Photos by Joanna Dhanraj
Spring Garden is one of the many villages situated on the Essequibo Coast. The village is home to approximately 500 persons with families such as the Laltoos, the Ramnarines, the Arjunes, the Doobays and the Ramnauths said to be among the first settlers many decades ago.
Geeta Sahadeo, a daughter-in-law of the Laltoos, was at her relatives, enjoying a family get-together with a visiting relative.
“I live here like 18 years now,” Sahadeo said. “I used to live in Aurora before but moved when I got married. Spring Garden was nothing like this when I come here. It had mud road and lots of bushes with like about ten houses. That time was hard because remember it didn’t had so much transportation and then the road was bad too. When I come here it had pipes in the yards but most times they didn’t work. Some seize up and the few of them that work only gave water when the pump station working. But that time people never used to care about pipes. They used to get water from the front trench and the back trench; that we used to wash, bathe and water plants with. The rain water is what we used to drink and cook with. Now day and night, water coming.”
Beyond the houses are flooded rice fields and nearby an airstrip running between the rice fields and the back trench that Sahadeo spoke about.
“The airstrip was once functioning but only a few weeks ago they started to move things out of the building [Spring Garden Maintenance Aviation Inc]. The airstrip was privately owned and flights were mainly for emergencies. I think the last time they used the airstrip for flying was a month ago, so is like a week or more they close now,” she said.
According to the woman, persons wishing to get to Georgetown without having to use the boats could board a flight at the Kayman Sankar Airstrip situated in Hampton Court.
While Sahadeo spoke a siren wailed in the distance as an ambulance sped by, likely to get its patients on one of the speedboats at Good Hope.