The wet season had come but having lived forty-nine years close to the banks of the Mazaruni River without a tale of flooding to tell her five children, this was not a concern for Christine George.
“The river water never overflows this far inland anyway,” she recalled thinking to herself as she secured her shop and home before putting her children to bed on the eve of June 2nd of this year, never once dreaming that she would wake to waist-high floodwaters a few hours later.
George is a resident of Kamarang, one of many indigenous communities in Region Seven located along the Mazaruni River that have been severely affected by the flooding. She also owns a shop in Kamarang.