One of the most famous villages in Guyana is Port Mourant. The village is not what it used to be half a century ago. In fact, the once striving community now has a high unemployment rate and many are struggling to make ends meet.
One of the houses in the village
Port Mourant is a village located in the East Berbice – Corentyne region.
This agriculturally sustained village is famous for producing one of the country’s most influential and iconic political figures, Dr Cheddi Jagan. The village has also produced several famous cricketers in the likes of Rohan Kanhai, Basil Butcher, Joe Solomon, Alvin Kallicharran, Randolph Ramnarace, Ivan Madray and John Trim.
Sheliza Ghani
It is a very large village made up of about 15 settlements including Free Yard, Bound Yard, Portuguese Quarter, Bangladesh, Ankerville, Clifton, Tain, Miss Phoebe and John’s.
At Ankerville where Dr Jagan was born, many families have migrated to the United States, United Kingdom and Canada. What is left now is many persons living and struggling to make ends meet.
Many of the males make a living by fishing and like 30-year-old Suresh Sarran now is not the ideal time for fishers.
Devika Ramoutar
“Right now, fish nah run,” he explained told the Sunday Times Magazine.
“Most people take over the savannah, so, they don’t allow people to go fishing,” his 28-year-old wife Reina Persaud added.
The mother of three explained that she would make a living by going to the Port Mourant Market and assist with shelling shrimp for which she is paid $3000 per bucket.
However, she noted that her husband would seldomly find alternative jobs which result in the children not getting all the necessities they should.
“This is a couple of weeks now, that my husband does go fishing and he don’t catch anything. We don’t have food store in the house. When even we get something to cook, we would cook,” the woman said as she explained the urgent need they live in.
Sheliza Ghani and her family
She said even before the school closed because of COVID-19, she was unable to send her children to school regularly.
“Every day we don’t have money to send them. It hard pon we, the two going big school (primary school) and the other one going nursery. Sometimes you don’t have thing fuh cook fuh den fuh go school and sometimes you don’t have to give dem fuh carry. When they going to school, you have to cook lil lunch and give den fuh carry,” the woman said in her native Corentyne accent.
There are also many social problems affecting some members of the community. Reina does not have a birth certificate making it difficult for her to transact business. She was never registered at birth.
“It really hard pon me to do any business with an ID card, me don’t have. Anything now is an ID card. If you go to enrol a pickney at school is ID card…”
Reina says she is being asked to pay $10,000 to get her birth certificate but prefers to use the money to other things like purchasing food.
However, Reina is not the only one in such a situation in what was once a striving community. Swarswattie Mahadeo is a single mother of three following the demise of her husband six years ago.
“My smallest baby was three months old when my husband died and I had an old house which was just for the sun. When rain fall ah got to tie bed sheet and put a blanket to stop me, children, from getting wet,” Mahadeo said.
Food For The Poor Guyana has since chipped in and provided Mahadeo with a new house. Now there is no more wetting from the rain. She also plants a kitchen and works as a domestic worker for persons in nearby communities.
“It is not easy to send three children to school and have to maintain them without a husband. It is really hard but I am trying my best and I am able to send to school all three of them,” she added.
Both young and old at Ankerville have needs beyond what the community can offer. Devika Ramoutar 59, lived with her husband who had an accident at the turn of the century and could no longer be employed as a field worker with the Estate. In fact, he is only finding odd jobs to do periodically.
The situation has caused the grandmother to age faster than the years have gone by, but still, she has a big heart and takes care of two of her grandchildren.
“By dem poor, dem ah come by me. Ah cook and dem ah eat food and night time dem does sleep by me because me and me husband alone does dea. Just now one of he daughter come, she come fuh two cup rice and ah had two cup and ah give she one and I cook the next one. Me husband bin fishing and they ent catch nothing just now… he gone pon de road an look see if he gon get any wuk,” the elderly woman said.
Meanwhile, mother of seven Sheliza Ghani says it’s not very easy for her and her husband.
“Things hard, my husband does go fishing and sometimes he nah catch nothing. It gon hard when school gon open because you nah get things fuh send dem pickney school,” she said.
She says whatever little her husband makes the family has to make do.
“Me can’t afford fo buy one phone because the lil bit money wah you ah wuk fo nah do fo eat,” she replied while adding that currently, she cannot afford to purchase anything other than foodstuff.
According to Ghani, the house which they live in was loaned to them by a villager who migrated. She explained that for the thirteen years she has been living there, she has no electricity and water coming to her home. She pays $500 monthly to a neighbour for water she uses from the neighbour’s tap.
