YVONNE Jaggernath is a resident of Unity Backdam, East Coast Demerara and she is very happy to be in good health. She is a farmer who has lived all her life in the community.

She resides in the village’s last house and is a regular jolly person who survived being sick and bedridden for eight months.

The 73-year-old told the Pepperpot Magazine that she is the mother of six and only one of her children with two grandchildren reside with her since the others are married and leading their lives elsewhere.

Jaggernath added that she is a native of Unity Backdam and the house she lives in now was once her aunt’s but she bought it years ago.

The elder cultivates a plot of land just at the side of her house and her backyard with pigeon peas, bora, tomatoes, peppers, including bird pepper (one of the biggest trees I have ever seen), wiri wiri peppers, corilla, squash and fine thyme.

Jaggernath explained that she had multiple illnesses and she became bed ridden after she was hospitalised and she thought she would not have been able to walk again.

But, thanks to the home care she received, she is on her feet once again and she is very grateful for the support of her children, who took time to care for her.

“I was only eating liquid soups, black tea with bread and biscuits for eight months and I am happy I can walk and do things for myself. I like to plant and being able to tend to my garden is what I desire the most,’ she said.

The resident of Unity Backdam added that the village is a nice quiet place to live and there is simply no fuss and the people are easy-going and go about their daily routines normally.

Jaggernath reported that she would spend the day watering her plants daily, mornings and afternoons, and she would take a rest in the outdoor hammock after breakfast and try to do whatever is needed.

“I don’t like to sit idly by, I like to do things and I am accustomed to hard work because I have been farming all my life and making achars and pepper sauce to sell,’ she said.

Her husband was also a farmer; collectively, they sold their produce at markets, fetching it out on their heads in baskets via the mud dam before they had good road, but he died 13 years ago.

Today, even though she doesn’t always make the pepper sauce and achars, she has passed down the recipe to her daughter, who would make it from scratch and sell it to various markets across the country.

Jaggernath told the Pepperpot Magazine that they would make tamarind, ‘soury’, mango, golden apple achars and lime with bird pepper sauce for sale after bottling the product.

“I like it here. This is my home, it’s not noisy and at times the neighbours would play a bit of music but not too loud and it is just a good place to be,” she said.

The villager reported that there is hardly any crime in the community which is not very big and with only one road there are no strangers and it is a very safe place to raise a family.

Unity Backdam is a lovely place set in a forest-like environment and it is a green village that produces a lot of food for markets and wholesale huskers.