Geneve is a small community in Canal Number One between Bordeaux and Mes Delices and obliquely opposite De Kinderen and Uitkomst, because of its small population – less than 100 residents – it is considered a hamlet, rather than a village.
A few of the houses are closed and seem to have been so for years. A policeman-cap designed house and another with Victorian style trimmings are among a few that give Geneve its quaint ambience.
Wendell Alleyne stood outside a family home chatting with another resident. He explained that it was his wife who grew up in the area. She relocated with him to North Ruimveldt in Georgetown, but would visit on weekends and holidays bringing her family along with her. Geneve has since become a second home to the Alleynes.
Their son, Rashidi, enthused about the tranquility that comes with Geneve. “It’s different from the hustle and bustle of Georgetown. The roads are not as clustered and the air is fresh,” he said.
His father added, “In the years before the road wasn’t all that good but then they fixed the potholes. Canal generally is a quiet atmosphere. I like it for the breeze, as we said also, the tranquility. It is a farming community. The people here are friendly and cooperative. My wife and I got married in 1987… I’ve been coming here 32 years now. At first when we used to come we would catch transportation and because it was mostly on Sundays, the road wasn’t as busy so we used to catch a man who used to come in here to farm when we going out back but in here you never got to wait very long for transportation.”
Speaking of developments, he would want to see in the community, Alleyne called for better telephone services, street lights and a recreational ground where the family can hang out and play outdoor games.
Ann Williams hails from the village of Kabakaburi, Pomeroon River. Williams left her home close to two decades ago and settled in Canje, Berbice. Twelve years ago, she moved with her family to Geneve.
“When I come here years ago the area was more bushy and the people here did more farming then. I like it here, but I miss Pomeroon. Because I know the people there, I would go visiting by boat. Here I don’t know much of the people so there’s nowhere to go. I usually visit Kabakaburi once a year,” Williams said.
She has come to feel safe among the people of Geneve. The only challenge is travelling to Vreed-en-Hoop for fruits and vegetables. Her groceries are bought at the supermarket near Bagotville.
Out front, her son Jeremy laughed as he swung back and forth on his tyre swing hanging from a tree. A resident of another village in Canal Number One stepped out from behind her house with a bucket of mangoes. His son and nephew followed with their buckets that they planned on selling after.
Williams shared that she wants the community to have better drainage as heavy rainfall would cause overtopping of the drains and in some cases, floods.
Patricia Campbell was born in Moruca, North West District. She lived there until she was 19 then relocated to San Fele, Venezuela, where she lived for a long time before returning 6 years ago and settling in Geneve.
“I like living here more than when I lived in Venezuela. It was much busier there. Geneve is a quiet place, very nice place,” Campbell said.
The woman is a domestic worker and would come and go every fortnight. Getting to Georgetown where she works is easy especially since she does not have the hassle of travelling every day.
“I would want to see Geneve develop as in better roads and drainage…,” Campbell said.
Joannie English walked briskly along the Canal Polder Road. She was catching up on some afternoon exercise. Noticing some scorched trees, I called out to her to ask whether they were the result of the recent bush fires which she confirmed. At her home, her mother Evelyn sat on the verandah looking out into the community.
“Geneve is a hamlet as it is not widely populated. We had people like Sookrie living here, Balla, the Rogers and Azeez,” Evelyn said.
The 91-year-old woman is the oldest resident in Geneve. She comes from Victoria on the East Coast Demerara. “When I came here, they had earth at the side of the road, high up. They had a big bus that used to run. It used to come up to Vauxhall [four villages away]. The bus used to run up to 5 o’clock in the afternoon. If you miss the bus you had to walk to the junction [Bagotville] but you never used to feel it because it used to be a good set of us so you never used to feel it,” the elderly woman said.
“When I first move to Geneve it was very hard. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; Friday I gone to town at my sister. Up that side was bright but here was dull. There was no electricity. Who had money they had gas lamp but the road used to be dark. This road here wasn’t a nice road. When Jagan become Prime Minister, he grade the road and he put loam so we had a nice road until rain fall. When the rain fall and the bus them pass through, it used to turn to slush….
“When I came I couldn’t have lived here. At Victoria and Georgetown, you could have gone to theatre in the night but here was nothing; you always inside. After a time, I stayed and the people was very nice. I had two good friends. A man used to look after the government bull that used to serve the cows; they used to call him ‘Bull Man’ and his sister-in-law, she was very nice. The children used to call she ‘Chin Chin’. She [looked Chinese] but she did name Maduran Baksh. She said, ‘wha you run run ah town, plant the farm and then we gone guh to town’. I take her advice and I plant the farm and on Fridays we would put the load in the boat and go to town and sell and come back Saturday afternoon time like now. She used to sell cassava and oranges and pine.
“It had a man name Latchman. He said, ‘why you plant sheer cassava, cassava, plant pine nah.’ Me seh neighba that thing deh too much ah wuk and me ain’t able cut down them big tree. He get a bai name Buds to chop down the tree and I plant the pine. My life wasn’t as dull anymore. I plant the farm until I can’t plant anymore.
“Country life is very nice. Your children don’t deh in nothing with the police. In the morning before they go to school I tell them ‘you weed four banks of cassava and you weed so much’ and they would do it and in the afternoon when they come they would come and check on me in the backdam and they would deh with me.”
Evelyn said that the people of Geneve are progressive unlike the men who would hand about the road in Victoria in the early mornings.
Joannie who sat listening, had her bit to share: “Speaking from a younger version, a few of us [siblings] were born in Goed Fortuin but we come here very small. Looking back at what we were and would have experienced and now is vastly different. The children today are full of vice.
“I remember when we were children growing up, moonlight nights you would catch us playing on the roads, boys and girls; we would play salt and ketcha. We never had fences. We just had the drains and they jump across and we jump across. We used to eat from one another. They would say, ‘what y’all cooking today?’ and we would say ‘cook-up’ and then they’d say, ‘remember my cook-up’ and we would say, ‘what y’all cooking’ and they would say, ‘dhall puri’ and we would say, ‘remember my dhall puri’. It was such much fun. The days we had it could never come back; it is sad. People were so nice.”
Evelyn then recalled Phagwah and running into her house so as not to be soaked, but there was nowhere she could hide because her neighbours were coming for her. A wedding in the community meant that it was the community’s wedding. At a funeral, everyone came together and sympathized with each other.
Joannie continued, “I’m saying we can never get back there and one of the reasons we can never get back there is because of the politicians. They have put a wedge between the various races. We never used to think about race. We used to eat from each other, we play with each other, we used to borrow each other’s clothes, sad. In God’s sight, we all are one. I’m happy for those days. Those days made us who we are today.”
Sharing on the bush fires, Joannie said that Geneve would have been ravaged by the fire along with other villages in Canal Polder. She noted that she has never before seen the fire service visit the area so many times. They lost cinnamon and mango trees.
As it relates to developments, the English women wish to see a recreational facility/vocational centre where youths can learn to sew, cook, information technology, floral arrangements plumbing and other courses.
“I have been living here for all of my life,” resident and teacher of McGillivray Primary, Petal Henriques said. “I attended Two Brothers Primary School and most of the individuals who attended the school then, all walked… no bicycles.
“The village back then was far more rural than now. As we walked everybody greeted each other with a warm and friendly good morning and we could have identified every single individual living in every house. Now it’s different in terms of a lot of persons would have come into the community from different areas so persons are not too familiar with who’s living where right now. This community here does a lot of farming. Previously it was done on a very large scale in terms of pineapples, cassava and cash crops. The 2005 flood saw a lot of fruit trees being destroyed. You won’t find the psidium trees and the peach trees growing here now; we had lots of those. They died and no one has taken the initiative to replant those trees. These fruit trees take 7 years and more before they are [fully grown]; gooseberries was another one of these trees that died out.”
The woman shared of her fondest memories; she enjoyed going into the backdam with her grandparents. They would spend an hour every morning before school and during school breaks, they spent longer periods in the farm. She reminisces going to the backdam with her neighbour also, raiding all the whitey trees across Geneve. “The people then weren’t so mindful of us doing that then. Of course, I won’t encourage anyone to do that now; persons are more reserved. There are still a few whitey trees in the backdams,” she said.
Henriques shared that with the dry weather there have been several sporadic bush fires that have burnt through the farms. The woman shared that one of the fires began at the head of Geneve and ran up to the centre of the village while another began at the centre and continued to the end of the village. The fires were put out by the fire service.
Listing some of the most renowned families and persons who would have lived in the area, Henriques mentioned Teacher Selma, the Englishes, Trotmans, Mahases, Mother Baker, the Carrs, and the Rogerses.
As it relates to improvement in Geneve, Henriques noted that there should be speed bumps along the Canal Number One Road as was done in the part of Bagotville that connects to the Canal Polder Road. A recent traffic crash left a mother dead after an Easter Sunday outing with her family.
She then mentioned that Easter is less celebrated now. Many years ago, fathers, uncles and cousins would have begun teaching the younger boys long before the holiday how to make kites and put them up. “Persons would have lost interest, and this is not only for Easter but all the celebrations,” Henriques said.
