Dear Editor,
Almost exactly three years ago you published the letter below and I now wish to state passionately that nothing was done by the administration concerned to remedy that contentious matter.
I went again recently to that cemetery at Good Hope on the East Coast and it is even worse this time. What were small bushes and shrubs at that time, are now tall grasses and trees. The stagnant smelly water is now even higher than it was then and it is now more uncomfortable and inconvenient for mourners and relatives to give the dead a dry send-off.
What was then a customary and convenient last act for mourners of the deceased to go to the actual graveside is now very inconvenient, uncomfortable, impassable and even impossible.
While the Neros at the NDC office at Lusignan are still staring at the wall watching and waiting and/or fiddling their fiddles, the cemetery at Good Hope is flooding with stagnant smelly water and the rich are greedily encroaching on dead men’s land!
I was informed that recently some benign citizen had made a feeble attempt to chop some of the tall grasses but not the trees.
Would the kind Minister of Local Government please take note.
The earlier letter ran as follows:
“On my way to the Lusignan open air market every Friday midday, I must pass the Good Hope East Coast Demerara, cemetery where my parents and most of their peers are interred, and I feel sad to behold the deplorable state of their final resting place, which is neglected by the administrative authorities of that area.
“When my parents and their peers were peacefully placed there the ground was well drained and always kept dry and cared for; but these days for the past ten years the place is always flooded throughout the year, rain or no rain. Relatives of the dead no longer visit that cemetery to pay homage and offer prayers on the spot for their relatives and friends because of the almost knee-high stagnant water. People no longer plant flowers on or around the tombs, because of the flooded stagnant water. Relatives are now forced reluctantly, because of the swampy ground, to bury the dead nearer to the highway. No order is there too. Only disarray.
“The cause of the flood in the Good Hope cemetery is that the rich and powerful who are still alive, have built large unauthorized houses and buildings around the cemetery and encroached on and burdened the drainage infrastructure surrounding it, thus blocking it. As a consequence there is a perpetual flood and a woeful state of affairs.
“I am making this appeal via SN hoping that before the grim reaper comes for me the relevant authorities may want to submerge themselves in benign consideration to offer and afford my mourners the opportunity to be able to see me go down without a splash!”
Yours faithfully,
Rooplall Dudhnath