RITA Matthews and her husband Stanley Fredericks have been living at Adventure Village, Soesdyke/Linden Highway for the past 20 years. This aged couple has a storybook romance which saw them together for more than 58 years. The union produced three children, all grown up and living their best lives elsewhere with their respective families too. Mathews is 72 years old, while her husband is 84 years old and together they manage a roadside stand at Adventure Village selling bread, pastries, cold beverages, salted nuts and coconut water. The elders are caretakers of a house whose owners live elsewhere and they have made it their home for many years.

Matthews is originally from Mabaruma, Region One (Barima/Waini) and she ended up living in the village through a friend, who brought her there to settle. That friend has since passed away. She told the Pepperpot Magazine that they would buy bread and pastries from Dolly’s bread truck that traverses the highway supplying shops and other businesses with their products. Matthews said the bread and pastries are freshly baked because the truck would come every day. She would fetch her beverages and other things from their home, a short distance from the highway in a wheelbarrow and start vending under a stand with a shed from 08:00hrs up until 16:30hrs.

“We try to get in because it gets dark because Fredericks would assist me to take in the things to the house via a wheelbarrow and we would get settled in for bed sometime after dinner and a bit of relaxation and chores,” she said. Fredericks in his younger days used to be a coal miner, he cut wood to make posts and did just about every other thing, including farming, to make a living. Now in his ripe age, he is taking things easy and is still doing some gardening, but for home use. He has a cultivation in his yard of plantains, bananas, cassava, red beans and pineapples. Fredericks has a small kitchen garden of fruits and vegetables as well.

Matthews would take care of the household chores and the cooking before they start selling at their small roadside stand, while Fredericks would keep an eye on things during the day. The elders describe life at Adventure as quiet, peaceful and fair, since they are doing something to earn and they lead a very simple life. “The people of this village support our small business and for that we are grateful; and some passers-by would also stop and buy and it is not a large business so we try,” she said. On this side of the village, uphill, there is their house that sits on a small hill and is the only house there and downhill is the community playground. The playground is utilised by youths to play cricket and football and it is also used by villagers for social events and the annual heritage celebration.

There is also a trail that leads to the Demerara River, but that section is uninhabited and it goes for about two miles into a forested area. “This is a kind of place where you can sit in your hammock and watch the sun go down and there is a natural tranquillity to the air where you can breathe in deeply, because it is not very populated and the place is clean and we are surrounded by trees,” Fredericks said. Fredericks, however, plans to take his wife Matthews to his home village of Lake Capoey, because he would like to share the beauty of the village with her at least once. This trip will take some planning and the couple will do it sometime when the time is right.