Wall of Fame - Notable Morucans
- Stephen Campbell - first Parliamentarian
- Martina Rodrigues - Head Mistress of Achawib School and later Dora, Demerara River
- Sister Rose Therese - Mercy Nun
- Basil Rodrigues - Musician, Folklorist
- Stephanie Fraser - Swimming Coach
- Simone Fredericks - Miss Moruca 2011
- Vic Ferreira - teacher and Musician
- Annette Arjoon Martins - Conservationist
- Elizabeth Hudson - Mother
- Neville Calistro - Calipsonian
- Ernestine Chacon called “Aunty Annie” from Kissing Rocks in Mabaruma, Region One.
Stephen Campbell
Stephen Joseph Campbell was born in the Moruca sub-district of Region One on December 26, 1897 to Tiburtio A. Campbell, boat builder, and his wife, Maria dos Santos nee Osorio, parents who both died when he was at a tender age, leaving him in the care of his grandmother.
He was a student of the Santa Rosa Mission School and was someone who had a passion for learning in his early life and this influenced his character as a person with a discovery method.
Stephen Campbell married at the age of 31 in on 9th February,1928 to Umbelina M. Da Silva. Had one son and seven daughters and migrated to various locations in Regions One, Two, Seven and Nine where he was involved in teaching, road construction, gold mining, rubber tapping, fishing and tree spotting. He was Head Teacher of St. Louis School and Assistant Teacher Martindale R.C. School, Pomeroon and Teacher-Catechist among the Wapisiana Indians in Rupununi.
His political will, however, was aroused during his tenure at the Waini sawmill where Amerindians and other sections of the Guyanese population were seeking representation.
With the proposal of Universal Adult Suffrage in 1951, this gave the Amerindians the opportunity to participate in General Elections as Campbell began to show keener interest in politics.
April 27, 1956 marked the first time in history that Amerindians in Guyana exercised their franchise and the following year, Campbell at the age of 60, was first elected to the Legislative Council of British Guiana.
He subsequently entered the National Labour Front (NLF) and became the first Amerindian to contest the General Elections in British Guiana. This historical event was the turning point in Stephen Campbell’s personal life which was influenced by a sense of duty towards the Amerindian people.
“In the year 1957, I entered politics at the request of the Amerindians who felt that they had no one to represent their interests in the Central Government,” Campbell had said.
Among his greatest achievements was the move towards crafting the Amerindian Act and to develop better health facilities, a postal service and agriculture in the North West District.
Campbell died on May 12, 1966 - two weeks before Guiana gained Independence from Britain.
Stephen Campbell is the main reason for September 10 being declared Amerindian Heritage Day.
He was a student of the Santa Rosa Mission School and was someone who had a passion for learning in his early life and this influenced his character as a person with a discovery method.
Stephen Campbell married at the age of 31 in on 9th February,1928 to Umbelina M. Da Silva. Had one son and seven daughters and migrated to various locations in Regions One, Two, Seven and Nine where he was involved in teaching, road construction, gold mining, rubber tapping, fishing and tree spotting. He was Head Teacher of St. Louis School and Assistant Teacher Martindale R.C. School, Pomeroon and Teacher-Catechist among the Wapisiana Indians in Rupununi.
His political will, however, was aroused during his tenure at the Waini sawmill where Amerindians and other sections of the Guyanese population were seeking representation.
With the proposal of Universal Adult Suffrage in 1951, this gave the Amerindians the opportunity to participate in General Elections as Campbell began to show keener interest in politics.
April 27, 1956 marked the first time in history that Amerindians in Guyana exercised their franchise and the following year, Campbell at the age of 60, was first elected to the Legislative Council of British Guiana.
He subsequently entered the National Labour Front (NLF) and became the first Amerindian to contest the General Elections in British Guiana. This historical event was the turning point in Stephen Campbell’s personal life which was influenced by a sense of duty towards the Amerindian people.
“In the year 1957, I entered politics at the request of the Amerindians who felt that they had no one to represent their interests in the Central Government,” Campbell had said.
Among his greatest achievements was the move towards crafting the Amerindian Act and to develop better health facilities, a postal service and agriculture in the North West District.
Campbell died on May 12, 1966 - two weeks before Guiana gained Independence from Britain.
Stephen Campbell is the main reason for September 10 being declared Amerindian Heritage Day.
Sister Rose Therese
Photograph of Sister Rose Therese around 1988
_
Sister Theresa La Rose was born August 4, 1928 in Charity,
Guyana, South
America a daughter of the late Edmund La Rose and Amelia Alphonse
La Rose. She received her elementary and secondary education in Santa Rosa, British Guiana which is now Guyana and graduated
from high school in 1952.
She entered the Sisters of Mercy, Scranton Province, at Dallas on February 2, 1953. Sr. Theresa earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from College Misericordia in 1958. On returning to Guyana, Sr. Theresa began her ministry of education which was to span 51 years. Her first assignment was to Sacred Heart School, Georgetown. She subsequently taught at schools in Brickdam, Santa Rosa, Mabaruma, and returned to Sacred Heart School. Sister La Rose’s last educational positions were at the Trust College where she taught prospective teachers and at St. Roses High School where she was a teacher and a pastoral minister
For a period of 25 years she worked for the Guyana government. During this time she worked in the Ministry of Interior Development, Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, and in various educational capacities; teaching crafts for earning a livelihood, money management, the wise use of natural resources, and the planting and cultivation of nutritious food crops.
She also trained and served as a Justice of the Peace from 1970 to 1978. Sr Theresa received the Medal of Service Award in 1975. This is a national award which was given for her work with the Amerindians throughout Guyana. Her last educational positions were in the national capitol of Georgetown at Trust College where she taught prospective teachers, and at St. Rose High School where she was a teacher and pastoral minister.
But it was her dedicated commitment to the development of the interior regions of the country that will always be remembered. Sister La Rose worked for the Ministry of Interior Development, Amerindian Affairs and in various other educational capacities associated with the Government. She did make an impact on the lives of the members of the Amerindian Community and she was awarded the Medal of Service in 1975 by the then PNC Administration.
She had one brother Cyprian La Rose and one sister, Juanita Fredericks .
Sister Theresa La Rose, a member of the Mid-Atlantic Community of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas died at Mercy Center, Dallas on Saturday, September 12, 2009.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
She entered the Sisters of Mercy, Scranton Province, at Dallas on February 2, 1953. Sr. Theresa earned a bachelor of science degree in elementary education from College Misericordia in 1958. On returning to Guyana, Sr. Theresa began her ministry of education which was to span 51 years. Her first assignment was to Sacred Heart School, Georgetown. She subsequently taught at schools in Brickdam, Santa Rosa, Mabaruma, and returned to Sacred Heart School. Sister La Rose’s last educational positions were at the Trust College where she taught prospective teachers and at St. Roses High School where she was a teacher and a pastoral minister
For a period of 25 years she worked for the Guyana government. During this time she worked in the Ministry of Interior Development, Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, and in various educational capacities; teaching crafts for earning a livelihood, money management, the wise use of natural resources, and the planting and cultivation of nutritious food crops.
She also trained and served as a Justice of the Peace from 1970 to 1978. Sr Theresa received the Medal of Service Award in 1975. This is a national award which was given for her work with the Amerindians throughout Guyana. Her last educational positions were in the national capitol of Georgetown at Trust College where she taught prospective teachers, and at St. Rose High School where she was a teacher and pastoral minister.
But it was her dedicated commitment to the development of the interior regions of the country that will always be remembered. Sister La Rose worked for the Ministry of Interior Development, Amerindian Affairs and in various other educational capacities associated with the Government. She did make an impact on the lives of the members of the Amerindian Community and she was awarded the Medal of Service in 1975 by the then PNC Administration.
She had one brother Cyprian La Rose and one sister, Juanita Fredericks .
Sister Theresa La Rose, a member of the Mid-Atlantic Community of the Sisters of Mercy of the Americas died at Mercy Center, Dallas on Saturday, September 12, 2009.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
Basil Rodrigues M.S. is a "Special Person' KNews - Oct 2, 2011
"Uncle" Basil Rodrigues
Folklorist, Musician, Educator and highly respected Elder
Pull quote: “I was respected by persons in the communities in which I resided, and I was chosen for many leadership roles.”
By Rohan Sagar
Born at Bullet Tree, Waini River, Basil Cuthbert Rodrigues, affectionately known as Uncle Basil in all Santa Rosa and Moruca, traces his heritage back to Venezuela where his forefathers lived in Angostura or modern Cuidad Bolivar. They escaped the aftermath of the ‘Big War’ – the Bolivarian War of Independence as it is known in the Oral Traditions of the Spanish Arawaks – and later resettled in Paloma, a tiny community further inland from the banks of the Moruca River. Paloma is accessible by a narrow dirt road from Cabucalli and Kokal.
Soon after Uncle Basil was born (in 1932) his family, minus an older brother and sister who remained in Santa Rosa to attend school, relocated to the Waini where his grandfather, Antonio Rodrigues called Papita, lived and where Basil experienced in real time the traditional way of life commonly associated with Indigenous Peoples on the Atlantic shorelines. These included farming and all that went into the preparation, planting and harvesting. Then there was fishing, an activity that can last sometimes for days as Papita would explore tiny creeks where the fishing grounds were the more attractive.
The reason for moving to Waini in the first place also was based on local superstition – some of his younger brothers and sisters did not survive very long and died quite young. Basil’s parents, believing that there were evil spirits around the home, moved.
Papita’s illness at age 75 prompted Basil’s parents to return to Moruca along with Papita. Now it was time to return to Kokal. Basil continued attending school at Kokal, then administered and taught by Roman Catholic nuns.
Like most musicians who came out of Guyana’s hinterland, he began his musical life whilst experiencing the richness of his traditional culture. At this time in its history the community of Kokal formed a part of the wider Santa Rosa village (along with Cabucalli where Basil’s mother came from, Paloma where his father originated, and San Juan). Kayaps and the coming together of the community to indulge in the traditional ceremonial way of life fused with Roman Catholic ceremonial rites such as baptisms, weddings, Christmases as well as others that enriched the lives of the community’s population.
And there was a justification, as the Arawaks were also devout Catholics and it was they who caused a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Thomas Hynes, to travel from Trinidad, to bless a local and newly constructed Church in 1830.
As a young man Uncle Basil was deeply influenced by two persons who caused him to pick up the guitar as his musical instrument – his father who was a violinist in demand and later Aloysius La Rose, who was another violinist and cultural visionary. Incidentally, it was at this time that the Arawak language began to experience a decline in use and this affected the music which resulted in less emphasis on the singing of the lyrics, and so the violin became the pre-eminent instrument that carried the melody of the traditional music of the Arawaks.
Additionally, the music of the Arawaks of Santa Rosa was unique – it was not the usual traditional 2/4 common to Indigenous music, in fact, Banchikilli which in Arawak means to ‘dance to the violin and banjo’ evolved as a hybrid of the Venezuelan Joropo and the melodic form of the Mari-Mari.
Basil loved music, and his favourite was of course his people’s Banchikilli – and then there was the Country & Western. This love for Country & Western was not unusual as it was a common characteristic of rural and hinterland populations of Guyana.
Basil’s favourite artist was Hank Williams Snr and he remembers paddling down the Moruca River in the bright moonlit night singing and playing his guitar to the tunes of Hank Williams. He was partnered by his friends, and these extraordinary performances often ended in the local bars.
Basil Rodrigues’ moonlit performances did not find favour with one section of the Kokal population – the nuns who live at the convent overlooking the Cabucalli and Hurdiah communities along the Moruca River. In fact, this activity was deemed to be quite harmful to young Basil’s prospects of “entering the Gates of Heaven” whenever that moment should arise, and the nuns duly informed his parents that he ought to be engaged in activities that were more constructive and purposeful. This was to decisively reshaped Basil Rodrigues’ future and impacted another population in a very significant way.
At the age of 18, in 1952, Basil Rodrigues stepped off a DC Dakota plane at Lumid Pau to commence his second life – as a teacher. This was the culmination of the discussions between his parents and the nuns of the local convent, and the outcome of his serenading activities on the Moruca River. This new phase was not quite different in that it was quite common then for young Amerindian males to gravitate towards the forestry or mining industries. Basil did, too, and he worked in the North West (as a miner) as well as doing camp duties both there and in Linden.
Fr. Bernard McKenna, who he calls the educationist priest, was instrumental in seating Basil on the plane. He then assigned him his first school and for the next 40 years, except for periodic visits to Georgetown and Moruca, Basil Rodrigues lived and taught in the Rupununi. During this time he married Delores, and together they parented four children, two sons – Wally who is a malarial microscopist at Aishalton, Curtis (attacked and killed by a tiger in the Marudi Mountains), and two daughters Beverly and Kay, who live with him in Kokal today.
****************************************************************************
Keeping our culture alive – passing on the memory of Uncle Basil
By Staff Reporter -
July 27, 2016
Filling his shoes may be a difficult task. The late Basil Rodrigues, fondly called “Uncle Basil” imprinted a rich cultural history in his contributions to the development of the Hinterland, mainly in the area of education and music. He is seen a formidable force in his own right, championing the cultures of the Indigenous people and someone who dedicatedly channelled his efforts in passing on the cultural and general knowledge of the nation’s first people.
But who would know him better than his wife Delores, who spent 55-years in his company in the Rupununi and at Moruca where he was laid to rest two years ago at the age of 81.
Uncle Basil was a recipient of the Medal of Service as well as the Golden Arrow of Achievement, awards which were bestowed on him for his efforts in advancing his cultural roots. During a visit to the Rodrigues’ home at Kokall, Moruca recently, “Aunty Doli”, as she is fondly called by many, spoke of her late husband’s undying love for the Amerindian culture, his passion for teaching and the huge task for those of this generation to fill the vacuum which was left by him after his ascension to the Great Beyond. She sat alongside her two daughters in the family’s living-room which is decorated with photographs of family members and one of Moruca’s most important sons. Aunty Doli said that there are days in recent times when she would think of Uncle Basil prior to making a decision. Any decision, she chuckled. “I’ll say how he would like it, then I would pull myself out of that but many times it still happens,” she said as her two daughters smiled nearby.
She said the couple did everything together. “We were very close, we go to the shop, to the church, we worked together,” she said pointedly.
The only time they spent apart were on her trips overseas, when her sister would invite her to Canada.
“After 55 years of that, you miss somebody… to live those years with a person you got to be like a partner,” she said with a slight hint of sadness. Sadness of course is almost uncharacteristic of her spritely disposition.
But his memory lives on and he provides a guide for her and the family. She said she discovered many things he taught or told her have proved useful today. “I find a lot things useful, God knew he would have left and I would have nobody else but the memory of him lives on,” she remarked as she stared at the many pictures of the family on the walls of their living room.
The family bore several children and great grandchildren and while some have displayed traits of Uncle Basil, it is difficult to determine who will follow in his path.
CULTURALLY GIFTED
According to Aunty Doli, her grandson Jude Etienne, who teaches at Moruca, plays the guitar well, and is culturally gifted, traits of his late grandfather.
She said Jude also plays the banjo, a small stringed instrument similar to a guitar. He played the instrument since his childhood years while in the company of his late grandfather. Jude also possesses a good command of English and he can also sing. Jude is preparing to wed his partner soon, Aunty Doli remarked. Aunty Doli recalled a banjo, a guitar and a triangle (metal instrument) being played on the day she tied the knot with Uncle Basil at Moruca. He was a member of a Banchikilli (Spanish Arawak music) band and his friends were on hand to serenade the couple from the church to the wedding house. She said his parents, “Uncle Stanley” and “Aunt Ena” lived at the bottom of the hill, some distance away from where she currently resides. Aunt Ena was the cousin of Stephen Campbell, a revered son of Moruca and the first Guyanese Member of Parliament of Amerindian descent.
She said those days back in 1959, things were much different from today. She explained that her mother must have seen “something in me and said Thank God I gon marry she off”. After a slight chuckle, she said that her mother had no pity on her, as she laughed at her situation at the time. The newly-wed couple lived at their respective parents’ home separately until they moved to the Rupununi where Uncle Basil had already established his name since he was teaching in Region Nine at the time.
After marrying in December, Basil had annual leave and in April, we went up to Shea where he was teaching at the time,” Aunty Doli recalled.
“He knew the people, they knew him well, he was a good ‘paracarri’, here we call it ‘paiwari’ (Indigenous beverage) up there is paracarri,” she explained. She said Uncle Basil would socialise but she found herself a stranger in strange lands, miles away from home.
“Imagine, I got to now fall in and being pregnant and with bad feelings,” she said with an amused smile followed by a clap.
LIFE AT MORUCA
After spending 25 years in the Rupununi, the couple decided to move back to Santa Rosa. That was in 1992. They were well-established at Aishalton at the time, Aunty Doli said. She noted that Uncle Basil thought hard about returning to his homeland.
“Aishalton was home for him with all the scenery and so but his health was beginning to go a bit and we thought we needed to be closer to health care,” she recounted. On their return to Moruca in 1992, a few things needed to be fixed. “We notice our health service was not good. We hadn’t a doctor and he and I started working on it,” she said. In 1992, Uncle Basil started teaching at the primary school and where the family house stands today, was filled with bushes. “There were many vines,” she said. They built a small house on their return. “A little trooile top home, well at least we had a shelter,” she added with a little smile. “Not the two-story building I imagined but as usual, we said let us make use with what we have,” she said with a contented stare. At the time, her eldest daughter had moved to Boa Vista in Brazil while her other daughter and her grandson moved to Moruca with her and Uncle Basil. The couple started conversations with the community and later formed a health committee after they recognised that Moruca was not only the two communities of Kumaka and San Jose but included many far flung areas. She said Uncle Basil had a “good command of how to run things and people liked how he spoke not long and drawn out but he get things done”. As the years rolled by, she said he wanted to get deeper into culture and he found the children of Moruca were shy and had little pride in their tradition. “So what he used to do heritage time, he asked me to make a lap, head dress and so and he would go out,” she said, noting the people thought it funny. He was also centrally involved in church activities.
Some 200 years ago, on St John’s Day which is celebrated on June 24 annually, the first Roman Catholic priest arrived at Moruca. The area’s very first families included the Atkinsons, the Aguilars, the Torres’, Rodrigues, among others and they were all Roman Catholics. The families wanted a church established at Moruca and later, Father Haynes moved to the area where the church mission was built. “They built a little shed and Father Haynes arrived on that day,” Aunty Doli schooled. That evening lighted torches in the form of bamboos were placed along the sides of the water near the community of Hobo were the priest was welcomed.
The scene is re-enacted annually and before Uncle Basil passed-away, he was involved in the planning process until his health deteriorated. The scene was nevertheless re-enacted and his memory is etched in the celebrations which Aunty Doli noted, established a point in Moruca’s rich history.
A question pose to residents on Uncle Basil’s contribution to the community points to one thing; his involvement in the fostering of the indigenous culture. As for Aunty Doli, she continues to celebrate his work and his contribution to the development of Moruca.
Her craft shop is revered in that regard, since various forms of Amerindian artifacts are on sale to anyone who wishes to celebrate the culture and history of the nation’s first people, a feat Uncle Basil preached until he left for the Great Beyond.
Pull quote: “I was respected by persons in the communities in which I resided, and I was chosen for many leadership roles.”
By Rohan Sagar
Born at Bullet Tree, Waini River, Basil Cuthbert Rodrigues, affectionately known as Uncle Basil in all Santa Rosa and Moruca, traces his heritage back to Venezuela where his forefathers lived in Angostura or modern Cuidad Bolivar. They escaped the aftermath of the ‘Big War’ – the Bolivarian War of Independence as it is known in the Oral Traditions of the Spanish Arawaks – and later resettled in Paloma, a tiny community further inland from the banks of the Moruca River. Paloma is accessible by a narrow dirt road from Cabucalli and Kokal.
Soon after Uncle Basil was born (in 1932) his family, minus an older brother and sister who remained in Santa Rosa to attend school, relocated to the Waini where his grandfather, Antonio Rodrigues called Papita, lived and where Basil experienced in real time the traditional way of life commonly associated with Indigenous Peoples on the Atlantic shorelines. These included farming and all that went into the preparation, planting and harvesting. Then there was fishing, an activity that can last sometimes for days as Papita would explore tiny creeks where the fishing grounds were the more attractive.
The reason for moving to Waini in the first place also was based on local superstition – some of his younger brothers and sisters did not survive very long and died quite young. Basil’s parents, believing that there were evil spirits around the home, moved.
Papita’s illness at age 75 prompted Basil’s parents to return to Moruca along with Papita. Now it was time to return to Kokal. Basil continued attending school at Kokal, then administered and taught by Roman Catholic nuns.
Like most musicians who came out of Guyana’s hinterland, he began his musical life whilst experiencing the richness of his traditional culture. At this time in its history the community of Kokal formed a part of the wider Santa Rosa village (along with Cabucalli where Basil’s mother came from, Paloma where his father originated, and San Juan). Kayaps and the coming together of the community to indulge in the traditional ceremonial way of life fused with Roman Catholic ceremonial rites such as baptisms, weddings, Christmases as well as others that enriched the lives of the community’s population.
And there was a justification, as the Arawaks were also devout Catholics and it was they who caused a Roman Catholic priest, Fr Thomas Hynes, to travel from Trinidad, to bless a local and newly constructed Church in 1830.
As a young man Uncle Basil was deeply influenced by two persons who caused him to pick up the guitar as his musical instrument – his father who was a violinist in demand and later Aloysius La Rose, who was another violinist and cultural visionary. Incidentally, it was at this time that the Arawak language began to experience a decline in use and this affected the music which resulted in less emphasis on the singing of the lyrics, and so the violin became the pre-eminent instrument that carried the melody of the traditional music of the Arawaks.
Additionally, the music of the Arawaks of Santa Rosa was unique – it was not the usual traditional 2/4 common to Indigenous music, in fact, Banchikilli which in Arawak means to ‘dance to the violin and banjo’ evolved as a hybrid of the Venezuelan Joropo and the melodic form of the Mari-Mari.
Basil loved music, and his favourite was of course his people’s Banchikilli – and then there was the Country & Western. This love for Country & Western was not unusual as it was a common characteristic of rural and hinterland populations of Guyana.
Basil’s favourite artist was Hank Williams Snr and he remembers paddling down the Moruca River in the bright moonlit night singing and playing his guitar to the tunes of Hank Williams. He was partnered by his friends, and these extraordinary performances often ended in the local bars.
Basil Rodrigues’ moonlit performances did not find favour with one section of the Kokal population – the nuns who live at the convent overlooking the Cabucalli and Hurdiah communities along the Moruca River. In fact, this activity was deemed to be quite harmful to young Basil’s prospects of “entering the Gates of Heaven” whenever that moment should arise, and the nuns duly informed his parents that he ought to be engaged in activities that were more constructive and purposeful. This was to decisively reshaped Basil Rodrigues’ future and impacted another population in a very significant way.
At the age of 18, in 1952, Basil Rodrigues stepped off a DC Dakota plane at Lumid Pau to commence his second life – as a teacher. This was the culmination of the discussions between his parents and the nuns of the local convent, and the outcome of his serenading activities on the Moruca River. This new phase was not quite different in that it was quite common then for young Amerindian males to gravitate towards the forestry or mining industries. Basil did, too, and he worked in the North West (as a miner) as well as doing camp duties both there and in Linden.
Fr. Bernard McKenna, who he calls the educationist priest, was instrumental in seating Basil on the plane. He then assigned him his first school and for the next 40 years, except for periodic visits to Georgetown and Moruca, Basil Rodrigues lived and taught in the Rupununi. During this time he married Delores, and together they parented four children, two sons – Wally who is a malarial microscopist at Aishalton, Curtis (attacked and killed by a tiger in the Marudi Mountains), and two daughters Beverly and Kay, who live with him in Kokal today.
****************************************************************************
Keeping our culture alive – passing on the memory of Uncle Basil
By Staff Reporter -
July 27, 2016
Filling his shoes may be a difficult task. The late Basil Rodrigues, fondly called “Uncle Basil” imprinted a rich cultural history in his contributions to the development of the Hinterland, mainly in the area of education and music. He is seen a formidable force in his own right, championing the cultures of the Indigenous people and someone who dedicatedly channelled his efforts in passing on the cultural and general knowledge of the nation’s first people.
But who would know him better than his wife Delores, who spent 55-years in his company in the Rupununi and at Moruca where he was laid to rest two years ago at the age of 81.
Uncle Basil was a recipient of the Medal of Service as well as the Golden Arrow of Achievement, awards which were bestowed on him for his efforts in advancing his cultural roots. During a visit to the Rodrigues’ home at Kokall, Moruca recently, “Aunty Doli”, as she is fondly called by many, spoke of her late husband’s undying love for the Amerindian culture, his passion for teaching and the huge task for those of this generation to fill the vacuum which was left by him after his ascension to the Great Beyond. She sat alongside her two daughters in the family’s living-room which is decorated with photographs of family members and one of Moruca’s most important sons. Aunty Doli said that there are days in recent times when she would think of Uncle Basil prior to making a decision. Any decision, she chuckled. “I’ll say how he would like it, then I would pull myself out of that but many times it still happens,” she said as her two daughters smiled nearby.
She said the couple did everything together. “We were very close, we go to the shop, to the church, we worked together,” she said pointedly.
The only time they spent apart were on her trips overseas, when her sister would invite her to Canada.
“After 55 years of that, you miss somebody… to live those years with a person you got to be like a partner,” she said with a slight hint of sadness. Sadness of course is almost uncharacteristic of her spritely disposition.
But his memory lives on and he provides a guide for her and the family. She said she discovered many things he taught or told her have proved useful today. “I find a lot things useful, God knew he would have left and I would have nobody else but the memory of him lives on,” she remarked as she stared at the many pictures of the family on the walls of their living room.
The family bore several children and great grandchildren and while some have displayed traits of Uncle Basil, it is difficult to determine who will follow in his path.
CULTURALLY GIFTED
According to Aunty Doli, her grandson Jude Etienne, who teaches at Moruca, plays the guitar well, and is culturally gifted, traits of his late grandfather.
She said Jude also plays the banjo, a small stringed instrument similar to a guitar. He played the instrument since his childhood years while in the company of his late grandfather. Jude also possesses a good command of English and he can also sing. Jude is preparing to wed his partner soon, Aunty Doli remarked. Aunty Doli recalled a banjo, a guitar and a triangle (metal instrument) being played on the day she tied the knot with Uncle Basil at Moruca. He was a member of a Banchikilli (Spanish Arawak music) band and his friends were on hand to serenade the couple from the church to the wedding house. She said his parents, “Uncle Stanley” and “Aunt Ena” lived at the bottom of the hill, some distance away from where she currently resides. Aunt Ena was the cousin of Stephen Campbell, a revered son of Moruca and the first Guyanese Member of Parliament of Amerindian descent.
She said those days back in 1959, things were much different from today. She explained that her mother must have seen “something in me and said Thank God I gon marry she off”. After a slight chuckle, she said that her mother had no pity on her, as she laughed at her situation at the time. The newly-wed couple lived at their respective parents’ home separately until they moved to the Rupununi where Uncle Basil had already established his name since he was teaching in Region Nine at the time.
After marrying in December, Basil had annual leave and in April, we went up to Shea where he was teaching at the time,” Aunty Doli recalled.
“He knew the people, they knew him well, he was a good ‘paracarri’, here we call it ‘paiwari’ (Indigenous beverage) up there is paracarri,” she explained. She said Uncle Basil would socialise but she found herself a stranger in strange lands, miles away from home.
“Imagine, I got to now fall in and being pregnant and with bad feelings,” she said with an amused smile followed by a clap.
LIFE AT MORUCA
After spending 25 years in the Rupununi, the couple decided to move back to Santa Rosa. That was in 1992. They were well-established at Aishalton at the time, Aunty Doli said. She noted that Uncle Basil thought hard about returning to his homeland.
“Aishalton was home for him with all the scenery and so but his health was beginning to go a bit and we thought we needed to be closer to health care,” she recounted. On their return to Moruca in 1992, a few things needed to be fixed. “We notice our health service was not good. We hadn’t a doctor and he and I started working on it,” she said. In 1992, Uncle Basil started teaching at the primary school and where the family house stands today, was filled with bushes. “There were many vines,” she said. They built a small house on their return. “A little trooile top home, well at least we had a shelter,” she added with a little smile. “Not the two-story building I imagined but as usual, we said let us make use with what we have,” she said with a contented stare. At the time, her eldest daughter had moved to Boa Vista in Brazil while her other daughter and her grandson moved to Moruca with her and Uncle Basil. The couple started conversations with the community and later formed a health committee after they recognised that Moruca was not only the two communities of Kumaka and San Jose but included many far flung areas. She said Uncle Basil had a “good command of how to run things and people liked how he spoke not long and drawn out but he get things done”. As the years rolled by, she said he wanted to get deeper into culture and he found the children of Moruca were shy and had little pride in their tradition. “So what he used to do heritage time, he asked me to make a lap, head dress and so and he would go out,” she said, noting the people thought it funny. He was also centrally involved in church activities.
Some 200 years ago, on St John’s Day which is celebrated on June 24 annually, the first Roman Catholic priest arrived at Moruca. The area’s very first families included the Atkinsons, the Aguilars, the Torres’, Rodrigues, among others and they were all Roman Catholics. The families wanted a church established at Moruca and later, Father Haynes moved to the area where the church mission was built. “They built a little shed and Father Haynes arrived on that day,” Aunty Doli schooled. That evening lighted torches in the form of bamboos were placed along the sides of the water near the community of Hobo were the priest was welcomed.
The scene is re-enacted annually and before Uncle Basil passed-away, he was involved in the planning process until his health deteriorated. The scene was nevertheless re-enacted and his memory is etched in the celebrations which Aunty Doli noted, established a point in Moruca’s rich history.
A question pose to residents on Uncle Basil’s contribution to the community points to one thing; his involvement in the fostering of the indigenous culture. As for Aunty Doli, she continues to celebrate his work and his contribution to the development of Moruca.
Her craft shop is revered in that regard, since various forms of Amerindian artifacts are on sale to anyone who wishes to celebrate the culture and history of the nation’s first people, a feat Uncle Basil preached until he left for the Great Beyond.
The Mariaba Players performing the Banchikilli at Moruca
As a teacher, Basil impacted profoundly, mainly in the Wapishana communities of the Southern Rupununi. A gentle people, whose gift of communication was ultra-conservative, provided him with opportunities to connect with techniques that were outside the standard Teachers’ Manual. He used both music and sports (drama as well) to help build the students’ confidence and was so successful that his school Shea Primary had the best drama and cricket clubs for years.
In cricket, Shea defeated schools that were two or three times larger its size, and when he used music, he noticed an aura of excitement amongst his pupils, and as he sang, his students would sing along – the children of the Rupununi loved to sing!
Basil Rodrigues taught in many communities such as Karaudarnau, Shea and Aishalton amongst others. And though he lived in these communities (he spent the longest in Shea) in the latter part of his forty years he spent in the Rupununi, he decided that he would permanently settle in Aishalton. The Toshao gave him a piece of land that no one wanted, as it was infested with rattlesnakes. The place was called Drummaud, which he renamed Drums.
He cleared and cleaned the land, built a house, and invested in a few head of cattle that were to later increase many fold. For Uncle Basil the Rupununi was special – he remembers the many moments as he stood in awe of the grandeur of the Kanuku and the savannahs. The beauty and serenity was inspirational for his many compositions. One particular place he remembers most fondly was Shea Rock. With an elevation of about five hundred feet, Uncle Basil would walk to the summit, and sit and gaze into the far distance. It was moments like these he believes that inspired the lyrics of his songs, and these came to him as if carried directly by the gentle savannah wind.
Although Basil Rodrigues was a school teacher he was also given and accepted roles as counsellor and community leader, and with the respect given unto him as a teacher, he was able to guide his fellow citizens towards a greater collective sense of responsibility.
“I was respected by persons in the communities in which I resided, and I was chosen for many leadership roles,” he reflected.
Whenever there were projects to be done, however big or small, he would encourage the Toshao to kill and cook a cow or pig, and have the women prepare the Parakiri (local beverage from cassava) and invite the community to come out and perform collective labour. It was an embedded value amongst the many Amerindian tribes, and one that reminded Uncle Basil of his own experiences at home in Kokal many years before. These projects helped to deepen social and communal cohesion within the community.
Another of his experiences was the cultural habits that were both strange and instructive from the communities that he interfaced: Amongst the Wapishanas, any festivity often would last for many days, sometimes as much as seven days. Here, the community gathers at a central place, and when the celebration commences persons would dance and eat as often as one was able to and when tired sleep, and then awake to carry on more dances and eating. The dancers do not stop unless the musicians do and some individual dances can last for hours. As in most cultures beverages, especially the fermented ones these can be debilitating, and with that comes unnatural behaviour. This was so amongst the Wapishana and Uncle Basil speaks of fights that would occur occasionally.
But these were not the fights that would grace the newspapers of today; in fact at that time fights in the Wapishana community were more of a pushing and shoving contest. So in a specific contest, the antagonists would be engaging each other in the centre of a crowded assembly. The first combatant to fall ends the fight and then the party resumes. In the Wapishana collective there are no winners and losers, and blood spilling was rarely seen.
On December 25, 1992, Basil Rodrigues gathered his family together and informed each that with the natural aging process of both himself and Delores, and with the given fact of a barely functioning health system at both Lethem and Aishalton, a decision was made that he and his wife would return to Kokal, Moruca River (he was already retired). He offered his children the option of deciding their own future then and both his sons determined that they would remain in the Rupununi. His two daughters decided that they would accompany their parents back to Kokal (though one did so after a brief sojourn in Brazil).
When he arrived at Kokal, Basil found his family plot in a depressed state, and his community sharing a similar experience.
He was soon invited to rejoin the teaching service and taught in the local Santa Rosa Primary School. He worked together with a Roman Catholic nun Sister Jacinta and with this collaboration he caused local community health centres to be built. His third project after arriving in Kokal was to relink with his old buddies (Frank and Basil Hernandez, Emmanuel Cornelius, Antonio Torres, Vincent Sookhan, etc – the latter two now deceased) and formed a cultural group, the Mariaba (which means guava in Arawak after the fruit trees found in abundance then) Players.
Mariaba, incidentally, was the name given to the site just outside Cabucalli, settled by the arriving Arawaks in 1817; this name was later changed to Santa Rosa (in honour of their patron Saint Rose of Lima or Santa Rosa del Lima) after the consecration of the local church in 1830.
Uncle Basil lives a very unassuming life and a visit to his home is an experience – his cherubic face awaits his visitors and with the most disarming of smiles his anthemic ‘Hello there, I was waiting on you’ greets you at his doorstep, before sitting his visitor to his lifetime experiences punctuated with his guitar strumming and singing his compositions.
Steeped in the traditions of his people, Uncle Basil enriches his life experiences through music. He was a main feature at the initial Amerindian Heritage celebrations when first launched (with his entourage of young singers), and continues to be the mainstay of the Mariaba Players (his and the members of the Mariaba Players are the last of the Banchikilli exponents). He continues to be inspired by and through the folkloric narratives of the Arawak/Lokono traditions, which he is quick to point out is the root and foundation of all his musical and poetic compositions.
An awardee twice of the Medal of Service, in 1989 and in 1994, Basil Rodrigues is considered a legend in a rapidly disappearing cultural legacy.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
In cricket, Shea defeated schools that were two or three times larger its size, and when he used music, he noticed an aura of excitement amongst his pupils, and as he sang, his students would sing along – the children of the Rupununi loved to sing!
Basil Rodrigues taught in many communities such as Karaudarnau, Shea and Aishalton amongst others. And though he lived in these communities (he spent the longest in Shea) in the latter part of his forty years he spent in the Rupununi, he decided that he would permanently settle in Aishalton. The Toshao gave him a piece of land that no one wanted, as it was infested with rattlesnakes. The place was called Drummaud, which he renamed Drums.
He cleared and cleaned the land, built a house, and invested in a few head of cattle that were to later increase many fold. For Uncle Basil the Rupununi was special – he remembers the many moments as he stood in awe of the grandeur of the Kanuku and the savannahs. The beauty and serenity was inspirational for his many compositions. One particular place he remembers most fondly was Shea Rock. With an elevation of about five hundred feet, Uncle Basil would walk to the summit, and sit and gaze into the far distance. It was moments like these he believes that inspired the lyrics of his songs, and these came to him as if carried directly by the gentle savannah wind.
Although Basil Rodrigues was a school teacher he was also given and accepted roles as counsellor and community leader, and with the respect given unto him as a teacher, he was able to guide his fellow citizens towards a greater collective sense of responsibility.
“I was respected by persons in the communities in which I resided, and I was chosen for many leadership roles,” he reflected.
Whenever there were projects to be done, however big or small, he would encourage the Toshao to kill and cook a cow or pig, and have the women prepare the Parakiri (local beverage from cassava) and invite the community to come out and perform collective labour. It was an embedded value amongst the many Amerindian tribes, and one that reminded Uncle Basil of his own experiences at home in Kokal many years before. These projects helped to deepen social and communal cohesion within the community.
Another of his experiences was the cultural habits that were both strange and instructive from the communities that he interfaced: Amongst the Wapishanas, any festivity often would last for many days, sometimes as much as seven days. Here, the community gathers at a central place, and when the celebration commences persons would dance and eat as often as one was able to and when tired sleep, and then awake to carry on more dances and eating. The dancers do not stop unless the musicians do and some individual dances can last for hours. As in most cultures beverages, especially the fermented ones these can be debilitating, and with that comes unnatural behaviour. This was so amongst the Wapishana and Uncle Basil speaks of fights that would occur occasionally.
But these were not the fights that would grace the newspapers of today; in fact at that time fights in the Wapishana community were more of a pushing and shoving contest. So in a specific contest, the antagonists would be engaging each other in the centre of a crowded assembly. The first combatant to fall ends the fight and then the party resumes. In the Wapishana collective there are no winners and losers, and blood spilling was rarely seen.
On December 25, 1992, Basil Rodrigues gathered his family together and informed each that with the natural aging process of both himself and Delores, and with the given fact of a barely functioning health system at both Lethem and Aishalton, a decision was made that he and his wife would return to Kokal, Moruca River (he was already retired). He offered his children the option of deciding their own future then and both his sons determined that they would remain in the Rupununi. His two daughters decided that they would accompany their parents back to Kokal (though one did so after a brief sojourn in Brazil).
When he arrived at Kokal, Basil found his family plot in a depressed state, and his community sharing a similar experience.
He was soon invited to rejoin the teaching service and taught in the local Santa Rosa Primary School. He worked together with a Roman Catholic nun Sister Jacinta and with this collaboration he caused local community health centres to be built. His third project after arriving in Kokal was to relink with his old buddies (Frank and Basil Hernandez, Emmanuel Cornelius, Antonio Torres, Vincent Sookhan, etc – the latter two now deceased) and formed a cultural group, the Mariaba (which means guava in Arawak after the fruit trees found in abundance then) Players.
Mariaba, incidentally, was the name given to the site just outside Cabucalli, settled by the arriving Arawaks in 1817; this name was later changed to Santa Rosa (in honour of their patron Saint Rose of Lima or Santa Rosa del Lima) after the consecration of the local church in 1830.
Uncle Basil lives a very unassuming life and a visit to his home is an experience – his cherubic face awaits his visitors and with the most disarming of smiles his anthemic ‘Hello there, I was waiting on you’ greets you at his doorstep, before sitting his visitor to his lifetime experiences punctuated with his guitar strumming and singing his compositions.
Steeped in the traditions of his people, Uncle Basil enriches his life experiences through music. He was a main feature at the initial Amerindian Heritage celebrations when first launched (with his entourage of young singers), and continues to be the mainstay of the Mariaba Players (his and the members of the Mariaba Players are the last of the Banchikilli exponents). He continues to be inspired by and through the folkloric narratives of the Arawak/Lokono traditions, which he is quick to point out is the root and foundation of all his musical and poetic compositions.
An awardee twice of the Medal of Service, in 1989 and in 1994, Basil Rodrigues is considered a legend in a rapidly disappearing cultural legacy.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
Affable swimming coach Stephanie Fraser is a 'Special Person' - KN - October 9, 2011
Pull Quote: “I am happy that in my lifetime I have seen the completion of a 50-metre pool in Guyana…this will be very useful because when our athletes go overseas they are required to swim in 50-metre pools, and we are usually at a disadvantage because we train at Castellani, a significantly smaller facility.”
By Sharmain Grainger
Passionate and dedicated are but two adjectives that can be used to aptly describe Stephanie Gomes-Fraser when it comes to her involvement in local swimming. Her love for aquatic locomotion – an immensely therapeutic pursuit – has seen her selflessly devoting countless time and considerable energy towards its improvement in Guyana over the years.
So noticeable has been her exertion in the area of swimming that the outstanding national swimming coach and sports administrator has been chosen to receive the prestigious Medal of Service, which will be presented at a ceremony slated for October 21.
But where, when and how did this five foot, two inches Arawak descendant conjure up this much talent which today sees her coaching some of the country’s elite swimmers? The answer lies in the serene waters at Moruca in Region One where she grew up and took her first swim at the tender age of five. In fact it was a natural talent which was consistently nurtured as she battled for a place among the better swimmers of the community – her older male cousins. She recalls that it was no small task competing with them, but as she puts it “I really had to prove myself in order to be involved.”
The steady competition was however not limited to swimming back in the day, but it was varied sporting activities – the likes of cricket, football, baseball and even climbing trees – that characterized her youthful years and by extension helped to shape her destiny.
Born to Philomena and Theodore Gomes on November 9th, 1955, Stephanie was the third child of a union which ended in a divorce when she was just three years old.
Her mother would give birth to six more children and opted to take the young Stephanie to her grandmother, Josephine Robinson, who would raise her in an environment where she was treated as a treasured prize, since she was the only girl and the youngest member in the home. However, although her status as the baby of her grandmother’s household saw her being treated with much love and affection, that treatment was limited to indoors as the petite lass was forced to toughen-up in order to make her impact in the outdoor environment. And the outdoors was indeed where her heart was and would remain for years to come.
She indulged in a bit of track and field during her schools days at Santa Rosa and won several medals for her efforts.
By Sharmain Grainger
Passionate and dedicated are but two adjectives that can be used to aptly describe Stephanie Gomes-Fraser when it comes to her involvement in local swimming. Her love for aquatic locomotion – an immensely therapeutic pursuit – has seen her selflessly devoting countless time and considerable energy towards its improvement in Guyana over the years.
So noticeable has been her exertion in the area of swimming that the outstanding national swimming coach and sports administrator has been chosen to receive the prestigious Medal of Service, which will be presented at a ceremony slated for October 21.
But where, when and how did this five foot, two inches Arawak descendant conjure up this much talent which today sees her coaching some of the country’s elite swimmers? The answer lies in the serene waters at Moruca in Region One where she grew up and took her first swim at the tender age of five. In fact it was a natural talent which was consistently nurtured as she battled for a place among the better swimmers of the community – her older male cousins. She recalls that it was no small task competing with them, but as she puts it “I really had to prove myself in order to be involved.”
The steady competition was however not limited to swimming back in the day, but it was varied sporting activities – the likes of cricket, football, baseball and even climbing trees – that characterized her youthful years and by extension helped to shape her destiny.
Born to Philomena and Theodore Gomes on November 9th, 1955, Stephanie was the third child of a union which ended in a divorce when she was just three years old.
Her mother would give birth to six more children and opted to take the young Stephanie to her grandmother, Josephine Robinson, who would raise her in an environment where she was treated as a treasured prize, since she was the only girl and the youngest member in the home. However, although her status as the baby of her grandmother’s household saw her being treated with much love and affection, that treatment was limited to indoors as the petite lass was forced to toughen-up in order to make her impact in the outdoor environment. And the outdoors was indeed where her heart was and would remain for years to come.
She indulged in a bit of track and field during her schools days at Santa Rosa and won several medals for her efforts.
However, her life would literally evolve around sporting activities.
“I had a real hectic life…Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after school I went to Karate classes and I was among the first batch of students trained by Master Frank Woon-A-Tai. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I did Judo and Volleyball…My days were almost always taken up with sports…This was what I wanted to do not because I had to, but because I loved these activities and still do…”
The blossoming young Stephanie would soon capture the eyes of her Judo Instructor, David Fraser, and the two tied the blissful knot of marriage in 1979. Their union, though it was not lasting, yielded two children, DeeAnn and Nicholas, both of whom would develop the same passion for sports as their parents, even winning several accolades of their own.
Life after divorce saw Stephanie opting to return to the nursing field, a profession she was asked to give up by her husband, who during their marriage had preferred a stay-at-home wife.
She would remain at the hospital for the next five years during which time she would observe that the divorce process was terribly affecting her daughter in particular. It was even then that her sense of swimming as a therapeutic agent was aroused, forcing her to enroll both her children into swimming classes at the Tower Hotel.
“I remember my daughter was doing the Common Entrance (Exams) and she seemed really stressed out because of the divorce, and I said to myself they are seven and nine, imagine I am a qualified instructor and my children don’t know to swim, so I decided that it was time for them to learn…”
Though it was not evident at the time, this move would prove to be quite strategic as it was through this avenue her God-given talent would once again become exposed, much to her benefit.
Due to the fact that her children’s swimming instructor had one leg he was not quite competent to teach the breaststroke. This as a result saw Stephanie volunteering to assist over a period of time. Two years later the instructor migrated, leaving the then owner of the Tower Hotel, Richard Humphrey, to turn to Stephanie.
“I didn’t even know that he was looking on all the time and when he offered me the position as instructor I accepted…I said sure, because who wouldn’t? He was paying you and he was paying well too.”
With her unique touch, where students were given certificates of completion, the swimming programme was revamped and became a major hit in Georgetown. In a matter of two months the name Stephanie Fraser became synonymous with ‘excellent swim coach’ and the demand soon became overwhelming, so much so that she decided to resign her nursing job.
“I had to start recruiting all my old friends who were swimmers to assist me. Eventually within a year Pegasus called me, Embassy Club called me, all the Banks were calling me….every pool in Georgetown I had to touch down on because they all wanted the same certification programme.”
Stephanie’s devoted interest in swimming over the years was even instrumental in the opening of the Castellani Pool to the public and the resuscitation of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) after presenting a convincing proposal to then first lady Mrs. Janet Jagan.
So dedicated she has been to swimming that she has served as national coach since 1993 and held positions of Vice President – Technical Committee and Assistant Secretary, and has had an integral administrative role within the Association. Her nurse training also saw her expanding her skilled capacity to certified massage therapist, a role she swiftly integrated into, much to the benefit of the national swimmers, several of whose talents were nurtured at one of top swim clubs locally, Dorado, which she founded.
Her skills have seen her becoming a certified coach for FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation), the international governing body for swimming and a member of the American Swimming Coaches Association.
She has coached and accompanied many national swimmers who took to the pools in competition overseas, the likes of Roshman Rodrigues, Ravel La Rose, Onica Jones and Nadia Bhola, and she has been a mother, friend and even seamstress to local swimmers, a task she had in the past undertaken at her own expense.
“When we started in the Goodwill Championships, around 1996, of course GASA had no money, so I started sewing swimwear for the entire national team at my own expense. The materials for the outfits did not arrive in Guyana until three days before we were to head to Suriname for the games and I was sewing day and night up until 4am….up to one hour before we started on our journey.”
She recalled that the finishing touches to the outfits were being added even as the team journeyed to Suriname. The result of that competition was worth the effort as according to her the team brought home medals which made the trip worth the while.
“I felt proud to see them standing there with my swimwear and that was satisfying enough…”
Come Tuesday she is set for another such mission, one which will take her and two top
national swimmers – 15-year-old Britany Van Lange and 20-year-old Olympian Niall Roberts – to Guadalajara, Mexico for the Pan Am Games.
Although Guyana has been lagging behind in the field of swimming, Stephanie is confident that the country is poised for great things with the completion of the Olympic-size swimming pool at Pattensen.
“I am happy that in my lifetime I have seen the completion of a 50-metre pool in Guyana…this will be very useful because when our athletes go overseas they are required to swim in 50-metre pools and we are usually at a disadvantage because we train at Castellani, a significantly smaller facility. Having a 50-metre pool is really an asset which will see our local swimmers being on par with all the other swimmers of the world…”
Stephanie is convinced that once swimmers are given the opportunity to begin using the ideal length pool, swimming in Guyana will undoubtedly be catapulted to another level, which will see local talents – given the existing levels that already abound – showing their true worth in the global arena.
As a single parent with two very active children, Stephanie related that she was able to gain firsthand experience of the benefits of sports. Not only have her children, who are both adults now, been ‘A’ students, but they have been national champions throughout their school years.
“The discipline, goal-setting, time management, and strong self-esteem they’ve learnt from sports, they have now taken to their working life…” she confidently asserts.
It is for this very reason that our Special Person has been advocating for Physical Education to be implemented in every school across Guyana. However, it is her firm belief that many parents and even some head teachers to this day do not see the positive effect that participation in sports and exercise could have on a student’s overall development.
She emphasizes that since academics and sports are known to complement each other, it is necessary to collectively use these avenues to help improve children’s capacity to learn, reduce anxiety and stress while increasing their self-esteem.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
“I had a real hectic life…Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after school I went to Karate classes and I was among the first batch of students trained by Master Frank Woon-A-Tai. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I did Judo and Volleyball…My days were almost always taken up with sports…This was what I wanted to do not because I had to, but because I loved these activities and still do…”
The blossoming young Stephanie would soon capture the eyes of her Judo Instructor, David Fraser, and the two tied the blissful knot of marriage in 1979. Their union, though it was not lasting, yielded two children, DeeAnn and Nicholas, both of whom would develop the same passion for sports as their parents, even winning several accolades of their own.
Life after divorce saw Stephanie opting to return to the nursing field, a profession she was asked to give up by her husband, who during their marriage had preferred a stay-at-home wife.
She would remain at the hospital for the next five years during which time she would observe that the divorce process was terribly affecting her daughter in particular. It was even then that her sense of swimming as a therapeutic agent was aroused, forcing her to enroll both her children into swimming classes at the Tower Hotel.
“I remember my daughter was doing the Common Entrance (Exams) and she seemed really stressed out because of the divorce, and I said to myself they are seven and nine, imagine I am a qualified instructor and my children don’t know to swim, so I decided that it was time for them to learn…”
Though it was not evident at the time, this move would prove to be quite strategic as it was through this avenue her God-given talent would once again become exposed, much to her benefit.
Due to the fact that her children’s swimming instructor had one leg he was not quite competent to teach the breaststroke. This as a result saw Stephanie volunteering to assist over a period of time. Two years later the instructor migrated, leaving the then owner of the Tower Hotel, Richard Humphrey, to turn to Stephanie.
“I didn’t even know that he was looking on all the time and when he offered me the position as instructor I accepted…I said sure, because who wouldn’t? He was paying you and he was paying well too.”
With her unique touch, where students were given certificates of completion, the swimming programme was revamped and became a major hit in Georgetown. In a matter of two months the name Stephanie Fraser became synonymous with ‘excellent swim coach’ and the demand soon became overwhelming, so much so that she decided to resign her nursing job.
“I had to start recruiting all my old friends who were swimmers to assist me. Eventually within a year Pegasus called me, Embassy Club called me, all the Banks were calling me….every pool in Georgetown I had to touch down on because they all wanted the same certification programme.”
Stephanie’s devoted interest in swimming over the years was even instrumental in the opening of the Castellani Pool to the public and the resuscitation of the Guyana Amateur Swimming Association (GASA) after presenting a convincing proposal to then first lady Mrs. Janet Jagan.
So dedicated she has been to swimming that she has served as national coach since 1993 and held positions of Vice President – Technical Committee and Assistant Secretary, and has had an integral administrative role within the Association. Her nurse training also saw her expanding her skilled capacity to certified massage therapist, a role she swiftly integrated into, much to the benefit of the national swimmers, several of whose talents were nurtured at one of top swim clubs locally, Dorado, which she founded.
Her skills have seen her becoming a certified coach for FINA (Fédération Internationale de Natation), the international governing body for swimming and a member of the American Swimming Coaches Association.
She has coached and accompanied many national swimmers who took to the pools in competition overseas, the likes of Roshman Rodrigues, Ravel La Rose, Onica Jones and Nadia Bhola, and she has been a mother, friend and even seamstress to local swimmers, a task she had in the past undertaken at her own expense.
“When we started in the Goodwill Championships, around 1996, of course GASA had no money, so I started sewing swimwear for the entire national team at my own expense. The materials for the outfits did not arrive in Guyana until three days before we were to head to Suriname for the games and I was sewing day and night up until 4am….up to one hour before we started on our journey.”
She recalled that the finishing touches to the outfits were being added even as the team journeyed to Suriname. The result of that competition was worth the effort as according to her the team brought home medals which made the trip worth the while.
“I felt proud to see them standing there with my swimwear and that was satisfying enough…”
Come Tuesday she is set for another such mission, one which will take her and two top
national swimmers – 15-year-old Britany Van Lange and 20-year-old Olympian Niall Roberts – to Guadalajara, Mexico for the Pan Am Games.
Although Guyana has been lagging behind in the field of swimming, Stephanie is confident that the country is poised for great things with the completion of the Olympic-size swimming pool at Pattensen.
“I am happy that in my lifetime I have seen the completion of a 50-metre pool in Guyana…this will be very useful because when our athletes go overseas they are required to swim in 50-metre pools and we are usually at a disadvantage because we train at Castellani, a significantly smaller facility. Having a 50-metre pool is really an asset which will see our local swimmers being on par with all the other swimmers of the world…”
Stephanie is convinced that once swimmers are given the opportunity to begin using the ideal length pool, swimming in Guyana will undoubtedly be catapulted to another level, which will see local talents – given the existing levels that already abound – showing their true worth in the global arena.
As a single parent with two very active children, Stephanie related that she was able to gain firsthand experience of the benefits of sports. Not only have her children, who are both adults now, been ‘A’ students, but they have been national champions throughout their school years.
“The discipline, goal-setting, time management, and strong self-esteem they’ve learnt from sports, they have now taken to their working life…” she confidently asserts.
It is for this very reason that our Special Person has been advocating for Physical Education to be implemented in every school across Guyana. However, it is her firm belief that many parents and even some head teachers to this day do not see the positive effect that participation in sports and exercise could have on a student’s overall development.
She emphasizes that since academics and sports are known to complement each other, it is necessary to collectively use these avenues to help improve children’s capacity to learn, reduce anxiety and stress while increasing their self-esteem.
---------------------------00000----------------------------
Simone Fredericks - Miss Moruca 2011
__
Simone Yonette Fredericks, born on 2nd August, 1989 at the
Kumaka District Hospital Region One. Only daughter of Denise Abraham and
Richard Cornelius….brought up by her dad Richard Cornelius. Was
introduced at an early age to music by her dad. She participated in national competition at
the age of 10. She attended Enterprise
Nursery in Georgetown, Karaburi Primary and Santa Rosa Secondary School in Moruca. She migrated to the coastland in 2003 and attended
Uitvlugt Secondary School in WCD, APS Private and Xenon Academy EBD. Gained 6
subjects at CXC and a Diploma in Public Management from the University of Guyana.
Teacher from the age of 16, Quality control Agent at NPIC Diamond EBD. She was taught by her dad to be honest to herself
and to not be afraid to speak against wrong things in spite of the consequences,
to uphold her culture and be a proud Amerindian independent from influences
from dominant forces. Her goal is to
work together with young people in the field of Peer education. She is presently a young business woman in
Moruca as co-owner of the Achievers of Excellence Private School and
confectionery sales. She lists her
personal goal as “to return to the University
of Guyana in 2012 for a
degree in Public Management” – she is the reigning Miss Moruca 2011. Congratulations Simone and we wish you all
the very best in your future endeavours.
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Medal of Service - Victorine Ferreira - 2011
Teacher Vic is another legend... in music, in education. He has opened the doors of Santa Rosa secondary to relations with other schools internationally. An individual who has been selfless in his contribution to his respective society and discipline.
He is one of many sons born to Vincent (Uncle Ferra) Ferreira and Aunty Maria of Cabucalli.
Well done, Vic!!
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He is one of many sons born to Vincent (Uncle Ferra) Ferreira and Aunty Maria of Cabucalli.
Well done, Vic!!
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Kaieteur News - April 1, 2012 -
Educator and musician, Victor Ferreira MS, is a ‘Special Person’ April 1, 2012 | By KNews | Filed Under News Pull Quote: “I am so thrilled that those who I would have taught in my career have grown to love and cherish me for my contribution to their education, and I am humbled by the respect I have received in the various communities.”
By Rohan Sagar
Like many persons born in the hinterland of Guyana, Victor Ferreira was not expected to
climb the ladder of success. His earliest vocations were in the streams of education and music, and as he moved gradually upwards, it was hard for him and others not to believe that it was a gift.
Many students have passed through the hands of ‘Sir Vic’ or ‘Teacher Vic’ as is common how persons like him in hinterland communities are addressed. These students have become successful in their own right, and whilst they have consistently thanked him for providing that platform, for ‘Sir Vic’ it was nothing else but his mission to transform young people into valued and productive citizens of their community, and by extension, the world.
He desires none of the trappings that are associated with his kind of success. He continues to live on the island of Mathurin, Santa Rosa, Moruca River where he has lived for many years. This is his story.
Victor Ferreira was born on March 16, 1949, at the Acquero Maternity Centre in Moruca River. His father Vincent Ferreira was a fisherman and small business owner. His mother Mary Agatha Ferreira had three children before marrying Vincent, and Victor was the second child in this latter union.
Victor’s father became ill when the youngster was only seven and died two years later. From then on life became harder for the family, his mother took to work at the Catholic Convent as a launderer, washing the clothes of some 200 children for the princely sum of five dollars per month.
The family had a farm about one mile behind Huradiah, a village immediately opposite Cabucalli, where the Ferreiras lived previously. Here the boys would accompany their mother to help prepare, plant and harvest the land before and after school. They would also glean copra from coconuts which they would sell.
There would also be the traditional kayaps which would be used to help generate and supplement much needed provisions for the home. Victor describes his father as a disciplinarian and his mother a staunch Catholic, which had instilled within them intrinsic values helping sustain the family even after the death of his father.
Perhaps the most enduring memory of his boyhood occurred in the evenings when he along with his brothers would lie on the floor and watch his mother iron the convent children’s clothes, and then they would fall asleep. After all, it was the only bed they knew. Victor, after becoming employed, undertook the role of father-figure, helping his younger brothers and sisters through school (in Georgetown) and at the same time becoming the breadwinner at home in Cabucalli.
Later in life, Victor met and married Patricia (also of Santa Rosa) in 1976, and they had seven children, two of whom have passed away.
By Rohan Sagar
Like many persons born in the hinterland of Guyana, Victor Ferreira was not expected to
climb the ladder of success. His earliest vocations were in the streams of education and music, and as he moved gradually upwards, it was hard for him and others not to believe that it was a gift.
Many students have passed through the hands of ‘Sir Vic’ or ‘Teacher Vic’ as is common how persons like him in hinterland communities are addressed. These students have become successful in their own right, and whilst they have consistently thanked him for providing that platform, for ‘Sir Vic’ it was nothing else but his mission to transform young people into valued and productive citizens of their community, and by extension, the world.
He desires none of the trappings that are associated with his kind of success. He continues to live on the island of Mathurin, Santa Rosa, Moruca River where he has lived for many years. This is his story.
Victor Ferreira was born on March 16, 1949, at the Acquero Maternity Centre in Moruca River. His father Vincent Ferreira was a fisherman and small business owner. His mother Mary Agatha Ferreira had three children before marrying Vincent, and Victor was the second child in this latter union.
Victor’s father became ill when the youngster was only seven and died two years later. From then on life became harder for the family, his mother took to work at the Catholic Convent as a launderer, washing the clothes of some 200 children for the princely sum of five dollars per month.
The family had a farm about one mile behind Huradiah, a village immediately opposite Cabucalli, where the Ferreiras lived previously. Here the boys would accompany their mother to help prepare, plant and harvest the land before and after school. They would also glean copra from coconuts which they would sell.
There would also be the traditional kayaps which would be used to help generate and supplement much needed provisions for the home. Victor describes his father as a disciplinarian and his mother a staunch Catholic, which had instilled within them intrinsic values helping sustain the family even after the death of his father.
Perhaps the most enduring memory of his boyhood occurred in the evenings when he along with his brothers would lie on the floor and watch his mother iron the convent children’s clothes, and then they would fall asleep. After all, it was the only bed they knew. Victor, after becoming employed, undertook the role of father-figure, helping his younger brothers and sisters through school (in Georgetown) and at the same time becoming the breadwinner at home in Cabucalli.
Later in life, Victor met and married Patricia (also of Santa Rosa) in 1976, and they had seven children, two of whom have passed away.
BIRTH OF A TEACHER
Our ‘Special Person’ performing one of his compositions
Victor Ferreira attended Santa Rosa Roman Catholic Primary school, completing his education in Form Two, which was then the furthest he could have gone. He left Santa Rosa to attend the St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Seminary where he studied for two years. After completion of the two years he returned to Santa Rosa. As someone who was then, for his community, better qualified, he applied for a
teaching post through the Catholic Church (which managed the primary school) and he was accepted, though his first posting was at Santa Cruz, a place he had never heard of before. It was his first time so far away from home and when the boat dropped him off at Santa Cruz, he recalls “crying like a ‘lil child”. He taught at Santa Cruz for a year and a half.
Fr. John Britt-Compton, the Catholic priest met young Victor whilst still a teacher at Santa Cruz and told him there was a vacancy at a school in Moruca. The priest convinced him that he was most needed at this school and he accepted. The school was at Kamwatta, another island further upriver from Santa Rosa on the Moruca River. That it was much closer to Santa Rosa was of great comfort to ‘Sir Vic’ and he taught at Kamwatta Primary for seventeen years.
He recounted that when some of his students went to work in Berbice they were asked who was responsible for their education – ‘Sir Carl’ Rodrigues and his (Sir Vic’s) name were mentioned and the two were duly recognised with gifts from their employer.
Desirous of becoming a graduate teacher, at the ripe young age of 34, Victor entered the Teachers’ Training College and excelled at all the subjects. After graduation as a qualified teacher he applied to teach at Santa Rosa Primary. He did not receive an appointment letter, but was told that in such an instance he could report to the nearest school (which was Santa Rosa Primary). So he turned up at the school and the District Education Supervisor promptly paid him a visit with the news that he was on the next boat – his appointment was at Waramuri Primary! ‘Sir Vic’ jokingly recalls that both he and ‘Sir Carl’ would calculate the number of miles they each would travel to Waramuri from Santa Rosa.
Though he was saddened that once again he had to spend time away from his family (he was now married) today he is overjoyed with the development, since he was able to engage in a music project which he is still involved. At Waramuri many of his former students remember him and actually thank him for being responsible for making them the respected citizens they are.
His fame has even spread to the present generation of students both at Waramuri and Kamwatta. According to Sir Vic, “I am so thrilled that those who I would have taught in my career have grown to love and cherish me for my contribution to their education, and I am humbled by the respect I have received in the various communities.”
teaching post through the Catholic Church (which managed the primary school) and he was accepted, though his first posting was at Santa Cruz, a place he had never heard of before. It was his first time so far away from home and when the boat dropped him off at Santa Cruz, he recalls “crying like a ‘lil child”. He taught at Santa Cruz for a year and a half.
Fr. John Britt-Compton, the Catholic priest met young Victor whilst still a teacher at Santa Cruz and told him there was a vacancy at a school in Moruca. The priest convinced him that he was most needed at this school and he accepted. The school was at Kamwatta, another island further upriver from Santa Rosa on the Moruca River. That it was much closer to Santa Rosa was of great comfort to ‘Sir Vic’ and he taught at Kamwatta Primary for seventeen years.
He recounted that when some of his students went to work in Berbice they were asked who was responsible for their education – ‘Sir Carl’ Rodrigues and his (Sir Vic’s) name were mentioned and the two were duly recognised with gifts from their employer.
Desirous of becoming a graduate teacher, at the ripe young age of 34, Victor entered the Teachers’ Training College and excelled at all the subjects. After graduation as a qualified teacher he applied to teach at Santa Rosa Primary. He did not receive an appointment letter, but was told that in such an instance he could report to the nearest school (which was Santa Rosa Primary). So he turned up at the school and the District Education Supervisor promptly paid him a visit with the news that he was on the next boat – his appointment was at Waramuri Primary! ‘Sir Vic’ jokingly recalls that both he and ‘Sir Carl’ would calculate the number of miles they each would travel to Waramuri from Santa Rosa.
Though he was saddened that once again he had to spend time away from his family (he was now married) today he is overjoyed with the development, since he was able to engage in a music project which he is still involved. At Waramuri many of his former students remember him and actually thank him for being responsible for making them the respected citizens they are.
His fame has even spread to the present generation of students both at Waramuri and Kamwatta. According to Sir Vic, “I am so thrilled that those who I would have taught in my career have grown to love and cherish me for my contribution to their education, and I am humbled by the respect I have received in the various communities.”
After his tenure ended at Waramuri he returned to Santa Rosa Primary to teach and he felt that it was time for him to make a real contribution to his community. He insisted that his students try to exceed past landmarks. ‘Sir Vic’ identifies as one of his best students, the present Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett. According to him, Ms Rodrigues broke all the records whilst a student at Santa Rosa Primary.
THE SECONDARY EXPERIENCE
One of his main concerns was the lack of opportunity for students who had the necessary qualifications to access a secondary education, but whose parents could not afford to send them all the way to Georgetown. A survey which was done around the same time revealed that the community was not ready for a secondary school.
‘Sir Vic’ admits that when he began the conversation about a secondary school he was not the first, as other parents had mooted the idea before.
In 1989, ‘Sir Vic’ along with ‘Sir David’ James began a series of consultations with parents and other leaders of the community about constructing a curriculum for a secondary institution.
Two years later, in 1991, the Education Department in Mabaruma informed ‘Sir Vic’ that approval was given for a secondary school programme to commence.
He remembered: “The challenge now was to find teachers, but with a handful of teachers made up of both citizens and (foreign) volunteers, a curriculum consisting of English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Agriculture was established and the secondary school was piloted in the same building that housed the Primary school. The Santa Rosa Secondary school started with two desks and benches, one blackboard and no syllabus.”
After a determination that the environment at the primary school was inadequate, the school was later relocated to Acquero, which happened to be the seat of regional government in the colonial and immediate post-colonial era.
The underlying philosophy behind the establishment of the secondary school was “the liberation our people from ignorance and poverty” which in turn led to the school’s motto of ‘Aim for the Top’. According to ‘Sir Vic’ students were encouraged to do just that, and they were cautioned that a pass of 50 % was not good enough, and that70 % was acceptable.
THE SECONDARY EXPERIENCE
One of his main concerns was the lack of opportunity for students who had the necessary qualifications to access a secondary education, but whose parents could not afford to send them all the way to Georgetown. A survey which was done around the same time revealed that the community was not ready for a secondary school.
‘Sir Vic’ admits that when he began the conversation about a secondary school he was not the first, as other parents had mooted the idea before.
In 1989, ‘Sir Vic’ along with ‘Sir David’ James began a series of consultations with parents and other leaders of the community about constructing a curriculum for a secondary institution.
Two years later, in 1991, the Education Department in Mabaruma informed ‘Sir Vic’ that approval was given for a secondary school programme to commence.
He remembered: “The challenge now was to find teachers, but with a handful of teachers made up of both citizens and (foreign) volunteers, a curriculum consisting of English, Math, Science, Social Studies and Agriculture was established and the secondary school was piloted in the same building that housed the Primary school. The Santa Rosa Secondary school started with two desks and benches, one blackboard and no syllabus.”
After a determination that the environment at the primary school was inadequate, the school was later relocated to Acquero, which happened to be the seat of regional government in the colonial and immediate post-colonial era.
The underlying philosophy behind the establishment of the secondary school was “the liberation our people from ignorance and poverty” which in turn led to the school’s motto of ‘Aim for the Top’. According to ‘Sir Vic’ students were encouraged to do just that, and they were cautioned that a pass of 50 % was not good enough, and that70 % was acceptable.
Compañeros on a Mission - Victor Ferreira (right) and Basil Rodrigues stand next to the monument they constructed in honour of citizens who have made notable contributions to the community of Santa Rosa.
The environment at Acquero was so passionate that students could be seen at any time of the day with a book, either in a corner of the school class, or even up in a tree!
‘Sir Vic’ counts as the prime of the student crop such individuals as Murphy DeSouza, Steven La Rose, Graham Atkinson, Charlene Rodrigues, Bruce Rodrigues, and his daughters Ramona and Nadia Ferreira.
The secondary also became a nursery for teachers in the region, and all the present teachers in the nursery, primary and secondary schools are graduates of the secondary school. In 1998, ‘Sir Vic’ was transferred to Kamarang where he continued effectively imparting his expertise.
THE GUITAR MAN
As a teenager, Victor Ferreira got his inspiration to play music from a cadre of musicians such as guitarists – the De Souza Brothers (Marco and John), Carl Rodrigues and Eddie Jarvis. It was a tradition that these musicians would gather every weekend at the then Catholic Convent in Kokal, where they would entertain villagers.
Since they were all males, it goes without saying that a significant majority of the audience were females, and this provided even greater incentive for ‘Sir Vic’ to become a proficient musician. Not wanting to be left out after attending his first weekend concert and after observing how the guitarists would move their fingers as they held their chords he went home and practised his first song, ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’. Though he did not reach instant popularity, his first outing was good enough for him to be accepted into that fraternity.
Later he would receive formal training from the renowned Guyanese music educator, the late Enid Peters. Initially, Ms. Peters was not too enamoured with having someone who was older (he was still in his mid-thirties) than she wanted, but Sir Vic was to later impress Ms Peters with his drive by becoming an accomplished player with the guitar, piano and recorder.
At the end of his tenure as a student with Ms Peters he proudly recalls her saying to him “I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again but I want you to go on and teach so many people. You have so much talent”.
When he returned to Santa Rosa, his first task was to form a choir at the secondary school. ‘Sir Vic’ has written some 40 songs and he has also written and composed the school songs for Kamarang Primary, Waramadong Secondary, Santa Rosa Primary and Secondary, Waramuri Primary and Kamwatta Primary.
PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION
There was more to Victor Ferreira’s existence. In the 1990s, a German national, Mr Hartgun Kruger, attended a Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) conference which was also attended by Sharon Atkinson, a Moruca resident. At this conference, Kruger indicated that he wanted to do a project in a Third World country. Sharon Atkinson suggested that he visit Santa Rosa, and when he did, Kruger got a firsthand look at the water source, food, and the general conditions of life and other places in Moruca.
Kruger was also especially interested in the way the people of Santa Rosa lived and in the Banchikilli music, which he recorded. In 2001 at Mr Kruger’s initiation, a pen-pal club was started between the students and people of Santa Rosa, and towards the end of that year ‘Sir Vic’ received an invitation (and ticket) to visit Germany.
He visited four cities in Germany – Dusseldorf, Hayden, Cologne, and Chemitz – and in each he delivered lectures on the traditional ways of life of the Amerindian Peoples of Guyana. The objective of the visit was to allow the Germans to learn from Santa Rosa how the people co-existed with their environment, and in exchange the Germans would fund a library, fund the purchase of school texts, and furniture for schools in the Moruca region.
The Germans were very impressed with each of his lectures and with each passing success the project first envisioned by Mr Kruger and immediately grasped by the Santa Rosa community was beginning to bear fruit. To ensure sustainability there was a school exchange programme where students from Germany visited Moruca and Shell Beach and in return eight students from the secondary school visited each city in Germany where they learned from the Germans and shared with them their own life stories.
Additionally, the Germans wanted to bring the (Santa Rosa Secondary) school into the modern world of technology and communication. In return, Santa Rosa had to commit to preserve the forest and the marine life, and build conservation clubs with a curriculum within the schools.
In order to bring Santa Rosa into the modern technological world, there was need for support systems like electricity, and the village and school did not have the resources to acquire generators and gasoline – in any case a generator would go against the very grain of what was being discussed. So the Germans agreed to fund solar systems, a satellite phone, computers and a television set for the school. Using the lesson taught to him by then Parish Priest Fr George Vanderwood SJ, when he was asked what assistance was needed by the secondary school, ‘Sir Vic’ had with him a prepared list of needs.
You wouldn’t expect anything less from a ‘Special Person’ would you?
‘Sir Vic’ counts as the prime of the student crop such individuals as Murphy DeSouza, Steven La Rose, Graham Atkinson, Charlene Rodrigues, Bruce Rodrigues, and his daughters Ramona and Nadia Ferreira.
The secondary also became a nursery for teachers in the region, and all the present teachers in the nursery, primary and secondary schools are graduates of the secondary school. In 1998, ‘Sir Vic’ was transferred to Kamarang where he continued effectively imparting his expertise.
THE GUITAR MAN
As a teenager, Victor Ferreira got his inspiration to play music from a cadre of musicians such as guitarists – the De Souza Brothers (Marco and John), Carl Rodrigues and Eddie Jarvis. It was a tradition that these musicians would gather every weekend at the then Catholic Convent in Kokal, where they would entertain villagers.
Since they were all males, it goes without saying that a significant majority of the audience were females, and this provided even greater incentive for ‘Sir Vic’ to become a proficient musician. Not wanting to be left out after attending his first weekend concert and after observing how the guitarists would move their fingers as they held their chords he went home and practised his first song, ‘The Green, Green Grass of Home’. Though he did not reach instant popularity, his first outing was good enough for him to be accepted into that fraternity.
Later he would receive formal training from the renowned Guyanese music educator, the late Enid Peters. Initially, Ms. Peters was not too enamoured with having someone who was older (he was still in his mid-thirties) than she wanted, but Sir Vic was to later impress Ms Peters with his drive by becoming an accomplished player with the guitar, piano and recorder.
At the end of his tenure as a student with Ms Peters he proudly recalls her saying to him “I don’t know if I’ll ever see you again but I want you to go on and teach so many people. You have so much talent”.
When he returned to Santa Rosa, his first task was to form a choir at the secondary school. ‘Sir Vic’ has written some 40 songs and he has also written and composed the school songs for Kamarang Primary, Waramadong Secondary, Santa Rosa Primary and Secondary, Waramuri Primary and Kamwatta Primary.
PRESERVATION AND CONSERVATION
There was more to Victor Ferreira’s existence. In the 1990s, a German national, Mr Hartgun Kruger, attended a Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (COICA) conference which was also attended by Sharon Atkinson, a Moruca resident. At this conference, Kruger indicated that he wanted to do a project in a Third World country. Sharon Atkinson suggested that he visit Santa Rosa, and when he did, Kruger got a firsthand look at the water source, food, and the general conditions of life and other places in Moruca.
Kruger was also especially interested in the way the people of Santa Rosa lived and in the Banchikilli music, which he recorded. In 2001 at Mr Kruger’s initiation, a pen-pal club was started between the students and people of Santa Rosa, and towards the end of that year ‘Sir Vic’ received an invitation (and ticket) to visit Germany.
He visited four cities in Germany – Dusseldorf, Hayden, Cologne, and Chemitz – and in each he delivered lectures on the traditional ways of life of the Amerindian Peoples of Guyana. The objective of the visit was to allow the Germans to learn from Santa Rosa how the people co-existed with their environment, and in exchange the Germans would fund a library, fund the purchase of school texts, and furniture for schools in the Moruca region.
The Germans were very impressed with each of his lectures and with each passing success the project first envisioned by Mr Kruger and immediately grasped by the Santa Rosa community was beginning to bear fruit. To ensure sustainability there was a school exchange programme where students from Germany visited Moruca and Shell Beach and in return eight students from the secondary school visited each city in Germany where they learned from the Germans and shared with them their own life stories.
Additionally, the Germans wanted to bring the (Santa Rosa Secondary) school into the modern world of technology and communication. In return, Santa Rosa had to commit to preserve the forest and the marine life, and build conservation clubs with a curriculum within the schools.
In order to bring Santa Rosa into the modern technological world, there was need for support systems like electricity, and the village and school did not have the resources to acquire generators and gasoline – in any case a generator would go against the very grain of what was being discussed. So the Germans agreed to fund solar systems, a satellite phone, computers and a television set for the school. Using the lesson taught to him by then Parish Priest Fr George Vanderwood SJ, when he was asked what assistance was needed by the secondary school, ‘Sir Vic’ had with him a prepared list of needs.
You wouldn’t expect anything less from a ‘Special Person’ would you?
_“The grassroots people are the real heroes” by Annette Arjoon-Martins - July/August - 2011
_
Growing up in the riverain community of Pomeroon was very instrumental in instilling my love for nature. I spent my formative years with my maternal grandmother, who was Arawak, in a very simple wooden house on stilts, surrounded by coffee trees.
We would have family excursions to Shell Beach to catch crabs. There were no roads. You had to paddle for half a mile to get to school, in dugout canoes. There was always a stalk of bamboo onboard, because bamboo floats. If you had to visit a friend who lived across the river, you simply swam.
When I was older I went to Codrington High, a boarding school in Barbados. I earned my private pilot’s licence in Trinidad immediately afterwards and started flying the length and breadth of Guyana.
That’s when I discovered the northwest – the most beautiful part of the country, in my opinion. I started flying Dr Peter Pritchard, an English scientist, to Shell Beach. I went with him on one trip and discovered the green sea turtle. Some of them are the size of a Volkswagen. I was in awe.
Dr Pritchard would employ some of the former turtle hunters as turtle wardens, but only a few people benefited. The people needed the turtle meat and eggs as a source of protein. It was a subsistence activity.
It didn’t take me long to realise that you can’t address the needs of the turtles and ignore the community. There are Warraus, Caribs, and Arawaks there. I am half Amerindian. If I had a child that needed that turtle egg to survive, I would dig it up myself.
I founded the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society in 2000. I looked for the natural resources in the area and found commercial markets for them. Guyana Stock Feeds agreed to buy every single pound of copra (the dried kernel of coconuts, mainly used as feed for livestock) the women produced. For the first time, the people of Shell Beach had cash to buy chicken eggs and meat. We got them iceboxes to store their fish for longer periods, in exchange for not setting nets where turtles were nesting.
I created a brand called North West Organics. Now the women’s cassava bread is being exported to Trinidad and St Lucia. They also sell cassareep [a thick black liquid made from cassava root that is used to flavour and preserve sauces, especially pepperpot] and organic cocoa sticks. We handed the business over to the community so that they could run it in 2009. Last year they exceeded GY$7 million (US$34,000) in sales.
You can talk about conservation until the cows go home, but if people aren’t an integral part, it isn’t going to work.
At one time the entire coastline of Guyana was covered by mangroves. A lot of people would cut mangroves down for firewood because of challenges of getting kerosene. Now Guyana is experiencing the effects of climate change as tides are higher and waves are stronger. They know that where there are no [mangrove] forests, water comes over and floods their communities. We would have to spend US$5 million to build one mile of concrete sea wall, and a lot each year to maintain the older ones, which have a life of 50 years. Restoring and protecting mangroves frees us up to spend that money in the social sector. We planted more than 65,000 seedlings over a two-mile stretch. Shell Beach has been identified as a protected area and the 100-mile coastline is now a priority site.
What I am doing with the Mangrove Project is basically linking with and supporting coastal communities. We have €4.1 million (US$5.8 million) for four years. If you don’t get the community involved from day one, when the project funding comes to an end they will cut down the mangrove again.
There’s a group of women beekeepers who have their hives in a three-mile stretch of mangrove forest in Victoria and Hope villages. They said if we assist in the packaging and distribution of their honey, they will take responsibility for protecting the forests and sensitising their neighbours. At one of the sites, which is an enjoyable 25 minutes from Georgetown, the community has been trained to do tour-guiding, so there’s a tourism spin-off. The Ministry of Education is sending groups of school there each Saturday for educational tours. The Buxton Mangrove Committee has their steelband, which plays the mangrove jingle, and they spread the message. We sponsored another community’s cricket team.
If you want to reach certain target groups, flyers will not do. The community initiatives are out-of-the-box and pragmatic.
We’ve also had huge support from the private sector and sister agencies. There are billboards all along the coastline, and we didn’t have to pay for one.
The Guyanese government has been instrumental in fostering environmental sustainability. In the early 1990s President Desmond Hoyte gifted the world with the Iwokrama National Park – one million hectares of rainforest – for scientific research. Then President Bharrat Jagdeo decided to put this country on a low-carbon development pathway. We have 85 per cent of our rainforests still intact – but you can’t just tell people not to do timbering and gold mining any more. Economists saw the value of putting our country in the stewardship role. The Government of Norway already advanced €70 million (US$99.5 million) towards preservation of the forests.
Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning “land of many waters”, and we have huge capacity for hydro power, so the government is looking at alternative energy in terms of hydroelectricity. Obviously we’re doing something that should be emulated regionally. There’s tons of stuff that we should be proud of and celebrate. The thing that has surprised me the most is that the communities themselves have all the answers. We don’t need highfaluting scientists to tell us what to do. These grassroots people are so sincere and pragmatic. They are the real heroes.
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Growing up in the riverain community of Pomeroon was very instrumental in instilling my love for nature. I spent my formative years with my maternal grandmother, who was Arawak, in a very simple wooden house on stilts, surrounded by coffee trees.
We would have family excursions to Shell Beach to catch crabs. There were no roads. You had to paddle for half a mile to get to school, in dugout canoes. There was always a stalk of bamboo onboard, because bamboo floats. If you had to visit a friend who lived across the river, you simply swam.
When I was older I went to Codrington High, a boarding school in Barbados. I earned my private pilot’s licence in Trinidad immediately afterwards and started flying the length and breadth of Guyana.
That’s when I discovered the northwest – the most beautiful part of the country, in my opinion. I started flying Dr Peter Pritchard, an English scientist, to Shell Beach. I went with him on one trip and discovered the green sea turtle. Some of them are the size of a Volkswagen. I was in awe.
Dr Pritchard would employ some of the former turtle hunters as turtle wardens, but only a few people benefited. The people needed the turtle meat and eggs as a source of protein. It was a subsistence activity.
It didn’t take me long to realise that you can’t address the needs of the turtles and ignore the community. There are Warraus, Caribs, and Arawaks there. I am half Amerindian. If I had a child that needed that turtle egg to survive, I would dig it up myself.
I founded the Guyana Marine Turtle Conservation Society in 2000. I looked for the natural resources in the area and found commercial markets for them. Guyana Stock Feeds agreed to buy every single pound of copra (the dried kernel of coconuts, mainly used as feed for livestock) the women produced. For the first time, the people of Shell Beach had cash to buy chicken eggs and meat. We got them iceboxes to store their fish for longer periods, in exchange for not setting nets where turtles were nesting.
I created a brand called North West Organics. Now the women’s cassava bread is being exported to Trinidad and St Lucia. They also sell cassareep [a thick black liquid made from cassava root that is used to flavour and preserve sauces, especially pepperpot] and organic cocoa sticks. We handed the business over to the community so that they could run it in 2009. Last year they exceeded GY$7 million (US$34,000) in sales.
You can talk about conservation until the cows go home, but if people aren’t an integral part, it isn’t going to work.
At one time the entire coastline of Guyana was covered by mangroves. A lot of people would cut mangroves down for firewood because of challenges of getting kerosene. Now Guyana is experiencing the effects of climate change as tides are higher and waves are stronger. They know that where there are no [mangrove] forests, water comes over and floods their communities. We would have to spend US$5 million to build one mile of concrete sea wall, and a lot each year to maintain the older ones, which have a life of 50 years. Restoring and protecting mangroves frees us up to spend that money in the social sector. We planted more than 65,000 seedlings over a two-mile stretch. Shell Beach has been identified as a protected area and the 100-mile coastline is now a priority site.
What I am doing with the Mangrove Project is basically linking with and supporting coastal communities. We have €4.1 million (US$5.8 million) for four years. If you don’t get the community involved from day one, when the project funding comes to an end they will cut down the mangrove again.
There’s a group of women beekeepers who have their hives in a three-mile stretch of mangrove forest in Victoria and Hope villages. They said if we assist in the packaging and distribution of their honey, they will take responsibility for protecting the forests and sensitising their neighbours. At one of the sites, which is an enjoyable 25 minutes from Georgetown, the community has been trained to do tour-guiding, so there’s a tourism spin-off. The Ministry of Education is sending groups of school there each Saturday for educational tours. The Buxton Mangrove Committee has their steelband, which plays the mangrove jingle, and they spread the message. We sponsored another community’s cricket team.
If you want to reach certain target groups, flyers will not do. The community initiatives are out-of-the-box and pragmatic.
We’ve also had huge support from the private sector and sister agencies. There are billboards all along the coastline, and we didn’t have to pay for one.
The Guyanese government has been instrumental in fostering environmental sustainability. In the early 1990s President Desmond Hoyte gifted the world with the Iwokrama National Park – one million hectares of rainforest – for scientific research. Then President Bharrat Jagdeo decided to put this country on a low-carbon development pathway. We have 85 per cent of our rainforests still intact – but you can’t just tell people not to do timbering and gold mining any more. Economists saw the value of putting our country in the stewardship role. The Government of Norway already advanced €70 million (US$99.5 million) towards preservation of the forests.
Guyana is an Amerindian word meaning “land of many waters”, and we have huge capacity for hydro power, so the government is looking at alternative energy in terms of hydroelectricity. Obviously we’re doing something that should be emulated regionally. There’s tons of stuff that we should be proud of and celebrate. The thing that has surprised me the most is that the communities themselves have all the answers. We don’t need highfaluting scientists to tell us what to do. These grassroots people are so sincere and pragmatic. They are the real heroes.
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Indigenous people made worthy contributions - Mirror September 9, 2011
This year, throughout September, Guyana is observing its 16th annual Amerindian Heritage month under the theme: “Our culture, our heritage, our life: A fusion of Indigenous Diversity.” During this month Guyanese will join with the Indigenous people to recognise and pay tribute to the historical development they have made in this country. Amerindian Heritage Month first came into being on September, 10, 1995 when the late President Dr Cheddi Jagan dedicated this month to recognize the contributions, achievements and the vast progress Amerindians made in all fields of life.
This week I’ll focus on one Amerindian woman who came all the way from the North West district in Region One to experience life in Georgetown, our capital city. With perseverance, dedication and patience, some of her aims and goals have been achieved.
Elizabeth Hudson, (better known as Liz by her colleagues) was born in Moruca, Santa Rosa, North West District, in Region One, in a family that consists of four sisters and two brothers. Mrs Hudson left Moruca at the tender age of 15 when her father died in 1966. Her destination was Georgetown, the city where she became exposed to “bright life,” to seek work and make a living. She was only equipped with a primary education which didn’t prevent her to pursuing employment in various fields.
Liz came from the Arawak tribe (very peace loving) and she understands and can speak beginners Spanish mixed with the Arawak language.
When asked about life back in Moruca in her younger days, her response was: “Life wasn’t tough, most of the villagers were farmers and we had enough to eat. In those days the men went into the interior to do surveying work but most of the business industries (bauxite) are closed off now.”
In Georgetown she worked with several bosses doing domestic chores, one including a doctor, to pay her share while renting.
Liz met her husband in Georgetown and decided to get married. She is blessed with six children (three boys and three girls) and eleven grandchildren. All her six children are married and living their own lives.
In 1993, the late President Janet Jagan, who was then Editor-in-Chief of the Mirror newspaper, employed Liz to work at the New Guyana Company Limited. When prompted to get her opinion of Mrs Jagan, Liz emotionally responded that “working with Janet was nice, she always speak encouragingly to people and she is always there for you in times of hardship.” Her last words of encouragement to me were “that she wanted me to own my own home... without any hassle she helped me to get a houselot and make arrangements for me to obtain loans too.”
She concluded: “Today, I am happy to know that I have my own little shelter.” “When you have your own home only you can turn the key on the door, you’re your own boss. No one can order you around.”
While working at Mirror, Liz opined that she learnt how to deal with different people and problems. She also works in different departments when other staff are absent.
When asked further if `other race’ called her “buck” how does this term affect her and what is her response. With a smile she said “I don’t know what the meaning of that word is so it doesn’t affect me in any way”. “Other races should try to cooperate with one another to build this beautiful land of ours; after all, we have to work, live and even dwell together. Nowadays, there are many intermarriages in society, so we have to learn and accept each other culture. This way life will be happier for all of us.”
In conclusion when I asked Liz about present day life, her response was: “As I get older, I find life okay because I have my own home and a job, I am happy that I can maintain myself. I am enjoying life while I can – meaning while I am healthy. There is nothing I can complain of. With wisdom and experience of life one cannot make the same mistakes again and again.” She specifically said that youths should respect elders because they are the ones that build the foundation for them to inherit. Some of them are very rude and don’t have any manners, especially if they are in a high position.” I hate to witness how they handle older people. “Manners maketh a man” and youths should try to inculcate good habits and learn to speak properly in order not to aggravate elders”.
Liz also posited that our country has come a far way; there are many developments everywhere you go. She hopes that the PPP/Civic government continues to prosper and Guyanese would not have to leave their beautiful homeland to seek employment elsewhere to be taken advantage, used and sometimes discarded.
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This week I’ll focus on one Amerindian woman who came all the way from the North West district in Region One to experience life in Georgetown, our capital city. With perseverance, dedication and patience, some of her aims and goals have been achieved.
Elizabeth Hudson, (better known as Liz by her colleagues) was born in Moruca, Santa Rosa, North West District, in Region One, in a family that consists of four sisters and two brothers. Mrs Hudson left Moruca at the tender age of 15 when her father died in 1966. Her destination was Georgetown, the city where she became exposed to “bright life,” to seek work and make a living. She was only equipped with a primary education which didn’t prevent her to pursuing employment in various fields.
Liz came from the Arawak tribe (very peace loving) and she understands and can speak beginners Spanish mixed with the Arawak language.
When asked about life back in Moruca in her younger days, her response was: “Life wasn’t tough, most of the villagers were farmers and we had enough to eat. In those days the men went into the interior to do surveying work but most of the business industries (bauxite) are closed off now.”
In Georgetown she worked with several bosses doing domestic chores, one including a doctor, to pay her share while renting.
Liz met her husband in Georgetown and decided to get married. She is blessed with six children (three boys and three girls) and eleven grandchildren. All her six children are married and living their own lives.
In 1993, the late President Janet Jagan, who was then Editor-in-Chief of the Mirror newspaper, employed Liz to work at the New Guyana Company Limited. When prompted to get her opinion of Mrs Jagan, Liz emotionally responded that “working with Janet was nice, she always speak encouragingly to people and she is always there for you in times of hardship.” Her last words of encouragement to me were “that she wanted me to own my own home... without any hassle she helped me to get a houselot and make arrangements for me to obtain loans too.”
She concluded: “Today, I am happy to know that I have my own little shelter.” “When you have your own home only you can turn the key on the door, you’re your own boss. No one can order you around.”
While working at Mirror, Liz opined that she learnt how to deal with different people and problems. She also works in different departments when other staff are absent.
When asked further if `other race’ called her “buck” how does this term affect her and what is her response. With a smile she said “I don’t know what the meaning of that word is so it doesn’t affect me in any way”. “Other races should try to cooperate with one another to build this beautiful land of ours; after all, we have to work, live and even dwell together. Nowadays, there are many intermarriages in society, so we have to learn and accept each other culture. This way life will be happier for all of us.”
In conclusion when I asked Liz about present day life, her response was: “As I get older, I find life okay because I have my own home and a job, I am happy that I can maintain myself. I am enjoying life while I can – meaning while I am healthy. There is nothing I can complain of. With wisdom and experience of life one cannot make the same mistakes again and again.” She specifically said that youths should respect elders because they are the ones that build the foundation for them to inherit. Some of them are very rude and don’t have any manners, especially if they are in a high position.” I hate to witness how they handle older people. “Manners maketh a man” and youths should try to inculcate good habits and learn to speak properly in order not to aggravate elders”.
Liz also posited that our country has come a far way; there are many developments everywhere you go. She hopes that the PPP/Civic government continues to prosper and Guyanese would not have to leave their beautiful homeland to seek employment elsewhere to be taken advantage, used and sometimes discarded.
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The Cali Mari Man - Neville Calistro is a 'Special Person' - KNews September 11, 2011
Pull Quote: “Maybe, it sounded interesting to her.”- Calistro on his music, after being invited by Mrs. Burnham to join the People’s Culture Corps in the 1970s
By Rohan Sagar
Neville Calistro, more familiarly known as ‘The Mighty Chief’, has the distinction of being the first Amerindian in Guyana and possibly in the world, to sing and perform the art form, Calypso. Calistro traces his heritage back to Venezuela where his grandfather, Henio Calistro, who was a mix of Indigenous Arawak and Black, travelled to Moruca River from Angostura (Cuidad Bolivar) Venezuela in 1817.
The man was part of an escaping group of Arawaks who fought against Simon Bolivar during the Bolivarian War of Independence. Calistro’s grandmother was herself a mix of Arawak and Akawaio and spoke both languages. Both grandparents both spoke Spanish as did the rest of the Arawaks who escaped Venezuela.
The first site of settlement was Mabaruma and then they travelled down to Moruca River. Though most of the Arawaks settled in Santa Rosa, Calistro’s family went further south to the island of Hobo. Hobo was settled much earlier in the 17-18th century by the Dutch who had established a trading post from which they conducted business with the Caribs and Warraus.
Calistro’s grandfather became the first Captain or Toshao of Moruca after a McTurk, an Englishman who was officially known as the ‘Amerindian Protector’ gave that position to him. Calistro’s father who was born in 1905 later left Hobo for Mabaruma where he lived until his first wife died.
He left Mabaruma and travelled to the Pomeroon River, where he re-married and settled in the Kabakaburi community. Mighty Chief was the first to be born out of this second union at the Charity Cottage Hospital.
Mighty Chief attended the St. Monica Primary School in what is the last Carib community in the Pomeroon River and was administered by the Anglican Church. The Mighty Chief’s adventure into the world of culture began when he still a little boy. His father was a violinist and most of his uncles and brothers were musicians. Mighty Chief believes that this is where the strength of his musical abilities evolved. His father created a musical group that was made up of his brothers and sons and this group provided entertainment at a time when there was no other medium such as radios and juke-boxes; this group has the distinction of performing at the first Carifesta festival in Georgetown (1972).
During holidays such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays and August school recess Mighty Chief would accompany his father, mother and uncles to places and homes where festivities were being held in the village and his admiration for the musicians greatly influenced his sense of direction, and so it was that he fell in love with two musical instruments – the banjo and the sambura (a traditional drum).
As he figured out the chords on the banjo he secured a guitar and began applying the same principles. His mastery of the stringed instruments was soon to be overcome by his ability to learn the percussions of the Arawaks the Maracas or shak-shak.
By Rohan Sagar
Neville Calistro, more familiarly known as ‘The Mighty Chief’, has the distinction of being the first Amerindian in Guyana and possibly in the world, to sing and perform the art form, Calypso. Calistro traces his heritage back to Venezuela where his grandfather, Henio Calistro, who was a mix of Indigenous Arawak and Black, travelled to Moruca River from Angostura (Cuidad Bolivar) Venezuela in 1817.
The man was part of an escaping group of Arawaks who fought against Simon Bolivar during the Bolivarian War of Independence. Calistro’s grandmother was herself a mix of Arawak and Akawaio and spoke both languages. Both grandparents both spoke Spanish as did the rest of the Arawaks who escaped Venezuela.
The first site of settlement was Mabaruma and then they travelled down to Moruca River. Though most of the Arawaks settled in Santa Rosa, Calistro’s family went further south to the island of Hobo. Hobo was settled much earlier in the 17-18th century by the Dutch who had established a trading post from which they conducted business with the Caribs and Warraus.
Calistro’s grandfather became the first Captain or Toshao of Moruca after a McTurk, an Englishman who was officially known as the ‘Amerindian Protector’ gave that position to him. Calistro’s father who was born in 1905 later left Hobo for Mabaruma where he lived until his first wife died.
He left Mabaruma and travelled to the Pomeroon River, where he re-married and settled in the Kabakaburi community. Mighty Chief was the first to be born out of this second union at the Charity Cottage Hospital.
Mighty Chief attended the St. Monica Primary School in what is the last Carib community in the Pomeroon River and was administered by the Anglican Church. The Mighty Chief’s adventure into the world of culture began when he still a little boy. His father was a violinist and most of his uncles and brothers were musicians. Mighty Chief believes that this is where the strength of his musical abilities evolved. His father created a musical group that was made up of his brothers and sons and this group provided entertainment at a time when there was no other medium such as radios and juke-boxes; this group has the distinction of performing at the first Carifesta festival in Georgetown (1972).
During holidays such as Christmas, Easter, birthdays and August school recess Mighty Chief would accompany his father, mother and uncles to places and homes where festivities were being held in the village and his admiration for the musicians greatly influenced his sense of direction, and so it was that he fell in love with two musical instruments – the banjo and the sambura (a traditional drum).
As he figured out the chords on the banjo he secured a guitar and began applying the same principles. His mastery of the stringed instruments was soon to be overcome by his ability to learn the percussions of the Arawaks the Maracas or shak-shak.
He later secured for himself a harmonica and this instrument has remained as the first love of all musical instruments for the Mighty Chief.
As a young man the Mighty Chief went to work in the mining industry in the Kamarang-Imbaimadai area. During a period of four years he travelled in that part of the Mazaruni visiting such communities as Kaikan, Eteringbang and other Akawaio villages. According to Mighty Chief he did not find the kind of gold he had heard about and very soon returned to Kabakaburi. It was about this time that opportunities were suddenly appearing and which were to redirect his life towards music and a subsequent return to his roots.
Calistro doesn’t have ‘The Chief’ title just by chance. He was once captain of the Amerindian mission Kabakaburi, down the Pomeroon River in Region Two.
It was this “captaincy” that would lead to the discovery of his music by no less a person than Viola Burnham, the wife of then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
During the 1970s he was given an opportunity to attend a training course at Camp Madewini and one morning during breakfast he was asked to share his experiences in the context of his being an Arawak. In attendance was Mrs. Burnham.
After the training programme ended he returned to Kabakaburi, where he was serving as Captain or Toshao, when he received an invitation (from Mrs. Burnham) to become a part of the People’s Culture Corps.
“Maybe, it sounded interesting to her,” he opined.
He accepted and with a team of other cultural practitioners from the village travelled to Georgetown. This invitation was to change the life of Neville Calistro forever.
As a child, Calistro first experimented with singing in school and later on fell in love with Country and Western music which he heard in Western movies or as is more popularly known cowboy movies; he learnt the songs so well he was able to both sing and accompany himself either on Guitar or Banjo.
Mighty Chief was also often called upon to provide vocal services, since as he claimed, ‘rural people were deeply in love with Country and Western music’. It was at this juncture that he began to develop an interest in calypso because it (calypso) was a genre that facilitated social commentaries. Lord Kitchener was the first artiste he came to admire the most and then later the Mighty Sparrow.
As a young man Calistro displayed a keen interest in the cultural life of the Arawaks and would attend all the ceremonies in the village. The one he was enthused with the most was the ‘Yucca Dance’ which was a marriage ceremony that tested the sincerity of would be couples.
The People’s Culture Corps, the Guyana National Service and Calypso all converged into one theme in the life of Neville Calistro. The Culture Corps, according to Calistro, was an attempt at synthesizing the diverse cultures of Guyana by the late Prime Minister Burnham. The Corps was an autonomous body of the Guyana National Service, which meant that members were not required to participate in the paramilitary component.
Calistro decided that he would use Calypso to help his people. He theorised that young women who became young mothers were placed involuntarily into a situation in their lives that required immense support.
As a young man the Mighty Chief went to work in the mining industry in the Kamarang-Imbaimadai area. During a period of four years he travelled in that part of the Mazaruni visiting such communities as Kaikan, Eteringbang and other Akawaio villages. According to Mighty Chief he did not find the kind of gold he had heard about and very soon returned to Kabakaburi. It was about this time that opportunities were suddenly appearing and which were to redirect his life towards music and a subsequent return to his roots.
Calistro doesn’t have ‘The Chief’ title just by chance. He was once captain of the Amerindian mission Kabakaburi, down the Pomeroon River in Region Two.
It was this “captaincy” that would lead to the discovery of his music by no less a person than Viola Burnham, the wife of then Prime Minister Forbes Burnham.
During the 1970s he was given an opportunity to attend a training course at Camp Madewini and one morning during breakfast he was asked to share his experiences in the context of his being an Arawak. In attendance was Mrs. Burnham.
After the training programme ended he returned to Kabakaburi, where he was serving as Captain or Toshao, when he received an invitation (from Mrs. Burnham) to become a part of the People’s Culture Corps.
“Maybe, it sounded interesting to her,” he opined.
He accepted and with a team of other cultural practitioners from the village travelled to Georgetown. This invitation was to change the life of Neville Calistro forever.
As a child, Calistro first experimented with singing in school and later on fell in love with Country and Western music which he heard in Western movies or as is more popularly known cowboy movies; he learnt the songs so well he was able to both sing and accompany himself either on Guitar or Banjo.
Mighty Chief was also often called upon to provide vocal services, since as he claimed, ‘rural people were deeply in love with Country and Western music’. It was at this juncture that he began to develop an interest in calypso because it (calypso) was a genre that facilitated social commentaries. Lord Kitchener was the first artiste he came to admire the most and then later the Mighty Sparrow.
As a young man Calistro displayed a keen interest in the cultural life of the Arawaks and would attend all the ceremonies in the village. The one he was enthused with the most was the ‘Yucca Dance’ which was a marriage ceremony that tested the sincerity of would be couples.
The People’s Culture Corps, the Guyana National Service and Calypso all converged into one theme in the life of Neville Calistro. The Culture Corps, according to Calistro, was an attempt at synthesizing the diverse cultures of Guyana by the late Prime Minister Burnham. The Corps was an autonomous body of the Guyana National Service, which meant that members were not required to participate in the paramilitary component.
Calistro decided that he would use Calypso to help his people. He theorised that young women who became young mothers were placed involuntarily into a situation in their lives that required immense support.
In other countries around the world young women in this situation would be provided opportunities to carry on with their lives, but in Guyana young women specifically young Amerindian women, believed that any upward mobility came to a sudden and crashing end. He composed a calypso that addressed this dilemma explicitly speaking to vulnerable communities that through the Guyana National Service second chances were not only possible, but with discipline through life changing skills success could actually be achieved.
‘Gie She Captain, Gie She’ became an instant hit so much so that Chief was encouraged to enter the 1977 Calypso competition. Mighty Chief went on to place third overall. Though he felt that the song deserved better he harbours no ill feeling, in fact as a result of his standing he went on tours to Cuba and Trinidad where attendees at the concerts marvelled at this ‘lil Amerindian’ who was so commanding in his performances.
He made three tours to Cuba—once for Carifesta, again for the South America and Caribbean Music Festival and again for the Caribbean Security Festival at Guantanamo, where he performed with the Guyana Defence Force Frontline, a string orchestra.
He added that many people in both countries were astonished at his heritage since they were all accustomed to seeing ‘one group of people performing calypso.’ Even during his sojourn with the People’s Culture Corps, Calistro kept his Indigenous band going, even being invited to tour England and Holland.
Mighty Chief explained that it was during this time that he went into a deep reflective mode about the art form he was engaged in and the impact or lack thereof on his own cultural heritage. The result of this process was the emergence of the Cali-Mari, which essentially was the fusion of the Calypso and the ancient Mari-Mari rhythms.
In 1986 he co-led a delegation to the Commonwealth Institute in London. Sharing that leadership was Sister Theresa. The delegation travelled to Holland, then to Brussels and on to Jamaica and Barbados.
Calistro believed that much like the other Caribbean territories who can claim ownership of Calypso, Soca, and Reggae, Cali-Mari is an authentic Guyanese art form and though it fitted well into the overarching objective of the Culture Corps, Calistro is saddened by the fact the rhythm was never given the attention it deserved.
He was also involved in the political life of the country. He entered Parliament in 1986, the same year that Desmond Hoyte contested the elections as leader of the party for the first time. Calistro held Parliamentary responsibility for the Upper Pomeroon, culturally and politically.
That did not prevent him from promoting the aspect of culture that he led. After all in 1993 he was to perform before Prince Philip when he visited Guyana.
Neville’s love of music translated to his family, and upon the insistence of members of the community, he decided to form the Indigenous Calibro Band, consisting of his five sons, his daughter and a nephew. The members of the band, apart from Neville are Kennedy, Adam, Clowis, Alvaro, Macema, Valdero and Clive James.
The band was formed seven years ago and receives regular invitations to perform all over Guyana, especially in the interior. They are a popular feature at the annual Amerindian Heritage Village at the Sophia Exhibition Complex.
Calistro encourages the band to deepen its repertoire of materials but instils in them that they are essentially an Amerindian band and must so represent the cultural heritage of their people. In an afterthought, Calistro philosophises that though Amerindian culture is not dead, it is critically ailing. He reminds his people wherever he goes that in the ancient times their ancestors did not know to read and write, but used music instead to archive their political, economic, social and cultural history.
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‘Gie She Captain, Gie She’ became an instant hit so much so that Chief was encouraged to enter the 1977 Calypso competition. Mighty Chief went on to place third overall. Though he felt that the song deserved better he harbours no ill feeling, in fact as a result of his standing he went on tours to Cuba and Trinidad where attendees at the concerts marvelled at this ‘lil Amerindian’ who was so commanding in his performances.
He made three tours to Cuba—once for Carifesta, again for the South America and Caribbean Music Festival and again for the Caribbean Security Festival at Guantanamo, where he performed with the Guyana Defence Force Frontline, a string orchestra.
He added that many people in both countries were astonished at his heritage since they were all accustomed to seeing ‘one group of people performing calypso.’ Even during his sojourn with the People’s Culture Corps, Calistro kept his Indigenous band going, even being invited to tour England and Holland.
Mighty Chief explained that it was during this time that he went into a deep reflective mode about the art form he was engaged in and the impact or lack thereof on his own cultural heritage. The result of this process was the emergence of the Cali-Mari, which essentially was the fusion of the Calypso and the ancient Mari-Mari rhythms.
In 1986 he co-led a delegation to the Commonwealth Institute in London. Sharing that leadership was Sister Theresa. The delegation travelled to Holland, then to Brussels and on to Jamaica and Barbados.
Calistro believed that much like the other Caribbean territories who can claim ownership of Calypso, Soca, and Reggae, Cali-Mari is an authentic Guyanese art form and though it fitted well into the overarching objective of the Culture Corps, Calistro is saddened by the fact the rhythm was never given the attention it deserved.
He was also involved in the political life of the country. He entered Parliament in 1986, the same year that Desmond Hoyte contested the elections as leader of the party for the first time. Calistro held Parliamentary responsibility for the Upper Pomeroon, culturally and politically.
That did not prevent him from promoting the aspect of culture that he led. After all in 1993 he was to perform before Prince Philip when he visited Guyana.
Neville’s love of music translated to his family, and upon the insistence of members of the community, he decided to form the Indigenous Calibro Band, consisting of his five sons, his daughter and a nephew. The members of the band, apart from Neville are Kennedy, Adam, Clowis, Alvaro, Macema, Valdero and Clive James.
The band was formed seven years ago and receives regular invitations to perform all over Guyana, especially in the interior. They are a popular feature at the annual Amerindian Heritage Village at the Sophia Exhibition Complex.
Calistro encourages the band to deepen its repertoire of materials but instils in them that they are essentially an Amerindian band and must so represent the cultural heritage of their people. In an afterthought, Calistro philosophises that though Amerindian culture is not dead, it is critically ailing. He reminds his people wherever he goes that in the ancient times their ancestors did not know to read and write, but used music instead to archive their political, economic, social and cultural history.
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Auntie Annie: The treasure of Mabaruma - KNews Sept 7, 2009
Aunty Annie and long time friend Mitzi Campbell
As the nation celebrates Amerindian Heritage month honouring the contributions of our indigenous population, one person worthy of being singled out for special mention is 90 year-old Ernestine Chacon called “Aunty Annie” from Kissing Rocks in Mabaruma, Region One.
Very active for her age, the woman prides herself as one of the persons in the hinterland community that cherishes Amerindian culture and plays her role in passing on aspects of the culture to the younger generation of Amerindians.
Born and schooled in Moruca, another Village in Region One, she left at the age of 11 with her grandparents to move to Mabaruma where she spent the rest of her life.
She recalled that back in those days, traveling to school was rough, given the terrain of the place she had to walk. Chacon remembers clearly and has fond memories of her teacher, Sister Theresa, a nun.
“I even remember my school song.” According to Chacon, when she left school, “my mother tell me if you don’t want go back to school then you have to work.” She said that from that tender age, she started to work first as a lime picker for the lime factory.
After picking the limes she would grind it to extract oil. She did this up to when she got married.
According to Chacon, she was married at the age of 17 to her then 19-year old husband, Julian Chacon.
“Then we start with life and start to get children. I get 12 children, six boys and six girls.”
The eldest of her children is now 72 years old, while the youngest is 48. Chacon recalled that during her married years, one of her many jobs was to make cassareep and starch to sell.
“Mercy Hospital use to buy it.” Chacon recalls that during the years of the Late President LFS Burnham, her husband was elected Captain.
He was responsible for projects such as the building and repairs of roads. According to Chacon, when her husband died, she was chosen as his successor.
“They say Aunty Annie you have to carry on the works of your husband.” She said at first, being a woman there was some resistance.
“But they said give it a try and we had elections and I won the elections.” Aunty Annie said that she was Captain for only two years since she had to give it up due to an illness. “The doctor say that the work is too much for me and I have to leave it.” She added that during her tenure, she spearheaded an initiative where the young boys in the community were taught to make furniture and the girls would learn to sew. According to Aunty Annie, the community has changed significantly and one such change being the availability of transportation.
“We had to walk…the children had to walk.” She did point out however, that jobs are a scarcity, emphasising, “you have to have education to get a job.”
She pointed out that some of the persons had to travel to remote locations to secure jobs such as mining and logging.
When asked how she felt to know that she was one of the oldest persons in the community, Aunty Annie said, “Oh, I feel great. I feel happy that very day I celebrated my 90th birthday. I was extremely overjoyed…I celebrated it with all my children…we had a grand time.”
She said though that despite her age, she will keep up the Amerindian culture and teach the youths. “When is September, I get some of the kids and teach them the Mari Mari dance, the Baboon dance, Canny (carrion) Crow dance, Blue Saki dance.” Aunty Annie said that the time is short for her teaching days, since she is now starting to feel the effects of age (her knees can barely handle the pressure). “But I still dancing. I also teach them to sing in the Arawak language, “Mari Mari canido vusally dinabo banchicaropude vusally dinabo.” According to Aunty Annie, its translation is, “If you love me you have to come with me.” She attributed her longevity to good care, recalling when her husband was dying he cried and told her children that he was leaving their mom to punish. “My daughter who is now in England said, ‘no dad, don’t cry. I will take care of her’.”
She pointed out that her daughter as well as her other children made good on their promise and take good care of her.
“Right now, I like a queen,” she said with a big smile on her face. According to Aunty Annie, she has lived a good life and is satisfied and would not change anything even if she could. “I thank the good Lord for my life.” Most of the Amerindians in Guyana live in tribal groups in the coastal regions and others inland. The term ‘tribe’ is used as a linguistic definition and not a political one.
The coastal tribes are the Caribs, Arawaks, and Warraus, whose names are derived from the three main families of Guyanese Amerindian language.
The Amerindians living in the interior are split into seven tribes: Akawaio, Arekuna, Barima River Caribe, Macusi, Patamona, Wai Wai, and Wapisiana.
The Barima River Caribe, Akawaio, Arecuna and Patamona tribes live in the river valleys of west Guyana.
Two Amerindian groups live in the savannah region of Rupununi: the Macusi in the northern half and the Wapisiana in the south.
The Wai Wais live in the southernmost point near where the Essequibo River rises. All the Amerindian tribes of the interior use language derived from the Caribe group, except the Wapisiana, who speak an Arawak tongue. Their rich culture and strong traditional practices have certainly impacted positively on the Guyanese culture and national development. The Golden Arrowhead of Achievement, the national Head dress, the then Timehri International Airport, and the names of several communities and popular sites around the country have their origin from the indigenous people of Guyana.
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Very active for her age, the woman prides herself as one of the persons in the hinterland community that cherishes Amerindian culture and plays her role in passing on aspects of the culture to the younger generation of Amerindians.
Born and schooled in Moruca, another Village in Region One, she left at the age of 11 with her grandparents to move to Mabaruma where she spent the rest of her life.
She recalled that back in those days, traveling to school was rough, given the terrain of the place she had to walk. Chacon remembers clearly and has fond memories of her teacher, Sister Theresa, a nun.
“I even remember my school song.” According to Chacon, when she left school, “my mother tell me if you don’t want go back to school then you have to work.” She said that from that tender age, she started to work first as a lime picker for the lime factory.
After picking the limes she would grind it to extract oil. She did this up to when she got married.
According to Chacon, she was married at the age of 17 to her then 19-year old husband, Julian Chacon.
“Then we start with life and start to get children. I get 12 children, six boys and six girls.”
The eldest of her children is now 72 years old, while the youngest is 48. Chacon recalled that during her married years, one of her many jobs was to make cassareep and starch to sell.
“Mercy Hospital use to buy it.” Chacon recalls that during the years of the Late President LFS Burnham, her husband was elected Captain.
He was responsible for projects such as the building and repairs of roads. According to Chacon, when her husband died, she was chosen as his successor.
“They say Aunty Annie you have to carry on the works of your husband.” She said at first, being a woman there was some resistance.
“But they said give it a try and we had elections and I won the elections.” Aunty Annie said that she was Captain for only two years since she had to give it up due to an illness. “The doctor say that the work is too much for me and I have to leave it.” She added that during her tenure, she spearheaded an initiative where the young boys in the community were taught to make furniture and the girls would learn to sew. According to Aunty Annie, the community has changed significantly and one such change being the availability of transportation.
“We had to walk…the children had to walk.” She did point out however, that jobs are a scarcity, emphasising, “you have to have education to get a job.”
She pointed out that some of the persons had to travel to remote locations to secure jobs such as mining and logging.
When asked how she felt to know that she was one of the oldest persons in the community, Aunty Annie said, “Oh, I feel great. I feel happy that very day I celebrated my 90th birthday. I was extremely overjoyed…I celebrated it with all my children…we had a grand time.”
She said though that despite her age, she will keep up the Amerindian culture and teach the youths. “When is September, I get some of the kids and teach them the Mari Mari dance, the Baboon dance, Canny (carrion) Crow dance, Blue Saki dance.” Aunty Annie said that the time is short for her teaching days, since she is now starting to feel the effects of age (her knees can barely handle the pressure). “But I still dancing. I also teach them to sing in the Arawak language, “Mari Mari canido vusally dinabo banchicaropude vusally dinabo.” According to Aunty Annie, its translation is, “If you love me you have to come with me.” She attributed her longevity to good care, recalling when her husband was dying he cried and told her children that he was leaving their mom to punish. “My daughter who is now in England said, ‘no dad, don’t cry. I will take care of her’.”
She pointed out that her daughter as well as her other children made good on their promise and take good care of her.
“Right now, I like a queen,” she said with a big smile on her face. According to Aunty Annie, she has lived a good life and is satisfied and would not change anything even if she could. “I thank the good Lord for my life.” Most of the Amerindians in Guyana live in tribal groups in the coastal regions and others inland. The term ‘tribe’ is used as a linguistic definition and not a political one.
The coastal tribes are the Caribs, Arawaks, and Warraus, whose names are derived from the three main families of Guyanese Amerindian language.
The Amerindians living in the interior are split into seven tribes: Akawaio, Arekuna, Barima River Caribe, Macusi, Patamona, Wai Wai, and Wapisiana.
The Barima River Caribe, Akawaio, Arecuna and Patamona tribes live in the river valleys of west Guyana.
Two Amerindian groups live in the savannah region of Rupununi: the Macusi in the northern half and the Wapisiana in the south.
The Wai Wais live in the southernmost point near where the Essequibo River rises. All the Amerindian tribes of the interior use language derived from the Caribe group, except the Wapisiana, who speak an Arawak tongue. Their rich culture and strong traditional practices have certainly impacted positively on the Guyanese culture and national development. The Golden Arrowhead of Achievement, the national Head dress, the then Timehri International Airport, and the names of several communities and popular sites around the country have their origin from the indigenous people of Guyana.
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