MY GRANDPARENTS’ farm was situated at Goed Land, which is located between Gangaram and New Forest in the Canje District of the County of Berbice. It was so isolated that our nearest neighbours were miles away (or so it seemed to my childish mind), except for cottages that my grandfather had built for farm workers and their families.
My father was a contractor/supplier with then Bookers sugar estates, and we lived in the senior compound of Rose Hall Estate when I was a little girl, until he bought the spacious, high-ceilinged estate rest-house just in front the factory when I was ten years old.

‘My grandma had allocated to me my own tiny plot, and I derived a lot of pleasure from planting seeds in rows, then seeing them sprout up, grow, flower, and come to fruition under my care although, patience not being one of my virtues, I never could refrain from occasionally digging up the seeds to see just when they had begun to grow roots’

However, being the eldest sister of nine siblings, when I was not rampaging around the countryside like a hoyden in my father’s absence, and liking quiet corners where I could lose myself in books,  I always preferred to be with my grandparents, where I was pampered and cosseted because the only rival for their attention was my only uncle, Ranjeet, who was a mere five years older than I.
At my grandparents’ home, towering trees bordered the road, making it a child’s delight for playing cricket and other delightful games, because the traffic was limited to a few farming vehicles, and a bus that ran twice daily to New Forest and back.
On the southern side of the road stood our house, behind which grew acres of fruit trees and coconut palms.  In front of the house were three tall orange trees from which the sweetest scent saturated the air at blossoming time.  Across the road were the rice and cash-crop fields, and it was an indescribable pleasure to look out of the window at sunrise upon the undulating vista of the rich green of young rice plants rippling like emerald waves in the soft morning breeze.
My grandma had allocated to me my own tiny plot, and I derived a lot of pleasure from planting seeds in rows, then seeing them sprout up, grow, flower, and come to fruition under my care although, patience not being one of my virtues, I never could refrain from occasionally digging up the seeds to see just when they had begun to grow roots.  I had never been known for my patience.
Fishes abounded in the rice fields, and I used to love to feel for the wriggly patwas, hassars, and other freshwater fish.  Every day, one of the labourers, Labadie, would take several baskets of fish, fruits and vegetables in the donkey cart to sell in the market and share with several poor families, then collect my uncle and I from school on his way back.  I most often succeeded in cajoling, bribing, or blackmailing Labadie into letting me drive the cart on the quiet road leading to home.
On Saturdays, the busiest day at the market at Adelphi Village, my grandmother would herself drive the laden tractor/trailer, and I would accompany her.  She would unload me like unwanted baggage, albeit with lots to eat, on one of our houses in Adelphi, with neighbour Mabel ‘keeping an eye’ on me, then she would pick me up on her way back. 
I was the original tomboy, and tried to best my uncle and his visiting friends in every activity of theirs.  I swam in the koker when I was five years old, was an adept shot with my uncle’s air rifle, often beat the boys in cycle racing (in hindsight they probably let me), and I could climb trees, even the tallest coconut palms, with the best. 

A real character
My grandmother was a character – a real pioneer woman who loved farming with a passion, which I inherited.  She pursued this passion in spite of the pleas of my grandfather, who owned a very successful construction company.
She was petite and absolutely beautiful, with black wavy hair that dragged on the floor when she sat on a chair; and she held my grandfather in thrall so that he acceded to her every outrageous demand.  Although he disapproved of her working on the farm, because he saw no need for her to continue doing so, she only had to ask for a new tractor, and she got it.  When combines were introduced to the industry, of course, she nagged until he gave in and provided her with one in sheer self-defence. Uncle John Sawh, who owned a rice mill in Adelphi and was my grandad’s buddy, was highly amused when she earned more than the men with whom he dealt.
Sometimes she demanded my grandad’s entire labour force to help her in the farm, and although he protested because her demands wreaked havoc with his schedules, he never could withstand her entreaties, because she made the most unreasonable requests with an abundance of charm.  She always out-argued him into silence and, needless to say, she loved having her own way; and most often she got it.
She was indomitable, and could fell trees to clear a field, cast a net, cultivate a farm, wield an axe with dexterity, make a mortar and pestle from scratch, climb trees, and Heaven help her employees who could not match her energy levels and dexterity, because she loved excellence, and gave her all to achieve it – and expected no less from everyone else.
But she was also ultra-feminine.  Her home was immaculate and sweet-smelling.  Her food was the best that I have ever eaten.  Her home was beautifully decorated, but was yet a haven for her family; and her linen — sheets, pillowcases, etc — were all hand-embroidered by her, with intricately carved designs depicting the stories of the Ramayan.
She could play a dholak, dental, and harmonium, and sing in the most divine voice; and she taught me a passionate love for taan music.  All her grandchildren inherited her gift of music and dance, and she taught me kathak.  Ranjeet, my only uncle, used to get mad when he was forced to join in the musical skits she produced to entertain my grandfather and the people in the village, but he disobeyed that tiny mite at his peril.
Sometimes my granddad would place the chicken coop crosswise in the blackwater trench that ran in front of our home, and in the mornings, when the tide receded, we would find a coopful of very large fishes.
We only needed salt, soap (she knew how to make that too) and a few other staples from the stores; because we were largely self-sufficient and grew our own fruits, vegetables, rice, raised meat birds, had cows that provided rich, creamy milk, and used honey as a sweetener.  We had variety in our diet.  There was a large bird that my grandfather and his friends used to shoot, that they called something that sounded like ‘carow’, while my uncle had an animal trap and an air-gun that had been given to him by my great-uncle Clifton Low-a-Chee, who was at that time Comptroller of Customs.  He used to set the trap in the nights, and in the mornings would invariably find a bush fowl, wild duck, rabbit, or some animal, which were often given away to the labourers who worked on the farm.
Our pets were colourful, and included, among them, a monkey, two parrots, numerous parakeets, and many others.  We even, for a time, had a couple of sloths that lived in the mango tree.
Ranjeet used to mix molasses with rum to catch monkeys, and cover a piece of stick with gum he milked from a tree, then attach it to a cage with a bird inside. The whistling of the captured bird would attract other birds, which stuck fast when they alighted on the gum-covered stick.  He sold his captives for much money.
Once he found a fledgling parrot that had not even properly grown feathers in the rotting trunk of a fallen coconut palm.  He wrapped it in his shirt, and took it home, where he nursed it to health and adulthood.
However, secretly egged on by Ranjeet, who was highly amused at the pithy way Labadie expressed himself, Labadie taught the parrot to use expletives.  Ranjeet became so enthralled by the parrot’s colourful language that he began emulating the bird, which angered my grandmother.
What cast the die, however, was when my grandfather’s priestly friend, Father Luker, visited and tried to say some kindly words to the bird, receiving in return a description of himself and his activities that thoroughly shamed my grandmother.
When Ranjeet burst out laughing at the contretemps caused by Poll, she said that the bird was a bad influence on my uncle and gave it away.
My grandparents’ farm taught me appreciation of God’s gifts of nature to Mankind.  When I was not being rambunctious, in my quieter moments, I would swim naked in a little black-water creek that ran behind the house, then lie supine for hours in the grass, and many nostalgic poems were written about the farm and my experiences thereon.
Experiencing Guyana
my toes squelching squishy mud, a new-plucked blade of grass
forbidden bit of stolen joy, riding on an ass
a starlit sky framed within the dark cavern of night
a blackwater stream dappling in the molten-rayed sunlight
a cockcrow’s call heralding a misty-golden dawn
leaping hassars breaking the surface of a lily-jewelled pond
new-plucked mangoes golden ripe, richly dripping juice
school’s out and the boisterous noise of exuberant kids let loose
swimming at a koker, out of range of mother’s call
cricket at the corner, stick-bat and tin-cup ball
breaking ground of champions, of Alvin and Rohan
heroes of their own country, and worldwide foreign lands
ricefields lush with ripening grains entrap Lord Suraj’s gold
emerald carpet in a young canefield is a song within my soul
the brown atlantic gently lapping tree-lined 63’s shore
all these things are forever banked within my heartland’s store