Some villages have lost their way

Nov 24, 2019 Features / Columnists, My Column

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There was a time when villages were homogenous units. I was born in Beterverwagting and spent my early years at Den Amstel on the west side. When I left school, I went to Bartica. Bartica is now a town, but back then, it was a village situated some forty miles up the Essequibo River.
These were all villages. They shared a common feature. Most of the people who lived there were related, so it was a case of everyone looking after each other. The common belief was that family must look after family.
This was generally the case in almost all the villages. People were expected to marry within the village, and this was often the case. Rebels like me looked outside the village for a wife. This was not taken too nice by the people of Beterverwagting. I commonly hear whether the girls in the village were not good enough for me.
The truth was that I was not good enough for the girls who themselves were looking outside the village. The children knew Auntie This and Uncle That. There was always Mama or Granny. The elders kept a close eye on the children, so that anyone who did something outside the norm was easily reported.
There was no talk of child abuse. Any elder could discipline a child and in cases where some parents were angry they had to hold their piece, for fear of incurring the wrath of the village. No child died and none went to the hospital after being disciplined by an elder.
These thoughts came flooding back last week when I heard the story of two warring gangs in Agricola. They lived within metres of each other. One was said to exist in First Street and the other in Third Street.
In Beterverwagting, there was front side and back dam side. There were competitions, but at sports. The two sides clashed regularly at cricket and football. When they left the village, they were unified. They went to parties in Buxton and Plaisance as a unified unit.
If for some reason there was a problem, they battled together. And there were problems, because the visiting boys always felt that they could take the girls from the other village.
Young people did not have the time to fight each other. There were no gangs in any of the villages in which I lived. The competitions were left on the field of play.
It is true that these villages never got caught up in the post-2002 jailbreak, so they were untouched, largely, by the violence that gripped the country. Agricola was not so lucky. It spawned its own ‘bad boys’ who gravitated to the centre of the violence.
Many killed and many died violently. Buxton is calm, but Agricola seems bent on continuing the violent trend, so it has gangs. I recall hearing about the Hot Skull gang. The police also heard of them and their rituals that left some people dead.
So there was this clash between some people from First Street and Third Street. The story goes that some people from First Street confronted a young man from Third Street, even as he stood in the presence of his mother.
They took him back to First Street and beat him after tying him up. I have no idea what he did, but I learnt that he was no peach. Some said that he fetched news from his ‘neck of the woods’ to the other side, whatever that means.
Then came the confusion. The beaten man’s mother told an interesting story. She said that she was unaware that her son had any problem with anyone. That may very well be the case, except that I cannot see that happening in a village in which a man is known to be violent.
One story went that this man held up a vendor at gunpoint and invited his friends to take whatever they wanted. It is said that this matter never reached the police.
The beaten man’s mother then reported to the media that her son had died. Try as it might to confirm the woman’s statement, one newspaper took the mother at her word and reported that the man had died.
This was not the case, and some people from the village were not about mincing their words. They openly said that the mother had lied and that the report could spawn a gang war.
Agricola was one village in which the police set up organisations to help young people. There was the Cops and Faith network. These organisations seem not to be working.
In the end, it all boils down to the education system and parental supervision. Many of the young men can barely read or write, so their ability to reason is sadly lacking. At the same time, they do not have law-abiding role models.
I shudder to think what the offspring of these gang members would become. I also pity the mothers, because for the greater part they were left to raise their sons on their own. And there is little or no support from the village as there used to be in the past.
One report stated that the police, during a raid, found handguns somewhere in the village. Guns, especially the illegal ones, are ubiquitous. It seems that anyone with a need can procure one.
I see the crime reports and often I see perpetrators being a resident in Agricola. This should not be. It cannot be that there are no jobs. People have said to me that they simply cannot find workers, try as they might.
Indeed, many of the young men from that village have gone into the interior to seek their fortunes. It may be a case of seeking quick money. After all, gold fetches a good price, but there is only so much gold at a time.
A job on a minibus, another easy source of earning, is not as readily available. I wonder what has happened to those young men of yesteryear who, on failing to be academics gravitated to trade.
Agricola was once a village that churned out furniture.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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