By Michel Outridge

This week the Pepperpot Magazine visited the large community of Crabwood Creek, Upper Corentyne, Berbice, Region Six (East Berbice-Corentyne).

The village is a place of sawmills, lumber yards, gas stations and other business but is also an agricultural community with quite a few large-scale rice, cash crops and cattle farmers.

The population is about 10,000 people of mostly Indo Guyanese and a mixture of folk of other ethnicities.

Crabwood Creek is between Moleson Creek, where the Guyana-Suriname Ferry Stelling is, and Line Path, Skeldon, a commercial hub of businesses as well.

The village extends from the foreshore of the Corentyne River to way down into the vast backlands which are used for rice and cash crops cultivation.

Crabwood Creek is home to a handful of businessmen and women as well as simple folk who try to make an honest living doing various jobs.

The community took an economic plunge when the Skeldon Estate closed its doors a few years ago, forcing sugar workers to seek other forms of employment.

Most of the people on this corridor depended heavily on the sugar industry as their main source of income and following the closure of the estate they became farmers and other small business operators.

Crabwood Creek still has maintained the colonial-style landscape in terms of its well-designed wooden houses with intricate details of woodwork in various forms as well as some very large mansions and houses.

There are many empty houses owned by people who have migrated and some still have trucks, tractors, vehicles and combines still parked in the yards for several years.

It is a beautiful place with well-maintained houses, yards full of plants, flowers, fruit trees and vegetables.

This village overlooks the Corentyne River and it has many streets with the basic infrastructure of electricity, potable water, and telephone landline and internet services.

Crabwood Creek has a nursery and a primary school, a Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC) office, a health centre, mosques, mandirs, churches and a public library.

Crabwood Creek NDC

Meanwhile, the NDC Assistant Overseer, Sattee Singh took the time out of her busy schedule and gave an overview of the work of the NDC.

She explained that the NDC provides services for members of the community spanning Crabwood Creek to Moleson Creek.

They clean and maintain all internal drains and parapets and settle minor disputes among villagers.

The maintenance of drains and parapets is done under the Community Infrastructure Improvement Project (CIIP) which falls under the control of the NDC and it currently has 11 persons drawn from the community in their employ.

Singh pointed out that they were supposed to have 25 persons as part of the CIIP.

The Assistant Overseer told the Pepperpot Magazine that she is originally from Corriverton but married 23 years ago and relocated to Crabwood Creek.

“In this village, you can never grow hungry because everybody planting something and the people are close-knit and look out for each other,” she said.

Singh reported that Crabwood Creek is the home of rice, vegetables and ground provisions.

“Almost 50 percent of the population are farmers and we eat what we grow and sell at the markets and we have no real major issues boiling over here so it is a peaceful place to reside,” she said.

She added that the NDC has a Chairman, two staffers and 11 councillors and their catchment area is from Crabwood Creek to Moleson Creek.

Singh pointed out that the NDC takes care of the residential community and that they have 10 Grants in which each area is sectioned off and it starts from the Sea Dam to the end of the First Depth.

She disclosed that the Mayor and City Council covers from Black Water Bridge to the township.

“In this village, the people live neighbourly and whether you are related by blood or join the family they live like a big family,” she said.