A sister shared about her eye-opening experience during a recent visit to Mahdia, in Region Eight.
“Region Eight is considered to be one of the most beautiful regions in Guyana, if you’re looking for mountains, red roads and waterfalls. Of the ten regions, this was the only one I had not yet visited, so when I got the opportunity to visit through my company, I could not pass it up. And while I intend on visiting other parts of the region someday, the day my bus drove away from Mahdia, sadness filled my heart, because I knew I was never going back,” she shared.
Mahdia, which is Guyana’s tenth town, is well known as a mining area.
“Just a day or two before the trip, my mother would not settle for me going alone and pleaded that I take someone along, preferably a male. I recall trying to make her see that I would be okay and that she need not worry but it didn’t do any good. Finally, I gave in, called up my boyfriend and asked if he would make the trip with me. When I told my mother, I thought she would be calm as I was taking my companion with me, but instead she said that because he was a foreigner, he’d attract more negative [attention]. Nonetheless, we went ahead and boarded our bus right after I promised my mother I’d call and message her every day.”
She was one of three female passengers on the bus destined for Mahdia; there were also two little girls. All the other passengers were men.
The journey was horrendous, as she said she felt, “every hole the bus fell in, every cramp of my legs that I couldn’t stretch. I tried to rest my head to catch some sleep but couldn’t. Every time I looked at the beef soup in my lap knowing I couldn’t eat it as it would spill, I told myself, it would be more than worth it at the end of the ride. More than nine hours later when the bus pulled up in front of the hotel we were staying at, it was past seven, too dark to see anything. I didn’t care one bit because exhaustion went to the core of my body and there were some parts sorer than others.
“After dropping my bags and emptying my bladder, the next best thing to do was lap up the soup I had been eyeing for most of the trip, but it had spoiled.
“I needed to haul my fatigued self up and out of the door to look for a place that sold food. My mother’s words to be careful rang in my head as out we went, him gripping his wallet and phone tightly, and me clasping my purse and phone also. Every person staring at us from the shadows made us uneasy. I had been robbed almost two years ago and he was robbed at gun point a mere two months before. Finding a food shop, we ravenously ate chicken and chips and returned to the hotel as quickly and as alert as we had left it.
“When the sun came up, our sense of adventure returned and whatever fears we had the night prior disappeared. Noticing a flyer pasted on the hotel, I asked the receptionist about the Denham Suspension Bridge and the monument in the town. The young man said that if we were going anywhere, we should have a driver rather than go walking around the town. He specifically advised that we not ask directions as persons would pick up that we were outsiders and it wouldn’t be a wise thing to do, taking into consideration that many of the people we might come into contact with do not belong to Mahdia, but are from all across Guyana. He further went on to say that for our own safety it would be better if we went around with people who we were familiar with, but we knew no one there.
“Since the first area I intended visiting was just five minutes away, I decided we would walk as we’d see more of the town that way. The first creepy encounter occurred while we were walking. It had begun to rain lightly, and I was reaching for my umbrella when from the corner of my eye I noticed we were being approached. My first thought was that we were about to be robbed, but instead the man asked my name, then my age and then acting like my boyfriend was invisible proceeded to ask for my number. My boyfriend stepped between me and the stranger who was closing the distance between us, still asking my number in a heavily slurred voice; he was holding a beer bottle. After several refusals to give him my number, he left.
“Minutes later another drunk leaned over his verandah cursing and calling me over to his house. We continued walking until he was out of earshot. This was all new to me and for the most part I remained dazed. As a little girl, I had never seen my late father drunk, but I had seen what alcohol did to neighbours. I saw how scared their wives and children were and how they would keep out of their way, sometimes leaving the house until they had fallen asleep. Our yards were fenced but back then I too would hide and peek from my window, hoping that the drunk in the next yard didn’t see me.
“The rest of the day was uneventful. No one came up to me, but while we were having dinner that night, several young men, who might have been miners, were sitting a little more than three feet behind us. All through our dinner, they stared and leered. One particular guy leaned as far back as his chair would let him, peeping from behind a post and half-smiling knowingly. Two of the men got up and gyrated with two of the waitresses to the Brazilian music belting from the speakers. We returned to the hotel even more cautiously after this, expecting to be followed but nothing happened.
“[Just like] almost anywhere in Guyana, there were catcalls. It didn’t matter that I had my favourite guy in the world next to me, the catcalls came. And it was not just me, every woman was similarly harassed, even little girls running errands. These men, it seemed, knew no boundaries and perhaps because I was in a new place, they seemed terrifying.
“I’ve gone to several hinterland areas before and never felt so disrespected or violated and I certainly was not prepared for it to happen in a place I imagined to be beautiful and peaceful.
“My worst experience happened on the third day. I had stopped to chat with the shopkeeper, who clearly wasn’t from the area. My driver was nearby catching up with an old friend and my boyfriend had gone to the vehicle to get change for something to drink. A drunk, yes, another one, whom I had greeted with ‘good morning’ just minutes earlier kept on saying how much he was interested in me. I tried to ignore the man, but he berated me for not listening to him and raised his voice louder each time he spoke. Finally, he grabbed my leg. I instantly pulled out of his hold. The shopkeeper, seeing this, calmly said to me that we should move from near the man but when we did, the man followed, throwing obscenities at me. By this time my boyfriend was back, and he took my hand and walked me back to our vehicle.
“In another location while talking with the driver and being given a tour, we ran into the same man who had grabbed my leg. He came stumbling down a hill pointing at me saying all manner of things, which included many lewd words.
“After these incidents it seemed to me that the receptionist of the hotel was wrong when he said I needed to worry about outsiders. For me, I had to worry about the insiders, the people living in the area. Their lack of inhibitions was perhaps because of the alcohol, but it was shocking to me.
“The day I left Mahdia, I was the only woman on the bus. A six-year-old girl
sat next me. Her mother had put her on a bus filled with men. I asked myself why a mother would take such a risk and if I wasn’t there, which one of the men would be the one taking the child by the hand every time she needed a bathroom break.
“As the bus pulled away from the town, a passenger asked the driver to stop at the man who made bush medicines. He requested a medicine that would make him perform well in bed and kept asking the bush doctor whether he was certain it would work as he couldn’t turn up at home and not function as he should or his wife would be suspicious. The bush doctor said it would and as the bus pulled away, the man bragged about using his last bit of energy on the ‘Venezuelan prostitutes’. As the bus passed some men standing on the road, another man put his head out the window and said to them, ‘Tek care of them girls fuh we till we come back right’.
“That was when it dawned on me that because women are infrequently seen in mining area, the men view them as ‘candy’. The disrespect also exists because many of our men today come from homes where values are absent, where their fathers disrespected their mothers, and where the male figures in their lives spoke lewdly of and to women. Most importantly, some of them came from homes where, by the time they were old enough to understand, daddy was long gone.
“Sad to say, also, some of our men come from homes where the women in their lives, tear other women down. They come from homes, too, where the girl they take home is never good enough for their mothers.
“I realised, too, why the fact that there was a man next to me holding my hand didn’t mean that I was taken. They share women. And I don’t mean the women who live there; outsiders like myself.”
She noted that because of these factors, communities could not be safe. Not until men are instilled with values in the home instead of on the street, can a mother be sure that her daughter is safe when she leaves home, she added. She asked why it seemed we had forgotten the concept of being our brothers’ keepers.
“As I left Mahdia,” she shared, “and the bus drove onto the barge that would take us to the other side of the river, I turned and looked behind me to the beautiful mountains on my right. I remembered some of the wonderful people I met, who made me laugh and see things from their perspective; people who shared with me their indigenous dialect and amazing stories. A place with some of the most breathtaking views and waterfalls and the pretty ferns that greeted me when I arrived, now bade me farewell as I left. My heart broke because as much as I’d miss them and hoped to see them again, this was goodbye.”
