There is no civilization in “Plastic City” in Vreed-en-Hoop

Mar 08, 2012 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

One of the things in life you are constantly aware of when you are a daily commentator is how quick time leaves human society. You go on the keyboard and you punch in the date next to your commentary then you realize four months have gone since you bought a Christmas gift.
As I typed in the date of this column on the top of the page, it was just yesterday that I was buying Christmas gifts for the two women I love so much – my wife and daughter.
Most of all, for me it was just yesterday, I was in the election campaign speaking to people in Berbice, Linden and Kwakwani and having great fun with Mark Benschop and Bernadette Reid, daughter of former Prime Minister, Dr. Ptolemy Reid, on the campaign trail.
Look where we are today. It soon will be four months since that election came. As I typed in the date on my column, I realized that so many things have gone by since that fateful election on November 28. For example, I have been dismissed from UG. The great trade unionist, George Daniel, was in Guyana with plans to settle back in Guyana. Aubrey Norton, seasoned radical, is no longer in Parliament; Raphael Trotman is the Speaker of Parliament; my friend from teenage days, Malcolm Harripaul, who campaigned for APNU (he served under Granger in the GDF) has remigrated.
On Monday, while the Bharrat Jagdeo libel case was going on in the High Court, Malcolm rang to apologize that he couldn’t be in court as promised. He suggested that after the afternoon session of the case, he would like me to come to Vreed-en-Hoop where he lives to see one of civilization’s tragic moments, Plastic City.
I had never heard about a place in Guyana named Plastic City. I am a cocooned city boy that knows very little of Guyana outside of its capital.
I left the High Court after the libel hearing was adjourned and took a water taxi from the back of Stabroek Market to Vreed-en-Hoop. The authorities have banned the use of speed boats so they have these large carriers we refer to as water taxis. The speed boat literally gets you from the market to Vreed-en-Hoop in 48 seconds. The water taxi makes it in three minutes. The larger vessel is slower by two minutes, but safer.
I haven’t used the speed boat across the Demerara River to West Coast in ages. It cost one hundred dollars but the operator refused my money saying, “Freddie you must travel more often with the ferry.”
I plan to do just that, but I don’t know what ferry he was talking about.
Malcolm was there waiting for me at the old Vreed-en-Hoop stelling. We jumped into his racing car. It was the first time I have seen the inside of a racing car. On the passenger side in front, the car is equipped with two types of seat belts. I found it funny. One goes across your belly and one covers your stomach. I once told Malcolm that he should stop his yearly entries because I never heard of him winning a contest since racing began at the circuit near the airport in colonial times.
Plastic City is just off the Vreed-en-Hoop stelling, going north, literally a quarter of a mile from Vreed-en-Hoop Secondary School. The school needs a coat of paint. But I guess so does most schools in a country named Guyana where Minister Robeson Benn said that we have a high level of technology in rescue operations that other nations in South America cannot match.
To get to Plastic City, you walk on the old Dutch jetty going north towards the Demerara River.
The stench of abject poverty hit me as soon as I passed the first shack. Don’t go to see Plastic City if you have a faint heart. This is a manifestation of poverty that has to be one of the most disgusting in the entire world.
About twenty families live on the Vreed-en-Hoop mud flat, each in a single shack measuring six feet by eight feet. There is no drinking water. The place is filthy with no sign of civilization. I was psychologically traumatized at the sight of the children in each shack.
Normally, children put a smile on when strangers visit their compound, but not the kids of Plastic City. Their eyes were vacant, their smiles non-existent, their very being questionable. Guyanese should not accept the existence of this Faustian hell. It is Hades where torment and torture destroys the soul of its inhabitant.

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There is no civilization in “Plastic City” in Vreed-en-Hoop

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