Buenos Ayres, a village waiting to bloom again

RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The songs of kiskadees, wild macaws and Trinidad mot­mots still drift through the qui­et com­mu­ni­ty of Buenos Ayres.

Along for­got­ten es­tate roads, med­i­c­i­nal herbs grow wild, fish­er­men cast their lines from the Erin coast, and farm­ers con­tin­ue to cul­ti­vate small plots of fer­tile land. Yet be­neath the tran­quil­li­ty lies a com­mu­ni­ty long­ing for the re­turn of a pros­per­i­ty that once made this south-west­ern vil­lage one of Trinidad’s agri­cul­tur­al jew­els.

His­tor­i­cal sur­vey records from the late 1800s show that Buenos Ayres de­vel­oped along a key dirt tran­sit route link­ing north­ern es­tates, in­clud­ing La Brea, to the coastal steam­er ports of Erin. Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies re­search and Na­tion­al Archives records in­di­cate the area was once dom­i­nat­ed by thriv­ing co­coa, cof­fee and ton­ka bean es­tates, in­clud­ing those owned by Anadale and Fe­lipe Mejias.

For gen­er­a­tions, agri­cul­ture was the heart­beat of the com­mu­ni­ty.

Echoes of the co­coa pa­ny­ol lega­cy

Res­i­dent Clifton Richard­son said more than a cen­tu­ry ago, pirogues from near­by Venezuela reg­u­lar­ly crossed the Colum­bus Chan­nel car­ry­ing labour­ers to the sprawl­ing es­tates of Puer­to Grande and Buenos Ayres. At dawn, they ar­rived to work the fer­tile lands; by evening, some re­turned to the South Amer­i­can main­land. Oth­ers re­mained, es­tab­lished fam­i­lies and be­came part of the com­mu­ni­ty’s so­cial fab­ric.

From those unions emerged gen­er­a­tions of “co­coa pa­ny­ols”—Span­ish-speak­ing de­scen­dants whose cul­ture, lan­guage and love for parang mu­sic helped shape the iden­ti­ty of south Trinidad.

To­day, the es­tates have large­ly dis­ap­peared and many de­scen­dants of those pi­o­neer­ing fam­i­lies are ad­vanced in age. Yet the mem­o­ry of those flour­ish­ing years re­mains vivid.

Stand­ing near Jack­son Trace, Richard­son re­called the boom­ing ton­ka bean trade of the 1960s and 1970s, when agri­cul­ture pro­vid­ed em­ploy­ment for scores of fam­i­lies.

“Back then, as a young man grow­ing up, the main thing was ton­ka beans,” Richard­son said. “In them time, $80 for 100 pounds was plen­ty mon­ey.”

He re­mem­bers load­ing trucks by hand at the area’s red-earth quar­ry and watch­ing en­tire com­mu­ni­ties sur­vive through farm­ing and man­u­al labour.

Calls for an agri­cul­tur­al re­vival

While the es­tates are gone, Richard­son said the land re­mains—much of it un­cul­ti­vat­ed and over­grown.

That re­al­i­ty has led res­i­dents to push for what they de­scribe as a new agri­cul­tur­al rev­o­lu­tion: the re­vi­tal­i­sa­tion of farm­ing, the con­struc­tion of a down­stream agro-pro­cess­ing fac­to­ry, the es­tab­lish­ment of a trade school and im­proved sup­port for farm­ers.

“The farm­ers are hav­ing trou­ble with wa­ter and wa­ter sup­ply,” Richard­son said. “They say wa­ter for all. But I think wa­ter for all is wa­ter for some.”

He be­lieves a trade school com­bin­ing class­room in­struc­tion with prac­ti­cal skills train­ing could help stem the steady mi­gra­tion of young peo­ple seek­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties else­where.

“I would like to see a trade school. Prac­ti­cal, the­o­ry and prac­ti­cal be­cause the the­o­ry must go with the prac­ti­cal,” he said.

Richard­son al­so sup­ports the es­tab­lish­ment of a gov­ern­ment-backed agro-pro­cess­ing fa­cil­i­ty.

“I would like to see a process plant built up in this area be­cause the Gov­ern­ment has plen­ty land in Jack­son Trace. The Gov­ern­ment could build a process plant to en­cour­age the farm­ers to plant more.”

Young peo­ple seek­ing op­por­tu­ni­ty

The con­cern over youth mi­gra­tion is shared by 17-year-old en­tre­pre­neur Aren Tay­lor.

De­spite his age, Tay­lor has al­ready es­tab­lished a bar­ber­ing busi­ness af­ter teach­ing him­self the trade through on­line tu­to­ri­als on YouTube. He de­signed his own shop, mar­kets his work on so­cial me­dia and be­lieves Buenos Ayres pos­sess­es un­tapped tourism and agri­cul­tur­al po­ten­tial.

“We need some kind of fac­to­ry or some­thing where­by we could get em­ploy­ment,” Tay­lor said.

“There’s no re­al em­ploy­ment-gen­er­at­ing mech­a­nism at this point in time in this area. Every­body has to re­al­ly work out­side.”

The re­sult, he said, has been a steady loss of tal­ent as young peo­ple leave for em­ploy­ment and of­ten set­tle per­ma­nent­ly else­where.

Tay­lor be­lieves the so­lu­tion lies in putting the com­mu­ni­ty’s vast tracts of agri­cul­tur­al land back in­to pro­duc­tive use.

“The land is still there, ac­ces­si­ble, and there’s a re­newed in­ter­est by the younger gen­er­a­tion to re­pro­duce in the land so that if they are giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty and the re­sources, I be­lieve that we could make these lands pro­duc­tive again.”

Like many res­i­dents, he be­lieves a com­bi­na­tion of lo­cal ex­per­tise and mi­grant labour could help re­ac­ti­vate the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor that once sus­tained the vil­lage.

Search­ing for sta­ble work

For skilled trades­man Shi­mon Critchlow, the strug­gle for em­ploy­ment is a fa­mil­iar one.

Un­able to find suf­fi­cient work lo­cal­ly, he left Buenos Ayres be­fore even­tu­al­ly re­turn­ing home.

“We don’t have enough work down here,” he said. “We need like a fac­to­ry, some­thing sta­ble.”

To­day, Critchlow ap­plies his weld­ing skills through­out the dis­trict, help­ing con­struct roofs and com­mu­ni­ty fa­cil­i­ties. How­ev­er, he be­lieves eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty has slowed sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

“Every­thing is a lit­tle slow­ing down right now,” he ob­served.

Liv­ing off the land

De­spite these chal­lenges, res­i­dents say Buenos Ayres con­tin­ues to pro­duce re­source­ful and in­de­pen­dent peo­ple.

Among them is 44-year-old grand­moth­er Joseann Matthews, a health, safe­ty and en­vi­ron­ment of­fi­cer who em­braces a lifestyle root­ed in nat­ur­al liv­ing and home­school­ing.

Sur­round­ed by an abun­dance of med­i­c­i­nal herbs, Matthews be­gins each day with bush teas har­vest­ed from the sur­round­ing coun­try­side. She be­lieves the area’s clean air, fresh food and ac­tive lifestyles con­tribute to the health and longevi­ty of its res­i­dents.

Her com­mit­ment to self-re­liance ex­tends to ed­u­ca­tion.

A decade ago, dis­sat­is­fied with the con­ven­tion­al school sys­tem, she with­drew her el­dest son, Ro­dri­go Sanchez, from Ves­signy Sec­ondary and took re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for his ed­u­ca­tion.

“I quit my job and with­in nine months, a lot of peo­ple told him his mom­my was crazy,” she said with a laugh.

The out­come sur­prised many crit­ics. Her son Sanchez com­plet­ed his CSEC ex­am­i­na­tions at age 14, earned his de­gree by age 19 and now owns his own home while work­ing full-time.

She is cur­rent­ly home­school­ing her nine-year-old son Stef­fon Bernard, who is prepar­ing for SEA and is self-taught on the tenor pan.

A lega­cy be­yond agri­cul­ture

Be­yond its agri­cul­tur­al lega­cy, Buenos Ayres has al­so made its mark on the na­tion­al cul­tur­al land­scape.

The com­mu­ni­ty is the birth­place of leg­endary ca­lyp­son­ian Cro Cro, born We­st­on Rawl­ins, who first honed his craft in small coun­try­side bars be­fore be­com­ing one of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s most recog­nised po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors through song. The vil­lage al­so pro­duced na­tion­al cy­clist Leslie Rawl­ins, steel­pan icon Leo Ko­ka and sev­er­al pan fes­ti­val cham­pi­ons.

Yet many res­i­dents in­sist the com­mu­ni­ty’s great­est he­roes are the gen­er­a­tions of agri­cul­tur­al fam­i­lies who sus­tained the vil­lage through co­coa, cof­fee, ton­ka beans and in­de­pen­dent farm­ing for more than a cen­tu­ry.

Res­i­dent Ana Crichlow be­lieves that the same spir­it of re­silience still ex­ists.

Al­though the co­coa trees no longer dom­i­nate the hill­sides, the es­tate hous­es have fad­ed in­to his­to­ry, and the pirogues car­ry­ing Venezue­lan labour­ers are no longer a dai­ly sight, she be­lieves the com­mu­ni­ty has not lost its po­ten­tial.

For res­i­dents, the in­gre­di­ents for re­vival are al­ready here: fer­tile land, skilled peo­ple, a strong agri­cul­tur­al tra­di­tion and a gen­er­a­tion ea­ger to build.

What they say is miss­ing is the in­vest­ment need­ed to make Buenos Ayres flour­ish once again.