This week, we asked New Amsterdamers: What would you like to see improved in your environment? Their comments follow:
Interviews and photos by Jannelle Williams
Dawn Beresford, sweeper/ cleaner – ‘I would like to see people stop littering. The garbage is too much, and it’s not good for your health. All kind of germs and disease you could get. People fail to realise that what they do doesn’t only affect them it affects others. Cleanliness is next to godliness, so people should keep the place clean. Instead of littering all over, they should plant trees and flowers. Try and make the place beautiful.’
Janice John-Alexander, clerk/typist – ‘The garbage situation; get rid of the garbage. It is disgusting. Everywhere you turn there are piles and piles of garbage. This thing is overbearing. People don’t have any regard for others. And the thing is it they look you in your face and litter. How will the place look good with all this garbage? These businessmen need to stop taking the cheap way out and stop paying the junkies to dispose of their garbage, because when you pay a junkie a lil cheap side to dump your garbage, what do you think he will do? He will walk two streets down and dump it on the road. Now there is garbage everywhere, on the roads, in the trenches and all over. The place needs to be cleaned, and it needs to stay clean.’
Clive Sinclair, metering superintendent – ‘There are so many things, but garbage is number one. You need to keep the environment clean. Another thing is you need to keep the drains clean as well. If it’s not clogged with garbage it is clogged with thick vegetation. Either way, the whole place needs to be cleaned. Also, the roads need to be patched. They keep promising to do the East Bank Berbice road for years now, and yet it’s not rehabilitated. Most of the streets in the town need to be resurfaced or rehabilitated; potholes needs to be filled, especially the main road of the town.’
Esan Vanderstoop, management trainee – ‘Recreational facilities for the youths are needed. We have the land space, we have ball fields, but these need to be developed into proper facilities so the youths of the town and the residents have somewhere to go. Not some plot of land with overgrown vegetation that gets chopped only when some sports competition is on. I would also like to see less garbage in the town and better roads.’
Phalyanjee Nandkumar, loss reduction coordinator – ‘Angoy’s Avenue – that is a very poor area in New Amsterdam. They have water; they have a few roads that are good. But as a GPL employee, and as a manager of GPL – Loss Reduction Metering, I would like to see each and every household in Angoy’s Avenue receive electricity before the end of this year. So our losses in New Amsterdam would reduce, and eventually it would reduce in Berbice and in the entire country because there is a great illegal network in that community, and it is very populated. So I’m asking the government and the top brackets of GPL to reconsider giving them electricity; they are willing to pay and we can move forward from there, improving the town. Electricity in that area would also mean lights at night, so the place won’t have to be so dark.’
Candace Wallace, cook – ‘Recreational facilities for the kids; we need our own sports hall. As a mother it pains me to know I don’t really have anywhere to take my kids to play and explore their interest in various sports. Sure we have a few play parks, but those are just really ball fields. There is land they can use and develop; we have that big ground where the old hospital used to be – all that space. All the old cinemas can be used. Why is it we have to travel to Georgetown for entertainment and recreation? Utilize the lands and space available in the town and make New Amsterdam a beautiful place, a place worth living in and visiting.’
Elizabeth Sinclair, housewife – ‘Man the garbage is very, very terrible; it’s all around. I feel that people should burn their garbage, than to have to fetch it and carry it elsewhere and just dump it. It is not nice. Less garbage around the place would improve the environment of the town. And only last night I was saying, you know with those crazy people walking on the road, and you have children on the roads too. Those mad people does be stripping and all sorts of thing; these men with their drop down pants and everything does be outside, and the poor children don’t even really know what a body suppose to look like, and to be exposed to that. It is unsightly. It doesn’t look nice, it doesn’t look good and it’s uncomfortable for us as adults to see, much less the children. They should take these people and put them in a home, than for them to be walking the streets, going in bins and pulling out things and making the place dirty.’
Roger Luther, handyman – ‘I would like to see street lights in the town. There is no night life in New Amsterdam. But this would change if there are street lights. The youths want to lime on the road corner, and nothing wrong with that. But the absence of lights causes all sorts of immoral things to happen. Also it would help people going home from work at night who would feel safe if they can clearly see their path. Give us street lights.’
Claudette Watts, proprietor – ‘New Amsterdam needs a theatre, or a cultural centre. Everywhere you look is people liming on the street corners. There is no place for people to go to have clean fun. The town wants an entertainment centre. We need some where to go and relax; not just wine up, wine up all the time. Another thing is the junkies and mad people roaming the streets of the town. We have the National Psychiatric Hospital just nearby, make use of it and put these people there. Get them off the road, because they are the ones people are paying to dispose of their garbage, and they dump it indiscriminately. They are not only an eyesore in the town, they pose a threat to life and limb. Sometimes it’s like they just trip and get on bad. Visitors won’t want to come to the town and do business with all these vagrants.’
Tony Rambarran, businessman/photographer – ‘When New Amsterdam was New Amsterdam, this town was paradise. All the drains use to be clean, roads clear of garbage. This place was nice, nice. Now garbage everywhere, inter-lot drains completely clogged and a set of potholes in the main road of the town; that is ridiculous. I don’t know who to blame for the state of this town. I guess after one time comes another. The gutters block up. Back in the day, you use to be able to sit on your bridge and put your foot in the gutter because it was dry and clean. Now you don’t even want to pass near a gutter how it stinks. Plus the potholes in the road are disgraceful; every time a truck passes and drives in a hole the whole building vibrating. I want see this town improve and return to its glory days, when you could have been proud to say you’re from New Amsterdam.’