Forty-one kilometres from Supenaam on the Essequibo Coast is the village of Windsor Castle, home to approximately 650 residents, most of whom do rice farming while some do cattle rearing and fishing.
It was raining when I visited and there was a light drizzle, which was not so much to keep folks indoors. A group of men sat at the Sparta Cricket Ground in the village talking about the upcoming elections; there were three days to go before they headed to the Windsor Castle Health Centre to vote. However, this topic was dropped almost instantly when they realized a reporter was in their village and they began pointing out what their village needed, and specifically the cricket ground. I did not need them to point out the dilapidated community centre; its condition was the first thing I noticed. The field, which had been recently weeded, was another concern as the men wanted some work to be done on it and proper pavilions built for persons viewing the games.
In a swollen canal that separated Windsor Castle from Sparta, a dead chicken floated. It was being tugged at by something beneath the water that was set on making a meal of it and it soon disappeared. Nearby, a young caiman fed on something in the corner of the canal.
Farmer, Roopnarine Persaud was over at another resident called Cyril (only name given) where his friend and his wife were having their photos taken by a roving photographer. Though he was visiting, he was voted by the couple to be the one to share his experience at Windsor Castle.
“I grow up here as a boy and start to work on the farm wid my parents since I was 13 years,” Persaud said.
Turning to farming today, he said, “Abbe got nuff issues. Abbe nah get wata, bugs eating the rice, dem nah pay you enough fuh wan bag, abbe nah get enough money to buy medicine fuh the plants and this and that.”
When told that farmers from neighbouring Sparta did not complain about drought, he said that was so because the land in that village was lower than Windsor Castle. Currently, farmers were pumping water from the canals around the rice fields. According to the man, water was usually pumped by the Dawa Pump Station from the Tapakuma Lake to fill the main canal and flood the rice fields.
Cyril who stood nearby stated that Regional Executive Officer Denis Jaikarran said that they did not receive the needed finance to provide the farmers with water and was rumoured to have said that the farmers would have to see about getting water themselves. Cyril also noted that he did not plant any rice this time around as one crop would cost him $700,000.
“Right now, one guy from Sparta, meh cousin, went in Hampton Court at Wazir Rice Mill fuh he rice money. They call he, they got nearly about $300,000 fuh he. This boy sick, he recently do bypass surgery and them call he fuh money. When he gone in, they offer he $30,000. The boy seh, ‘Hear when ayo get all ayo money, call me.’ And he left the money with them. You gon collect small, small piece, it finish and you nah do nothing, and you nah pay no debt…,” Cyril said.
The man further said that this was the only problem in the community before adding that they needed an all-weather road into the backdam.
Since Cyril did not plant rice this crop, he resorted to catching fish in the ocean situated just outside of Windsor Castle. When he goes out, he never over-nights but returns home the same day. He catches Snapper, Banga Mary, and Catfish and whatever he catches is sold.
Mahendra Ramcharran was relaxing at home with his parents. Originally from Sparta, he and his family moved to Windsor Castle 38 years ago. He described the community as “simple and quiet,” while noting that over the years, he has seen many developments.
The man recalled that in the years before, the community centre was occupied by the Sparwin (Sparta and Windsor Castle) Sports Club and persons taken up with sewing and table tennis. Both the centre and the ground, Ramcharran said, were useful to the people in his village. Every afternoon, he added, men, women and children made their way to the ground where they were occupied by their respective activities. This, he strongly believes, kept many of the village’s youths from indulging in drugs and other illegal activities.
Ramcharran’s mother, who hails from Wakenaam, noted that at the time she moved to Sparta, some 50 years ago, the people at Windsor Castle were those who lived along the main road. She said the part of Windsor Castle that is now a housing scheme was a swamp, before it became rice fields then a housing scheme.
Yunaishwar Singh and his wife sat outside in the cool of the afternoon. The retired head teacher hails from a place called Plantation Opposite, near Charity.
“I started my teaching career in a place they call Akawini Primary, Lower Pomeroon. I taught from 1970 to 2008. I retired at 8th of May Primary. We’ve been living here about 36 years now,” Singh said.
The family of two noted that they make use of the health centre in the village whenever needed stating that a doctor is at the clinic on a daily basis. However, the necessary drugs are not always available.
Singh, who once farmed rice at Evergreen Village further up the coast, said that due to irrigation problems and millers taking a long time to pay farmers he rented the farm out. For the time being he keeps a kitchen garden and tends to the flower plants in his yard.
Asked what he would want to see developed in his community, the retired teacher said he would like to see the cricket ground upgraded and as well as repairs done on the centre to facilitate classes for the youths in his community.
A resident and farmer who asked to remain anonymous shared that while some of the men are famers, some are fishermen while some rear cattle. The women, he said, are mostly housewives. His main concern was getting water into the rice fields.
“Right now, we dealing with a serious situation in pumping water into the field. The REO don’t want to pump water. If he did pump water in the conservancy, we would have had water… You see, that’s why I don’t want to put name in the newspaper. He mek styles to pump water early and right now we in the backdam pumping water,” the farmer said.
“The government should look into we… Well right now they putting in a pump at Hampton Court, but we don’t know when that gon finish. They need to subsidize on the fuel and the fertilizer to help us out. The cost for a bag of paddy is very low so we need the government to help we out another way,” he added.
