Little has changed in Plastic City. Children run and jump on their creaky verandahs or on the narrow walkway that is the only dry spot in this squatter settlement by the seaside on the West Demerara.
The residents here should have moved out a while ago. But only a few have done so while about 20 families remain in their fragile zinc and board shacks on stilts in the muddy flats under the mangroves where foetid water accumulates in pools and numerous crabs scurry across the mud.
There are various reasons why those who remain have not moved.
Radica Ramdass had applied for a house lot and in June was sent a letter to pay half of the $92 000 within 14 days of the receipt of the letter. She said that she went to the Housing Ministry within the stipulated time with the $46 000 but was told that a ‘One Stop Shop’ was held at the National Stadium and since she did not turn up, the opportunity to ‘pull’ for a house lot had passed to someone else. She said that a ministry official had previously collected their phone numbers and promised to call to inform them of when the house lots were being allocated but never did so.
“He nah call we or nothing to tell we that well it gat a one stop shop, come down. Nobody is not knowing. When we go in with we money he tell we that it ain got nowhere fuh we right now and we got to hold on,” she recalled. She said that recently she went to meet Minister of Housing Irfaan Ali at Leonora but “the minister tell we he already look after Plastic City people already.”
The woman said that she has spent a lot of time pursuing the issue. “Is steady I running, up to Monday gone I go town again there, and they tell we dem ain ready, dem gon call. Every time them ah tek number, dem seh dem gon call and nobody don’t call,” she said. “We willing to move from back here because two days ago the high tide flood out all we things, my baby we had to rush he to the hospital because he get sick again. The water is terrible for we a back here,” the woman lamented. “We is not refusing foh move but they ain giving we nowhere to move,” she added. “This place is real stink and nasty foh me aback hay suh and I real need fuh move.”
A similar story was related by Pinky Ganga who said that she too was unaware of the activity at the National Stadium. She said that she also visited the minister recently at Leonora and was told to return in October. “This place ain really healthy for me children,”
she said as she cradled her one-year-old son in her arms and her two-year-old daughter moved in and out of the tiny one-bedroom wooden shack. The woman said that she had lived in the area for 24 years.
Dahlia Gouveia said that she had applied for a house lot but when a list of names with those who were allocated lots was unveiled, her name was not on it. “I put in since 2007 and I ain get through with me house lot yet,” she said. “Dem tell me to go back Housing (Ministry) but me ain go back yet, she said adding that the process was frustrating and she would have to find money. Gouveia said that her two youngest children – both boys, nine and 19 months old – are living with her after the Welfare Division took away two of the older girls. She said that she moved to Plastic City after her father died because she could not find any place else. Gouveia said that life is difficult in Plastic City which has virtually no dry land and no electricity or running water.
Donnett London said that said that she is willing to pay the $46 000 but when she went to the ministry, she was told that they had no land for them as yet. “I personally willing to move,” she said. London said that she has been living in Plastic City for nine years.
Other residents expressed similar frustrations even as they expressed willingness to move. “You know how much people would like to move from here once the high time come,” one man said. “You know how long this going on for, every year they come in here but nothing aint happening.”
Sunita Darbhunauth, a mother of two, said that she had applied for a house lot but never got a response. “It got a set of pushing around,” she said.
But as the residents wait for house lots, they may have to move sooner than expected since high voltage transmission lines will soon pass through the area. Officials have already told them that they would have to move soon, residents reported.
