By Michel Outridge

Moulvi Sheer Mohamed is a registered marriage officer and a highly respected village elder and Imam of Bush Lot Village, West Coast Berbice.

He is the current Imam for Bath Village Masjid, a few villages away and at 80 years old, he is still very much active and has a job at a gas station in Hopetown Village where he sits on the 05:00hrs to 07:00hrs shift.

This senior citizen would get up at 04:00hrs every morning to prepare for his prayers before going to work and even does his own gardening at home where he has a garden in his back yard and the plot next to his place.

He is cultivating some cash crops which he would sell in the village.

Mohamed was the Imam for Bush Lot Masjid for 15 years and was also a rice farmer, who handed down the rice fields to his children after losing many crops he went out of rice farming.

He went on to be a hire car driver for 12 years working from Bush Lot to Georgetown until he landed a job as a driver for a general manager of a private company for seven years.

Mohamed used to earn $2 from each passenger from Bush Lot to the city and recalled if he worked $20 he had a lot of money, back then.

Mohamed reported that after the company left Guyana he went overseas for six months and upon his return home he was informed that the job as the driver with the private company was his again.

He was elated and worked with that firm until their time in Guyana ended and he began his own business as a poultry farmer and began planting cash crops.

The father of six revealed that he has been a resident of Bush Lot Village for 58 years and he is originally from Cane Grove, East Coast Demerara.

Mohamed stated that in 1958, he relocated to Bush Lot Village because he wanted to send his children to school and he constructed a small house.

He later went into large scale cattle rearing and rice farming in the 1960s at Abary Creek with his father-in-law and later took a loan from Mortgage Finance Bank and build a house which currently stands.

Mohamed related that now three-quarters of the men in the village are rice farmers and they would sell to the rice mill that is in the village.

“I was chair for the CDC at Onverwagt and I did a lot of behind the scenes volunteer work for this village, back in 1995 I was the point person who was instrumental in overseeing the first road being built which was a mud dam,” he said.

He pointed out that back then the village was a large jungle which has seen development over the years and through Basic Needs Trust Fund he was the person who dug the place to lay pipelines so the village could get potable water supply for the very first time.

Mohamed is a son of the soil, a true pioneer of his village and a ‘go-to’ person when in need of anything even simple advice.

This village elder was the person who ensured the village benefitted from electricity many moons ago and he was a community leader who led by example and donated hampers to the less fortunate, a gesture he does up to date.

He started a hamper distribution from monthly to weekly and wear many hats in the village being a marriage officer, a rural constable, a child care and protection agency officer and a counsellor.

Even up to date, Mohamed does a lot of charitable work at his masjid and in his village where he is highly regarded.

Mohamed has 22 grandchildren and 24 great-grandchildren, all of whom he is very fond of.

The welder, Uncle Wally

Meanwhile, the Pepperpot Magazine met another respected elder of the village, a welder by profession but an all-rounder by nature and he is Nazireen Ullah called ‘Uncle Wally’.

Ullah, 84, is a local of Bush Lot Village, West Coast Berbice and in 1944 he was living in a small cottage at the same plot on the Public Road, where he has a large wooden house.

The father of four stated that in his younger days he used to rear a lot of cows and plant rice and also used to assist his father, a blacksmith, in his workshop.

As he became advanced in age, he gave up cattle rearing and rice cultivation and began his own business from under his house a welding workshop, which is still operational to date.

Ullah, a devout Muslim in the community, reported that after his father passed away in 1965 at age 66 years old, he has seven brothers and three sisters, he knew he had to start his on his own.

“I worked hard all my life even at my age I still operate this workshop doing all welding jobs alone and I am still accustomed to working all these years,” he said.

The elder related that in his younger days he worked hard in the back dam minding cows and planting rice with his father and siblings.

They had 600 acres of farmland which was used for rice cultivation and a ranch where they had a lot of cows but sold it over the years and went out of that business.

Ullah told the Pepperpot Magazine that Bush Lot Village is a place where the people are close-knit and live like family and on the roadside where he resides is a business hub.

He added that the place is quiet even though there are a lot of businesses and it is a safe place to be despite a few kitchen thieves.

Ullah reported that of his siblings eight passed away and he has a brother, who resides overseas and is age 96 years old.

“I will not stop working until my eyes close because that’s how our kind of people grew up in the black and white days, it was hard work that made us into responsible people and adults, who accomplished a lot in our time,” he said.