The descendents of the Indian workers wanted to build a memorial at the site where the workers, brought largely from five French-ruled territories - Pondicherry, Karaikal, Mahe, Yanaon and Chandernagore in Bengal - had landed and were quarantined.
The local authorities had first agreed to the proposal, but later backtracked, said Michel Narayninsamy, president of Guadeloupe Global People of Indian Origin (GOPIO).
It was then that he talked to the current owner of the sugarcane mill, where a lot of Indians used to work. Maggie Beausir, offspring of a black and white union, married to a person of Indian origin, readily agreed.
Beausir met her builder husband of 44 years on the street in front of the house. It was her husband who bought the house 10 years ago, apparently because he shared his name, Debibakas, with the son of a lady named Govindin, who had bought the house in 1906.
