By Michel Outridge

This week the Pepperpot Magazine journeyed to the rural yet ‘bright’ community of Stewartville, West Coast Demerara.

STEWARTVILLE is densely populated with about 2,500 residents, a number of whom leave the village daily for work in the capital city.

Sandwiched between Leonora and Uitvlugt, the area is home to auditors, brokers, teachers, security guards, bankers, landscapers, cane-cutters, police, private sector employees, small-business owners and bus drivers.

Despite the daily movement, a number of persons work in the community, including at the nursery, primary and secondary schools.
Some of the services include: the Baggot’s Driving School, a taxi service (located on the public road), several small shops, a tailoring establishment and the Forrester Lumber Yard and Building Complex.
In the afternoons and weekends (pre-pandemic) villagers would gather at the Community Centre Ground, the ballfield and places of worship.

The community is divided into six sub-divisions which are Sea View, two housing schemes – Sarah’s Lodge Coop and Bangladesh, Side Line Dam, the Road Front area and the new housing scheme.

The village has good roads, potable water, electricity, landline phones, internet services, and good infrastructure and is said to be a comfortable place to live.

There is no large-scale farming in this community as the vast backlands are utilised by GuySuco for canefields.

There is no market within the village and many residents would utilise the market at the Leonora Public Road every Saturday to fulfil their shopping needs.

Most residents also have small kitchen gardens and fruit trees in their yards.

The people of this multi-ethnic village are very friendly and would sit and have a quick conversation at any time.

When we visited, there was calm about the community except for the burst of loud music blaring from a sound system in the Old Housing Scheme, which has four streets that go around that section, on the seawall side.

That area is very breezy with the cool air rushing in from the Atlantic Ocean.
In Stewartville there is a section with several small roadside shops which sells fish, chips, other home-made snacks and cold beverages with adequate seating for a ‘sip and chat’ kind of thing.

An exit from this village would be intentionally delayed because of the friendly and inviting locals.

THE NDC

Meanwhile, the Pepperpot Magazine met NDC councillor Noel Waithe, who has been residing in the village for the past 40 years.

He reported that the village comes under the Stewartville/Cornelia Ida District NDC and covers six villages with 10 constituencies.

Waithe is originally from Anna Catherina, but relocated decades ago.

The 64-year-old stated that the area isn’t large in terms of acreage, but is populated and the people get along well with no racial tensions.

Waithe pointed out that the NDC building has an ICT hub for schoolchildren to utilise for their research and homework. Due to the pandemic, it is however closed.

The councillor noted that the village is also known for the name of the street ‘Tamarind Dam,’ which was once a dam but was transformed into an all-weather road years ago.

Waithe’s primary project at present is the earth-filling of the flooded and overgrown burial ground within the village.

When the Pepperpot Magazine caught up with him he was in the process of servicing the NDC’s tractor, trailer/slasher.

“I will undertake this project free of charge because I want the burial ground to become sanitary and the current conditions are deplorable. When it rains it is flooded and the place is overgrown with thick bushes, a place for burial should be accessible and clean.”

Waithe disclosed too that the NDC will also pave the four cross streets with asphalt, while at a later date the Sideline Dam would also be fixed.

He related that although the Forrester Lumber Yard and Building Complex employ a number of youths, there is need for more jobs for young people, some of whom are idle in the village.