By Michel Outridge

Cotton Tree Village, West Coast Demerara, is one of the largest villages on that corridor and agriculture serves as the main source of income to most households. It is home to sugar workers, large and small businesses, self-employed folk, cash crop farmers, rice farmers, livestock and cattle farmers.

Cotton Tree is the place of coconut trees in abundance and it is also overflowing with plants, fruit trees and thriving gardens.

This is one of the well-kept villages where the locals take pride in taking care of the environment and their homes.

The community is home to a handful of fishermen, who reside close to the foreshore area, aback of the village.

Cotton Tree has a Primary and Nursery School, three Gas Stations, small, medium and large businesses that line the Public Road, a Community Centre Ground/ ball field, and many shops.

Those who are not farmers are employed at Blairmont Sugar Estate and depend heavily on the estate for their livelihood.

Cotton Tree Village is a quiet place considered to be ‘countryside’ with people, who lead simple lives.

The village had a farming group which was dissolved but they have an existing Islamic Group.

Cotton Tree has a population of about 500 residents and is home to predominantly Indo-Guyanese- most of whom are Muslims- and a cluster of Afro-Guyanese.

The village starts from the Public Road on both sides, goes way down into the vast backlands and ends at the foreshore.

In the backlands, some farmers have livestock and cattle on a large scale but usually have to keep watch because of wild animals attacking and eating their cows.

Cotton Tree is between Zee Zight and D’ Edward Villages.

The welcoming ‘Aunty Betty’

Upon entry to the village, the Pepperpot Magazine met a very kind and mild-mannered woman, Shaircoomarry Ramnarine better known as “Aunty Betty”.

She has a lovely house which is surrounded by ferns, flowers and other plants and the place is spotlessly clean. Aunty Betty was at the time relaxing in her hammock in her back yard.

The 74-year-old recalled she had a fairly good life before her son and husband passed away, some years ago. The mother of three, two girls and a boy told the Pepperpot Magazine that her world crumbled the day her only son died.

It was seven years ago, he used to work in the Accounts Department at the Blairmont Estate but was relocated to the Stores and he reportedly inhaled some poisonous substances and fell ill.

He was taken to Trinidad and Tobago for treatment but succumbed. He was only 25 years of age.

“He was a very good son, educated, had a good job, an ideal child. I doted on him but his life was cut short and I can never be the same, my daughters also had a hard time coping following his death,” she said.

Aunty Betty added that her life changed again, some years later, when her husband passed away in the United States while, he was on a vacation and to make matters worse, it was on her deceased son’s birthday.

She has two remaining children, two daughters, one of whom resides in Cotton Tree and the other is living overseas.

These days, Aunty Betty is getting down in age and has arthritis pains in both feet but she spends a lot of time on her plants and gardening.

She usually waters the ferns every two days and would only go out when invited to a religious function or to attend a funeral.

“I would normally plan my day, do my cleaning in the afternoons and in the mornings after praying I would do outdoor chores, tend to my plants because since growing up I always had a liking to plants and flowers,” she explained.

Aunty Betty related that she spent a lot of years on plants and whenever she gets visitors she would offer them a plant and refuses to sell them since it is not considered proper.

School vending
She told the Pepperpot Magazine that in her younger days when her children were all school-age she used to sell at the Primary School, a job she had for more than 15 years.

“One day my daughters came home from school and told me she wants things to sell at school like her friends and I made some tamarind balls and sugar cake and gave her. Then a day I saw her in the sun selling and I thought to myself she shouldn’t be doing that and that’s how I started selling at the school,” she said.

Aunty Betty pointed out that she began making pholurie, cassava balls, egg balls, tamarind balls, sugar cakes, chicken foot, pickle mangoes, mettai, gulab jamoon and kool-aid.

She used to sell these home-made snacks in a glass case and as time went by her husband constructed a stand with a shed.

“It was some good years selling at the school because all the children used
to come and buy and we became close and nowadays when they call out to me I can’t even recognise some of them,” she said.

Aunty Betty stated that she used to prepare the snacks at home after which she would place it in separate bottles to be displayed in her stand in front of the Cotton Tree Primary School.

Today, she would entertain the children in the village by giving away sweets and other goodies and she even has a few “adopted” grandchildren, who would pass by and call out to her daily.