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Around Trinidad and Tobago
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Blanchisseuse must not be forgotten - Pt 5
Bridge on Blanchisseuse road
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Staff Article
Interview Recorded: March 01, 2005
Posted: March 07, 2005
Laziness is the problem. Long ago, yuh making yah coconut bake, yuh have to put wood below, yuh put yuh fire top and bottom and yuh roast yuh bake, top and bottom. I remember when we use to go Best Village and we cyar have enough bake; we had people lining up for bake. Now, in Blanchisseuse or the North Coast, yuh have bread van coming up here three times ah week, so nobody eh baking, and the easy part of it, is that everybody have stove. Long time yuh didn't have stove. Now yuh put yuh bread in de oven and yuh bread doing its business. Yuh eh have to go and look for wood and chip-up wood. The thing about that is, the people I am talking about not employed people. When ah lady has three or four children and dey coming to buy bread, how much bread yuh could buy?
Concerning the roads right now, an agreement has been made that they are going to start repairing the roads from Maracas Bay coming up. We have fifteen millions dollars to repair La Fillet. The contracts will be awarded in April month from La Fillet to come to Blanchisseuse. What I understood is that they couldn't start the roads before, so they started in January due to the landslide. This month March, they should start doing that, and when they finish that part they will do La Fillet in April. The Minister said they expect to finish in a year. They said they are just paving because government say too much money has been wasted. They will be doing everything, fixing and building up the roads properly, put proper drains and everything, because when you build the roads properly you can expect good service. But if you just put asphalt on it, in a short time it gone through. So that is the work they intend to do this time. They said they are making sure that things are done in the proper way so that it will last.
The contractors will more or less come with their own employees, but they always take some people from here. But, as I said before, you haven't got tradesmen, so you find all the tradesmen coming from outside. It wasn't for lack of trying on the authority's part, people just didn't come out. The people want to do an hour's work for eight hours pay, whereas if yuh doing ah trade, a tradesman has to work the whole day. Instead, they go and scratch and then they go home and lime and look for trouble. They should go and learn a trade. Right now the whole of Trinidad is calling for skilled people and they have to take people from the islands to come here to work, because there is a shortage of tradesmen. If you learn a trade, you cyar come an' tell me yuh working for two hours, yuh coming to work for a day and that will take you from 7am to 5pm. But they doh want that 'cause they doh have time to lime. So when the skills part pass, you have no part to play in it because they have no need for you. But, they doh see that. So that is the basic behind, 'yuh doh have time to lime.'
What we have a problem with, is water in the whole area. I picked that up with the minister and they suppose to send a team next week (week of the 07-03-05). In Las Cuevas the people complain that they only get water two or three days ah week. They get water from the Rincon River. It is only about four years now since La Fillet has pipe borne water, and they are also getting trouble, sometimes two or three days they are without water. In Blanchisseuse we have problems right through. When it has sun we have no water, when it has rain, we have no water. About forty years or so, when I was still going to school and they had water supply in Blanchisseuse, they build it where just very few had water. But as time went by, now everybody has water. The source of the water was very small and the containers were small because you had no improvement. There is a local catchment but they are still getting problems with the pumping. The minister said they are making arrangements to send up a team to discuss it with us next week (week of the 07-03-05). We have been making noise for years now about water in Blanchisseuse. With regards to La Fillet, it was only two weeks ago it was brought to my attention at the regional meeting in Las Cuevas, so I took it up with them.
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View Blanchisseuse Photo Album at:
www.trinisoca.com/gallery/blanchisseuse
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