BEING the last house in Samaroo Dam Village, West Bank Demerara, Mala Shivgobin, a local doesn’t mind living there, and despite some ups and downs, it is quite peaceful and breezy with a view of the rice-farming activities in the backlands.
Shivgobin is residing with her in-laws and it is a place to which she has grown accustomed and which she likes.
The 22-year-old told the Pepperpot Magazine that she has been living in the village for the past six years and is originally from New Road, Vreed-en-Hoop.
She is a stay-at-home mom of two; she takes care of the household duties and tends to the children.
She occupies the lower flat of the two-storey concrete house owned by her in-laws, who reside in the top flat.
“Right now, my whole holiday spoil due to the floodwaters that came in the house and damaged all my furniture and things, so we are still in the process of cleaning up. It is a lot of work and we suffered a lot of losses,” she said.
Shivgobin stated that the entire lower flat of the house was underwater for one week and she, her husband and two children had to sleep upstairs.
“Other than the illegal dumping of garbage here and the mud situation left by farmers, it is a good place to reside and the people are cooperative,” she said.
She related that when the rice farmers cut rice, the mud left behind is quite messy, and the taxis usually don’t want to go there.
It is $500 per trip and at times, she would have to get out of the car to chase cows and donkeys tied up there on the roadway to graze before the taxi can pass through to get to her house.
Shivgobin told the Pepperpot Magazine that her in-laws have been residing in Samaroo Dam for the past 20 years and they lead a very simple life.
Shivgobin’s husband is a construction worker, and he tends to their kitchen garden while her father-in-law would catch fish whenever he is up to it.
She explained that when COVID-19 hit Guyana, it brought a lot of challenges and the children had to be away from school.
It was a tall task to home-school them and still tend to household duties, but she has since adapted to certain things.
Shivgobin reported that they really don’t have any issues except on weekends, when they would have a noise-nuisance problem with loud music.
“We do what we have to maintain this place because we have to constantly weed down the bushes and spray the place because of snakes and clean the drains to prevent excessive flooding,” she said.
Her father-in-law, Andy Sukhram, recalls a harrowing ordeal the family went through during an armed robbery in 2015 at their home, which has left them traumatised.
The house was invaded by eight men around 18:00hrs while the people in the neighbourhood didn’t think anything of it. The robbers made four trips with a car to empty the contents of the house.
Sukhram added that they were hog-tied and beaten and were made to lie face down on the floor while the men took their time to empty their belongings.
“After the robbery we were thankful for the outpouring of support from people far and wide, complete strangers, who read the story and donated cash and kind to us to assist us in rebuilding our lives,” he said.
Sukhram related that the entire ordeal was like something from a movie and even the clothes they had were taken away by the bandits.
He revealed that canter trucks selling groceries, vegetables and other things such as cooking gas and so on used to traverse through the village vending, but they are afraid to come these days due to many incidents of armed robberies.
“These days, I don’t worry about myself due to my age, but I am concerned with the youths as a result of how things are going, and it is quite alarming how small issues escalate quickly into full-blown murders and so on,” he said.
Sukhram pointed out that despite all that has happened, he will remain in the village and he is a simple man who worked most of his life.
He is a pensioner and he takes things as they come, one day at a time.
