Photos by Joanna Dhanraj
Abigail Brand was born and raised at Good Hope and is a former teacher at Good Hope Primary School. According to her, the village has been around since the 1800s and her life is steeped in its history. Her mother was born here also, she said, and her forebears were among the freed slaves who pooled their money and bought Good Hope.
“We’re like one family. Most persons are related,” Brand said. According to her, the village has somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 residents.
“Growing up here I can remember playing doll house with my school friends. We used to like play ketcha too. We used to go and play by the canal, which is far in the backdam. Who could have swim used to swim but I couldn’t,” she said.
The Suddie Hospital is the closest one to the village; her sister works as a nurse there.
She, too, noted the flooding during heavy rainfall and high tides. Brand said her father tries a bit with farming. Recently with the heavy rain he was forced to lift his pumpkins along with the vines to higher ground. That, she said, is a disadvantage.
“One good thing about living here though, is we have the stelling very close to us along with the speedboat service. We also have the school and the health centre… However, I think we need to see some more infrastructure as in roads. We need roads down at the back where persons are living. All they have are track ways.
“We also need a housing scheme where persons can buy their own house lots [and for] “our playgrounds to be fixed for our young people.”
She added, “We also need a recreational facility; a library would benefit us well.