One Friday in October last year, a blast from a horn shattered the quiet of Kako village and Nelvie Williams dashed to her boat and rushed to block a pontoon carrying gold-mining equipment from proceeding further up the Kako River.
The diminutive schoolteacher was joined by many villagers who in their canoes and boats rushed to block the river in a stand-off with the miner who, according to residents, was accompanied by armed policemen. From the banks of the river, children watched, some crying even as some others were in the middle of the stand-off in the river.
October 5, 2012, the date of the third attempt by the miner to pass Kako village, is a day that residents of the remote Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) community remember well.
