The unfortunate case of two young boys

Jul 10, 2016 Features / Columnists, My Column

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By Adam Harris

It was shortly after midnight when the telephone roused me from my much needed sleep. A fire was raging on Hadfield Street. I placed a few calls to some reporters but got no one. Immediately I went back a few years when I would have jumped out of bed and raced to the scene. When I would have arrived I would have seen many other reporters all trying to cover the activity.
Those were the days when reporters loved the task of carrying the news.
They would compare notes and share whatever information they would have got. These days there are few who could actually call themselves reporters.
By daybreak I got the news that two children had died. Immediately my mind raced to two earlier fires that claimed lives this year. By the end of this year, I am certain that 2016 would go down as the year with the most fire deaths.
As I continued to get reports on the fire I learnt that the children had been placed in the home a mere two days earlier. They were from a very poor home.
The place they called home was a structure that was standing by the grace of God.
I learnt that the mother was terminally ill and had five children. That was enough to bring a lump to my throat, because I was familiar with such a living condition. My mother was not terminally ill.
In fact, she is still alive today enjoying her golden years with my sisters overseas. But she struggled to put food on the table.
There were times when she went without but would convince us, her children, that she was alright. The children who were taken from that home in Lodge were severely malnourished. These days as has always been the trend, it is the mother who carries the bulk of the responsibility to provide for the children.
I fathered five children and I ensured that all of them had food. I told my wife that whatever she earned was her money, that it was my responsibility to feed the family. And I did. There is another thing that I remember. Regardless of how little food my mother managed to conjure up, she always shared with any child who turned up at our door.
That was certainly not the case with the five children from Lodge. Perhaps we have stopped being our neighbour’s keeper. I could imagine these children going to a neighbour who might not have been too better off and not being successful in getting something in their bellies. But they still shared that love that binds most siblings.
And so it was that the four-year-old on his way to safety suddenly realized that his elder brother was not with him. A four-year-old is largely egotistic; he is learning the facts of life, but this one seemed older than his age. He died with his brother.
These deaths also expose the paucity of our social services. There was a time when social workers did the rounds in communities.
They would try to visit homes to determine the needs of the less fortunate. This is where the state would come in. That is not the case these days. It is up to the matriarch to approach the social services to declare her needs.
Undoubtedly, Guyana is really trying to protect its children. Some have been preyed on. Take the case of the woman who made little boys perform oral sex on her. This is one sick individual who is still allowed to live among other children. Whatever the outcome of this matter, I am certain that she will not change, because that is her nature.
Then there are those hungry little girls who are taken advantage of by grown men.
Some have been rescued and because of their status, many women opted for compensation rather than allow the men to be prosecuted. A dollar is better than a child’s welfare, I suppose.
What I find somewhat disconcerting is the fact that people want to live in the city.
The belief is that everything is in the city, but what they do not realize is that in rural Guyana there is so much more opportunity for parents to feed their children. There are farms and yard space for people to plant vegetables.
As a child, our fortunes changed when we moved to Beterverwagting. My grandparents and uncles all had farms aback of the village. We had yard space to cultivate greens. Life was never better. Indeed, there are people who have shunned the city for locations like La Parfaite Harmonie, and they are doing very well.
But it is back to those children. I don’t know if they were in school, because teachers would have noticed something and should have filed a report. But then again not many teachers actually pay attention to the social condition of the children they teach.
I am amazed that the government services actually found these children. My praise to them. It is unfortunate that their effort did not save the lives of two young boys.

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