GONE are the days when the cultivation of cassava and manufacture and sale of cassava-bread and its by-products were nestled in the exclusive domain of the indigenous peoples of Guyana.
And as 80-year-old Maureen Lewis, popular Regent Street cassava bread and casareep vendor would tell you, this is far from being so. For as far back as she could remember, her family and other coastlanders she knows have been engaged in the business of cultivating cassava.
Ina Thomas gives God thanks and praise before opening up sales for the day
And personally, she has been making cassava-bread and its by-products for more than 50 years and living comfortably.
Mrs Lewis, fondly referred to as “Granny”, lives at Lot 1, Middle Walk, the area which separates Ann’s Grove from Two Friends Village and recalls she has been involved in the business ever since she was a youth. In fact, she proudly boasts that it is a family tradition – handed down by her foreparents over generations.
“In as much as I am a cassava vendor, our family does other agricultural works. We rear pigs, cattle, poultry and also do cash-crop farming, but cassava is my business and I am proud of it,” “Granny” told the Sunday Chronicle.
In order to market her stocks, every day of the working week, “Granny” travels all the way from Ann’s Grove to Georgetown by bus, where she plies her trade on the pavement outside Fullworth’s Store and Bounty Supermarket – and long before the latter was ever conceptualised.
From her stand, she sells packaged cassava bread, casareep, sweet cassava bread (quinches), starch and farine and tapioca (cereal also derived from the cassava bread).
A mother of seven – two girls and five boys, two of whom are now deceased, she has 37 grandchildren and numerous great grands and even though many of them have attended and graduated from the University of Guyana in many disciplines, it is the rule of thumb, in the family she says, that everyone, at some time in their lives must get involved in the cassava business.
Many of her children and grandchildren have graduated in technical fields: one as an eye specialist, one as a geologist, another still is currently attending university in Jamaica, studying to become a medical doctor.
But like President Forbes Burnham did in the days of National Service in the 70s and 80s, he mandated that before students graduated from university they had to do a stint in the Guyana National Service (GNS). And so for “Granny” a stint of work in the cassava business at Ann’s Grove is likened unto giving noble service.
“In our family, you could come out as this; come out as that … you have to first come in and try your hands at cassava,” she declared. But these young ones are lucky today, she declared, noting that in her time and her parents’ time, they had to plant, as well as reap and manufacture the cassava.
Then employing labour-intensive methods, peel and grate the cassava, after which they sat under a matapee practically for hours in order to extract the juice which is settled to extract starch, or boiled down to make casareep.
But today, the process is easier, since the Lewises have a mill and everything is done electronically – peeling, grating and the works.
“Granny” also explained that the reason a higher premium is placed on the cassava business in the family, is that it takes much longer to get returns from the animals reared, than with cassava.
It takes much longer for cows to mature before yielding milk; or for the pigs to be slaughtered before you can get pork out of it; likewise in the poultry business.
And so, being able to access cassava (roots) from sellers at any time puts them in a position to make manufacture of the product an ongoing business.
Meanwhile, selling alongside “Granny” Lewis, and always there to give her both moral and physical support, is 65-year-old Ina Marks Thomas, also of Ann’s Grove, who has been in the business for about 30 years and shares the same joys and challenges. They travel together, sell together and see their businesses grow together.
The products they offer for sale include cassava bread; sweet red cassava (quinches); casareep; starch; tapioca cereal; and farine.
But the items most in demand, the women say, are cassava bread; casareep and quinches.
Casareep sells for prices that range from $1,000 to $2,500, depending on size, while cassava bread is being sold in packets at $100 and $120 per piece.
Both “Granny” Lewis and Ina Marks are grateful to the persons who support them – both on a daily basis as well as those from the diaspora who come home during holidays and look out for cassava bread and casareep to take back with them.
“Without their patronage, our business would not have been the success it is. We are also grateful to the management of Fullworth’s Store for allowing us to relocate our stands from the open pavement to a dry place under his façade whenever it rains,” “Granny” gratefully remarked.
