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Blanchisseuse must not be forgotten - Pt 4
Young villagers pitching marbles in Morne La Croix Village
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TriniView.com Reporters
Interview Recorded: March 01, 2005
Posted: March 07, 2005
The population in Blanchisseuse is balancing all the time. When people get work, they leave an' they go out an' they doh come back, an' de village of itself has nothing much as work to offer, and the work it has, I foresee that we are out for trouble in Blanchisseuse. In the fishing industry, you find all now it slack off. From next month around April to about September, you might get about forty people going out in the sea at that time, because in that time is fishing season. Now you wouldn't get too much fish. If ah fella had a lil day work somewhere there, he wouldn't be liming all de time, but when the fishing season starts everybody goes out. So, you have seasonal workers. Up to Saturday I had a question about the fishing to the minister and I was saying, we have ah problem in Blanchisseuse maybe in the North Coast, because we have something yuh call jostlers, meaning when the boats come in and boats catching fish, everybody go by the boat, to hustle the boat, to help pull the boat to get ah fish and hustle. They make more money than the fishermen.
The problem come in when plenty of the parents have no control of the children because they doh go to school. When the boat coming in they go down and hustle on the beach. I was asking the minister if according to the age, if the law cyar come into dat, because when the police see the children there, they suppose to take the children to the parents. So, that is a problem we have here. I asked a lawyer about the legal age for children being out of school so that we could call the police and they would carry out their responsibilities as expected. The fishing place is right next to the police station so it is not hard to see. It is a nation-wide thing and an international as well, but when you are in a small community yuh feel it more and it worries me. Because I know the amount of effort I had to make going to the Meetings with Chin Aleong and the Ministry of Education to get the secondary school in de place. And the purpose of that as I said before is that the children will have enough time to get up for seven o clock in the morning for the bus at 7:30 for school, so they have ample time, and when you see that time is wasted away, it defeats the whole purpose. I had many meetings, so it wasn't easy in coming.
What we have again is, the young people not learning anything. The government Community Development and YTEPP are offering trade. When you start a class if has twenty-five, in the next two weeks you have five. They don't want to learn. Then again, we as parents have a responsibility with regards to their future. We have a development going on right now in the North Coast. Millions of dollars we spend, and all the tradesmen are from out of Blanchisseuse. Now if you have two you have plenty. You don't have masons, carpenters, electricians and plumbers. For the past fifteen years I remember saying that we have to prepare ourselves. Ah say YTEPP coming, yuh have to pay fifty dollars, no body come. But they were getting back the money. The fifty dollars was as a commitment to show that they were serious, because if you pay a little thing you might say well I pay my money I want to stay and eventually the money will spend back on you because they carry you on various outings, so you not giving them any money, they just doing that to see how committed. So if you want a tradesman you have to go outside for one. It is a shameful thing. Again, parents are responsible. Courses are being offered, the opportunities are there, but are we accepting it, no.
Agriculture is having a very hard time because people don't plant garden. When yuh want ah pepper, you have to go in the market and buy it in Port of Spain. If yuh want ah dasheen to make ah kalaloo yuh have to go out and buy it. If yuh want ah plantin yuh have to go out and buy it because the same people will sit by de road whole day an' lime. And I will say, well if yuh go an' make ah two hours ah day, yuh could plant enough t'ing for three hours and still have plenty time to go an' lime. You have land all over the place. If yuh go an' cut up ah piece of government state land, though yuh hardly have state land, no body eh go tell yuh anything. No body eh worrying 'bout that, so no obstacles. I always say, when somebody come ah speaking the truth and I am not hiding any faults.
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