Montrose on the East Coast Demerara is home to approximately 1,500 residents. Montrose begins at Broad Street and ends at Last Street and has existed since the early 1960s, according to residents.
Montrose has a primary school, a mandir, a number of churches, a few bars, barber shops and beauty salons. It has an active Community Policing Group and also a youth group that plays cricket and competes against other villages on the East Coast Demerara from time to time.
Villagers enjoy basic amenities such as electricity, potable water and landline phones.
Maharanie Derichand, a resident of First Street, Montrose was chatting with her daughter-in-law Rehana Indranie when the World Beyond Georgetown showed up. Derichand moved to Montrose in 1964. “We [she and husband] was living in Plaisance and it was the time of the rioting and I went back to Anna Catherina with my parents. A day my husband was on his way to work at the LBI Estate to take a transfer to Leonora Estate [West Coast Demerara]. When he passing Montrose he see people squatting here and in the same year we build a small house here,” she said.
“The place had no drainage, no water, no light; nothing. Cows and goats use to come and graze here.
“It had like 20 houses when I come here. We had to pack up we clothes and go to the trench at the pump station and wash. The mud was terrible. By the time you reach home with the bucket water, half done to wash you foot. We use to walk to