Story and photos by Joanna Dhanraj
Le Ressouvenir is a lively little village situated on the East Coast Demerara. The name Le Ressouvenir is of French origin and means recollection.
The village is home to approximately 300 residents. Three of the first families to settle there were the Sarrans, the Dookies and the Sharmas.
Horses could be seen grazing along the road and in pastures in the village, but according to the villagers Le Ressouvenir has no horses. The village has a mosque; Demerara Paradise Inc, a private nursing home and medical facility; Tony’s Auto Spares; Demerara Bank and the Grand Coastal Hotel along with several small businesses.
Some of the cars traversing the road would stop and their occupants would make purchases at a roadside stall selling cane juice, food and snacks.
In one of the yards under a gigantic tree loaded with bird nests, a family sat around a table drinking merrily since it was someone’s birthday. In the nearby yard another family sat drinking also.
Irene Sarran was rocking in her hammock in the company of her grandson. A rundown building occupies the next lot; she said it was once a rice mill, owned by her late father. “When I was 15 or 16, I used to work at the mill. I used to come over and see that it clean. I used to live in Success [the neighbouring village] so I used to just walk over,” she said. Then after she got married she moved to Le Ressouvenir and has been there 50 years. She and her husband celebrated their golden wedding anniversary last month.
The mill, she said, was “bungalow shaped” but it flopped and as the years went by the building was renovated and sold.
Le Ressouvenir, according to Irene, was rumoured to have been bought by three brothers from the estate.
She said the village was very populated when she moved there, but as time went by residents migrated or died.
“The road was a muddy street. We had pipes when ah deh growing up, but when meh move hey, we didn’t had water so we used to walk to the trench. We had a boat and used to go wid it right over in Success and full up the jars and buckets and bring them back. We had kero lamps dem time that too; like in the eighties,” she recalled.
Some of the residents of the village work at the La Bonne Intention Estate or in Georgetown and in the afternoons a few of them go running on the seawall, the woman said. Concerning herself, she said, “I usually pass the day cooking, doing domestic work and busy with the grand.”
With the Easter holidays just around the corner she was asked what it was that villagers do at Easter. Persons she said would sometimes fly their kites in a pasture situated behind the houses or at the seawall. As we spoke her daughter-in-law’s nephew, Joshua Collins was in the backyard holding up a kite for his uncle to raise.
Sarran said she likes living there. “The place is quiet. It doesn’t flood here; only the [over-topping] of the drains and trenches. We need more street lights.”
A few houses away, the aroma of chicken curry being cooked permeated the air. The cook was Leila Kissoon, an employee of Laparkan.
“I have been living here 18 years now. It wasn’t that developed when I came here. The roads were very bad and it deteriorating again. When I came here I met friendly people. The people are all time friendly because the village is so small so everybody is like family,” she said, then added “They usually get together and drink on occasions. The people here are very helpful. If there’s a need in the village, they help out. If we’re building a bridge or a fence they would come out and help.”
Kissoon’s yard is used for weekly Sunday school and other nightly meetings. Her daughter, she said, teaches the Sunday school while she and two other members take charge of the nightly meetings. There are climbing frames and swings in a corner of the yard where the children play after Sunday school.
“We get the support of the other villagers,” she said, going inside intermittently to check on her curry.
A plane passed really low overhead; the Ogle International Airport is a short distance away. The children, she said, enjoy the seeing the planes and would run out as soon as they hear one.
Kissoon said she enjoys the comfort of living at Le Ressouvenir. “Water comes by in the mornings. I usually shop in Georgetown and sometimes at Mon Repos. Fish comes around every day plus there are two shops in the village. It is quiet and peaceful. I love it here. It’s comfortable; not far from Georgetown Public Hospital; not far from the East Coast Public Road; not far from the Mon Repos Market.”
At a shop down the street, four young men are playing dominoes. They said hello and agreed to have their photo taken.
Inside the shop, it was evident that the shopkeeper was also cooking curry; this one was even more pungent.
Around the side of the building, the shopkeeper and two other ladies were chatting.
Sarah David, was seated in the hammock. She lives upstairs in the building and had come down to enjoy the breeze and talk with her friends.
David was born in Le Ressouvenir and recalled a childhood of happy memories playing hopscotch and sal out with friends. “This place hardly had house when I was little. It had a lot of fruit trees like guava, mango and golden apple and then the houses started to go up,” she said. “Another family had a bakery and we used to go help them put the bread in plastic. People used to go at the bakery to bake their cakes especially around Christmas time since nobody really had oven that time. Then in the nineties the bakery closed,” she recalled.
Not having much more to say, Sarah summed it up: “The village is easy and quiet. Everybody go to church. Everybody cooperate.”
