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Thursday, June 25, 2009

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Firsts for Farmer's Cay By THEA RUTHERFORD ~ Guardian National Correspondent ~ thea@nasguard.com: Farmer's Cay, EXUMA CAYS – Our plane lands by the seaside in Farmer's Cay on an inspirationally sunny day. Opposite an ocean sparkling in aquas and indigos lies the cozy settlement, a picture of houses perched on little peaks amid lush green trees and cool blue creeks and ocean. A few minutes away from the beginning of the E. Clement Bethel National Arts Festival adjudications for the cay, we take in the postcard beauty of this isle in the Exuma Cays. We are nine miles north of Black Point, the second stop for adjudications today. Shortly after our arrival, Aiden Burrows, deputy chief councilor for the district in local government and the last person to be born on the island (everyone else, he said, was born at the clinic in Exuma), comes to pick us up. Burrows is able to say that there are 76 people living on the cay after a door to door count he completed this morning. "I figured the question would come up," he smiled. Deavindra Jagroo, the principal at the Farmer's Cay All Age School who has also come to pick us up at the airstrip, completes the welcoming committee this morning. Jagroo and his wife Devi are one of a number of Guyanese couples helping to prop up the education system in the Family Islands. They are the sole teachers at the school, splitting the junior high and primary sections between each other. This year's entry in the festival marks the first for Farmer's Cay. It is also one of several opportunities for exposure for the students' talent that the Jagroos have taken advantage of. "Every opportunity I get to showcase my children's talent, I will do," said Jagroo, who teaches the junior high. The couple has spent the past seven months at the school doing just that. Earlier this year they entered the Farmer's Cay students in the Ministry of Education's Visual Arts Exhibition for the first time. A trophy sitting atop the teacher's desk in one of the school's two classrooms boasts the school's impressive second place win. "Anything for the kids, to develop them and their minds," said Jagroo. "Even if it means spending money," he added of something he and Devi have done. The school has also shined in the Adisa Foundation Children of the Arts competition, where singer Cordial Percentie made it to the finals. Jagroo said that Cordial was the only representative from the entire Exuma chain to enter. Another student, Courtne Nixon participated in the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority scholarship program. And for the first time, the school will be entering a student in the Primary School Student of the Year competition, 11-year-old Nandkumar Jagroo, one of the Jagroos' two sons. "Working here for seven months, it's been a pleasure," said Devi. "These kids have so many talents." The Jagroos have taught a range of students since their arrival in The Bahamas in 2002. They first taught 35 students in Salina Point in Acklins, before being transferred to Nassau, where Deavindra taught at L. W. Young and Devi taught at Uriah McPhee. Now in Farmer's Cay, the couple is fired up to bring as many opportunities as possible to their tiny school population of 14. In addition to taking the students beyond their crystal shores, Jagroo wants to bring opportunities home as well. He has a two-year goal to acquire computers for the school. "I like to push my students," he said. Saturday, May 16,2009