Things have not changed much since those days

Apr 07, 2018 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
On the subject of mosquitoes, some years ago, while watching a TV cookery programme, I learnt that garlic and mosquitoes were natural enemies. Thus, a question that had puzzled me from age 12, was solved for me at age 70+.
When I spent a holiday with my Indian relatives on the Essequibo Coast, while the insects ate me alive at nights, my relatives were left alone – they ate garlic-laden meals daily, I did not. Problem solved. I named it “the Dracula effect”. So, some garlic kept nearby may help.
Unexpectedly, I came back to the city suffering from malaria, which none of the private doctors that I visited recognised. Until a primary school doctor guessed what it might be. My mother was advised that Dr. Bettencourt-Gomes who was the specialist in the field, was contracted to a private hospital, but a written request from a highly-placed person might help.
My mother got such a letter from the then Bookers Managing Director, Mr. Follett-Smith, whose son she ‘minded’ at one time. Problem solved – malaria, which none of the practising doctors had come across before. The specialist acted promptly, gave me a prescription for the medicine required – quinine, dispensed at the Georgetown Public Hospital. I gradually got better and finally recovered.
The ‘top layer’ we got rid of served a hidden positive purpose, now no longer there.
2. About policing. In the 1990s, I observed how young police officers on the beat behaved towards citizens when there was no need for it. Outside the Bourda Market on one occasion, when a simple request would have achieved the action needed, so many swear words were used instead, that I found it necessary to observe audibly “Why would anyone want to visit Guyana”? I was at the time a temporary resident, accustomed to polite UK standards.
Things have not changed much since those days. Back to the drawing board!
Geralda D.

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