Last Monday was one of those days when the weather was kind to the market vendors who ply their trade on the expanse of tarmac opposite Bourda Market, spanning the space between Robb Street and North Road.
Bourda Green, as it is called, is the lowest spot in the vicinity of the market and a brisk downpour can easily precipitate flooding. When Bourda Green floods the vendors must relocate to higher ground somewhere on the perimeter, if they can find space. Otherwise, they must wait for the floodwaters to recede before they can begin trading again.
The vermin that customarily dwell on the ground take refuge in their stalls during the floods. Some of them shift their goods to what room they can find on the perimeters of the tarmac. Others simply cease trading and wait for the floodwaters to recede.
Flooding brings the worst of times for the vendors. But the best of times are only marginally better. On good days, that is, on those days when the area is not a lake, the perimeter gutters are clogged with rotting garbage. The whole area has, for decades, been a long-term home to an assortment of vermin. At night, vendors must battle with the twin menace of drug addicts (junkies) and burglars. The latter break into their stalls and make off with their goods with monotonous regularity. The former have joined the vermin as occupants of the space. Junkies are usually not the best of housekeepers.
Municipal markets and their adjoining spaces reflect the kinds of conditions which, over the years, have given the Georgetown municipality a bad name. In a sense, the conditions amount to the outright exploitation of the vendors who must pay for services which they rarely, if ever, get. Security, garbage disposal and conditions that sometimes rob them of valuable trading days are amongst their chief concerns though they say that they have long come to understand the futility of complaining. The evidence of the municipality’s indifference is overwhelming.
Contacted for a comment on the Bourda Green, Town Clerk Carol Sooba said she would not now or ever give a comment to this newspaper on any issue.
Conditions on Bourda Green ought to concern other local support organisations like the Georgetown Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Private Sector Commission and the Guyana Tourism Authority. They might not have substantive responsibility for the upkeep of Bourda Green but then our municipal markets and their spaces are among the more visible examples of a private sector. Markets are also places where tourists go. The private sector has, in the past, engaged the municipality on matters pertaining to the state of our markets.
The vendors endure. They exude a complete loss of faith in the municipality. They point out that the municipality continues to collect rents, which, in some cases, amount to $6,000 per month, but cannot adequately provide the services that allow them to trade every day. When asked whether they ever take their complaints to City Hall, vendors adopted expressions that were a mix of curiosity and cynicism.
Not all of the vendors are keen to tell us their names or to have their photographs taken. They are, they say, wary of the likelihood of reprisals. Others are sufficiently frustrated not to care.
Princess Andrews is a vendor from Ann’s Grove who clearly has not allowed her frustration to affect her disposition. She is a single mother who cannot afford to have to take days off work for flooding. She has been selling vegetables at Bourda Green for about 30 years and remembers only too well the days when she would arrive at the market on a trading day to meet her stall under water. On those days she must still find money to pay for the unsold vegetables. She is one of those who will sometimes relocate modest amounts of vegetables to the perimeter in the hope of attracting customers, in which cases she must deal with disapproving municipality constables who require her to return to her water-logged stall.
Mr Singh says that while he has learnt to “live with” the floodwaters, junkies are the bane of his existence. They have turned the trading spaces into living spaces and, he points out, junkies are not mindful of cleanliness and good order. Prior to ending the trading day, the vendors clean their spaces. The next morning they must do so again. Mr Singh says the municipality’s response to the junkie invasion of the vendors’ trading spaces is that it is “a national problem.”
Other vendors declined to be interviewed but were far from reluctant to talk about the conditions under which they must trade. Vending, they say, is, in some instances, no longer a reliable means of making a living. There are simply too many factors that impact negatively on their pursuits. The overwhelming insensitivity of the municipal authorities adds insult to injury.
Sooba had said some months ago that she – and not City Hall’s Public Relations Officer – should be the source from which to secure official comments.
However, when the vendors concerns were articulated to her, she told this newspaper in tones that were deliberate and measured that on account of what she said were disparaging remarks made about her by the Stabroek News, the newspaper could not, at any time, anticipate any comment from her on any issue whatsoever.
She then said that she would not mind if, in this particular instance, Stabroek News could voice the municipality’s consternation over the fact that hoodlums were destroying a trash compactor somewhere in the vicinity of Bourda Market. She said too that she had once thought that she might be able to “work with the Stabroek News” in her dispensation as Town Clerk. This newspaper did not bother to query the significance of that remark.
More bad weather appears imminent in the short term and though the plight of Bourda Green vendors is by no means the only challenge facing the municipality, it is one that is deserving of urgent attention. Perhaps, notwithstanding the Town Clerk’s views on engaging Stabroek News, the municipality might still direct some attention to their problems. That apart, the historic significance of Bourda Green as one of our longest serving trading spaces ought to afford its considerable decline the attention of the formal private sector.
