Christmas in the city is now synonymous with several things. Some are fairly recent traditions at this time of the year, like flooding. The hollow-sounding reassurances from City Hall about being ready for the rainy season are now filled – with water. No one really believed that Georgetown would not flood this Christmas although the newspapers duly reported it. Why? Just two months ago, City Hall was lamenting that it did not have enough money to carry out basic services and there were strikes, threats of strikes and the now token bail out by the government. What could have changed so drastically from then to now? In truth, nothing has; major and minor canals and drains have not been and will not be cleared. Not for Christmas; and not anytime soon after. However, city residents are likely better prepared this time around. Those who have not done structural work around their bottom flats would not have left their carpets and rugs on the floor.
Pavement vending on Regent Street and some sections of Water Street continues each year. From around the end of November, the vendors, the ones who were not there year round that is, began to set up their stalls. Today, the only thing that keeps them off the pavement is when it floods. Could it be that this is the city’s way of curbing pavement vending?
Another not so new phenomenon is children begging on the streets. Of course, this is not limited to Christmas time. Child beggars were on the streets year-round. Several months ago, the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security launched a programme, which saw the children being removed from the streets and taken to a specially designated home from where they could be reunited with their parents who would have received counselling. The ministry is now busy with its sexual violence consultation and it appears that the street children programme might have suffered as a result. One particularly glaring example is the mother with about five children near Muneshwer’s Store on Water Street targeting shoppers and customers visiting the Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry next door. The children, who are dirty, ragged and wear no shoes, are the ones who approach the targets asking for “a little help” and receiving it. While it is the season of goodwill, encouraging beggars does more harm than good.
Meanwhile, there is so much generosity around that perhaps at this time ‘less fortunate’ is not the correct term to be used to describe people of little means. Businesses and charitable organisations try to outdo each other as they jostle for a place in the news for their Christmas parties and gift giving. True, this does not only take place in the city, though it is more prevalent here. What you can count on is how amazingly quickly the poor revert to invisibility once the season ends.
Some traditions are worth keeping. Not the flooding, the pavement vending nor the begging by children. But these can all be addressed by year round hard work, ingenuity and generosity.
