CHARLES KONG SOO

Built in 1885, the Mud House Mu­se­um in Av­o­cat gives vis­i­tors an in­sight in­to the past of how ear­ly set­tlers lived in the area and a part of East In­di­an his­to­ry.

The Mud House Mu­se­um can al­so be called a teach­ing mu­se­um as it hosts stu­dents from pri­ma­ry to ter­tiary lev­el, who come to study and learn about the ar­ti­facts and mud-walled fa­cil­i­ty. Wildlife pho­tog­ra­ph­er Tar­ran Ma­haraj has his ex­hi­bi­tions of flo­ra and fau­na on dis­play at the mu­se­um.

The Mud House was re­fur­bished and opened on In­di­an Ar­rival Day by In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Biswadip Dey on May 21, 2018.

While No­vem­ber 6 is a pub­lic hol­i­day in cel­e­bra­tion of the fes­ti­val of Di­vali, mem­bers of the Mud House Trust held a com­mem­o­ra­tion at the mu­se­um, at Siparia Old Road in Av­o­cat, on Oc­to­ber 27.

Cu­ra­tor Ra­jwan­tee Bul­lock, re­count­ing her life grow­ing up in the vil­lage, said the im­pact of the oil in­dus­try—with the open­ing of Apex in Fyz­abad—took away the youth from agri­cul­ture on one hand, but it al­so pro­vid­ed a way out of pover­ty through bet­ter pay and ed­u­ca­tion.

"My moth­er, Jag­baye and fa­ther, Ramkissoon Cha­toor had eight chil­dren, sev­en girls and one boy.

"When we had to buy books, we had to sell a cow be­cause so many of us need­ed books and it was a com­mon prac­tice among fam­i­lies here. Even though it's an agri­cul­tur­al area with rice in the Oropouche la­goon, co­conut, co­coa, cof­fee, it did not have sug­ar cane, but there was a lot of cat­tle rear­ing which pro­vid­ed milk and ghee which were sold and yo­ghurt was for do­mes­tic pur­pos­es.

"When the oil com­pa­ny Apex in Fyz­abad opened its oil­fields all the young chil­dren, in­clud­ing my fa­ther at age 16, all mi­grat­ed to the oil­fields."

She said while her grand­fa­ther ran the co­coa es­tate, her fa­ther could earn 50 cents a week as a mes­sen­ger boy in the oil­fields as op­posed to the long process of grow­ing, har­vest­ing, and dry­ing pro­duce in the co­coa es­tate.

Bul­lock said her fa­ther worked his way up to be­come a skilled crafts­man and one of the finest car­pen­ters and join­ers.

The for­mer Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion coun­cil­lor said pieces of her fa­ther's fur­ni­ture were still around to­day in peo­ple's homes tes­ta­ment to the high stan­dard and train­ing they re­ceived in the oil­field in­dus­try.

Bul­lock, a for­mer teacher, said while the threat of the oil did take away the youth from the land, it cre­at­ed a kind of en­light­en­ment.

She said the one boy in the fam­i­ly went to Tex­a­co to work in the oil field, but her fa­ther en­sured that the sev­en girls had ed­u­ca­tion, ter­tiary, uni­ver­si­ty to Mas­ters. He en­sured this by sell­ing cow's milk which pro­vid­ed for their ed­u­ca­tion.

Bul­lock said at that time it was tra­di­tion­al in many East In­di­an homes to "find a young boy and mar­ry off your daugh­ter", but not her fa­ther.

Bul­lock, the T&T rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Com­mon­wealth ob­serv­er group at Guyana's 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion, said peo­ple like her fa­ther, as chil­dren of in­den­tured labour­ers, had wis­dom be­yond their years and were vi­sion­ar­ies.

Bul­lock said her fa­ther's gen­er­a­tion was com­ing out of a sys­tem where they were psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly threat­en­ing their own de­vel­op­ment, hav­ing gone to the oil­fields see­ing ex­pa­tri­ates work­ing for $25,000 to $30,000 a month while they were work­ing for $250 a week.

The dis­par­i­ty in wages made them feel they had to sur­mount this bar­ri­er; he knew that ed­u­ca­tion was the way and his sis­ters and broth­ers had the same mind­set.

Bul­lock said the de­vel­op­ment in T&T was par­al­lel with what was hap­pen­ing in the oil­fields, sec­ondary schools were open­ing up, Dr Er­ic Williams was com­ing in­to Gov­ern­ment and it was the Cana­di­an mis­sion­ar­ies and Pres­by­ter­ian schools that con­tributed to the ed­u­ca­tion and up­lift­ment of the chil­dren who went on to be­come doc­tors , lawyers, teach­ers, and pub­lic ser­vants.

She said that was what mo­ti­vat­ed her un­cle Dr Ram­coomair Cha­toor to leave Trinidad when he was 17 years old to go to the US and study med­i­cine.

Up­on his re­turn to T&T, with the sup­port of his wife, Prof Irene Cha­toor and Bul­lock they kept the vi­sion of the mu­se­um alive, which was com­plet­ed by Taitree, Ram­coomair's grand­moth­er, in 1885.