Auchlyne Estate is not like any ordinary village on the Corentyne; although it is located in the Lancaster/Bloomfield Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) it is managed by the Church of Scotland. The name ‘Auchlyne’ itself comes from an estate in Scotland, and is a corruption of a Gaelic word, the first part of which means ‘land.’
The village which has a population of about 400 is bordered by Bloomfield on the eastern side and Letter Kenny to the west. Residents have built their own homes on the land which they have leased from the management committee of the church and for which they pay a yearly rent of $3,000.
Located on the southern side of the public road is the Scottish-owned St Saviour’s Presbyterian Church, which has a cemetery in the compound. There are just three houses on that side and a mechanic shop and a hairdressing salon are operated from two of them.
The village also has a playground where the youths engage in cricket and circle tennis. They take part in organized matches and go to different areas, including Georgetown to compete. However, the playground needs fencing.
The village has eight teachers, including the head of the Lower Corentyne Secondary School. Some of the residents are employed in the security forces, while others work as nurses, health workers, sanitary inspectors and clerks; there is also a banker.
The residents access health care at the nearby health centres as well as at the Port Mourant and New Amsterdam Hospitals.
The Auchlyne Primary School which is located on the northern side of the public road was established and formerly run by the St Saviour’s Parish. It was later taken over by the government and rebuilt after the old building collapsed.
One of the retired head teachers of the school, Irene Sukhu, 80, lives a few blocks away. A teacher for almost 40 years, Sukhu still misses her job very much.
“It was hard to come off on retirement… I used to grieve about it,” she told this newspaper. It was for that reason that she still offers to teach a few primary school students at her home after school is dismissed. She teaches all the subjects, but focuses a lot more on reading, grammar and spelling which she noted are very important. She would also offer advice to people in the community who have a great respect for her.
The former head teacher spends her days “cooking and cleaning and going out to look for mould for my plants.” There is never a dull moment for her as she is also kept busy in her kitchen and flower gardens. She has a lot of fruit trees in her yard and gets pleasure from sharing the fruit and the produce from her kitchen garden with her neighbours.
Sukhu, originally from No. 56 Village moved to Auchlyne with her husband, the late Reverend Harry Sukhu. He owned a tailor’s shop, was a member of the rice board and worked in several Presbyterian churches around the country.
It was almost lunchtime at the Auchlyne Primary School and Grade 5 ‘B’ teacher, David Peters, 25, was wrapping up his session with his students when this newspaper looked in. Upon entering the classroom the students got up and politely greeted this reporter.
Peters, a graduate from the teacher’s college said while growing up he always wanted to be a teacher and has been following this profession for six years. He loves being among children and enjoys his job very much.
He said proudly that for the past two years the school has gotten 100% passes at the National Grade Six Exams. After sitting the exams students would move on to secondary schools in New Amsterdam and on the Corentyne.
He said he has been living in the village for 11 years after moving from Nigg Settlement with his family. A staunch Christian, he attends the St Francis Xavier Roman Catholic Church at Port Mourant.
Cotton plantation
Residents said the village which was a cotton plantation started out with just a few houses and became more populated over the last 20 years. At first, persons had to be members of the church to obtain a lease for the land, but that has since changed.
Even so, “no one wanted to live here because they could not get transport to transact business. But more people have applied because they wanted a place live.” They are proud that the village is “thriving” and that over the years they have been enjoying services such as electricity, water and telephones.
The church would do developmental work in the area, but residents feel that they are not doing enough and they would engage in “a lot of self-help work.” The NDC would provide the village with infrastructural work such as streets and drains.
Donetta Cort, treasurer of the Auchlyne Estate Management Committee, told the Sunday Stabroek that the estate would “pay the NDC to get the work done, but they are not doing enough.” She said too that “some of the residents are not paying the rent as they ought to. People are in arrears for six to seven years.”
Despite not owning the land, residents don’t normally happen with other people’s property. The area is nice; they have sandy soil to plant anything.”
Some of the proceeds from the rent would go towards paying the ministers of the church. Cort said there was a manse in the village over 40 years ago but that building was destroyed by fire.
They are presently constructing a new manse for the resident minister obliquely opposite the church. Another area in New Amsterdam is also owned by the church and residents pay a rent to occupy there as well.
Residents said they traversed mud streets for many years. Joan Leitch, 61, who was working as the overseer of the NDC said she made representation to the former Regional Chairman, Kumkarran Ramdass for the main street to be upgraded. The street was subsequently built with red brick and residents were relieved, but still wanted it to be upgraded further.
Recently they approached the current chairman, Zulfikar Mustapha and were grateful after he agreed to a pitched street being constructed last year. Three of the cross streets in the village are made of red-brick and the other five are mud streets.
Leitch, who also worked as a magistrate’s clerk for over 20 years, is at present a supervisor with a security company. She has been living in the village since 2001.
Fish pond
A resident, Ayube Reasat, 60 has established a fish farm in the village and has a unique way of acquiring the fish such as tilapia, queriman, mullet and snook as well as shrimp for the pond.
He explained that the fingerlings come directly from in the ocean when he takes in water via a koker to the ponds during the high tides. The shrimp, he said take eight weeks to grow and the fish, a period of five to six months.
Unlike other fish ponds where the fingerlings are purchased, he does not have to provide feed for the fish. “The feed comes naturally from the ocean,” he said.
He told this publication that he took over the business in 2007 from his father-in-law (now deceased) who started it in 1978. The farm which stretches over 75 acres is divided into six sections. Reasat who is a member of the National Aquaculture Association of Guyana (NAAG) is happy that they are getting assistance from the government. He and a few other farmers are planning to form an association which would enable them to find an export market for the fish. He sells his catch in wholesale and retail quantities at the Rose Hall market and said he always has a steady supply.
Sahai Dindyal
Retired headmaster, Sahai Dindyal, 60, who is originally from the Essequibo Coast moved to Auchlyne in 1979, four years after marrying, Ivy Dindyal, also a retired teacher. He taught at several schools in Essequibo and then at Auchlyne, Wellington Park and Albion Primary schools before moving back to Auchlyne where he completed his career.
Most of his years in the profession were spent preparing students for the Common Entrance.
He felt privileged to have taught his three children in that class as well. His children qualified as a civil engineer, a pharmacist and an environmental health officer.
During his tenure as headmaster of the Auchlyne Primary he was instrumental in introducing an ‘honours roll’ board where the names of past head teachers and past top students were posted.
He said proudly too that while the school was being renovated he got the contractors to build a bus shed nearby as well as a ‘bicycle shed’ in the compound. He had instructed that the bicycle shed be built with seats as he envisaged that it would have multiple purposes. Some of its uses
include a lunch and waiting area and for driving classes for the police. The bus shed, unfortunately has fallen into a state of disrepair.
Dindyal loves imparting his knowledge and spends his spare time giving weekly lessons to students in the area who are preparing for the CSEC exams. The lessons are given free of cost and it is just one of the ways of serving his community.
He also assists persons to prepare their income tax returns, National Insurance Scheme and immigration visa forms, sales agreements as well as other documents. Further he helps to construct letters for persons and also offers advice about legal matters.
Dindyal has also been involved in many developmental activities in the village. As Chairman of the Tenants Association he has always advocated for services such as roads, water and telephones. Since his retirement he has been involved in religious activities and is a member of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. He also worships weekly at the Williamsburg temple.
He loves living at Auchlyne and said the “people here are quiet, the neighbourhood is quiet and I have seen lots of development. The people are civil-minded; they are not quarrelsome and are conscious about the law.”
He said too that it is a “multi-racial village and the people would inter-mingle as one. We look out for each other. When my neighbours go out, they don’t even have to ask me, I would look over their houses and they would do the same for me…”
He has observed that parents are conscious about sending their children to school and at least have a primary education. There are a few youths though, who work in the backdam from young ages.
Dindyal’s wife, Ivy, 59 taught at eight schools, including two on the Essequibo Coast. She retired at Canje Secondary as an acting deputy head teacher. The woman who fully supports her husband in his effort to help the community loves to take care of her flower plants.
Village life
As a young girl, 85-year-old Evelyn ‘Lucille’ Mathura who never attended school used to go out to sea to catch fish and shrimp with a hand seine. Originally from Whim, she sold her catch at the Whim market.
After she got married at age 20 she moved with her husband to the Rupununi and Brazil where he worked as a foreman for a cattle ranch. She spent 10 years in those areas before moving back to Whim and purchasing a house for $1.
Her husband had rented eight lots at Auchlyne Estate from the church to start a cash crop and fruit farm. Mathura sold the produce at the markets at Skeldon, Whim, Port Mourant and Rose Hall.
This newspaper was at the home of another elderly woman, Gajmatie Basdeo, known as ‘Aunty Julie’ when Mathura was walking along the street. They called out to her and she gladly shared stories about her life, including how she met her husband. Her witty ‘story-telling’ also made us laugh. Basdeo and Mathura are both staunch Christians and they attend church almost every Sunday.
Basdeo moved to the village from Bath Settlement at the age of 25 after she got married to Cyril Jaggernauth, 78. From a young age she left school to take care of her 10 younger siblings while er parents worked in the cane-fields.
When she moved to Auchlyne she started planting a small portion of rice to supplement her husband’s income. He was working at the sugar estate as a labourer. Basdeo said she did not hire anyone to work in the rice field with her because “the money I woulda use to pay people me could use it in de home.” She is unable to do a lot of chores now though, because she fell out of her hammock 10 years ago and injured her right shoulder.
Her husband told this newspaper that during the out-of-crop season he used a piece of wooden plank to drift out at sea to fish. He would also take along a wooden box for the fish which Basdeo would sell at the market.
Another resident, Ernie Tindell, 62 loved living in the area but said there are problems with petty thieves sometimes. She is now part of the recently-formed Community Policing Group (CPG) and “we are trying our best with security… we need more residents to come on board.” The woman explained that the group has joined with the Whim and Letter Kenny CPGs and they plan to patrol the area at nights.
She wants the cross streets to be fixed better and said too that the area has no proper drainage.
Tindell was employed with the Guyana Rice Develop-ment Board and the Ministry of Education and was distressed that “I worked diligently and up to now I cannot get through with my benefits.”
Wayne Thomas, 61, a retired post-master told the Sunday Stabroek that he has resided in the village for the past 16 years. He was born and grew up at Liverpool.
After his retirement he has kept busy planting a kitchen garden and tending to his banana plants.
He sells a little of his produce and would share the rest out to residents. He also said that they would be involved in “bartering; they would give me anything that they plant in return.” He enjoys farming and said it keeps him fit and helps him to occupy his spare time. But he does not depend on that alone to keep fit and would go jogging early in the mornings.
According to him, the village was supposed to be residential, but he has observed that some persons would behave “rowdy” at times.
Greens vendor at the Rose Hall and Port Mourant market, Debbie Matheson was returning home as this newspaper was leaving the village. She related that “selling is slow; money is not circulating for people to shop… the market is bad…”
She was finding it hard to take care of three daughters – two at high school and one at primary school – and her sick husband. Matheson was happy for the new market at Port Mourant although she said it was “not ready.” She pointed out that the roof was leaking and the “concrete flooring was
