The Yukuriba Story

FOR too long, we’d been attempting to establish an agricultural community at Yukuriba Falls, aka Captain Roy Landing or Camoudi Landing. This idyllic swathe of the Guyana rainforest sits perched on a hill over the Yukuriba Rapids, looking out at the forested Konawaruk Mountains.
Among the group was the now deceased Ernest Roy Bowen (Capt.) who discovered the Yukuriba Falls site.
Long before I ever set eyes on Yukuriba, it was Capt. Roy who, on a fishing trip through the Essequibo, paused for some rest one day on a stretch of sheetrock just below the hill above Yukuriba Falls. The seasoned bushman looked up and said to himself, ‘This must be one hell of a view from up there.’ Camping out among the rocks for weeks, Capt. Bowen, with his small team of Amerindian helpers (including Lloydy Semichee, and Agnes and Theresa Zavier) set out to chop through the forest, making the first clearing that would unveil this breath-taking prospect that is our view from Yukuriba Heights.

SETBACKS

Over the years, the development of Yukuriba has been plagued by setbacks, including the prohibitive cost of transportation. The Yukuriba site was not as accessible as it is today; the developing highway, ‘Road to Brazil’ was at that time a series of treacherous stretches of hinterland trail. It took hours to cover the distance to Yukuriba, with most of that time consumed by vehicle break-downs and digging out of swampy mud holes. However, we persevered until the first major setback presented itself one day in 1994, when a man named Narine descended upon Yukuriba, proclaiming his entitlement to the land in spite of the Provisional Lease the Lands and Surveys Department of Guyana had issued to: Joan Cambridge, Ernest Roy Bowen, and Oscar Cambridge.
Narine argued that he had seen no document in the Lands & Surveys division “…to suggest that you have any right to be here…” Then, for emphasis, he added: “…my principal is arriving here in a few weeks, AND WHEN THAT WHITE MAN COMES, YOU HAD BETTER SPEAK TO HIM PROPERLY!”
By then Capt. Roy had transitioned to the ancestors, and my brother, Oscar Cambridge, had grown weary from the attrition; he was unwilling to go on fighting for Yukuriba. What transpired thereafter is a stranger-than-fiction narrative; a tangled web of intrigue and skullduggery, beginning the day after that incident.
I turned up at the Lands & Surveys office in Georgetown that morning, after travelling through the night from Yukuriba Falls. It was a Friday morning; the end of the working week.
Standing in line, waiting to pay for the Yukuriba Provisional Lease in the Lands and Surveys office, I noticed that the cashier was extremely evasive, even furtive, refusing to take my money. “Next,” she repeatedly called out to the person behind me. I was not only stunned, but because the new PPP government’s proclivity to marginalise African Guyanese had begun to manifest itself very soon after the 1992 elections, I was also afraid. I’d spent the weekend reflecting on everything: Narine’s assured arrogance at Yukuriba the day before, coupled with the cashier’s puzzling behaviour. By Monday morning, in the grips of an irrepressible fury, and ‘ready to rumble’, I made my way to the Lands & Surveys office.
No one else was in the cashier’s line; she used the opportunity to whisper apologetically, “Ms. Cambridge, I was instructed not to take any money from you for Yukuriba Falls.”

Thus, the battle was taken up in The Guyana Supreme Court: ‘5033/95 J Cambridge –v- Comm. of Lands & Surveys et anor’, lasting almost seven years, and culminatng just after a representative of our Lands & Surveys Department casually informed the judge, “Your Honour, we cannot continue with this case; we can’t seem to find Ms Cambridge’s file.”

VICTORY!
Fortunately, Ms. Cambridge was able to produce a copy of her file with every document relevant to the case, which fact facilitated the outcome of the case. It was eventually decided in my favour. Since then, I/we have been striving to get back to that place; that point at which we were so crudely interrupted.
Over the years, we’ve occupied Yukuriba in starts and stops. Besides the exorbitant cost of transportation, our efforts were plagued by an unbridled lack of encouragement or co-operation from government sources. However, we persevered, planting coffee, citrus, avocados, pineapples, bananas and plantains and numerous cash crops. We fed ourselves and supplied Demerara Timbers, the settlement located at Mabura, 28 miles before the Yukuriba destination, as well as itinerant pork-knockers and miners “trodding de backdam”, seeking their fortune.
We kept ourselves alive, but things really began to fall apart when I had to spend all those wasted years in the city, fighting the system to hold on to that plot of land at Yukuriba Falls.

STILL BATTLING
Yet, here we are, still battling to achieve our dream for Yukuriba; which was also that of its founder, Captain Roy Bowen, who always envisioned Yukuriba as a community.
Our most recent aggravation is depicted in the images here. Accompanied by a team of three policemen, a customs officer, and a forestry officer, we went to Yukuriba to evict Dharmindra Deen from the Creative Farming Community site. While confessing that he had illegally established himself on the land, Deen informed me:

“Me proper like dis place.”
“So do I; so do we, Dharmindra…”

Guyana’s rainforest happens to be the only pristine (as in unspoiled) tropical forest in the world. We have much to celebrate in this fact, and even more to safeguard, because the Guyana government, through a succession of in camera deals with foreign interests, including Chinese, Indians, Brazilians et al, has been giving serious cause for alarm. The troubling question is:

WILL THERE BE ANYTHING LEFT FOR US GUYANESE?
A number of young people — not old enough to bear witness to Yukuriba’s dramatic history, but acutely aware of the need to claim for themselves a space in Guyana’s rainforest within which they will find encouragement to pursue their dreams — have pledged their energies and support to the building a Creative Community at Yukuriba Heights.
I take this opportunity to acknowledge (in many cases posthumously) the immeasurable help received from the people with whom I interacted for nearly two decades, while living, working and researching in the Guyana rainforest, collecting the oral history that informs much of my creative work; especially the musical drama:
Ting-a-ling-a-ling
School bell ring
Bush tu’n rainforest…
I’m especially grateful for having had access to recollections stored in the encyclopedic memory of the late (Captain) Ernest Roy Bowen (jnr), and for his expert guidance on the art of living “in de bush”.
I extend thanks also to: Egbert Van Sluytman; pork-knockers William Isaacs (Ponaki), Ronald Downer, that beloved infidel Bust’n Scatter (Mac Singh), and Jake and Vera Moshett.
Certainly to the late (Captain) David Andries; his wife, Rachael, and their children and grandchildren, especially Sheena, Shirley, Tiger and Margaret.
Many thanks to the late Captain Kendall and his wife, Semolina; to Joe Xavier, who was not only caretaker at Yukuriba Falls, but kept a careful daily journal of the movement of people through the place. Must not forget Magic, Sweat Beak, and Courtney and Tiger, who stopped in ‘to break bread’ on their way to the Pott Falls/ Akaiwanna mining areas.
These names represent just a small number of those people who generously shared their colourful experiences with me, thereby broadening and enriching mine.
My gratitude must also reach out to my brothers, who have all joined the ancestors; Oscar and Allan, who, on a visit to the USA, first stimulated my imagination with stories that moved me to seek the peace of Yukuriba, first to complete my book, Clarise Cumberbatch Want To Go Home: Ticknor & Fields N.Y. and Women’s Press U.K.; then to make it my home before I was forced to fight for the right to be there.
To my brother, Dudley Cambridge, who kept Yukuriba’s paths manicured and clean; its prospect beautiful. And to my adopted son, Kelvin Stephens. They have all been pillars of support in the rainforest, as was my sister, Marjorie Cambridge-Carr, in the city, and my niece, Samantha Cambridge.