SATTIE Mahadeo is a stay-at-home mother of one who takes care of the home and spends her time tending to chores and cooking, but recently, she has been laid up because of surgery and is in recovery mode.

With her son and her husband at her side, she is being taken care of and seems to be in good spirits.

The 45-year-old reported that life at Coghlan Dam is easy and good because since she got married to a local of the village 25 years ago and moved there, it has been quiet.

Mahadeo added that she is originally from Canal #2 Village, also on the West Bank of Demerara and over the years became comfortable living in Coghlan Dam.

Her husband Prakash Mahadeo is a veterinarian/Livestock Officer and a Councillor and is well-known. He rears his own livestock and poultry in their backyard.

He has some cows, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, and had some meat birds, which were sold recently.

She related that the people of Coglan Dam are working folk, some rice farmers, cash-crop farmers, poultry and livestock farmers, self-employed people and others, who work outside the village.

“I had surgery on both legs, so I have been laid up for four months, but I am recovering and using an aid to walk until I can stand on my own two feet as time goes by, but I cannot say life is unfair at this time, because I have a lot to be thankful for,” she said.

Mahadeo stated that being the last house before the vast rice fields, she feels safe because next door, she has her in-laws and they do not worry about thieves since anything hardly ever goes missing.

Even though it was a very rainy day, the homemaker had already prepared dhal puri with channa curry for breakfast and had made chicken chowmein for lunch and was considering her options for a dinner menu.

Mahadeo pointed out that they have electricity, potable water, internet, cable and almost everything that is needed for a good life, so they only go out when necessary.

Vans and canter trucks would pass almost every day vending from groceries to greens, cooking gas and bottled water.

Due to heavy rainfall that day, there was some water accumulation in the backyard and other parts, but they usually only get flooding when there is constant rainfall.

However, giving a background to the history of the village, Mahadeo told the Pepperpot Magazine that she heard from the elders, who have since passed on that Coghlan Dam was a mud dam and it was used as a main route for transporting slaves to the vast rice and cane fields back in the colonial days of slavery.

Back then, as children, when there was no electricity, they used to hear chains dragging and horses passing and cries and other things, but no one ventured out to see.

It was haunted, but as the place developed and became populated, all that faded away, and it became a village, Coghlan Dam, which benefitted from infrastructure such as a good road replacing a mud dam.

From the village chatter, Mahadeo stated that the West Demerara School building, before it was the school, it was the home of a man named Coghlan, whose house had 100 windows and one had to be closed because only government buildings are allowed to have 100 windows, and the village was named after him; the lands were his.

She added that most of the elders have since passed on, that is, fore-parents of her spouse, who told these stories growing up so it remained with them and they would repeat same to whoever wishes to know.

Mahadeo stated that there are many stories and the older people knew a lot about the village, but sadly there are no longer around to share them.

She pointed out that the people worked hard as rice farmers, and those who did not have their own lands worked with others and they toiled over time to buy plots and build houses, most of which was inherited by their families.

Mahadeo pointed out that the village is large with rice lands, all transported, privately owned, and used for large-scale rice cultivation.