CAPTURING THE
SUNSHINE OF CUMACA
Sunday Guardian
February 20, 2000
Page 21
Deep
into the Valencia Forest, a tiny village has no experience of proper roads,
running water, electricity, or telephones.
But it can boast of one technological advance - solar energy. Reporter Marlise
Andrews visits the district to find an Edenic community that continues
to subsist happily, despite the absence of basic amenities.
Not
many people seek to venture to Cumaca. Its route is potholed and precipitous. In most places, only five feet of road
separate the bare faces of exposed granite from deep gorges.
But
we grit our teeth and head into the depths of the Valencia forest that leads to
the village. The road meanders through
valuable timber trees and abandoned quarries.
Thick forests of immortelle and other plants line both sides of the
course, providing a canopy from the intense midday heat. The remote town lies buried in the Northern
Range, practically cut off from modern-day life.
As
we near Cumaca, we come across a white stone cross overlooking the road. Some say it marks the point where a Spanish
priest was murdered while coming to visit the area. Others believe it marks the highest point. In the old days people stopped there, and
prayed.
Earl
Lovelace brought enduring fame to this place by making it the setting of his
first novel, The Schoolmaster. He
describes the two rivers that, "stagger through the blue stone so plentiful
in Kumaca," and where the water, "is clear and in places, ice cold."
His
"Kumaca" is an Eden-like place.
Its inhabitants are blissfully ignorant and lead a simple life, almost
unperturbed, until the villagers decide to build a school.
The
story was set 50 years ago. The school
was built in the 1940s. Pappy Joe, a
villager in his 50s, says his father helped build the initial structure, with
its mud walls and a tapia roof.
It
is hard to imagine that this community has always existed without running
water, electricity or telephones. The
people who live here have intricate rainwater catchment systems. Corrugated iron guttering leads the water
into tanks. God alone knows how they
make out at night since the darkness of the forest is dense and foreboding.
The
houses are scattered along the road.
Some are visible. Most lurk
behind thick vegetation or balance on stilts on the edges of mountains. A house, painted in the same blue as the
sky, is perched on a very steep rock face below the road. Our guide says it was built in one
month. As we round the bend we realise
that the structure looks over an amazing view of the North Coast and the
Caribbean Sea.
We
arrive at the school about an hour and a half later. We tumble out of the van and meet Olsen Oliver who has been
Principal since 1994. 'Round his neck,
and pinned onto his shirt are symbols of the Catholic faith. He wears glasses with large frames that keep
slipping off his nose.
Behind
the building is dense forest. We are
told that, recently, a young boy was bitten by a mappipire while playing in the
bush. On the lawn in front the building
is a rusted swing-set.
We
soon hear children's voices. They are
eating paratha, curried mango, channa and potato provided by the National
School Feeding programme.
I
join representatives of the National Commission of Self-Help to view the school's
solar cells, installed to bring energy to the remote Cumaca.
To
view the solar cells one must scale a wall of ventilation locks to the roof
where they were located. The cells are
positioned to grasp as much sunlight as possible. The energy obtained powers fluorescent lights, a television set,
fridge and a computer at the school.
The rest is stored in five batteries with a converter to provide energy
for the night. The system cost $42,000.
Twenty
students, at various stages of academic achievement, attend the school. This year, three will sit the Common
Entrance exam. This school is the
centre of the Cumaca community. It
serves as church, community centre and reception hall since it is the only
structure in the area with the basic amenities.
The
children, ranging in age from five to about 14, steal glances at us. One little girl wears a pink dress with lacy
edging. The boys wear whatever they
could come by, and sit engrossed in learning mamoo weaving, being taught by one
of the villagers. The smaller children
play a game of "catch", and jump rope. They had shed their confining uniforms and were running about
barefooted, clad only in knickers.
We
sit down to a meal of cassava and curried chicken provided by Mrs. Pamponette,
one of the villagers. Almost everyone
here is called "Pamponette".
Oliver
reports that the children "shack-up" by the age of 16. Cumaca has come to be known as The Royal
Village, he said, because of the numbers of cousins who marry each other.
"There
are no recreational facilities here.
The young people have nothing much to do," he says.
Many
have opted to move out of Cumaca because of its isolation. There is no medical centre. Women here have to leave the area six months
before their babies are due since the closest medical centre is in Sangre
Grande.
Oliver
tries to bring the world tote h children of Cumaca. Written on one of the blackboards are the names, Dhanraj Singh,
Basdeo Panday, and Adesh Nanan. Every
night Oliver tapes the television news and shows it to the children the following
morning. They are then required to
write a report on what is going on in the country.
"Please
do not refer to our school as a rural school," asks Oliver, "but
rather, a school in a rural area."
"The
only thing wrong with Cumaca is the roads," says Pappy Joe. "When they fix that, then progress
would come."
But
although they would like some modernization, they do not want their
surroundings spoiled by tourism.