NOTWITHSTANDING the closure of the Wales Estate in December 2016, the village’s weekly market, held every Friday, remains an active commercial zone.

The market, located along the main corridor on the West Bank of Demerara, serves as a convenience for the residents of Wales and neighbouring communities. Consumers can get just about any commodity at the market, from groceries and meats, to clothing and hardware supplies.

“It’s always a bright place. I come here every Friday,” 26-year-old Mondai Edwards told Guyana Chronicle during a recent visit to the market. At the time, Edwards, who hails from Sister’s Village – one of many communities on the West Bank of Demerara, was shopping items for her birthday celebration. She has been visiting the market since she was a child.

The market is located next to the Wales Police Station and stretches all the way to the former ‘pay office’, where workers of the estate once came every Friday to uplift their wages. Over the years, as the operations of the estate declined, so did business at the market.

Nonetheless, many of the vendors have remained and the market has even begun to attract a few newcomers.

Travelling from Stewartville on the West Coast of Demerara (WCD), 31-year-old Ramona Seegobin, and her partner, David Smith, recently began vending clothes at the market.
“We shortly come here. It’s reasonable but maybe because of the elections and so on, things are a bit slow sometimes, but it does pick up at some points,” Seegobin shared.
The couple similarly vends at the Parika, Zeeburg and Vreed-en-Hoop markets, and hope to expand, and perhaps one day open a store.

“We have to start from small because we can’t get it like that, we have to work hard to get it,” Seegobin said.

Forty-two-year-old Mary Munroe has been a more longstanding feature at the market place, where she sells pork from her livestock farm, and other groceries. A single mother of four, Munroe decided to settle on being a vendor after a number of other jobs.
“I used to work for a sewing company, before that strip broom, anything you hand catch as [a] hustler you do,” Munroe said.

Haimraj Budhram, from Patentia, has been selling at the market for over 20 years. He sells household items, groceries and hardware products.

“I bought a canter and started doing drive-and-sell. Then I started to come at the market and started to sell. I sell from Patentia up to Vive La Force School,” he told this newspaper.
Kishan Budhu, from La Grange, has been selling dry goods at the market for about eight years, and though business has fluctuated over the years, he nonetheless persevered. “The people, they’re friendly and cooperative and joyful,” he said.