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The Guyana street – raw, grim, poignant
Hard Truths by GHK Lall
Kaieteur News) – The picture. It’s grey overhead. Drizzles fall on the head; 5 in the morning. The streets of GT stretch ahead in the familiar rectangular grids. A vehicle or two on still silent roads. On the pavements, under awnings, there they are.
What is left of men and women, old and young, all hobbling in some manner. They are mostly sleeping. Wasting away, amid dreams mostly tormenting, sweat-filled. A dozen here at one corner on Regent Street, a score there near Water Street. And on Hadfield close to Leopold, they swarm in an endless procession. Pres. Ali went to Tiger Bay. God bless his thoughtful mind, caring heart.
His thoughtfulness and kindness could be expanded, if a stopover is made one day in the Leopold Street area; then others harder hit. An hour from State House, and would be beyond social studies, get the best education on the lessons of life in a study of man. Guyanese man, Guyanese woman.
If I say one more time that this shouldn’t be in the kind of country that Guyana now is, I shall kick myself. After throwing up. After hiding my face in shame and anguish. And I am neither a national leader nor a minister nor a billionaire private sector operator or contractor. For the record, not a billionaire anything.
By the time that encounter and exchange was over, approx. 100 Guyanese down at the bottom and the gutter had been met with quiet prayer uttered. Lord, why? This doesn’t have to be, WHY My Lord? Why? In this place of all places. And without knowing how many more are like these fellow citizens in Berbice, Essequibo, and up and down Demerara. For those Guyanese whose heart beats honestly, a transformation occurs. No matter how often that these visits and these extensions into the far corners of life happen, they still shock, shake to the soul.
True, some of the pain of those on the street may be by their hand. But where is our hand? My hand? The hand of the good people in charge? It isn’t theory; it’s the reality of gritty Guyanese streets. Raw. Grim. Poignant. To the bone, to the soft part of the stomach, to the depths of the soul pierced. There are those who don’t want to hear of these brutalities.
Then what do they thrill to hear about: GDP? The glorious state of the economy? The sagacity of those with the tools and resources in their grasp? It is time that heads are taken out of the books, faces from beneath the sand, and minds away from slamming one another, and admit one thing. After all the quarreling and wrangling, after all the building and growing, there are those who have fallen and are falling farther and farther down humanity’s ladder.
No, I will not speak of poverty. Nor of subsidy, the small handful of them. I shall speak and let it stand. Maybe a leader’s heart touched. Perhaps, a policy man or woman pauses: what about them? What can be done about them, for them, the lost and the left out? No safety net. A hundred or so in one spot in the capital city, and then the line became invisible. Baskets empty. Cups run dry. How many hundreds more across GT, across distant villages, across the vast remote fastnesses of the hinterlands? At this point, the liberty is taken of reaching into poor homes, famished kitchens. Those also count. Those still held back against that sometimes final, often fatal, plunge to the roadside. Domestics. Sickness. Circumstances not of one’s own making.
Guyanese that are honest with themselves, those capable of putting aside their prejudices, are appealed to: not for charity, but consideration. There are those types of citizens trapped by the gutter, or ensnared in the prisons of their homes that have become an ICU. Short of nutrition. Short of means to make those voids disappear. Short of the optimism that inspires to the belief that tomorrow can be, and will be, a better day. A day that is a year, many years. Because of national gifts. Because of how those who have stewardship over that gift have dealt with it. Fairly. Conscientiously. Decently. Inclusively.
In that close encounter with Guyanese and their last clasps on body, sanity, and dignity, I fell myself shrinking, recoiling, seeking sanctuary in some still untouched section of my mind. After all the grand rhetoric, there is this forlorn substance of Guyanese reality on the street and in impoverished homes. Raw. Grim. Wrenching.
(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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Sir. Ronald Sanders
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Dear Editor, this article no it’s a classical Poem for every Guyanese to read it to feel it and to have discussions about it’s content .because it goes to the very soul of our heritage and culture, it would make us better GUYANESE with more empathy and love for our fellow Guyanese.
And this brings us to the sitting government..Who has address the Nation, without mentioning our Guyanese brothers and sisters who are so poor that’s impossible for them to have a merry Christmas. The CASH GRANT, is for all, but the most important is OUR extreme poverty sector, where is it the sitting government has spoken about a plan for our vulnerable Guyanese in all the slums and how to go about lifting them up so as to be a part of our contributing society .
This Christmas is really sad, for OUR POOR Guyanese people and citizens . It’s time the Government gets off their high horses and really do something for this sector.
Where is the plan of the Opposition also WHY hasn’t a plan been summited for consideration in PARLIAMENT
If we call on responsibility and accountability then it’s the people’s right to call out the government to do something. Call it Civil Rebellion as one of our Patriot Sons of Guyana the late Dr Walter Rodney preached.
Groundings:: listen to your people were their suffering and make solutions not empty promises ” like the Cash Grant”. You the sitting GOVERNMENT who t has broken a promise to the Guyanese people and sooner than later they are going to pass you a Bill today tomorrow or the next five years. This is about values, Integrity, HONESTY and Respect when those values are broken the Nation looks at you in a different light.
This is about a continuous Cash Grant for the poorest of people each month we can afford it , WHY don’t you come up with a plan, the Guyanese people of this Nation will applaud you if not they we will forever condemn you. SO DO IT.