tor dri­ving up, and they would dam­age the road,” an­oth­er res­i­dent said.

De­spite warn­ings from res­i­dents not to go past the first riv­er, the news team drove an­oth­er 40 min­utes or so un­til the sec­ond quar­ry– the St Al­bans Quar­ry.

The ar­du­ous jour­ney there was, at least, pic­turesque. Aban­doned Land Rover 4x4s of­fered a glimpse in­to the past, while gi­ant slabs of lime­stone hugged the nar­row, grav­el road tight­ly - all with a back­drop of the tran­quil green of the North­ern hills.

Af­ter fi­nal­ly mak­ing it to the St Al­ban’s Quar­ry, a watch­man said ‘Don’t go any fur­ther eh, boss. You may reach the vil­lage, but you will lose your ve­hi­cle.” The news team heed­ed his ad­vice.

No time for politi­cians or pol­i­tics

Af­ter leav­ing the vil­lage, the news team stopped at the Cumaca RC Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Va­len­cia. Es­sen­tial­ly all the chil­dren of Cumaca go there, as do some chil­dren from Va­len­cia. The two com­mu­ni­ties have a close-knit re­la­tion­ship, with many Cumacans al­so work­ing in Va­len­cia.

How­ev­er, there’s a be­lief in Cumaca that the so­cial ills of Va­len­cia are spilling over–par­tic­u­lar­ly in the form of crime.

In June, a par­ent of one of the pupils of Cumaca RC was shot on the com­pound. A group of res­i­dents out­side of the com­pound, when we vis­it­ed, com­plained bit­ter­ly about how near­by com­mu­ni­ties have been treat­ed by those in au­thor­i­ty.

“It get­ting worse? . You need to have things to feed peo­ple. Peo­ple need food, and in­cen­tives to keep mov­ing, just like a car need gas. If you don’t give us any­thing and we must de­pend on par­ents who are not mak­ing any­thing, they are frus­trat­ed, we are frus­trat­ed - the chil­dren are frus­trat­ed. What go­ing to hap­pen?

“The peo­ple in charge, they are not putting them­selves in a po­si­tion to be seen. They are dis­con­nect­ed. They know peo­ple need things, but they like to play with peo­ple’s minds and pam­per them. They not com­ing out to do what you are do­ing - a dan­ger­ous job com­ing out here. But if they come out here, they will deal with them - don’t get tie up,” a Rasta­far­i­an el­der, who de­clined to give his name, said. From the way he de­scribed him­self, he seemed to be a com­mu­ni­ty leader.

He said peo­ple are tired of po­lit­i­cal pro­pa­gan­da. It’s sim­ply about hav­ing and not hav­ing, and too many peo­ple don’t have, the Rasta­far­i­an said.

“If they come up here look­ing for votes– the UNC or PNM– we will stone them and spit on them. All this set of talk and tal. They could live on the salary that they are pay­ing peo­ple? Ask any of them, min­is­ters, if they could live on a $1,500 or $3,000 a month salary. They know what is need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ties.

“Peo­ple want food, and if they don’t have food to eat, and they are not hap­py and they can’t walk and talk and car­ry their fam­i­ly for ice cream or go to the beach, what go­ing to hap­pen? You don’t even have mon­ey to feed your live­stock, dread. What go­ing to hap­pen? Your chil­dren go­ing to starve. Your chil­dren are go­ing to turn to pros­ti­tu­tion and ban­dit­ry,” he said pas­sion­ate­ly.

He warned that the cur­rent gen­er­a­tion of youths are liv­ing by the mantra of ‘get rich or die try­ing.’

They have no time for politi­cians or pol­i­tics, he said.

He added: “They don’t have time to fath­om them be­cause they ain’t show­ing them any­thing. What is Row­ley show­ing them? Every time they see him his face is hard, ste­ups. This gen­er­a­tion is not afraid of jail, noth­ing. Them see­ing all their part­ner go­ing to jail and com­ing out - mak­ing mon­ey. They are mak­ing more mon­ey in jail than out­side. A cig­a­rette is $1 out­side. It’s $50 in jail, so they rather go to jail. They can eat and the sys­tem will see about them. They re­move care from their life…Alyuh putting pres­sure on the peo­ple. These set of hyp­ocrites need to un­der­stand there is God,” he end­ed by say­ing.

Di­ana, a CEPEP work­er and shop own­er, be­lieved that far more must be done in the com­mu­ni­ties to steer the youth away from crime. There are not enough pro­grammes in place, she said.

“It get­ting worse. Long time it used to have more to­geth­er­ness. The el­ders used to come out and keep the uni­ty firm, but now, lack of lead­er­ship be­cause if the el­ders don’t keep the youths firm, what will go on?”

“Neg­li­gence has a lot to do with it. I want to see things like pan tent com­ing back out. I want to see youths learn­ing to play pan. I want to see things like net­ball. If you come in­to my com­mu­ni­ty and speak with any youth, you would swear it is lit­tle men. I deal with all the youths in the com­mu­ni­ty. I see them like men, pick­ing up the gun and this is their in­ten­tion grow­ing up,” Di­ana al­so said.