No ac­cess to mo­tor ve­hi­cles means no way to trans­port their goods.
“I would say I lost around 50 thou­sand dol­lars re­cent­ly,” one farmer told Guardian Me­dia near the site of a di­lap­i­dat­ed Bridge along Joseph Lewis Trace in Tal­paro.
It may be a small res­i­den­tial com­mu­ni­ty but a large farm­ing pop­u­la­tion. From or­gan­ic eggs to cit­rus to hon­ey. The bridge was their sole means of ac­cess­ing the com­mu­ni­ty but now it has be­come lit­er­al­ly two planks of wood and con­demned to foot traf­fic on­ly.
For years the bridge has been far from ac­cept­able but they made it work. Now they can’t work.

” I afraid to even tote stuff on my back be­cause of the ex­cess weight, I don’t feel that bridge stur­dy enough,” an­oth­er farmer said.
Res­i­dents and farm­ers alike now have ve­hi­cles on ei­ther side of the bridge. The ve­hi­cles on the side of the main road are lucky, they can be dri­ven out of the com­mu­ni­ty at any time. Those with their ve­hi­cles still in their homes have to leave them parked. There’s nowhere to go.

How­ev­er, this is not on­ly about their liveli­hood but their lives.
” One time it had a fire and the fire sta­tion told us they can’t reach. “
They say the is­sue is be­ing tossed be­tween the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port and the Cou­va Tabaquite Tal­paro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion.

The res­i­dents and farm­ers said they were will­ing to pro­vide the funds to re­pair the bridge but were blocked from do­ing so.
They now wait for help to come with ner­vous glances up­wards to the grey clouds that threat­en to bring with it the rain that wash­es away the lit­tle of the bridge that re­mains.

Re­porter: Akash Sama­roo