A hillside place for a quiet life

This week the Pepperpot Magazine visited the village of Adventure, on the Soesdyke/Linden Highway. This hillside village is home to about 320 residents who are scattered on acres of vast land mass and some of these cottages are almost hidden from plain sight. Adventure Village saw its first settlers about 30 years ago and they were people who relocated from the Rupununi and Mabaruma and some from the city. The population consists mainly of people of mixed race and some Amerindians, who co-exist in relative peace and harmony.

The village runs way down to the creek which is about one and a half miles from the village and it is divided into two sections, uphill and downhill. The downhill section is populated, while the uphill side has just about 10 houses of an extended family. This community is home to Mora Spring Water, a bottled-water small business which employs locals. Other residents of this village are mostly farmers, loggers, truck drivers, craft makers, carpenters, teachers, forest rangers and a few small- business owners.

This highway village, which is tucked away through a small one-vehicle trail that goes downhill and is steep at certain places, is made up of loam and sand. Thick vegetation, trees and other greenery were cleared and houses were constructed to accommodate families, some of whom are new to the village while others have been there for some years. In Adventure, there is no electricity, potable water supply or landline services.

The people depend on rainfall water for drinking and cooking and they use small solar panels to power light bulbs. A few folks have generators which are used mostly at nights for a few hours. This village is a picturesque place which embraces nature, that is, there is an abundance of trees, flowers and other plants that enhance the environment. The people reside in cottage-style wooden houses that were neatly built with precision and purpose and there are a few small shops in the community.

More people are beginning to occupy the lands at Adventure and small wooden cottages are being constructed.This village doesn’t have any facilities but the health centre and primary school at the neighbouring village of Silver Hill are utilised by the residents. Most of the people do their shopping in Linden which is closer than the city and they would buy in bulk or when they have the resources. Adventure is the community of pineapples and farmers have several acres of the cultivation which takes 14 to 18 months to bear.

This community also has an abundance of ginger grass and lemongrass growing all over the place as well, as fine-leaf thyme. A Community Development Council (CDC) was established this year and the members are from within the village under the guidance of a Village Chairman. Stay-at-home mother One of the settlers of Adventure Village is Nekeita Hall, a mother of three, who is originally from Tiger Bay, in the city.

She told the Pepperpot Magazine that she moved to Adventure Village five years ago and it is a good place to live. Hall stated that her husband is a truck driver and she is a stay-at-home mom, who operates a small business, selling Mora Spring bottled drinking water, which is from the village. The 39-year-old added that her father resides on the top flat of the house, while she occupies the lower flat and she would assist him on his large-scale pine farm when the need arises. “I got married and came here to live and I find it to be good, because there is plenty space unlike town and the air is fresh and we are comfortable here,” she said. It was her mother who first moved to Adventure Village, but she has since migrated. Hall has a solar system which powers the television and the fan. “I am at home so I decided to sell water to contribute to the home and it is quite alright so far, because the people here would come and buy the water,” she said.