By Wendella Davidson

THE late Dr. Desrey Caesar-Fox was a serving government official, holding the portfolio of Minister within the Ministry of Education under the PPP Administration when her life was cut short following a tragic automobile accident on December 11, 2009, at age 54.
She is, in the annals of the history of the Caribbean, among the first three female ministers of government of Amerindian descent.

A Capricornian by birth, Desrey Clementine Caesar, at a very early age, displayed tremendous love for her people and the development and preservation of their languages. As time went by, she was viewed as an outstanding role model for the Indigenous Peoples, of which there are nine here in Guyana, including the Akawaio Nation, to which she belongs.

At the time of her death, she was involved in a project to translate this country’s National Anthem into the nine Amerindian dialects, and was being assisted by Gail Teixeira and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, the latter who was at the time the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The eldest of seven children born to Gibson and Anita Caesar at Waramadong Village, in Region Seven (Cuyuni-Mazaruni), she received her formative education at the Waramadong Primary, before moving on to Campbellville Government, and later the Georgetown Seventh-Day Adventist Academy.

In 1973, Dr. Fox was awarded a nursing scholarship that saw her being trained as a midwife at the Georgetown Hospital School of Nursing. She got married a few years later and added Fox to her surname.
In 1977, she joined the University of Guyana (UG) as a junior researcher attached to the Amerindian Languages Project, with the focus of her work being on research, that saw her collecting and analysing data on a wide range of Amerindian issues and situations in Guyana, including the pre and present history, demography, geography, spirituality, rites and rituals, kinship networks, language and the general aspect of their way of life. The project unit was later renamed the Amerindian Research Unit.
Keen on advancing herself academically, Dr. Fox, in 1977, earned a Master of Arts in Environmental Anthropology from the University of Kent in Canterbury, the United Kingdom; a PhD in Linguistics from Rice University in Houston, Texas in 2003; and a Master of Arts in Linguistics at the Rice University, also in 2003.

Dr. Caesar-Fox also lectured in Linguistics and Amerindian Studies at UG, and taught special courses at the Universities of Oregon and Rice.
Dr. Caesar-Fox also obtained a BSc in Sociology from the University of Guyana, and was once the Curator at the Walter Roth Museum of Anthropology.

In April 2008, when Dr. Caesar-Fox was appointed a minister, she and two others, Pauline Sukhai and Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, made history by becoming the first female Amerindian ministers of government in the Caribbean.

LOOKING BACK

Reflecting on the death of his eldest child, dad, Gibson, who was in the company of one of his sons, Ricky, told the Guyana Chronicle that despite years have elapsed, he still remembers, and will always remember his eldest daughter for the love she bestowed upon everyone around her, and the fact that such love still resonates within the family.
He, however, expressed his displeasure at the sight of a fading portrait of her that is erected in the vicinity of the University of Guyana, where she had given invaluable service. He wondered whether the memory and legacy she left at the tertiary institution will be allowed to diminish the same way.

Yvette, the last of the children, who also spoke fondly of her eldest sister, said, “Desrey’s death was unexpected, and to this day, I am still unable to come to grips that she is still not around.”

She recalled how all of her siblings used to look up to Desrey, as she was like a second mother to them in terms of everything: Giving advice, shopping for them, and being their role model.

Yvette remembers, too, how Desrey, as a linguist, knew and fluently spoke the language of each of the nine Amerindian tribes.

“I used to be in awe whenever she visited other communities, how she would easily communicate with residents in their own dialect, when others couldn’t. She was all about languages; that was her passion,” Yvette said.

She said that it is because of the late Dr. Caesar-Fox that her entire family can also speak the different dialects now, “She made certain that we all learnt them,” she said.