From Bethany, Supenaam with blessings

Sep 25, 2016 Features / Columnists, Interesting Creatures in Guyana

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By Dennis Nichols
As Amerindian Heritage Month activities wind down, I conclude my trilogy of articles with a brief but

enlightening profile coming out of a visit to one of the possibly lesser-known enclaves in Guyana; one however with a distinctive ambience as far as indigenous villages go.
Two teenage girls brought me to Bethany, an Amerindian settlement nestled along the contours of the Arahuria Creek, an offshoot of the Supenaam Crek which branches from the Essequibo River near its estuary.
Maria Russell, whom I taught 21 years ago in Anna Regina and who first told me about the village, was one. The other, Jemima Wilson, I ‘met’ through a Facebook/You Tube video, featuring a day in the life of a Guyanese girl.
On Wednesday I appeased my curiosity, and with Maria’s father, Vernon Russell, throttling his outboard engine-powered balahoo, I travelled to the riverine settlement – a 30-minute ride from a boat house near the mouth of the creek.
I spent a day there, and overnighted at the home of my ex-student’s family, during which I got an earful and eyeful of the village history, and aura. I also got a glimpse of the spirit and Christian devotion of the Russell family and of the people who inhabit this tiny community comprising predominantly Seventh Day Adventists – part of its claim to uniqueness.
Located about six miles from the confluence of the Supenaam and Essequibo Rivers, Bethany is home to approximately 400 residents, many of whom had ancestors that had settled there around the end of the nineteenth century.

As the boat meandered upcreek, the water’s muddy hue slowly became more translucent, and as we neared our destination it had transformed into that dark amber colour peculiar to so many of our hinterland waterways. A heavy, almost portentous silence settled under the darkening canopy of trees overhead.
The atmosphere was however immediately lightened by the warmth of my hosts’ greeting; later by the acceptance shown me by the villagers I met and chatted with. Among those were the ‘you tube girl’ Jemima and her parents, Roel and Pearlie Wilson.
They revealed that the video featuring the teenager caught the eye of U.S. First Lady, Michelle Obama, who, with her husband, President Barack Obama, in 2015 launched the ‘Let Girls Learn’ project which addresses the challenges preventing adolescent girls, worldwide, from attaining a quality education. They said that a second video is being prepared relative to the project.
With Toshao Harold Marslow out of the community, and not being particularly interested in village politics, most of my time was devoted to talking about the village history and its religious tenor. There was mild inconsistency on the part of some residents as to exactly when and how the settlement came into existence, but general agreement that one John Garvan Van Lange, a logger of Dutch heritage started a Seventh Day Adventist mission there about 1896.

At that time, according to Mr. Russell and other residents, there was an SDA church at Tapakuma that people from surrounding villages attended, but when an epidemic hit the area, churchgoers ‘relocated’ to Bethany.
The church’s advent message so resonated with the people over the years that today some 90% of the village are SDA adherents. Its wooden church is a relatively large one prominently located in the mission proper, surrounded and delineated by stretches of white sand.
It will soon be replaced or complemented by a larger concrete sanctuary. Nearby, a school, health and community centres, and a playfield remind all that education, health, and recreation are, and have historically been, vital components of Adventism.
One interesting (and maybe to some, disconcerting) trend in the village is a marked downplaying of traditional Amerindian customs in favour of what is seen as the progressive and Christianizing impact of the Seventh Day Adventist movement.
Nevertheless residents will be having their Heritage Day on October 2, but celebrations will no doubt be less secular and less clamorous than those of other indigenous locales. One resident put it succinctly. “We’re moving away from bare tradition.”
Also unique to the village is the Bethany Medical Missionary College, the only of its kind in Guyana. Its raison d’etre is the training of persons to become bible workers and health evangelists furthering the gospel to all of Guyana, and abroad.
Currently closed, it will reopen next January with another small but enthusiastic batch of trainees. Since its establishment in 2006, students have come from various parts of the country as well as from other Caribbean countries and South America including Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago, St. Lucia, and Bolivia.
Residents of Bethany have traditionally been involved in logging, sawmilling, and farming, but the closure of the main sawmill several years ago has seen a reduction in the first two activities. Small-scale farming is still done; additionally many residents work away from the settlement, in the mining sector and also as public servants especially in the fields of health and education. Crime appears to be virtually non-existent.
With health featuring so prominently in the lives of SDA members, it was little wonder that I felt myself in the thrall of stories of incredible deliverance from traumatic illnesses, related by Sister Linda Russell (Vernon’s wife) that were overcome by faith and prayer in conjunction with healthy (mainly vegetarian) eating.
Three filling and tasty meals, enhanced by the ambience of domestic tranquility and cleanliness, had me thinking (again) of going vegan once and for all. It didn’t hurt, too, that I could look out onto a vista of nature that included parrots and their kin fluttering and screeching nearby seemingly unperturbed by their proximity to humans or the threat of capture.
Social cohesion is now a buzz phrase in Guyana. Well, this village has a special day set aside periodically called Gratitude Day, when residents ‘bring something for someone’. The items gathered are then distributed to those in need.
Additionally there is an initiative known as the Widows’ Fund which lends support to women whose husbands have died. The settlement also benefits from mercy flights for sick and injured residents, compliments of the Guyana Adventist Medical Aviation Service (GAMAS) and Pilot/Pastor David Gates.
On Thursday morning I left Bethany with the prayers and good wishes of my host family echoing in my ears. I had gone there with an open mind but yet an expectation of something different from the other Amerindian communities I had visited over the years.
I left with an enhanced and broader understanding of the indigenous diversity in our land. I also went practically empty-handed, but left with a bible, a bunch of ‘buck’ bananas, a couple of delicious buns, and the blessings of a family and community that may be putting a spin on the old adage – the family (community) that prays together, stays together. Stay blessed Bethany.

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