Farm

Birds gather at the side of the road
Birds gather at the side of the road

Farm on the East Bank Demerara is nothing like its name, unless you count the little kitchen gardens here and there. Home to approximately 250 persons, Farm has a unique kind of warmth that extends even to the smallest child. Neighbours gather at each other’s places, enjoying a gaff or playing a game.

A high-five greeting as they pass each other by (Photo by Joanna Dhanraj)
A high-five greeting as they pass each other by (Photo by Joanna Dhanraj)

Many years ago, according to a few of the villagers, before the existence of Farm, the lands were all canefields of the Diamond Sugar Estate. Another smaller part of Farm was once Herstelling Cemetery. In the 1980s when the cemetery and the canefields were no longer of use the government told persons they could use the canefields for farming. However, persons decided to build homes; what was supposed to be a farm was called Farm after it became a residential area.

Stopping at a house in Farm, the World Beyond Georgetown came on Radah Ramanah chatting with her mother. She felt that the older ladies should speak about the village, so she called her neighbour Debbie and another neighbour, Dian Thomas from a few houses away.

Natasha Singh also known as Debbie came smiling not expecting to see a reporter there, since, according to her, her neighbours usually hollered for her for no reason at all.

Debbie came from the nearby village, Herstelling, 24 years ago after she noticed other persons squatting. She thought it would be an opportunity to have her own home as well. When she came there were four or five others squatting. Farm was canefields and a burial ground.

“The place was for farming but persons use it for housing instead,” she said. “The road was a mud dam and when rain fall, the mud use to reach yo knee. We use to walk a distance over to the other side [a few lots away separated by a canal] to get pipe water. Sometimes we use the trench water to wash we clothes and wares. The drainage was bad and when the rainy season come we use to get flood. Before we had the road, I use to sometimes got to fetch my father out before I reach the road where I can get a taxi to carry he to the hospital [during the rainy season],” said Debbie.

The drainage is still in an unstable condition but many years ago the level of the road was a lot higher so when the rain fell the yards flooded easily and because of bad drainage it took a while for the water to run off. Today however, the road has been graded and is now the same level as the house lots so they’re rarely affected by floods.

According to Debbie the villagers of Farm have access to electricity, water, internet and telephones; grocery trucks provide a door-to-door service. In addition, water, gas, soft drink and clothing trucks pass through the area. However, she pleads for street lights since some youngsters up to no good, particularly those high on marijuana from Farm and the nearby villages would often rob persons of petty stuff they may be carrying, sometimes as early as eight in the evening.

She counts herself blessed to have neighbours such as Radha and Dian; they are good neighbours who are always there. It is a custom to call out to each other every day just to check up on one another. In the afternoons, said Debbie, the children of Farm gather after school to play cricket while the adults look on or join in the game also.

A distance away resides a lover of birds, Narendra Singh, who has three or more birds in cages hanging from nails. He first gives a little history of Farm and how it originated from the canefields and the cemetery. “This place is a united place,” he said and goes on to give a   scenario. According to Singh, the villagers, tired of the muddy dam, pooled their monies together and had the dam sand filled. “The villagers worked hard to make this place what it is today. When I came here to live I was seven years old,” he said

Having grown up in Farm, he said, the ties between him and many of the villagers have become unbreakable. Singh noted that the Providence Nursery is situated in the compound of the Farm Community Centre Ground. The school, which also shares the same space with the Neighbourhood Democratic Council, was once situated in Providence but after it deteriorated, it was relocated to Farm. The community centre ground holds special memories for Singh since he played there while a teenager. Every week, teams from Farm, Herstelling and another village compete against each other in cricket.

Singh shares the same concern as Debbie regarding the young guys in his village. “Many of the youngsters here adapt this lifestyle of drinking and smoking,” he said. Singh thinks this is one of the reasons crime may be prevalent here.

He said the village seems boring during the day but once the children get home from school, it comes alive.

Angela Panday moved to Farm almost 20 years ago. She remembers life before the road was built. The road, she said, was so bad trucks were unable to get in so many houses were made from wood since the men would have to fetch the wood in. Today many houses are made of concrete. Many of the villagers have taken to some form of trade as carpenters or masons or mechanics while others settle for jobs at private firms. When Panday is not absorbed in her life as a mother and wife, she enjoys chatting with neighbours, Taramattie Raghnauth and Natasha Prasad who were present during the interview but preferred to let Panday do the talking.

What the neighbours do wish for is a bigger bridge so that when they purchase their own vehicles they’d have access to their homes. According to Panday, just before the recent elections the bridge was promised by former minister Manzoor Nadir. She is hoping that the new government could take this up. Panday said a few of the neighbours put pickets on the parapet in front of their houses although it’s the government reserve. She once had a vehicle that was kept out by the roadside and hopes to have another soon but wishes to have the bridge first since she and other neighbours don’t want to have to leave their vehicles out at nights.

The neighbours agreed that’s their only problem, since life here is one of comfort and peace, a life that they’ll not trade.