–The perfect village for a quiet life

AS the father of five, Donald Shepherd, of Now or Never, Mahaicony, is a local businessman who runs a thriving transportation service. He transports people from Georgetown to Paramaribo, Suriname.

His small business has grown over time; he has three buses and a car, and schoolchildren do not pay a cent to travel in any of his vehicles when he is on the roadways.

The 47-year-old told the Pepperpot Magazine that his foreparents bought the village, and it was once a plantation owned by two brothers before slavery was abolished.

It was an estate that grew ground provisions, due to its rich soil composition and fertile lands. It was the ideal place for yams, sweet potatoes, plantains, eddoes and cassava.

BLOOD RELATIVES
Shepherd stated that the village is small; that the residents are all related by blood, and they are mostly self-employed folk who are very hardworking and self-sufficient.

“This village is a nice place to reside; a quiet oasis to raise a family. And we have people from all walks of life here: Soldiers, police, carpenter, teacher, even ‘sweet man’; everything except ‘thief man’” he said.

Almost everyone in the village is a farmer; they eat fresh, and sell their produce to wholesale buyers and vendors who sell right in the village.

The people of Now or Never have access to freshwater fish, and they also rear their own chickens and cattle.

“We live good here; you have access to food, and the people are very neighbourly. You can get anything here, plus, it is a safe place; we don’t have thieves here. You can leave whatever outside and go back to retrieve it anytime,” Shepherd said.

Shepherd related that the people of Now or Never are very like-minded, and would clean their surroundings daily, since it is part of who they are, and promotes cleanliness.

They would clean the bus shed in their community, as well as those in neighbouring villages for free, and weed and keep the parapets and roadside tidy.

And they even installed a standpipe with soap under the big tree where they would gather to relax and enjoy the breeze.

SMALL-SCALE FARMER
Carlos Hardat is also a resident of Now or Never Village. He is the father of two, including a three-month-old baby.

The 26-year-old is employed as a labourer on the farm owned by Jeffrey Fraser, a large-scale farmer who not only plants rice, but has a coconut estate, a cash-crop farm, a poultry business, and a fish farm. Hardat also has his own small farm where he cultivates boulanger.

“I just took a break from work, so I have to return to tend to the crops and chickens before I can retire to my home before nightfall,” Hardat said.

HOME ON HOLIDAY
The team also met overseas-based Tai Lildar, who had just returned from a fishing trip in the backdam with his castnet.

He had a catch of long-tail (smoke hassar), but he was not pleased with it, and just threw it back into the canal before abandoning the fishing trip that day.

When the team met him, he was ‘catching up with the boys’ under the tree, the meeting place for locals before heading home.

“I am here visiting for a few weeks, so I want to have some fun, and do the things I used to when I was living here in this village, before I go back overseas,” he said.

Lildar is of the view that as a farming village, the locals should benefit from seeds, seedlings and other resources needed to cultivate more crops, and that more emphasis should be placed on road safety.

Now or Never is located around a sharp turn, and it was observed that a lot of vehicles would speed past without any care or consideration for other road users.