Big Biaboo, nestled between Little Biaboo and Grass Hook at Mahaica, has some 100 residents. The canal that separates the village from De Hoop Branch Road is linked by a bridge that allows access to several of the houses in Big Biaboo. However, most of the residents live along the Mahaica Creek and access their homes via boats.
Although the bridge provides entry into the village, my ride along the De Hoop Branch Road came to an abrupt halt at a dam into the road that made it inaccessible to vehicles. I looked up and down the dam trying to figure out if I could find my way around it when a car approaching interrupted my thoughts.
The driver parked on the road, opposite the many vehicles already parked in Little Biaboo belonging to those living in Big Biaboo and the villages beyond. His passenger, who was visibly under the influence, explained that he was headed to his home in Grass Hook and would have to drive his boat to get there.
The driver (no name given) indicated that he was a resident of Little Biaboo and had heard rumours of how his village and its neighbour got their names. “I don’t know if this is true but from what I hear Little Biaboo and Big Biaboo were owned by two brothers. Their father came from India and they grow up calling each other ‘bhaiyaa’ which means brother in Hindi. Villagers said that Big Biaboo was owned by the older brother and Little Biaboo by the younger brother…” he expounded. Bidding each other farewell, we continued on our way.
Picking my way along the edge of the badly deteriorated dam and past a small dragline parked and rotting in a walkway across from where ducks swam happily on a nearby pond, I arrived at Omawattie Outar house.
Born in Huntley, Mahaicony, Outar was a baby when her family moved to Big Biaboo, where her father had been born. She spent many happy days with her siblings and cousins, with whom she attended Little Biaboo Primary and Secondary schools. Packed into the family’s small canoe, three of them with a paddle each, they made their way to the school along the Mahaica Creek. “Back in those days, we used to write Common Entrance, then CP, then Prelims then GCE. We nah had CXC those days. Those days was hard to maintain a house; it used to be plenty of us packed in a small house. Back then my father used to do farming; he used to plant cash crops. We had cows also. My father and my brothers, they used to milk the cows. We used to get milk for ourselves and used to sell the [excess]. After that they used to plant plantain up the river, close to St Cuthbert’s Mission. My mother and brother used to sell the produce at Mahaica Market,” Outar recollected.
After getting married, she moved to Corentyne, Berbice with her husband, who has since passed away. They had no biological children, but adopted a daughter, who is now grown and lives on her own. In Corentyne, the woman said, she had only the house lot she lived on and it was not large enough for farming, so she returned to Big Biaboo. Outar lives on her own now but has ducks and pet cows. Her time is spent on her farm. The yard she lives in is planted from end to end with red beans, which she sells to market vendors.
Villagers have no access to electricity or potable water. Outar and the other Big Biaboo residents depend mainly on the rain and buy bottles of water for drinking; residents use the water from the creek to do their laundry and bathe, though a few drink the black water.
Outar said she does not really care for the services like electricity or potable water, she lives in comfort and only wants a proper road. She longs for the day when the $300 bus or the taxi can easily reach her home. Some years ago, during the previous administration one of the main problems was severe flooding in the rainy season and with high tides, but with the construction of the Hope Canal, floods have stopped.
Outar took me to her neighbours, a few lots away, saying she did not know whether I would be scared of her handful of cows. Pointing to a handsome bull, she said, “this is Chinee Bai’, then pointed out two other cows that were hers.
She stayed on the dam as I walked down a track leading to Moldeo Tillack’s place, though she warned that I should not go too far in because of his dogs. Once Tillack appeared, escorted by his dogs, she waved goodbye and left for her farm.
Big Biaboo has been home since Tillack’s birth. His “bottom-house,” he said, was where he and his 3 siblings played. They never ventured outside of their yard; there was nowhere to go. When they did leave the boundaries of home, they were headed for school or the backdam. Not much about this way of life has changed for the people of his community, except for residents packing up and leaving, some for abroad and others to put down roots in Hope Estate on the East Coast Demerara.
As he spoke, bird sounds offered sweet distraction and he indicated that the area was always filled with birds. They happily chirped and flitted about the plantain suckers that lined the side of his track.
He had ventured into the family business of farming and selling while still a teenager. He was 13 when he took up farming and planted mainly cash crops. Today, in addition to that, he plants rice and plantains also.
Tillack praised the Hope Canal, while adding that with the recent rains, had there not been a canal, his yard and the neighbours’ also, possibly their homes would have been in jeopardy of floods.
“The problem that we have here is the road. Nobody nah come look after this road. You nah see this road condition? Watch this what we got at the back hey. This is what dem children got to walk through when is time to go to school. The road very bad. Nobody nah seh fuh try and see how they can make the road better fuh we. Nobady nah come. Nothing….” his voice trailed off in lament.
The Mahaica Creek borders one side of his yard. Little boys, he said, swim in the creek but most stay away from the water said to be filled with piranhas. To be on the safe side, many persons bathe in their bathrooms or on the side of the creek.
Nobody uses the creek for fishing, he stated. Persons instead fish in the canals in the backdam. In fact, persons who venture into the backdam to do a bit of fishing have to go past Big Biaboo and they come from various communities in Guyana, Tillack said.
After giving birth to her at Bath Settlement, West Coast Berbice, Dulmattie Persaud’s mother returned with her Big Biaboo where her father was from. She also stayed in Big Biaboo after marrying her husband 35 years ago.
Her daughters, sitting a short distance behind her, eavesdropped on our conversation. They had brought their children and friends to visit their mother and sit by the creek. Dozens of parcels of bora (long beans) belonging to one of Persaud’s daughters lined a bench near them as if waiting for someone to purchase.
Persaud suffers from a chronic illness that sees her travelling to clinics at the Georgetown Public Hospital. The woman said that during the dry season, taxis would go as far as her yard to pick her up, but once it is raining, she has to take a boat to the bridge that separates her village from Little Biaboo where the taxi would be waiting for her.
Most families purchase groceries on a monthly basis. Should they run out of anything, the closest shop in the village is more than 15 minutes away by foot. If this shop does not have the required item, the second closest one is approximately 45 minutes away or more. The scenario of a child running an errand in the midday sun to one of the shops to purchase several things only to learn on getting back home that he/she had forgotten an item and had to go back was posed by a visitor. It hung in the air, unanswered.
Asked how safe it was having yards that were not fenced off from the creek when raising children, Persaud said it was not safe at all. She recalled that she could never do the laundry in peace as her children never stayed inside but were always behind her. On several occasions, they had fallen into the creek and she managed to grab them. They eventually learned to swim; she swims as well but it has been a while since she used that skill.
In the years gone by, she had learnt to paddle the canoe, but the dam had made it easy for traversing out of the area. The dam has worsened with time and making it into a road is at the top of her wish list.
Comparing Big Biaboo to living in the city, Persaud said one does not have to always have money to purchase vegetables. If there were none in one’s kitchen garden, then for sure one’s neighbours’ would have and one could count on them on providing what was needed for not a penny.
