Looking at community acceptance

THIS week, the Pepperpot Magazine went on an interesting adventure and stumbled into a captivating community.
The community of Old Hyde Park is a smaller, lesser-known village in Timehri. Known more popularly as Circuit Area, the community is made up almost entirely of a single family. Over the years, however, a few people have ventured into the village to set up their own life.

Whereas some simply settled among the village’s people, others joined the family, growing the village. Jamie Jones is a mother of three energetic boys. Born and raised in Annandale, Jamie first came to Hyde Park several years ago. Since then, she has become more a part of the community than she ever thought possible. She told the Pepperpot Magazine how welcoming the village is and how she and many others became a part of the picturesque Old Hyde Park.

Annandale is far away from Timehri, but the two communities do have their similarities despite the distance. Twenty-nine-year-old Jamie explained that both communities had an authentic and country aura to them. Wide expanses of forest and beautiful waterways characterise both villages. Her community of birth facilitated a happy upbringing, one filled with countless play days in backdams and nearby canals. As she stated, “Growing up in Annandale was really nice.

The area was quite the same as here. I had a lot of fun playing and so on. I remember being with my friends; we would wait for the weekends to arrive because we could not go out when we had school during the week. Growing up there was fun.” This is not much different from the childhood her children are experiencing today in Hyde Park. Her three boys attend neighbouring schools but happily frolic among the trees and creeks of Timehri’s backlands on the weekends.

Jamie was led to the community entirely by faith. She came to the community after marrying her now-husband. Their love story is an interesting one. As she explained, it all began with a mistaken phone number. “I met my husband when I was still living on the East Coast. My friend at the time got a call from the wrong number. They started to talk, and she said he seemed like a nice person. She gave me his number, and we started to talk.

We never saw each other, but we started talking over the phone.” Sometime later, the two young people met at an aunt’s wedding. After seeing each other for the first time, they quickly fell in love and got married.

Still teenagers and a year apart in age, the young couple set out to make a life for themselves and their growing family. As much as she enjoyed living in Annandale, Jamie bravely moved to Hyde Park because of her husband. She still remembers her first time visiting the community. She was captivated by the natural beauty, but she had her fears as a young mother so far from home. “This place has a lot of trees.

And we did not have this many people. More people have moved in since then. But it was quiet, and I liked it.” In the years she had called the village home, officially since 2012, the village has developed tremendously. As she stated, “We never really have many problems. We never had issues with people coming in and invading our homes or anything like that. But now the community has developed a lot, and now we are getting roads.”

The community welcomes the changes. Jamie is just one of many people who are happy with the recent developments, and they are hopeful for further change. As it is, the community is well-equipped with electricity, and some villagers draw water from natural springs below their homes. Both Jamie and her husband work to provide for the family. Whereas he works in various regions in Guyana, Jamie works in Soesdyke. “My husband is a mill operator, and I work at King and Queens in Soesdyke. My husband moves a lot, though,” she said. Jamie and her husband are working to build their little family and are happy in Hyde Park, surrounded by supportive family and friends.

Throughout her years in the community, Jamie says the only constant thing is family. It would seem as though Old Hyde Park is the perfect place for families. Countless people have come from all across Guyana to build a life in the little community by the racetrack. Jamie says Old Hyde is unique in how close-knit it is. People of the community have fostered a truly unique and immensely strong sense of togetherness. Jamie explains that the community is best described as one big happy, helpful family: “Almost everybody here is family. We have the Davemons, the Diablos, and the Andersons. Everybody is an aunt, cousin, or in-law. And everybody helps each other.”