SOMETIMES you wish for something, but you never truly believe it will come true. I grew up in a sugar estate community, and as a young girl walking home from school, I would stop by the roadside of the Estate Manager’s compound under the shade of the huge flamboyant trees. When in bloom, the ground became carpeted with the fallen flowers in a fusion of astounding red, yellow, and pink colours.
The splendour of nature is a gift to the earth.
I would scoop them up in my hands and throw them up in the air, so they’d fall all over me. Some I would fill in my satchel to take home for the round glass vase on my small writing table. Flowers had become one of the loves of my life from a young age, and I believed in fairytales—with a deep love for castles, manors and museums. Every time I stopped to play with the flowers, I would look in awe at the classic, white colonial house, the beautiful garden, and the neat, manicured lawns.
My young heart wished at the time that I could one day live there.

I was not sure at the time how that could come true when my father was a labourer in the backdams. My friends would look at me bemused, never showing any interest nor wishing for such a life. But I believed living with a dream could set the tone for a beautiful life.
The years passed, and I moved to high school in New Amsterdam, in pursuit of higher education. I rode a ladies’ Raleigh bicycle to school, and along the way there were no huge flamboyant trees in stunning bloom—but many other things of interest. I had developed a deep passion for history and a curious mind, so I chronicled places and things of interest in my mind to later make notes in my journal.
History has documented our lives and times from colonialism to independence—an unforgettable era that I read extensively about. Life on the sugar estates and in communities continued to change as new opportunities shaped our destinies.
I never thought that the wish I had made years ago would come true, but it did.
And the day I left my parents’ home as a bride, I embarked on a new journey in life. A dream had found me—but would it be beautiful, I wondered?
Only time would tell!
I did not experience the wonderful feeling of bliss and happiness that comes with being in a special place, despite the unique and beautiful colonial buildings at Blairmont and Skeldon Estates.
Something from my dream was missing.
A few years later, we were transferred to Uitvlugt Estate on the West Coast of Demerara, and the moment I entered the Estate Manager’s compound, I fell in love with that place. The sprawling green landscape, with its astonishing variety of flowering trees, fruit orchards, colonial gardening relics, and huge, flamboyant trees that bordered the expansive grounds, was a young girl’s dream come true.
An immediate instinct told me that there was something different about the place, and as I began to settle down, I wondered, “What mystery or magic does it hold?”
What was unique about the compound was that it was separate from the main one and surrounded by canals—like an island. I felt now the bliss and happiness, for the landscape lent a certain type of romance to the mind.
From dawn to dusk, each day was something interesting to do, to see, to learn in that little paradise. One of the things I learnt about the Leonora/Uitvlugt Estates was the names of the Dutch owners of the plantations—Ignatius Charles Bourda and Ursillya—and their initials are engraved on the factory chimney of Uitvlugt. And of course, the fabled tale of Dutch colonial masters’ burial sites in the yard—none of which I saw.
What I saw were huge snakes that were real!
One day, as I was walking under the canopy of the flamboyant trees, I saw a long snake slithering down one of the trees. I ran out of fear, and the gardener told me there’s always snakes in the yard.
“Why is that?” I asked.
He told me that beyond the border of the grounds were canefields, so when the cane is burnt, the snakes crawl over into the yard. That was scarier for me than stumbling on an old Dutch tomb, so I avoided that part of the grounds as best I could. So many snakes were caught during the time I lived there that I just couldn’t get the thought of snakes out of my mind.
Then one night, I was awoken by a soft hissing sound.
I was not sure where it came from because everyone was asleep. I got up and slowly pulled aside the curtains from the glass doors leading to the veranda. I looked outside but saw nothing.
“Strange,” I thought. “Did I actually hear that or was it a dream?”
The next morning, I went for a walk across the narrow waterway where a diversity of exotic lilies grew to a section of the yard that was an abandoned tennis court. The wildflowers that grew there were an amazing display of yellow across the court. Why I was there that morning, I wasn’t sure. But as I stood there looking around, a soft breeze blew, bending the soft stalks of the wildflowers—and that’s when I saw the snake.
It had raised its head and was looking at me!
I dropped the basket of flowers I had in my hand—that I had picked for morning prayers—and ran, almost tripping over the old wooden bridge. I stopped in the middle of the lawn as the two gardeners hurried to see what was wrong with me.
“Another snake,” I said, a little out of breath.
They both smiled and said casually, “Yuh would geh accustom tuh it.”
I shook my head, somewhat in disbelief.
“How and when do I get accustomed to snakes?”
They both advised me not to walk too far out on the grounds, but as a nature lover, I wanted to see every flowering shrub and blooming tree, to pick fruits, and look at the different birds flitting around in the garden, heading to the bird bath.
That night, when everyone was asleep, I went out on the veranda and looked across the lawn to the tennis court that was veiled in darkness, and I asked silently,
“Is something there from the past?”
So many stories I have heard, and all the notes I had written in my journal—maybe it’s time for me to write from my own experiences: The historical past, the mysteries of the estate grounds, tales of Dutch ghosts and tombs, and the myth of a snake dynasty.
Fiction and facts from a curious mind. And living here in a world of my own, in the embrace of nature’s brilliance, the writer in me bloomed.