The barrel and bamboo affair

It’s quite amazing how much money this country has to give away and yet the Government is still not able to fix the roads properly. Repairing the roads in this country means using barrels, bamboo and if you’re lucky, some quarry muck. Thank God most of the landslides occur in rural areas because where would the government get bamboo to “repair” landslides if they occurred in urban areas? Although they cannot fix the roads properly, and landslides get worse when it rains, the Government continues to blame the people for the flooding. The authorities responsible for dealing with flooding complain that Hindus throw their jhandis in the rivers, thus clogging them and causing the flooding.

But this is not so. First of all, Hindus plant their jhandis in the ground and, secondly, when the bamboos begin to rot they are left in the earth to wither. Some are burnt. They are not thrown into the rivers. How do bamboos get into the rivers? Well, when the bamboos that are used to “repair” landslides begin to rot, and it is time to replace them with new ones, the rotting ones are thrown into the rivers by workers. So basically, when the government “repairs” the roads and landslides, they not only encourage pollution, but are destroying the environment. Seriously speaking, bamboos may soon become extinct if the government keeps “repairing” roads this way. Immediate attention is never paid to landslides. It may take months or even years for a landslide to be repaired and when I say repaired I mean blocked off by bamboos and barrels. After that, more and more quarry muck is placed wherever the land slides, in an effort to make the road even. Thus, more weight is added and the land continues to slide.

On my daily adventure to and from work, I have noticed that material has been dropped off at points where there are landslides and extremely dangerous pot holes (I can’t say where there are potholes because that would be almost every road in Trinidad and Tobago). That material has been there for a number of months. It is being washed away on a daily basis. So not only are the resources of this country being wasted, but wouldn’t this clog rivers too? Apparently, dropping material off at disaster points is the government’s way of giving the people hope. Take the landslide in Flanagin Town for example. When I first saw some material next to it, I said to myself “thank God, they finally going to fix this landslide.”

That was probably early last year, but every month I would think “ok, they will fix it this month”, and this is just the type of thinking the government wants from the people. Up to today that material is still there, in lesser quantity of course. The material has not been used because the landslide was “repaired”, but lessened because half of it has been washed away and a quarter of it was probably taken away by people who decided to put it to good use; so now all that is left is about one quarter of what was put down in the first instance. The sight of material was geared toward giving residents of the area hope and leave them to continue living in hope. But hope has long faded and things are getting worse. Traffic heading to Tabaquite is now occupying the right side of the road, while traffic heading into Chaguanas is also occupying the right side of the road.

I know, it’s quite difficult to picture this but this is what is happening right now because one side of the road is  . . . well let’s just say one side of “the thing we call a road” is in a horrible state. If the Prime Minister were to take a drive on those roads, he would be able to say that he has been to hell and back. To me it seems as though any government’s concern is itself and no one else! Not the people, not infrastructure, nothing! Why is it so difficult to get something done in this country? The people would like progress but this cannot happen if we have governments with third world mentality. It is about time something is done for the people. People are just sick and tired of what is happening in this country. Gloria Steinem said “the future depends entirely on what each of us does every day.” Now we know where Trinidad and Tobago lies in the future.