Holding back the years

WITH residents and government about to engage in further talks over the Curepe Interchange Project which is set to displace more than 15 families in the Southern Main Road and the Spring Village areas, Curepe, residents on Tuesday reminisced on the days when the community was just beginning to grow.

Newsday visited homes which would be affected by the continued progress of the area, where residents said their families had lived and settled in that area, long before there was even a road into the village.

Residents told Newsday they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years filling the land to reach the level of the current road, and to make improvements and upgrades to their homes.

Dularie Maharaj told Newsday in an interview that her deceased husband would spend most of his salary gathering materials to upgrade their home. Eventually their property housed not only the family home but the family business.

“My husband used to work in Trinidad Contractors and when he got paid sometimes I would cry, because all his money was going into dirt. He got the opportunity to bring the land up to the road level and pave it, and the tractors didn’t charge him to level the land,” Maharaj said

She said, before he died 25 years ago he also built a mini mart, with the help of the males in the family, that was in operation up until 2013, when the first announcements of the intention to claim the land for public use were made.

“Before we would plant garden and sell produce in the market or we would go on the highway and sell,” Maharaj said. “After a while he said we have a good place to open a business. We called the business Maharaj Mini Mart. We would sell chicken, produce, dry goods and fruits. I had a good few customers from the village that would buy on a regular basis, because I used to sell at the same price as the market.”

“Here didn’t even have a road,” said relatives of Boodram Tarouba, who was born on his property in Spring Village 78 years ago. “When he was born, this house wasn’t even standing. He was born in a wooden house. The area was always quiet and nice. Big businessmen would come and offer to buy the place but they wouldn’t sell it.”

Relatives added that the man had lived at the property for his entire life and raised chickens and big breed dogs to make ends meet.

Now, Tarouba is in hospital being observed for a heart condition while his 73-year-old wife remains at the home, and is unable to move on her own because of a stroke.

Tarouba’s relatives told Newsday since heavy machinery began being parked outside his house, he had been having serious health issues with his heart. On Tuesday he was taken to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, where he is currently under observation. Relatives believe that he has been stressing over the negotiations.

“Since the machinery appeared in front of his house he would sit outside and cry like a little child every day,” a relative said. “It is 78 years the man living here. No one would want to leave their home after such a long time... but such is the price of progress...”

Residents added that part of the agreement for the acquisition of the land was that they would be given land in Caroni, however residents said the land which they were shown were undeveloped and would take even more money and more years to make intoa place that could be considered liveable.

Since 2013 residents were notified of the Government’s intention to use their land to build an interchange between the Southern Main Road and the Churchill Roosevelt Highway. There has since been a tit-for-tat with the value of the land, which is to be bought by government. The Valuation Division said in previous press conferences that the land, on average, is valued between $150 - $200 per square foot, but relatives claim that the land is worth much more according to their valuators.