Moraikobai, a paradise tucked two-and-a-half miles up the Mahaicony Creek, is an Amerindian settlement that is perched on the brink of wide-ranging development. But maintaining its rich cultural roots in the face of all the improvements is one of the major challenges facing the village.
The nearly 75-year-old village was discovered by Arawaks escaping war from the Carib tribe. Oral history has it that the village ancestors came across a big tree that had blocked the waterway, and essentially their path. Interestingly enough, the village name translates “Heart of the Mora tree”. Years later, development has vastly changed the landscape of the village and is most welcomed by residents.
With its own nursery and primary school, medical centre, two churches, a rest home for visitors, water and electricity, most residents enjoy life in the village.
A Resident in the process of making cassava bread
“We have looked at the education sector. We had teachers trained and now they are serving the community which is a big boost, and also we had upgrading in the infrastructure. Now we have a solar panel system that is being installed on the school whereby we have computers that are powered by solar panels so that teachers can have their files in an advanced way instead of doing all the writing and so,” a Toshao Derrick John said.
“I living here 19 years and its good. The mission develop a little more than before: the school, hospital, the accommodation for the people them at the rest house,” Leila Dolliveira, a resident attested.
“Some other improvements that I think are needed are like having more staff in the school, having more experienced teachers,” Davis Jacobs, another resident opined. While residents are proud of the schools they have so far, they expressed the need for a secondary school. “The children they punishing out on the road because their mother is not looking after them, and some of the children going astray, some will get boyfriend,” Dolliveira said.
The infrastructural development is something most of the villagers are very proud of, moreso since they are being manned by their own people. The hospital has a resident medic who is from outside of the village, but the other health workers are from the community.
Resident Medic Shemroy Miller told Guyana Times International the hospital treats mostly patients of accidents that occur in the backdam, along with occasional cases of dengue and typhoid, vomiting and diarrhea; none of which are severe.
Antenatal clinics are held on Mondays; chronic disease clinics on Tuesdays; child health clinics on Wednesdays; home visits on Thursdays and family planning on Fridays.
But while some residents are grateful for the services, they noted the need for a better stocked drugs store.
“Sometimes when ya go to the health centre, they ain’t really get the supplies you need ya know so we need more help,” said Paulette Clinton.
“I was thinking that my son was bitten a few months ago by a snake, and there were no drugs, so they could get drugs,” another Davis Jacobs recommended. The 53-year-old lumber jack was confident that the village will continue to see improvements in its facilities.
“I know that things will improve here much because it started at a fast rate of development,” Jacob said, noting the need for more staff at the hospital.
Challenging times
Life in the village is simple. The men are lumberjacks, the women farm, make crafts, take care of the home – all typical traits of Amerindians. But heavy rains remain a threat to their livelihoods.
“We in the village here, we depend a lot on logging and also on farming and sometimes, especially late last year and early this year, we had some severe rains which really affect the logging industry and also a lot of farms were being destroyed,” Toshao John explained.
As for farming, the village has worked together to build a boat that can accommodate 50 persons and goods. There is also a road into the village, but it is incomplete. Taking produce from Moraikobai to the markets is very costly and the mark-up on the produce is very small.
Similarly, loggers have difficulties obtaining tags and permits to get there job done. However, the toshao has been making strides to addressing these problems.
With a forestry official in the village, the village council is working with the officer to ensure that tags and permits are readily available.
Some residents wanted firearm licences, more electricity and better telephone services. During a visit by a government team led by Amerindian Minister Pauline Sukhai and Minister within the Local Government Ministry Norman Whittaker last week, residents were assured that their concerns will be taken to the relevant ministers and bodies to be addressed.
Saving the Arawak identity
“We in this community have been rapidly losing our culture which is not too good for the future of our people, because when we lose our culture, we lose our identity,” Toshao Derrick John said. But John has a plan to save his village and its culture starting with the dialect.
Moraikobai is an Arawak village with a population of approximately 1400 people. With a rich oral history that features in most Amerindian villages, John wants to see the Arawak dialect being taught in the schools.
“I hope that we would able to source some funding whereby we would able to revive that and teach it in school, and also at the resource centre,” John explained.
He believes the intermarriage of his people and coastlanders is causing a rapid decline in the village’s culture.
“Many of the young people today cannot prepare the pepperpot that our ancestors would normally prepare, and food preservation also which is something we have been losing all the time.” Then there is the traditional craft making and farming practices that the toshao would like to see maintained. John believes that a good way to preserve the village’s culture is to explore the tourism avenue.
“I wanted to really improve on our infrastructure so that we could boost tourism which will also be a boost to the economic status of the community.” John, who was born and raised in Moraikobai, is up for re-election as Amerindian communities prepare for village council and toshao elections.
“I think that we need people up there who could be there for their people. We need leaders who could see the need of their people and reach out to those needs, and I being a Christian… God has given me a potential, and he could use me to reach out to those needs.”
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