Some of my colleagues have fallen through the crack

Sep 20, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

Having a vacation in the United States, particularly in the Tri-state area, can be a most revealing experience. One can always find a bunch of Guyanese who would have pleasant memories of Guyana but little to show for their departure from the country.
Most of these left Guyana as young men or women and these days I ask myself whether they actually left for their personal improvement or just to be in the United States.
Many, many years ago when I was very young I recalled people talking about going to the States. It was like a new beginning for families who believed that once one of their own left for this great country then their fortunes would change; that they would all suddenly become better than their peers.
In fact, people would boast of having a relative in the United States and they would regale their neighbours of the great things their overseas-based relatives would tell about. This is what probably led so many to get to the States at the drop of a hat and as soon as everyone pooled all the money they could to raise that passage.
Of course, the education system was geared for jobs overseas. Many of the people who attended the top secondary schools left Guyana. I ran into more than a few of them when I attended the annual reunion hosted by the New York QC/Bishops’ alumni shindig in Brooklyn.
In fact, the other day I attempted to count the number of my classmates who have remained in Guyana. Ninety of us entered the school in 1960. Today there are less than a dozen who still live here. Indeed some have died, very few, but the vast majority of them are overseas. For me it was a grand reunion. I met people I had not seen in nearly four decades. It must be the same for the other schools in Guyana.
However I also met those of my countrymen who left to seek their fortunes and I can say that they are still pursuing that elusive dream.
I went to visit one of my brothers, who resides in Brooklyn, and I asked him whether there was a pub in which we could sit and enjoy some alcoholic refreshments. There was none in the neighbourhood but he took me to a place he called ‘The Hole’. That visit was a revelation.
In the past I would meet some of the Guyanese who left, on the Brooklyn streets playing dominoes, and against the law, drinking beer contained in paper bags or plastic cups. That location is no more because the man who controlled the joint disappeared with money he had collected for some gambling game named numbers.
In ‘The Hole’ there is a gambling den and a kitchen. I met a group of Guyanese who had pooled perhaps a dollar each to cook a pot. My brother dived into his pocket to buy a six-pack and no sooner had he taken out the money than one of the group begged him for a loan.
I met one fellow who after all these years is not ‘straight’. In the 1980s when the United States Government opted to grant amnesty to people who had arrived illegally before 1985 this fellow concluded that it was a trap to nab people like him so he never applied. He is still there hustling odd jobs with no hope of returning to Guyana and coming back to the States.
I heard of another friend who left Guyana in the 1970s, got married to secure his permanent resident status, and failed. He is now coming home. The odd thing is that his friends are telling him to stay, that he could easily get a meal in the United States but that he might find it hard in Guyana where he is unlikely to know anyone after 40 years.
I met people who spoke about the way Guyana has become and how hard it is and how they cannot live there, but who expect me who lives in Guyana to give them a raise.
I heard the rumours. Thanks to the internet and the telephone, however, people easily get information.
But what is to me most annoying is the habit of asking me for people I don’t even know. They having lived in Guyana, expect people like me to know everyone.
But the most stupid thing I happened to encounter involved a distant cousin. She and her husband migrated many years ago and neither had one home in 20 years. Imagine these foolish people allowed a cousin who comes to Guyana every year to convince them that they needed to walk with everything, from rice to sugar, to chick peas (channa). He even got them to walk with comforters—these are extremely thick coverlets used in the winter.
There have been changes among Guyanese who come here these days. No longer do they lose their accents as soon as they pass the beacon. Most are proud to be Guyanese but there are still the stupid ones.
Indeed, many have done very well and in keeping with what they left home to do they have bought homes. Many of them are sending money home and others are trying to bring out other relatives.
But there are those who have not done well. And of course, there are those who sought money through the drug trade. A few are languishing in jail but there are those who have so far escaped the net and are continuing.
Every time I come I shake my head and wish them luck.

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