A look at how The Village of Hope came to be

HOPE is an interesting name for a village, and there are bound to be a few sayings about the title. Hope Village on the East Coast of Demerara is among the villages in Guyana where its history lives through its people. The days of colonialism and indentureship are part of every villager, all of whom carry their village’s past with pride. Although very little is known about the name, Hope has evolved through a barrage of eras, and has seen countless changes. Going from a vast sugar plantation that housed indentured servants to a diverse community with a blossoming economic sector, there are people who know the story of changes and challenges throughout Hope. But few as much as Roy Doodnauth. Born and raised in the village, Roy first had experiences with both the hard toil of life in Hope and reaping the fruits of his work. Roy sat down with The Pepperpot Magazine to talk about the village’s name and nature.

A QUICK HISTORY OF HOPE
Roy was born and raised in Hope, but the community is more than a place he calls home. Many people consider Hope a place of historical significance. It is said to be one of the few places in Guyana where history is preserved. With a history as rich as Hope’s, it deserves to be protected and told.

Most of Hope’s inhabitants are direct descendants of indentured servants. Decades ago, boats landed in Guyana, and thousands of people were on board, many of whom were set to work on plantations throughout colonial Guyana. One of these places was Hope. A massive sugar plantation at the time, several families lived and worked there. Roy remembers stories his father told him about his grandparents from India.

In retelling those stories, Roy describes a time long gone filled with hard labour, challenges and agriculture. “My foreparents come from India. This community was a sugar estate owned by a man called Walcott. “My father came to work here when he was 10 years old on the estate. His parents used to live in logies; I attended school right in here. It was seven of us; four girls and three boys. And I think it was sometime in 1932 that Walcott sold the land to Sankar, and they converted it into a coconut plantation,” he shared.

Throughout indentureship, the village people had forged a deep relationship with each other in the face of common adversities. This relationship still lives on. Today, Hope is home to several hundred people, and one of the biggest communities on the East Coast. In years gone by, however, the community was a small hub of close-knit people who looked out for each other. Roy says that not much has changed in that regard. “We still continue to work and live at the estate. We were a dense area, a mile-and-a-quarter away from the main road, and people hardly knew about Hope Estate. But it was a small amount of people living in here; only about thirty-something families.”

PEOPLE, PLACES AND GOOD MEMORIES
For many years, Hope was a village unto itself. The little village was still developing and finding its identity. Life in the village was difficult for many years, said Roy. “We had a church, temple and mosque; it was really nice. We never had any water, electricity or nothing, but it was nice,” he explained. Interestingly, with all the challenges faced, Roy still considered life in Hope to be good. The greatest thing about his village was never the roads or electricity, but rather the people, says Roy.

Finding work in the community was a challenge. Although work was available, it was extremely difficult, and paid very little. This pushed families to send their children out to work as early as the age of ten. Roy began harvesting coconuts when he was only twelve. He was not alone in this endeavour, he said. Many people sent their children to work young. Many young men and women set out to help provide for their families. “We used trench water and jug lamps,” he said. “There was no kind of roads; we had to walk out without our things. I started working on the estate when I was 12 years old. We used to work and plant, but there was good and bad.”

One of the more unheard-of but deeply interesting aspects of indentureship is the direct strain and pressure it places on families. Roy remembers his parents being threatened when they went on strike in hopes of better pay. “I remember when my parents would strike for more money,” he recalled, “and they would get a notice saying to stop the strike or move out because the logies was their own. And when they buy the plantation, they buy we too.”

CHANGES AND DEVELOPMENT
The Hope of today is a different community from yesterday. Hope has become the coconut centre of the region, and is still making strides in various aspects. As Roy shared, “From them days to now, Hope really changed a lot. Other people have come into the community, and they started to plant, so the whole place is occupied. And here at the coconut estate, this is the central place for coconut, so it has grown a lot. And this is real and true progress, because people are going into coconut.”