A bustling village

LAST week the Pepperpot Magazine visited the full-of-life village of Rosignol, West Coast Berbice, a central hub for many activities and businesses, to highlight the locals’ way of life.
Rosignol is the last village before the Berbice River Bridge, and it is a huge community which is divided into two sections, A and B, bordering D’Edward and Blairmont villages.
The village’s population is more than 10,000 and has a squatting area which is thickly populated and has a lot of children.

The main economic activities of the people are cash-crop farming, rice-farming, poultry-farming, livestock and cattle-rearing, fishing, vending, businesses, self-employment and skilled workers.
There are sugar workers attached to the Blairmont Sugar Estate, vendors, business owners, public servants and ordinary folk who have various skills, earning an honest dollar by doing many jobs.

Rosignol Village has two large fishing complexes employing dozens of villagers and it is a central point for shopping with two markets, one at Stelling Road and the other on the roadside, on the access road itself.

Rosignol has commercial banks, supermarkets, malls, shops, stalls, groceries, bars, barbershops, salons, boutiques, stationery, sawmills and printing businesses and a wide variety of services.
Rosignol Village is between the D’Edward and Blairmont communities.

People, places and things in Rosignol Village, West Coast Berbice ( Carl Croker photos)

There are about 1,100 houses in Rosignol, varying from large houses to modest, cottage-style wooden houses in all shapes, sizes and colours.
The Stelling Road Market is held there only on Saturdays, and since the closure of the ferry service, a lot of small businesses have relocated to central Rosignol, while others went out of business.

The village also has two lumberyards; all essentials can be purchased within the community, and there is no need to journey to the city to shop, except for certain hard-to-get things.
Rosignol has two health centres, two primary schools, one ‘A’-List Secondary School and three nursery schools.
The village also has mandirs, mosques and churches.

The locals are very friendly and welcoming. They consist of both East Indians and Afro-Guyanese, who reside side by side, and the people are generally neighbourly.
Community highlights

Rosignol Village is maintained under the Zeelust/Rosignol Neighbourhood Democratic Council (NDC).
The Chairman is Chaitram Puran, who is from the neighbouring village of D’Edward.
He told the Pepperpot Magazine that the NDC covers seven villages and the community of Rosignol is quite large in terms of land space and is a central point for businesses, making it a busy shopping area.

Puran revealed that 60 percent of the vendors sell on the roadside at Rosignol and the land space on which they operate is not under the NDC, so it is not regularised for a tarmac, but the vendors have since formed a committee.

The chairman added that Rosignol is a peaceful place and not a high-crime area, even though they have had break-ins and thefts.

He disclosed that there is a squatter settlement within Rosignol, a low-lying area recently flooded due to heavy and continuous rainfall.
Puran explained that the village was once farmlands that slowly developed into a squatting area that consists of Train Line and Bennett Streets.