Dear Editor,
My students and I for over a month have purchased lunch from a Lusignan, ECD Chinese eatery.
On Friday, February 24, 2017, I purchased a mixed Fried Rice. As I sat down to eat, I noticed the rice was the only thing warm. As a result, I decided to part the cold chicken. As I parted the first piece, a wiggling worm was noticed. Closer inspection of other pieces yielded the same results- worms!
I decided to personally take back the $940 box of worm infested chicken and rice back to the establishment. In amazement, when I got there the Chinese woman denied that the food was from her restaurant. After being adamant that it was, she then admitted the rice was from her restaurant but the chicken wasn’t. Editor, who buys chicken from one Chinese restaurant and rice from another?
Now being the good church-going Christian I am, I did not let it end there. I started forcefully getting my point over. I was explaining to these women (she had a resident of the area working with her) that the students and teachers from the nearby school habitually buy food from the restaurant. It was my mere attempt to assure the owner that I was no idle person looking for trouble. Instead of apologising for the inconvenience and quell the issue, the Chinese woman after inspecting the chicken (that she previously disowned) confidently told me that what I was seeing were not worms but were strings. Now, Editor, I happen to be a final year student of the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of Guyana and in all my Parasitology classes during my stint there, I never came across any moving string that was capable of infecting meat. As if that wasn’t enough, the husband (I’m assuming here) rushed to the counter to defend his partner.
“You is a mad man, that no worm! That no worm.” This man repeatedly called me, a habitual customer, a mad man. I suppose I was indeed mad for buying from them. I prayed silently and asked him for a refund. He ‘insisted’ that I was a mad man. Angered, I asked him if he wanted to see a real mad man. The man then left the counter and went to the back of the room. The wife was at the time on the phone speaking to who she said was her boss. She informed me that the boss will come in a few minutes. I waited. Still speaking. Just before the ‘boss’ came, the Chinese man brought out a chopper, yes, a chopper insisting that I was a mad man.
The ‘boss’ instructed them to refund me. As I collected the money out of the hand of the Chinese woman, she slurred the words, “Look, Christmas look…” I was in complete bewilderment, the same woman that hardly knew English knew how to slur in the Guyanese dialect.
During this development, I attempted to call Food and Drug, the Ministry of Public Health and the Vigilance Police station. All the phones went unanswered.
Editor, there has been an increase in restaurants across the country in recent times. Though one can recognise this as a good thing, we need to take the health of our citizens more seriously. We need to routinely inspect these food places and make it mandatory that they display some form of clearance. We citizens need to look for the clearances before we devour.
Sad, former Chinese customer,
Yours faithfully,
Jamain Hattond
