The city landscape is no longer attractive

Mar 07, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Yesterday I sat down and I decided to take a look at what was in Georgetown when I was young and a country boy. In those days the country had no asphalted roads. There was a red track running down the length and to some extent, the breadth of the coast.
Along West Coast Demerara the asphalted strip ended at Crane. From there what passed for a road was a combination of burnt earth and some red dust. Houses on the southern side of the road got a healthy colour whether it started out as white or as brown.
There was a department called the Public Works Department. It had some Bedford trucks that travelled with gravel to patch the road and a water tender to soak the road. Those walking on the roadway when cars passed simply had to turn their backs until the dust blew away. Life on the streets was tedious.
On East Coast Demerara the asphalted strip ended at Ogle. The red strip continued from there for about sixty miles, most of it impassable during the rainy season. Georgetown was therefore the place to be with its asphalted roads. People did not need to walk with ‘long boots’ (Wellingtons) at the end of a rainy spell so as a boy I longed for conditions as such. I was tired of washing my feet after using the road.
I understood why the conditions had to be such. Only poor people and peasants lived in the countryside and they did not need good roadways. It was the same with the electricity. Georgetown had lights while the people in the rural areas had flambeaux. The more affluent had what they called gas lamps.
Those things apart, though, life in the country was worth living. People rarely went hungry because there was always something to eat. Nature provided for the country folk.
The buildings were joys to behold. These large wooden houses with their unique designs still draw comment from visitors. They are destroyed by those of us who live here. The historians all said that the houses were built with natural ventilation. The very rich would buy ice and place the blocks on a specially constructed part of the window. All large houses had them.
Somewhere along the way we began to read the foreign magazines and we saw what passed for homes in those countries. It never crossed our minds that they had to cater for four seasons; that those homes needed to be insulated for them to survive the winter. But we always look outward for things to fashion our lives.
We rush to wear the jacket and tie because those outside of Guyana wear them and we think that they look dandy. In fact, wearing them is a must at certain functions. I go to some Old Year’s Night function and I see the men in their suits and tie. Our music can be nice and slow but at some time we want to tear away. And we do.
The suit becomes an oven and pretty soon, sweat-stained. But every year we wear them, knowing that at some time we would shed them. But this is about the houses. These new constructions have tested GPL to the limit. We need large fans and air conditioning units these days. Then we complain about the huge light bills.
Main Street was a joy to behold in those days. These days we have concrete monstrosities. I still remember two lovely houses where the United States embassy now stands. The Americans dismantled those houses because they saw the beauty. They labeled the sections with the hope that we would re-erect them somewhere else.
We did better than that. We dumped them in the National Park and they disappeared, I believe into so many pieces of firewood.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses bought a lovely old house at the corner of New Garden and Church Streets. They tore it down and consigned it to the junk yard. I respect Dr Frank Beckles who tried his damnedest to maintain the colonial house he still has. It is one of the structures with a tower to which Dr Beckles could escape and look into the Georgetown Cricket Club ground.
Even the once beautiful residential area of Queenstown has undergone drastic reformation. I can understand the fancy fences but not the rush to build ovens. And in any case, many of these are left abandoned because someone’s papers came through.
I don’t walk about the city to gaze upon structures anymore. There is no joy there. And to make matters worse, some of the roads have deteriorated to levels unheard of. It is as if Guyana is going backwards. We talk about money and everything but we don’t talk about comforts.
Roger Harper is a wise young man. I admire his house in Queenstown. It is sensible and I am certain that his light bill is affordable. As for me, my home is so simple that in another couple of years it will be an archival piece. Every time I arrive at my gate I look at the place I call home and I say to myself, ‘Adam, you will survive any prolonged blackout without sweating. You still get breeze.

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