De Endragt

Tucked away behind Mon Repos on the East Coast Demerara is the little village of De Endragt that is populated with approximately 300 people.

About a three-minute drive down the Mon Repos main road takes you to a small wooden bridge over a large trench that links the two villages.

Although the name De Endragt is unknown to the younger folks of the area, who tend to call both villages Mon Repos, the older folks take pride in the name and rich history behind the little Dutch-named community. The name was derived from the Dutch word De Eendracht, which means ‘Unity’, which resonates with the community, resulting in significant development in the past two decades.

Seerajeo Persaud, a 79-year-old man, who has lived all of his life in the community, sat down with The World Beyond Georgetown and happily reminisced on how the community has grown in the past 60 decades. “To tell yuh the truth, I’ve been living hey so long, it has all come and gone like a blur. It started out from nothing, long, long, even before me. It was one and two houses here and there,” Persaud said, explaining that the community existed even before he was born.

He said that it started off as a normal scheme where he lived but further down was where the rice fields were. He recalled when it was impossible to traverse through the community that was in the process of being developed as there were mud roads and improper drains that would easily flood over.

“We came through a lot, the people stick togetha and we all helped build this little place here,” he said, explaining that while, formerly, only part of the community was designated as land to build on, about 20 to 30 years ago, people from “all over” came to the community in search for land to build their houses on.