A place of both back dams and businesses

By Shaniya Harding

The group of villages along the West Coast all share a similar past, people, values and a sense of community. But there is a sense of togetherness and authenticity in the village of Ruby that stands out. The people of Ruby all have a unique way of life, while still staying connected as a community.

Because Ruby is a place with both ambitious businesses and lucrative farming, the way of making a living differs greatly from place to place. A woman known by most as Anita London lives and runs a business in Ruby. Anita is a cook and has a snackette where she prepares a wide array of dishes daily.

As diverse as it is, Ruby does not have a large population. And this is greatly impacting the businesses that have managed to survive in the community. “Business down here is slow bad. The people here prefer to buy their own food and cook for themselves. So, they don’t really want to buy certain things like food. But I won’t give up,” Anita stated.

Other business owners in the village mirror Anita’s sentiment. The reason for the lack of business interaction could be partly owed to the village’s small population. Another reason Anita cited as one of the reasons small businesses are struggling is the introduction of larger businesses. Most of them are in neighbouring villages but are very hard to compete with. “Business is also hard because we have a lot of big places opening now. A lot of places have opened and they sell a lot of things cheap. So, the people don’t look at quality. They look at quantity,” Anita shared.

The village of Ruby holds a special place in her heart as she has seen the community change in her years living there. The 67-year-old mother of five says that there are very few things she cares about more than her family and love for food and cooking.

Anita grew up in and around the West Coast but only opened her business around four years ago in Ruby. “I was born in Tuschen, but I grew up in Vergenoegen. And then, after the birth of my children, I came back to Ruby to live. Today I have four sons and one daughter. I have twenty-something grandchildren and more than ten great-grandchildren.”

And in the years since her return, she has seen and been through a lot. One of the things that caused her return to open the business at Ruby was the closing of a restaurant she had been running for more than 30 years. The town of Parika is closer and often more visited by the resident of Ruby than the capital city of Georgetown. At Parika is where Anit had her restaurant. And while she had a highly successful business built from the ground, the only issue was that the land was a government reserve and she was later asked to move.

Although this happened almost five years ago, it was still a hard blow to Anita after 30 years and she is still finding her footing in opening an entirely new establishment. “After that happened four years ago, I came back home to open my shop here,” Anita shared. She, however adamantly expresses that she is no longer mad about it and is now rather thankful she was able to have the business she had.

Anita’s interest in cooking developed at an early age. And it was seen as a necessity and sure way of making a living in the hardest of times. Anita shared, “I was born into a family that liked cooking. It was 10 of us, five boys and five girls and all of us grew up watching our family cook. And that was our living. And my children followed in my footsteps too, my daughter has a Guinness bar, and my son used to cook breakfast at our restaurant in Parika.”

Today in the village of Ruby, Anita is happy to live simply because of its peacefulness, serenity and friendly people who make for good neighbours. “Some of the people in Ruby plant in the farm and some of them work other places. And some are self-employed. This area is not populated. But me and my neighbours live good. This time is not like long ago, long ago people were ignorant. People would fight and quarrel, but not now,” she explained.

The community remains a quiet and pristine place, of which the residents have every little complaint. Apart from the occasional bouts of flooding, the residents of Ruby say they are very happy with the changes the village has seen. The so-called Back Dam has seen the development of roads and the addition of electricity and water. And today, the residents of Ruby are making the case to be considered as more than a place of rice farming and back dams, but to be seen as the quiet, happy little village they are.