This week the Pepperpot Magazine visited the quiet, rural community of Cotton Tree, Section ‘A’, West Coast Berbice in Region Five (Demerara-Berbice) to highlight the way of life of the people and the village.

Cotton Tree is a very large village that extends from the foreshore to way down the backlands and it covers a vast amount of landmass which is used for large scale rice farming and cattle rearing by villagers.

The village is located between D’Edward and #3 Villages and it is the village just before the Berbice River Bridge and then there is the central hub, Rosignol and down the road is the Blairmont Sugar Estate and several villages along the way with Ithaca being the last.

It has three sections: A, B and C and it is a place where there are many amenities, including businesses, shops, supermarkets, gas stations, roadside stands, schools, a health centre, a ball field, a private school and the Cotton Tree Water Treatment Plant.

The approximate population of this section of the village is about 2,000, people of Indo-Guyanese descent. The people of the village include poultry farmers, rice farmers, cash crops farmers, cattle farmers, skilled employees, as well as stay-at-home moms and homemakers who have flower and kitchen gardens.

Cotton Tree is also the home of many fishermen, who utilise the Three-Door Fishermen’s Coop Society, which overlooks the Berbice River Bridge. It has facilities for storing equipment and freshwater.

It is an agricultural-based village that has vast backlands where large scale rice cultivation takes place.The locals, who reside near the main drainage canal, use the sea dam for cash crops cultivation and have a lot of tomatoes.

Almost every household in this section of Cotton Tree is involved in farming and they have many crops in their yards and on the sea dam area.

Section ‘A’ Cotton Tree has a Nursery and Primary School which sit opposite each other and then there are many concrete walkways in this community which leads to many houses in some back alleys and other parts of this large village.

The village has many bars too, including, the West End Bar which is located in a back street and leads to the Three-Door Fishermen’s Coop Society.

Cotton Tree Village comes under the purview of the Rosignol NDC and the Chairman is Chaitram Puran.

It is one of those places where people feel very safe enough to leave their doors unlocked and the people know each other and they are very cooperative and gets things done quickly through many self-help community initiatives.

The village has a lot of business people who have large hardware, grocery and supermarkets within the community.

The people of Section ‘A’ Cotton Tree are like-minded people who do many things to earn honestly. They are resilient farmers, who have suffered greatly, this year, due to the unprecedented rainfall that caused wide-scale flooding across the country.

Cotton Tree is home to attorney-at-law Surihya Sabsook, who operates out of her office in New Amsterdam, Berbice.

Section ‘A’ Cotton Tree Village is ‘green village’ that is, there is a lot of farming taking place there and the people have large flower plants which vary in type, colour and sizes and an equal amount of fruit trees in their yards and farms making them very self-sufficient.

The villagers also grow their own chickens, some have large scale poultry farms plucking the chickens and selling both wholesale and retail and then there is a lot of creole fowls (yard), ducks. They also rear a lot of cows, sheep and goats.

For the most part, the village is well-kept, but they have a garbage dumping problem where residents claim people bring their refuse from their homes and throw it in the main drainage canal aback Section ‘A’ Cotton Tree.

This canal runs through the village and it takes the wastewater out of the community via the three-door koker into the Atlantic Ocean.

The village has nice houses in all sizes and shapes and some very sprawling with unique colours and designs that is quite a sight, it stands out.