The Guyana elderly will have to make their own play

Oct 15, 2015 Letters

Dear Editor,
I read the interesting, thought-provoking, letter from Mr. Prince headed “Developed USA uses elderly experienced workers, backward Guyana discards them”.
Guyana is not ‘backward’, but poor and underdeveloped. I am still impressed with the basic kindness and helpfulness of its people. About the teaching in the 50s, 60s, 70s, what about the teaching at both primary and secondary levels in the 30s and 40s? Our primary education alone was sufficient for my ‘’first generation” countrymen to build on and hold their own in England. I still remember the Brits, in the 1950s, being surprised when we were able to speak their language fluently, invariably enquiring how long we had been in the country and where we learnt their language. In those days, many of them had never heard of British Guiana, and kept referring to it as ‘British New Guinea’, and to all ‘coloured’ people as ‘Jamaicans’.
When I read the letter, my first thought about the USA and its use of elderly experienced workers was that the elderly “Caribbean persons in that age (60-75) group hurrying to be on time for the train taking them to work, where many of them work six days per week”, was that for many of them, there was no other choice. A few years ago, when on a week’s holiday in Hawaii, on Waikiki beach, I sat next to an elderly black American husband and wife couple from New York. We got to chatting – Americans of all races are always fascinated by people from the UK-and after exchanging pleasantries, the wife told me that they were holidaying there for two weeks for medical reasons. The husband’s condition caused their doctor to recommend as much sunshine as possible, as an alternative to the very expensive medical treatment he required – the holiday was cheaper, their medical insurance did not cover his case! When I mentioned the cataract operation on both my eyes and my husband’s long-term care for a different ailment, all now free, they were speechless. (I omitted to mention that all our working life we contributed to a compulsory national health service scheme, based on salary, the money compulsorily deducted at source). So, in fact, we were now getting some of our own money back.
As for the statement that “The residents of the Palms were not encouraged to organize themselves into production units designed to produce hand towels, foot mats and black-board dusters for schools”, I can only speak as I found during my four-year stay as an intending re-migrant. I purchased from The Palms a set of patchwork mats – one floor mat and two table mats – made, I gathered, by people resident there. I handed over the floor mat to the late First Lady, Joyce Hoyte, as a gift, stating its origins. She loved that.
I think the elderly should not wait for, or expect, the Establishment “to have a clue on how to involve the elderly in national development”. They appear to have too many other concerns to cope with. I found that out during my already referred to four-year stay in Guyana as a 60+ woman. I volunteered my services as an unpaid teacher, wherever. I am still to get a response from them. The telephone people could not even supply me with a phone – unless I was prepared to hand over ‘a brown envelope with G$10,000’. I was not prepared to do that, so eventually thought it wiser to relocate to the UK. I had visions of crows circling my home, attracted by the presence of a rotting corpse. I did not want that corpse to be mine. Everything happens for a purpose.
No, the elderly will have to get together, form themselves into an outfit, and name it something like ‘Age Guyana’, headed by someone with organising and supervising capabilities. As my grandmother used to say to my older brother and me when we made nuisances of ourselves, “Go and make your own play”. The Guyana elderly will have to make their own play. Unity is strength.
The Brits are now trying earnestly to get to grips with the situation of the aged, and I have found that keeping in touch by email with the print and electronic media, sending them tit-bits, which I think might be of interest to them, helps me to feel involved. Incidentally, almost all the emails, mainly illustrated stuff, are sent to me by a Guyanese friend of similar age. For EVERY one of them, I receive an automated reply. Some of my ‘normal’ letters are followed up by their research team. The able-bodied elderly have to learn to help themselves more. One hopes that their enterprise may thrive.
Geralda Dennison

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