After you travel the thirty five miles from Charity you arrive at the mouth of the Wakapau Creek. Afterwards you travel a further fifteen miles inland, before you finally arrive at Wakapau, the community. All told, Wakapau comprises seventeen tiny islands and is bordered by Akawini to the south and Manawarin to the west. Wakapau houses one of the largest Amerindian communities in Region Two, Pomeroon-Supernam. It is, to say the least, a geographic conundrum. Time and circumstances confined the Stabroek Business’ visit to just one of those seventeen islands, Massarie, where we met with the community’s amiable Toshao, Lloyd Pereira.
Wakapau is a fairly ordered community. The residents plant coffee, pineapple, bitter cassava, yam, eddo, and coconut. This is what, mostly, keeps the community of around 2,000 residents going. About 300 of them are farmers. Bitter cassava is key to the livelihoods in the community. It is the critical ingredient in the production of Cassava Bread, Cassareep and Cassava Starch. These products are mostly sold at the Charity Market on the Essequibo Coast. Mondays are lively days at Wakapau. Sizeable numbers of shopkeepers, agro-processors and pensioners leave the community at around 06:00 hrs for Charity. They spend much of the day there, trading and shopping. They get to Charity either in their own small boats or they travel with the larger substantive passenger boat.
