— Bernice Lewis looks forward to retirement

At 52 years old, Bernice Lewis, a mother of nine who hails from the Indigenous village of Phillipai, located along the Mazaruni River, is looking forward to retiring in three years and spending quality time with her children.

Lewis, who now resides at Mora Camp, Region Seven, in a recent interview with Guyana Chronicle, detailed how she moved from her desire to being a housewife to that of a teacher.

Currently, she teaches at the Itabali Primary School and is serving as the acting head teacher. Her substantive post at the school is senior mistress.
But while her designation may be intriguing for some, Lewis noted that it was her intention to have a simple family life where she would take care of her household and not have to worry about work.

She was quick to point out that her decision to enter the teaching profession had nothing to do with trials or hardships she was facing at the time.
In fact, it was the persistence of a few who recognised her talents that resulted in her becoming a teacher.

“I am not born to be a teacher… I wanted to be at home relaxing and looking after my child or children. But life took me in a different direction. I had three children that time. I never completed my primary education but I don’t know how come they had chosen me. When the first teacher came and ask for me I would go and teach…every day I have to write notes and I said I am different; I don’t want to do it,” Lewis recounted as she stirred a pot of Cassareep which she was preparing to be sold later that week.

WANTED TO QUIT
“I struggled, I wrote the teacher’s exam and I passed. I went to CPCE and I had a mind to quit and I said if I failed the first course I would quit,” the mother of nine continued even as her husband, a former headmaster, looked at her loving eyes as he swung from a hammock.

Lewis attended the Cyril Potter College of Education (CPCE) from 1995 to 1997 where she graduated. When she joined the institution located at Turkeyen, East Coast Demerara, she was forced to leave behind her three month-old baby. That decision, Lewis told Guyana Chronicle, was a difficult one.

“When I passed the first year, I said well, I have to struggle to pass the second year… but at the same time my thinking was to quit the job —this clearly wasn’t God’s plan,” she related with a broad smile plastered on her face.

The woman has been teaching at the Itabali Primary School for about six years and has been holding the portfolio of acting headteacher for two years. “I am from the Upper Mazaruni, a village called Phillipai… I was born and I grew there,” the teacher of approximately 26 years stated.

Before then, she would move from community to community as her husband, a now retired headmaster, was transferred from time to time.
“He was transferred and I had to transfer behind him. He moved to Issano, and then we came here and I had my children,” she explained as she placed cassava bread, a main staple for indigenous communities, out to dry.

While living at Mora Camp, Lewis said she made an application to the Regional Education Office in Region Seven, seeking a transfer to a school in the mining town of Bartica so that she can be closer to her children.
Her request was not granted. “Itabali was the vacant school,” she said, noting that to get from where she lives to Itabali, she would take a 35-minute boat ride up the Mazaruni River.

“It is not difficult you know… it really isn’t, but I would have preferred to be teaching in Bartica… it is closer to home,” Lewis told Guyana Chronicle.

HAPPY
She takes pride, however, in the fact that she will retire in three years. “I am going to finish my service there … retire,” she stated as she explained that she often times join the boats which take students to school at Itabali.
Asked why she is so eager to retire, Lewis said it will allow her to live her fantasy of being a housewife. Now that the majority of her children have relocated, she only lives with her husband and three youngest children.

“I struggled to be a teacher… but when I come off I will continue to make my cassava bread, cassareep, casiri and farm… we live mainly on local and organic food made from cassava, she said,” while pointing to a cassava farm located not far away from her home.
Lewis sells her produce on a daily basis and the income earned from that is used to provide for her family. “I have been doing this a long time. This is my living, my way of life,” she said as she rushed over to her pot of cassareep to quickly stir the liquid.

Asked whether she is faced with many challenges in her community, Lewis told Guyana Chronicle that access to potable water is a challenge. She recounted that just before the interview with this publication, she was walking towards a nearby creek to get water and a snake, which she described as being relatively large, coiled around her feet.
“For the first time in my life a snake coil up on my leg and I screamed and screamed. I kicked and it loose out. I had my little child with me,” she recounted while appearing uneasy. The 52-year-old woman is calling on the Guyana Water Incorporated (GWI) to examine the possibility of installing a well in the community.

“A person came but he couldn’t install it —he said the sand blocking the bottom and they couldn’t get it out.”
But at the end of the day, life at Mora Camp for Bernice Lewis is beautiful and peaceful, and according to her, being able to make her products sell is where the heart is.
Her cassava bread is being sold at $700 for a big one and $500 for a small one while a bottle of cassareep is being sold at $3000.