PHILOSOPHERS have often based their ‘truths’ on simple things, expressed an interest in the common place, strange for many, but the experience of the Mahaicony River gives one clarity on what it was that captivated the most learned minds. Life on the River is simple; fascinatingly simple… and bewildering, all at the same time, for anyone used to an urban setting.
The journey starts at the ‘landing’ which bridges the coastlanders and the river-people.
After that, the Mahaicony River stretches some 90 miles, joining the Berbice River, and is dotted by a cross-section of people in different economic brackets.
It is simple living by all there, and the level of cooperation by those living on the river is shocking to someone not used to leaving their home open and unattended for hours, while they ran an errand or the other.

“We don’t have things like thieving and so. You can sleep with your door open,” said  one of the more popular characters living on the river, the boatman, Mr. Hiralall Persaud.
Persaud has lived there for most of his life — grew into the man he now is at 50; got married, raised his family and plies his trade.
“It is a good place here…there is lots to do, and a good life you can get. Simple things; and it nice,” he said, adding: “On the roadside, it harder to get work, but here it simpler; you work and you eat and you live good.”
The Boatman explained that on the river, the main activities are planting rice, working a speedboat service for those without engines, and farming different kinds of vegetables.
“It’s a good place to raise you children; they have good behaviour, the children that live in the river. I raise my two daughters and my son here,” he said.
Like Persaud, many others agree that more needs to be done to improve the education that the children in the Mahaicony River access; that the advances in the education sector need to be reflected across-the-board, and that no area should be left out of any aspect of it.
“We got one or two things we still need, but riverside easier than roadside for sure… Life here is good,” he said. “You want to eat, you catch fish or you hunt wild meat; you want fruits, they got trees. It different here.”
However, sharing in the experiences of our boatman friend’s life on the Mahaicony River is much more that just easy living, as we learnt.

In sync with nature
Persaud goes on to tell about life in sync with nature, a respect for the environment and all creatures that inhabit the surrounding areas — monkeys and birds, as well as a variety of snakes and, yes, huge caimans too.
“They don’t bother us; and we don’t bother them,” he said.
However, it is not always peace and quiet, as one of the complaints up to last week was a loss of 10 cows to a jaguar in a two-week period.
The boatman contends that it is only natural that the jaguars come to where the cows are grazing, since the deer (which is their favourite meal) are hunted by humans, causing a disturbance in the balance of things.
“The only other time they come down is when the place dry and they have to come to the river for water,” he said.
Persaud recalled that over the last few decades, there have only been two or three humans killed by the beasts; altogether attacks on human are infrequent.
He maintains that there is an order of things that must be respected.
People on the river life peaceful lives; send their children to school in the river or make use of the dormitories at schools on the coast to secure higher levels of education; surround their social lives around the church or temple in the river, or go out to the coast for any other entertainment sources; farm, hunt and make a simple living – simple living on the Mahaicony River.

Beyond the River People
Hard to believe, but there is much more still to the Mahaicony River – a most alive character which has many surprises in store for those who brave the hours-long journey along the river that snakes by at its own pace.
From the landing, one sees homes and is exposed to the river people’s lives while travelling for about an hour and a half along the river.
After that there are the savannah lands, empty of human life for another hour at least. The river is bordered by various types of foliage that houses the exquisite Canje Pheasant.
The Mahaicony River, like many other areas of Guyana that is not often traversed, is a treasure that combines both the beauty and dangers of nature – a wonder that has much to offer with surprises around every bend.