TAPAKUMA, an Indigenous community located some 14 miles from Anna Regina on the Essequibo Coast, Region Two, and bordering Mainstay/Whyaka, is home to some 400 residents.The village can be accessed by road through the township of Anna Regina, and via the backlands of Supenaam and Charity, both villages located at opposite ends of the 30-mile-long Essequibo Coast.

According to residents, no one knows for certain when the village was first settled, but records indicate that three Indigenous families were found inhabiting the location in 1887. From all indications, they had stumbled upon the lake community while travelling from Pomeroon in search of fertile lands and teeming fishing grounds. Their discovery led to the birth of the settlement, which occupies a space of 21 square miles and includes the majestic Tapakuma Lake, rich in fauna and flora.

Tapakuma is the largest lake on the sprawling Essequibo Coast. The British colonisers, on recognising the inhabitants, and in keeping with their mission to spread Christianity, visited the residents and built the first house of worship in the community. Today, the Anglican Church, built in 1902, still stands, but has undergone significant renovation over the years. It is the only house of worship in the sparsely populated Indigenous community.

Over the years, as the population of Tapakuma grew, successive Governments invested in basic infrastructure to serve the needs of the people.

Tapakuma today has a primary and nursery school, a health outpost, a village office, a learning resource centre, shops, and a cassava factory.

The factory is managed by the Rising Sun Women’s Group and makes cassava bread, cassava-flavoured biscuits, cassareep, quinches (salara made of cassava flour) and starch. These products are packaged, labelled and sold on the Essequibo Coast; and according to Gwendolyn Prince, the chair of the group, the factory has been making a profit, even though a small one.

None of the houses in Tapakuma has a thatched roof. In 2011, Food for the Poor constructed 50 low-income houses for residents there, outfitting the houses with solar panels to the tune of $67M.

The Dawa Pump Station, which provides irrigation water to a vast number of farmers on the Essequibo Coast, is also located in Tapakuma.
Built in 1961 in the middle of the Tapakuma Lake, it remains to this day a remarkable engineering feat in Guyana.

Tapakuma residents have access to potable water, but do not access water directly in their homes, but from a well and standpipes placed at various points in the community. Besides, they also use the water from a nearby creek for drinking, cooking, washing, and other domestic purposes.

Residents of this forested lakeside community depend mainly on logging, farming and mining for a living. On the richly fertile soil, residents cultivate boulangers, bora, ochroes, peppers, sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, plantains, bananas and pineapples. These crops are sold both in the village and at the markets at Charity and Anna Regina. Fishing and hunting are also part of their routine in gathering food.

As the years roll on, the landscape of Tapakuma has been changing, and more and more persons have been visiting the community to take in its natural scenery; but a vital feature for the community is missing: it does not have a guest house.

Former Toshao, Doreen Jacobis, is calling on the Government to give financial assistance to the Village Council to build one in the community.

She said it would aid the development of tourism and provide a new revenue stream for a community where mango, pear, cashew, mammy, and coconut are in gay abundance, and the cool breeze from the nearby creek makes a visitor feel lost in paradise.