BLAME IT ON THE SUN AND RAIN!

May 26, 2013 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Dear Readers,
My name is Mr. Weather and I am responsible for the sun and the rain. For years now I have become accustomed to be being blamed for the poor performance of Guyana’s sugar crop.
Hardly, a year goes by when production dips or the corporation does not meet its targets that I am not shouldered with responsibility for the fortunes of the sugar company. Even when I am being a good boy and allowing for favourable weather, I am blamed.
Therefore, this year, I was looking forward to once again being castigated by those who like to pronounce on the causes of the decline in sugar production. If my memory serves me right this year there was a record first crop, a record from the bottom up because it is lowest production ever registered for the first crop, and to think that last year it was said that the second crop was closed off early because of me, but that the first crop would start early this year to make up for the canes that were not cut and were still in the fields.
It therefore took me by surprise to learn that this year’s sugar production was abysmally low. I waited to be blamed. Then I had a surreal moment. I felt a gush of relief when it was stated that the cause of the decline in production was because of not having enough canes, a situation attributable to poor planting techniques.
I almost jumped through the atmosphere. Was I hearing right? I, Mr. Weather, was not being blamed this time around. I stayed suspended in mid-air in a state of euphoria, but was then brought crashing down to earth. My celebrations were short lived because the explanation about the unavailability of adequate number of canes was said to be due to poor weather. So however you look at it, I am once again being blamed, this time indirectly, for the poor first crop.
But I am also being blamed for the poor pace of mechanization, for the fact that when I let off some steam that the soil in the cane fields get too soft and cannot accommodate the heavy machinery for cutting and picking up the canes. I am blamed for the poor state of the dams. It seems I am being blamed for everything. Who knows I may also be blamed for the fact that more and more sugar workers are abandoning the cane-cutting gangs.
I proclaim my innocence. I cannot be held responsible for the fact that sufficient young canes were not planted. I was a good boy during the planting season and also during the out-of-crop period. I did not get in anyone’s way. The owners of the sugar corporation must determine who is responsible for the insufficient canes being planted. But please do not blame me!
Do not also blame me for the poor performance of the Skeldon Sugar Factory. When that factory was being built, no one complained that I was a problem. Now that it is underperforming do not blame poor Mr. Weather.
But it seems that I will always be blamed. I will be blamed when the fields are soaked. Never mind that there are supposed to be miles of canals to transport the water to the Ocean. I will be blamed when the soils are bone dry, never mind the corporation having the best irrigation systems in the Caribbean.
It is easy to blame me. But if those who like to blame, Mr. Weather, would take some time and look at their own mistakes, then perhaps there would be no need to blame anyone at all, because instead of a shortfall in production there will be a bumper crop.
But even then poor Mr. Weather will never be credited with being a good boy. It seems I am destined to be the perennial whipping boy of the sugar barons!

Yours truly,
Mr. Weather
a.k.a. the sun and the rain

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