By Michel Outridge

MARY Bowry and her sister were the early settlers of Kairuni Village more than 50 years ago when the Soesdyke/Linden Highway was being built.

Today, most of their families reside there in relative peace and harmony, making use of their lives and seeking opportunities to enhance their community.

The 83-year-old is taking it one day at a time these days because she has severe pains in both feet, having suffered a fall, she was injured and never fully recovered.

Bowry told the Pepperpot Magazine that she is originally from Region One but lived in Demerara River before relocating to Kairuni Village.

The mother of 12 said life wasn’t easy, but she worked in her younger days at the agriculture farm, now the National Agricultural Research & Extension Institute (NAREI) farm, on the highway for many years before she retired when her children were grown.

“When I came here with my sister there was nothing here, no houses, just jungle and we started living here and it later developed into a village when more people came to settle,” she said.

Bowry said she and her sister used to farm in the creek and they were able to sell their produce to earn back in those days when the village was called Elizabeth Creek.

She resided overseas for some time and returned to her home in Kairuni, where her son and a daughter-in-law are living with her.

“I does do things for myself, but my daughter-in-law would do the cooking because I can’t stand up for long and I used a walking stick to aid me,” she said.

Bowry says she is basking in her golden years and it is the only place she wants to be — home, that is.

Delicious cassava bread

Debbie Daniels is a mother of six who lived all her life in the village and her mother, who is deceased, was one of two sisters, who were the first settlers in Kairuni.

Daniels and her family have a small business making cassava bread and pure cassava casareep, which they sell within the village to earn.

The 53-year-old cultivates her own cassava, which is used to make the cassava bread and casareep.

They have a few acres of bitter cassava which they harvest every six months.

Daniels used to make the cassava bread and cassava casareep the old-fashioned way which is time-consuming and entails hard labour.

As such, her sons got an idea to make some equipment to extract the juice from the cassava and another machine to grind it.

This process is beneficial and the family business is budding, but they need a market for the cassava bread and casareep.

“All credit must go to my children; my sons came up with the idea and they spent a long time to put together the machines and today it is very useful and takes less time than usual to make cassava bread and casareep,” she said.

Daniels would make 200 pounds of cassava bread weekly, and her children would go around in the village, door to door, on their motorcycles to sell it

“Well life is what you make it, because there are no jobs here and we have to make provision for ourselves by doing things that will bring in an income and it is not an easy task,” she said.

Daniels reported that the process of making cassava bread starts from harvesting, after which the skin is taken off and it is then washed to be placed in the machine to grind.

After that, the juice is extracted, placed in storage then it is boiled; that product is used to make cassava casareep and the husk from the cassava is used to make cassava bread.

Daniels related that once the cassava bread is baked on the tawa (pan on which the cassava bread is baked over fire) over fire, it is placed in the sun to dry making it crispy, after which it is placed in a ‘salt’ bag for storage and it is well-preserved and would last a while without getting mildewed.

The mother of six stated that she lived all her life in the village, given her roots.

“I have no intention of moving because life is simple; you have to work to survive and we are doing just that,” she said.

Daniels reported that her sons made the machines to make work easier for her two years ago and everything is going well.

She disclosed that she would like to expand her business one day, but they cannot get a loan because they don’t have land titles for the land they occupy.

As such, they are making the most of what they have to earn and provide for their family.