After nearly 50 years, hinterland is home for pioneering teacher Eleanor Abraham
When a newly-married Eleanor Phoolmattee Abraham nee Ragnauth left her Whim home on the Corentyne in January 1972 and journeyed to the Rupununi to join her husband, she never expected that almost 50 years later, the Macushi village in Nappi, Central Rupununi would become her lifelong home.
Now 73 years, Abraham, a mother of eight children with 14 grandchildren, also never expected she would gain the trust and confidence of the people of Nappi to be elected a leader of her adopted village and represent it at different forums.
The former teacher and former head teacher of Nappi Primary, first joined her husband, also then a teacher, in Sand Creek, South Central Rupununi in January 1972.
When her husband died in May 2019, she said, “Everyone thought that I would leave Nappi and return to the coast. I could have stayed in Georgetown with my children, but Rupununi was still calling me back. This is where I built my home.”
Returning to the Rupununi, she said,
“When I saw the winding roads in the savannahs from the air and when I looked at the mountains I got that warm feeling of contentment. When I saw the thatchedroofed houses, the creeks running through the valleys down the mountains and through the savannahs, I knew more than ever that this is home.”
‘Adventurous’
Abraham, of East Indian ancestry had married then teacher Anthony Abraham, an Indigenous Guyanese of Lokono (Arawak) ancestry.
“While my parents had no problems with me marrying an Amerindian, my mother had misgivings about me coming to the Rupununi because of the stigma of ‘backwardness’ and ‘bush’ being attached to the hinterland.”
“In my own way, I was adventurous,” she said. “I was ready to impart the knowledge I had just acquired from the Government Teachers Training College (GTTC), not to just any children but to those in the hinterland.”
Abraham entered the GTTC in Kingston, Georgetown from 1968 and graduated in 1970. There she met and fell in love with her future husband, Anthony Abraham who was also a student teacher on the same batch with her. Mr Abraham’s father, Patrick Abraham who was originally from Santa Rosa, Moruca, was the first head teacher of Nappi Roman Catholic (RC) School.
Asked how the two connected, she laughed. “You would have had to hear how that happened from Tony.” Mr Abraham, former The United Force parliamentarian, is now deceased.
After graduating from GTTC, Abraham returned to Skeldon Primary, where she taught prior to entering college while her then husband-to-be returned to Sand Creek RC School where he had taught prior to entering college. In August, 1971 the two were married at Skeldon, where she stayed while her husband returned to Sand Creek.
She taught the 1971 Christmas term at Skeldon then joined Mr Abraham in January 1972 as wife and teacher.
“Sand Creek was a fairly developed village. We were living in the teachers’ quarters, which was a concrete structure. The only issue, initially, was that we had to fetch water from a well. It wasn’t something I was used to.”
“It was fun. Being just out of training college, both my husband and I were eager to impart our newly acquired knowledge using new methodologies and strategies. There is a good feeling about seeing your students excel. More than 50 per cent of the teachers at Nappi today would have passed through my hands,” she added.
Today, many of her students, including her children, are professionals countrywide. Some past students continue to serve their communities. The current head teachers for the primary schools at Nappi, Parishara, Moco Moco and Kaicumbay, as well as, many teachers teaching in the Rupununi and other parts of the country were her former pupils.
When she became pregnant, the lack of a medical facility in the village became the major issue for her. “The nearest hospital was at Lethem about 87 kilometres (54 miles) away by rough road. Transportation was almost non-existent.” She left Sand Creek in April 1973 and travelled to Georgetown to give birth to her first child who was born in May.
Later in the year Mr Abraham was
appointed the headmaster of Nappi RC. The young family then relocated to Nappi and Abraham would remain there to this day. Nappi, along with its two satellite villages Parishara and Haiowa, has a population of about 2,400.
She taught at every level of Nappi Primary and was subsequently promoted its headmistress. It was no longer an RC school as all schools had been taken over by the government. It was a Grade D school. She never left it. Younger teachers came through the ranks after her and were appointed to head higher grade schools.
Asked why she never left, she said, “There were quite a few opportunities opened for me to leave Nappi and the Rupununi and to be appointed to a higher grade school but after weighing all the options, we stayed.”
“I had given birth to eight children so it was better to stay in one place to give them stability. It was also during those days when we could not get certain banned food items, including milk and we were able to secure them across the border from Brazil.”
Her children, five girls and three boys, all wrote their secondary school entrance examinations at Nappi Primary and gained top schools in the country, including Queen’s College and Bishops’ High School. They all gained hinterland scholarships. They all pursued a tertiary education, either locally or abroad.
“There was no television, nothing, to distract them in Nappi. The only thing they had to relax with, were books which helped them to develop academically. Bonita could read newspapers by five years and Michella was learning to read by three. There was no nursery school at Nappi. All the children had to start school from the grade one level. They were basically homeschooled by their dad who had resigned from teaching in 1976 to enter politics. He was one of the best teachers I have ever seen. He was especially good at helping slow learners.”
Today her children are all professionals working in the public and private sectors. Of the eight, John is the only one working in the Rupununi. He is stationed at Annai.
“That does not mean that they do not take every opportunity to come back home. Georgetown and wherever they live is just a stopover. Bonita, my eldest daughter is longing to come home for the Easter holidays. My son Michael and daughter Angela came back to Nappi to get married and my daughter Devina who lives in Australia, came to Nappi to renew her marriage vows since she was not married here.”
However, she said, all was not as rosy as it might have appeared. She had eight pregnancies, one in Sand Creek and seven at Nappi. “I never went to a prenatal clinic before giving birth. There was no health centre at Nappi. The nearest was at Lethem, over 20 miles away on rough road and very little means of transportation. With the exception of my last two children who were born at the Lethem Hospital, the other six were born in Georgetown.”
With her second-to-last child, she said, she had done her own calculation and estimated the time of birth. As a vehicle passed through the village on the way to Lethem, she took no chances and went to Lethem Hospital with the same vehicle and stayed there for two weeks awaiting the birth of her baby.
“Apart from the BCG vaccine which all the children were given at birth,” she said, “they did not receive any other vaccines because there was no vaccination programme reaching Nappi in those days. That was one of the low points of living in the Rupununi.”
Another disadvantage, she said, “was to go downstairs (into the valley) to fetch water. You had to know how to wash and bathe with a bowl of water and fetch a big tub of clothes downstairs. We could not wash clothes upstairs (uphill). The children were always designing something to fetch water. One of my sons used his engineering skills to build a ‘sheep cart,’ which the sheep turned over and smashed as soon as it was hitched to the cart.”
Adaptation
Abraham has adopted much of the lifestyle of the people in the hinterland, including the cuisine. “I saw farine, for the first time, when the boys from the Rupununi who were in college took it out. It looked like broilers’ feed. How was I to know that just a few years later it would be my staple? What would I do without it now if I don’t get it? But of course we had rice in between but we used farine more than rice. ‘Boily’ which is fish or meat cooked in a cassareep sauce with lots of pepper and the ‘tuma pot’ (meat or fish cooked in cassava water) became my main dish, replacing the foods I ate in the Corentyne. Even though my children have left the Rupununi, you would think they would want farine or boily out of their diet. No way.”
One aspect where she thinks she has fallen short is not learning the Macushi language. “I understand a few words but I cannot speak the language.”
Since the majority of the people are fluent in English, she said, communication was never a problem.
When she had been nominated to be the toshao of the village she had to decline nomination because she felt that even though she was accepted at the village level she was not sure what the reception would be at national conferences and at other levels. As such she settled for two terms serving as deputy toshao. While she was deputy toshao, she also served as the treasurer of the council. She was also secretary for a term. She was an area councillor for many years. The majority of the councillors she served with were her past students including the toshaos who would seek her guidance. “I was like the shadow toshao all along,” she said. And even though she has retired from active teaching and village work, many people still visit her to seek her advice.
Recalling a facilitators training project of select Indigenous Peoples leaders to build capacity of village councils countrywide, she said at the closing session a colleague stated he was proud that all the facilitators were Amerindians. This prompted then Minister of Amerindian Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett, whose ministry had conducted the training, to tell Abraham, “You became an Amerindian by virtue of your husband and your children.”
Following the training, she conducted a number of training sessions with toshaos, treasurers and secretaries of village councils in several regions. The project was a one-off activity. “I really think such training should be continuous so that councilors manage their responsibilities and the council’s assets professionally. There are problems with financial accountability and training is needed in this area, especially when you are putting so much money into people’s hands.”
Education and awareness
As a resident of Nappi, Abraham was also a member of the Kanuku Mountain Community Group which sought to make residents aware of the Kanuku Mountains as a protected area.
At first, she said it was difficult to get people to accept Kanuku as a protected area because of unresolved land issues of demarcation and extension of lands involving Nappi and the neighbouring community of Moco Moco.
“When I first came here in 1973, the houses were far apart. Now more houses are being built as the population grows. A way must be found to resolve the issues of demarcation and extension of the village lands.”
She continued, “When I first came here, you could have gotten fish and wild meat in abundance. Now they are scarce items. When the rains and floods come, the fish don’t even get a chance to spawn.”
Abraham says she has been encouraging people to rear chicken and livestock but there is only so much talking she can do. “It calls for education and awareness,” she said. While she would not endorse opened and closed hunting seasons, she said, “If people grow and rear their own food, especially the black chicken, it would allow for the regeneration of fish in the creeks and ponds. It will encourage the return of wildlife, if all the animals are not already killed.”
People come from other places, including the coastland, to hunt wild ducks and fish in the savannahs, she said. “There are no controls. The wild duck population is rapidly depleting. I believe they can repopulate the savannahs but the village needs to work with conservations.”
The man-made lake at Nappi, which now supplies the water needs of the community, she said, is still to be put to work but agricultural and development experts need to sit and talk with the community as to how it could be put to use. “Maybe, culturing fish could take care of the village’s fish supply. It all comes back to education and awareness.”