Many a tear has to fall

Jul 11, 2010 Features / Columnists, My Column

It is so easy to cry and yet so hard for some people. Of course people don’t like to see others cry because it exposes a weakness in both the person who cries and the person who witnesses it. I have seen many people cry and I myself have had cause to shed a few tears. My mother caused me to develop claustrophobia which I have learnt to conquer.
These days my tears have been few and far between to the extent that I often ask myself whether I still have any, as though this thing is a reservoir that would one day go empty. Women cry easily because they are said to be more emotional that men and they are not afraid to let that emotion show. But men cry too. Yesterday one of my friends cried bitterly and for good reason. But that is another story.
Whenever I go to a funeral I would see tears. The people wailing the loudest are the women. It is as though the dead has opened up a reservoir deep inside. I would hear these women recall all the good things that the dead person did. I have never heard a wailing person recall anything bad. It is as if this dead person was an angel.
I can understand people crying over a loss. Once something is lost it is gone forever and that is why I was moved by the woman wailing inconsolably when her house went up in flames in Globe Yard the other day. She said that she lost millions of dollars in household equipment, and if these times are anything to go by, she may never be able to replace them.
But I could not help but notice that the people employed by Guyana Power and Light complained about the number of illegal connections leading to the homes. One technician said that there were more than thirty. Thirty connections mean thirty homes and that is a lot of homes in such a narrow enclave.
In the street where I live there are less than thirty homes so I found it difficult to imagine so many homes in that small space. I know that this country abounds with poor people, many refusing to leave the capital where all the action is and where there is the greatest possibility of finding a job. It is also the place where there are the most pickings, although the dangers are also greater.
If there is no job then living becomes so much more difficult and that would explain why petty thieves do their thing and run into locations like Globe Yard, sharing with whoever will assist when the need arises. And strange as it may seem I have never heard of anyone dying of hunger in Globe Yard.
But these illegal connections bother me. They not only pose a threat to homes, they also pose a threat to life and limb. I have had cause to cover reports of people getting electrocuted. There was the case in South Sophia of a man supplying current, illegally, to a neighbour. All went well until two men stumbled across the wire hidden in the tall grass and across water. They died.
One Sunday, I happened to be driving out of that same South Sophia when I saw a woman running frantically out of her yard to tug at a length of electrical wire that ran from a post to her home. I saw her get pitched then get up to grab the wire again and tug. It was not too long after that I realized that she was saving her daughter’s life.
The girl was washing and she came into contact with the exposed wire. She would have died had the mother not been aware of the source of the current. Sad to say, people like to see which jumbie frighten them. When the threat had passed the woman promptly summoned a man to reconnect the illegal connection and it is there to this day, more than a year later.
But current is not the only thing we Guyanese secure illegally. We go so far as to secure homes. I have seen people move into empty houses as though they had shares. One family had packed up and had left for overseas, leaving the house empty. Apparently the plan was to return to the place of abode whenever they got leave.
They did come home and they found that they had tenants. A house that accommodated five now had about thirty. This had to be a case of one telling the other and so the story went. The homeowners could not enter because there were cutlasses waiting for them.
They sought the help of the police and after being told that it was a private matter, moved to the courts. I am not sure of the outcome because I have not been following up that story. But something tells me that nothing has changed. I am sure that the homeowner keeps shedding tears as we say in Guyana—bucket a drop.
People even steal from the dead. I know of funeral parlours that would prepare a body in a beautiful coffin and after the funeral, would visit the tomb and recover the coffin or casket whatever the case. More tears. The relatives would cry. “Look how they treat he” at the sight of the body dumped most unceremoniously outside the tomb.
Stealing money in offices must be the most common, though. Just this past week a flashy girl lost her dignity when her employer invited her to view some action on a closed circuit television camera. The story began with people in the office complaining about losing money. Of course, no one admitted. Even this girl at one time proclaimed that she had lost money. Everyone in the office felt guilty.
Then came the episode on camera. In living colour the deed was revealed. “Call the police. Lock she tail up.” And the girl’s tears flowed like rain.
I am crying now. I have laughed until I cried because I could see the girl’s face as she envisaged a long spell with women of the world; women who at nights may miss male company and seek the nearest substitute.
Suffice it to say that while she may have enjoyed the excursion, she has been spared, perhaps to steal and to cry again, this time at another place of employment.