– Passionate volunteers and talented homemakers

By Michel Outridge

With the COVID-19 curfew, Belle Vue resident, Mandy Singh, who is a volunteer in social work in her community and further afield was doing her part in the fight against the novel virus.

She has a sewing machine and with her sewing skills put to good use, she was making fabric face masks to assist her brother, who works at a city private sector business place, to distribute to his colleagues.

“I have the time and I can do it so why not and here I am making these face masks to give away free of cost and we are like that because we like to help people in whatever way we can,” she said.

Singh teaches after-school classes free to children in the village but that has been put on hold because of the Coronavirus.

“ The police came to visit and asked what we need and donated some paint and we painted the community centre building and we appreciate it but we don’t have furniture to have classes for the children,” she said.

Singh added that before the Coronavirus she held a one-week camp which was sponsored for the children in the village and that was successful with an attendance of 10.

She explained that the children in the community need after-school tutoring because they have some difficulty reading.

This resident stated that she has never sought employment but might in the near future and has put a lot into volunteer work and is willing to work with any non-governmental organisation to assist children and the needy.

Singh pointed out that Belle Vue is a very quiet place and she is accustomed to the eerie quiet of the place.

“I am home so whatever I can do to help others I contribute and this village is a cane farming one but the people do other work now,” she said.

Singh added that she visits Trinidad and Tobago at times but apart from that she is home-grown and is at peace with herself and life.

“When I was small people used to live family but it is different now but there are no issues here and we go about our business,” she said.

Singh has a kitchen garden of fresh fruits and vegetables and was kind enough to offer some the team some fever grass and sour sap leaves to make tea.

The Pepperpot Magazine also met Dian Ramrup who invests her time and money in her flower and plant garden.

Her yard is well-kept and her sitting area is one of the cosiest, a really nice place to sit and relax or to have a cup of tea.

The sitting area has a rocking chair among many other chairs, a hammock, mats, flower plants in home-made pots and artificial flowers in Dutch bottle vases and others that decorate the walls.

The 34-year-old told the team she is originally from La Retraite, also on the West Bank Demerara and used to live at the current location for five years and had moved away but returned after her father-in-law took ill.

She has been in Belle Vue for the past several years and her husband is an excavator operator and they have no children yet.

“Life is a bit challenging right now because we can’t go out as we should to do business and other things but we are coping and I went to the Plant Shop to buy plants for my yard and that felt good, almost therapeutic,” she said.

She has a small plant shop in her back yard and spends a lot of time tending to them.

Ramrup has a neat apartment aback her father-in-law’s house which is decorated with flowers as well, much to the distaste of her spouse, who thinks it’s too much.

“I am a flower person and my mom is too so I guess it runs in the family and I take it up as a hobby, a good way to spend my time and I really enjoy every minute of it,” she said.

She has a lot of Dutch bottles and when asked where she got it, she related that her husband was at a work site digging with an excavator to prepare the land for a building and he found them and brought it home.

“Well you would have heard stories from your elders about taking Dutch things home but once you find it you can take it but you can’t dig into any tombs or things like that,” she said.

She has made some nice plant pots after watching a video on YouTube in different colours and sizes.

Ramrup said old clothes and cement were used to create the plant pots and they are not for sale, just for decorative purposes.

She told the team that it is a good neighbourhood to live and she enjoys the quiet and breeze.