Albion, Guyana

Albion No. 5 Village
town
Albion Location in Guyana
Coordinates: 6°15′0″N 57°22′48″W
Country	Guyana
Region	East Berbice-Corentyne
Population  (2002)
• Total	1,475
Time zone	UTC-4

Albion is a town in the country of Guyana.

Geography

It is located approximately 18 kilometres (11 mi) east of the town of New Amsterdam, Guyana along the one and only main road. Part of Albion is known as Albion High Reef.

Demographics

The small village has about three thousand inhabitants, 95% of which are Indians from India, whose ancestors came over on British ships from India beginning in 1838, in the capacity of indentured laborers, to work on the giant sugar plantations in British Guiana. The remaining 5% of the population in Albion is split between Blacks, Amerindians (native indigenous tribes from South America), and Chinese.

Economy

Albion is home to the largest sugar manufacturer in the Caribbean region. Electric and municipal water supplies, even though they were available in many areas since the 1970s, they were first made available in 1998 to areas that were once squatting areas prior to 1998. The people live entirely off the land, growing eggplant, tomatoes, squash, melons, spinach, eddoe (or taro leaf), okra, and a wide number of tropical fruits like guava, mango, coconut, banana, and star apple. Fish are also readily available in the many trenches that lead out to the Atlantic Ocean, as well as shrimp, crab, snails, and also many wild birds.

Flora and fauna

Albion, like all of Guyana, is heavily infested with several types of mosquitoes, though diseases like dengue and yellow fever, as well as malaria, have almost completely been eradicated in the Albion coastal areas. Still, the mosquitoes and flies are quite a constant harassment, and people must sleep under mosquito nets.

Cuisine

The cuisine is quite interesting, as it has retained very much of its East Indian quality. Curries cooked with garam masala and other Indian spices are very common, and Hindu and Muslim holidays are celebrated in much the same way as in India to this day.

Entertainment

Indian movies are watched on a daily basis. Many, if not all of the movie theatres that were once part of life up until the 1990s are gone and replaced by home entertainment systems. The availability of TV sets in the 1990s revolutionized the way movies are now watched.

Points of Interest

The Albion Sports Complex is an entertainment and sports venue, and is one of the home grounds of the Guyana cricket team.

The stadium hosted its first international cricket match on 16 March 1977, between West Indies and Pakistan and won by the West Indies by four wickets. The venue has hosted five One Day Internationals but none for over two decades. Many great cricketers started their careers representing Albion Sports Complex Club, Test cricketer Sew Shivnarine and Guyanese representatives Amarnauth Ramcharitar, Kamal Singh, Suresh Ganouri and Michael Chin.