ASK any six people at random in St Thomas western what they think of conditions in their constituency and half of them will tell you things are so bad, they think they have been forgotten.

“When yuh deh dis side is like yuh nuh inna di world,” says Damion Tracy.

Tracy says his community of Trinityville, the constituency as a whole, and the wider parish of St Thomas, have been neglected by successive political representatives. The result is a depressing combination of extremely poor roads, high unemployment, limited training and recreation opportunities for young people.

“Everyday mi glad mi learn a trade enuh ,’cause nutten else nuh roun’ here fi people do,” the 30-year-old mechanic says. “Nuff woman go di class [at a training centre in the community] an’ get dem certificate but still cyaan get no job.”

Vernal Thompson agrees. “There is nothing for the young people.,” he laments. “There is no centre for recreation. The councillor promised one and said plans are in place but wi nuh see nutten yet.”

“Dis part is like a condemned end,” says Robert ‘Duppy’ Graham of his Black Lane community in Seaforth.

A self-described jack-of-all-trades, Graham, who is busy repairing the spokes on a bicycle wheel as he talks with the Sunday Observer, says there is an abundance of skill in his community but there are no training facilities to formalise or strengthen those skills.

“Wi have good skills, but wi haffi leave from here go way ah Lyssons ah di Paul Bogle [training] centre. We need one in the area for Cedar Valley, Danvers Pen, Whitehall, Hillside, Georgia, Trinityville and Somerset,” he says. The men sitting by the roadside with him agree.

Seaforth is home to Canco, an agro-processing processing plant that deals in ackee and calaloo but its operations are not on a scale large enough to absorb the unattached and unemployed in the area.

“Nuh progress nah gwaan. Man haffi leave from here go Portland go work in coffee fi achieve,” one of Graham’s colleagues say.

In Woodburn, a small community in the Llandewey division where we stumble upon a group of young people playing Bingo on a shop piazza on Thursday afternoon, the sentiments of neglect continue.

“Nobody nuh memba wi roun’ here so,” is Cheryl Allen’s opinion.

“Roun’ here is like a dead end. Yuh don’t even haffi tek dis road fi go Llandewey, yuh can use di other road an’ bypass wi altogether so yuh nuh haffi pass Woodburn.”

It is predominantly a farming community, but the condition of the roads makes it difficult to get goods outside and to the market. Young people have it particularly difficult.

“After high school, those who manage to go into youth service go. Otherwise, they sit on the corner and see what they can juggle, play Bingo or go bird shooting,” says 21-year-old past student of Excelsior High in Kingston, Ryan McFarlane, almost telling his own story.

Odette Carr has a similar story.

“I went to Seaforth High, did six months at Yallahs post office through National Youth Service. When my time expired, I went to Yallahs Primary where my aunt worked and did two months there until she retired. That was two years ago,” she tells the Sunday Observer.

Since then, Carr says she shoots birds to sell at agricultural shows at Denbigh and Hague and sells mangoes when they are in season.

The potential of farming as a source of income is alluded to in Cedar Valley as well, but the state of the road infrastructure is terrible.

The road up the valley, from the round-a-bout at Morant Bay to the square at Cedar Valley is the longest 11-mile journey you’ll ever take. In some places it is nothing but wide pools of muddy water, in others it is all stone and pebbles where the river successfully ate away at the asphalt. At one section, in the community of Lebanus, houses toppled over in the river and whole sections of road that were washed out provide evidence of hurricanes past.

Here, taxis are few and far between, and in some places, such as Village Road, people are forced to walk across the Man-of-War tributary to get home.

“Wi have whole heap of food but no road fi carry it go market,” says Delano Robinson. “Wi eat weh wi can eat, weh wi cyaan eat go to waste.”

The Blue Mountain Coffee Co-operative at Moyhall used to employ a number of Cedar Valley residents, but since it closed two years ago, several of them have been out of work. To some people though, like Rosemarie Lee who once worked at Moyhall, the road situation is a much graver problem.

“Is just di road ah di problem,” she says. “Wi nuh too mine seh wi nuh have no work because from wi have road wi will have money ’cause di goods can go out.”

Still, unemployment ranks at the top of the list of problems for many constituents of St Thomas western. In Whitehorses, a community with a beautiful view of the sea, things are not so pretty for labourers such as Derrick Afflick or Donovan Turgott who farms and does construction work.

“You have a lot of guys in here who not working” says Turgott. Mi do construction work and is one year now mi nuh get no work. Mi woulda glad if somebody call mi right now.”

“It hard fi common labourer an tradesman,” adds Afflick. “Work hard fi get because no infrastructure nuh set up fi wi get nutten. No factory, no nutten.”

Farmer Horace Reid, who makes a living selling produce to the people in his community, rather than going to the market, agrees, saying elected representatives are to be blamed for young people not having anything to do but sit on the street and idle.

Similar sentiments are expressed in Yallahs where residents say theft and shootings are on the increase.

“Wi want some development fi di yout dem,” says Joseph Loague who stops on Main Street to buy market produce.

The market — which has been leased to a private individual — closed nearly five years ago, vendors say, because of a lack of sanitary conveniences. Some of them relocated across the street in front of the Hilda-Maud plaza but it is not ideal as there still isn’t any sanitary convenience and there isn’t any place for proper garbage disposal.