TUCKED away at the intersection of the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, the Guyana Meteorological Centre, and the ever-exciting South Dakota racetrack is a community known simply as Circuit Area, although its official title is Hyde Park. The community houses about 15 homes and fewer than a hundred people.
But unlike most communities in Guyana, Hyde Park takes the meaning of neighbourly love to new heights. Hyde Park has a very unique yet captivating beginning.

It is quite literally an entire village made up of family members. Close to four decades ago, a home was destroyed on Laing Avenue, leaving a family of close to 15 people homeless. Left with nowhere else to call home, they settled with another family member in Hyde Park. Since then, the community’s people have made a home for themselves, with brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins all setting out to make a home in the same community. Today, Hyde Park is a family community. Stepping out of the ruins of disaster, the family has rebuilt their life in their very own village.

Some 40 years ago, Hyde Park was not what it is today. It starkly contrasted to the beautiful homes, surrounded by lush, well-kept greenery. Nadira Davemon came to the community when she was just 17. Her family of seven sisters remembers seeing the circuit for the first time and the little home they now called home. The community was home to a dense assortment of plants and wild animals. The foliage hid their little house well. As she shared, “We used to live in the West, then we moved to Laing Avenue, where there was a fire that burned down the whole range. And we had a family member living up here, and they invited us to come up here. ”

Nadira explained that life in the community was like life anywhere else; the community had its own challenges and adversities to overcome. Over the years, the family branched off, each with their own family and home. Interestingly, they opted to stay together. Brothers and sisters set up homes together and raised their families side by side. Nadira pointed out that three generations of people have called Hyde Park home, referring to her twelve grandchildren. Nadira is among those in her family who spent all of her adult life in the community, travelling to school, finding a job, and growing a family of her own, all done in Hyde Park.

Sharing the trials of her marriage, Nadira said she became a mother young and got married even younger. As she shared, “I got married at a very young age; I married at eighteen. At the time, my husband used to work at the airport, the police, and then he left them and started working in the g bush. I used to live somewhere else right in the Hyde Park, and then we moved here. So from over there to over here.” Nadira spent many years married to her husband and raising their seven children. As she stated, “It wasn’t easy raising seven children. I went through a lot with my husband. I couldn’t take it anymore after they started growing up. So I’m glad when I came out of that relationship. I went to work, and since then, I’ve been working.”

Nadira describes the relationship she had with her husband as turbulent, but she stayed for more than a decade for her children. Today, her children are adults, and whereas a few have stayed in the community, several have left the community for their own new beginnings. Nadira says she is happier these days and especially happy with how her children have grown, with each having good jobs and beautiful families.

Nadira and the few others that make up the community of Hyde Park have adapted well to their new home. For many years, the community depended largely on farming. After the age of agriculture came to an end, many of the people pursued different jobs and interests. Today, most persons of the community work outside, with different professions. Because of its unique location, one of the village’s unique characteristics is the noise.

Sitting between an airport and a racetrack, most people would find the almost constant noise an issue, but Nadira says they have grown accustomed to it, and the children born in the community seem not to notice the sounds of planes taking flight. As she stated, ” You just get used to it. The noise doesn’t bother their babies. They’re born used to it. When the cars go around with the noise, we get used to it.” Nadira admits that the community still has many challenges, but it is still a beautiful place to call home, a community full of love, serenity, and family.