Shieldstown, West Bank Berbice serves as a haven for its more than 1,500 residents. To get to this village, one would need to take a bus or car from the Berbice car or bus park in Georgetown to the Rosignol Stelling and then another car into the village. The distance is 107 kilometres from the city.
Shieldstown residents depend on fishing, farming and working at the Blairmont Sugar Estate for their livelihood. The village is said to have existed since the 1970s, when land was given to people living in another community called Rampoor. According to residents, the people who lived in Rampoor were descendants of indentured immigrants from India who worked on the sugar plantations.
“I was born in Rampoor,” Mohamed Nazool shared. “Here was cane field. We come out to live here in 1974 time. Nobody was living in this part then. The people who live in Rampoor was workers from the estate. After the train stop run, transportation was hard to come out from in there and if any of the women go into labour, it wasn’t easy to get them out from there.”
Nazool, a pensioner, is also a rural constable. He worked as a cane cutter and as a tractor driver at the Blairmont Estate for decades.
As a councillor/inspector for Shieldstown to Ithaca, Nazool is required to see that the peace is kept. Sometimes he visits and sometimes residents turn up at his Shieldstown residence hoping that he would help to solve their respective problems. They let him know what some of the needs are in the community and what matters he should bring up at the village meetings on their behalf.
The 68-year-old man said that one of the issues he would like looked into is the return of streetlights in the village. According to him, the lights were taken away by Guyana Power and Light some months ago without any explanation. While Shieldstown is a fairly safe place to live, some of the youths are involved in drugs and persons are always on the alert. The lights aided in security.
A Muslim, Nazool is an ardent member of the Shieldstown Mosque. Although many residents are Hindu, the village has several places of worship for the three main religions in Guyana.
A normal day finds Nazool tending his tiny kitchen garden – he also rears fowls and ducks – reading the newspapers and watching the news. Calalloo flourishes in his backyard and he said it provides not just for himself but for the neighbours around; he gives away most of it.
Shieldstown has several shops but Nazool and many of the villagers prefer to visit the supermarket in Rosignol.
Chetram Rambridge lazed in the breeze in his hammock beneath his house. Well known as ‘Hassaman’, he was also born in Rampoor. No one lives there anymore, Rambridge said, before adding that the once existing community is a cattle pasture.
At 68 years old, Rambridge spends most of his day at home. Sometimes he visits friends around the neighbourhood and sometimes they visit him instead. The born Hindu said he is too old to visit the mandir, so he prays at his altar at home.
According to the man, he spent most of his life catching fish and selling to residents of Shieldstown and neighbouring communities; he also worked as a cane cutter. “I used to ketch hassa, hurri, any kind ah bush fish and that’s how ah get the name Hassaman. I used to sell at Cotton Tree, Bath Settlement, Rosignol, Blairmont and them other areas. I used to sell $40 for a parcel fish with 13 or 14 fish in a parcel back in the day,” he said.
Although he hardly leaves Shieldstown now, Rambridge visited his children in the US some years ago. He does not plan on returning there, since, according to him, it is not a place for elderly people, especially when it comes to the cold weather and getting jobs. “Me ain’t able stay home there and watch dem four wall whole day. Me daughter get three TVs but whole day yuh gon watch TV? I don’t do nothing home here, but you know I got me friends. I can tek a two drink with them whenever ah want, and ah does do my own cooking and washing. My wife die about seven years now,” he said.
His pension is not enough, he noted, but he tries to make do because although his children sometimes send him money, he knows he cannot expect much from them as they have their own families to take care of.
Shieldstown, Rambridge said, is safer now than some decades ago. He related an incident he had with the police. “Ah got fence now but before me did put it in, thief man did run through me yard and cut through by the church [mandir] and gone. Police run two ah dem chap through this place. At that time, me bin ah cut cane and me bin ah try get me sleep. One o’clock in the morning the police knocking on me door, ‘Open yuh door! Open yuh door before meh bruk am down! You ah thief man.’ Moonlight bright outside, me seh, ‘Who is this man calling me thief man?’ He seh ‘Police.’ Me seh to he, ‘This hour me ah sleep and this hour you gon wake me up from me bed man and me gah guh wuk in the morning’. He tell me seh peep through the crease and see if is not the police and when me watch is two police suh me open the door. Then he seh ‘Oh, not you. Ah sorry fuh disturb you this hour ah the night.’ This was in 1978 this happen but now things different. You nah got to worry. The people alright man. It got one and two people with lil hard mouth who always mekking lil problem fuh anything.”
His two major concerns now are better drainage for his community and fixing of the roads.
Ronald Heralall was about to have his lunch when I arrived at his home. With many concerns on his mind, he put his plate down and went right into stating them. “First thing, the people here not getting job. Two, they close down three to four estate since this government come in power. They close down Rose Hall Estate over the river in Corentyne. They close down Wales Estate. Wales is a mess. They don’t have no control on the market. Today you go and buy for this price, tomorrow you go buy for another price and the other day you go buy for another price. They supposed to have someone dealing with the market specifically. People ah suffer, they got to go eat dry coconut at the backdam. Healthcare is another problem. When you go to the hospital or the health centre, half ah the medication they prescribe, you got to buy it from the pharmacy. It got them bai here smoking sheer dope in this area and when police come fuh them, they deh two hours back on the road; sheer bribery ah pass so it’s a whole mess in this country. This administration worse than the Burnham government administration, it’s worse,” he lamented.
Heralall was also born in Rampoor and said he wished they didn’t have to move. For him, Rampoor was one of the best communities in Guyana. The man claimed that it was officials from Booker’s that brought them out from the village and provided them with house lots. He paid a dollar for his plot of land.
For 44 years Heralall was employed at Blairmont Sugar Estate in the shovel gang. After becoming a pensioner, he lived abroad for several years but he and his wife returned because they could not deal with the winter season. “When you live over there, you get so much benefits as a pensioner. I could get my pension over there, but I have to be living there but I decide to come back here to live. You can’t want two sweetness pun one joint. I have my own house and it’s more comfortable here. I can do as I like here. I feel happier here. To add to this when I come back me nah used to pay for water and light; we used to get subsidy. Since this government come in, they cut out all of that and they know to raise their salary fifty percent the minute they come in power.”
While he talked, his wife was preparing to go to the mandir. She is a devout Hindu, he boasted, but quickly added that going to the mandir was not for him.
He shared his disgust at the removal of the streetlights and requested that they be reinstalled. The 71-year-old man said too that Shieldstown needs better streets and its own cemetery. Currently the residents bury their dead at Murphy Dam, which according to Heeralall is overcrowded.
Out in one of the streets in the hot sun, David Evans and his friend Ryan worked tirelessly on a plough. David shared that as a rice farmer, he uses the 27 Dam at Cotton Tree that allows him to access his farm; the dam is said to be the main one into the backdam. The condition of the dam, he said, makes it hard for him to take his tractor in, especially in the rainy season. When the dam gets really bad, he has to take the boat into the farm instead, which makes getting fertiliser in twice as hard because he cannot carry them all as he would have with the tractor.
Ryan, cutting in, claimed that farmers were promised more money for rice and added that public servants’ salaries were raised but the government has forgotten about the farmers. “Since the government tek office they ain’t doing nothing for this village. They bypass Shieldstown and go till to Ithaca and give them bulldozer, hymac, tractor, combine to cultivate how much acres of land. They had streetlights here and they tek it out. Ithaca now, when you go in there nighttime is like daytime. They left Shieldstown, they left Blairmont and go till to Ithaca. Abedese nah nobody but when time fuh election, they only know fuh come hey and tell the people what they want fuh tell the people,” Ryan argued.
Evans continued, “Since they go in power there was no wage increase for sugar workers and they gon come around again fool the people them again but not this trip, not this trip. You hear Bob Marley seh you can’t fool the same people twice.”
Farmers, he said, are in dire need of an all-weather dam as well as two aqueducts for the canal. As regards developments in the community, Evans indicated that ballfield needs a better fence and two pavilions and he added that every day the youths in the village would gather there to play cricket and other sports.
