Jennifer Gulliver has worked as a typist, office clerk, haberdashery and newspaper vendor and on March 2, was a polling clerk at the general and regional elections, reprising a role she had also assumed in the past.
“I just like to interact with people and you know for some reason, some people were like tense when they come in and I, like, put them at ease by saying good morning and so…,” she told Stabroek Weekend of the March 2nd polling.
She boasted that she is someone who deals with public. Gulliver has been a newspaper vendor for over 20 years and is known in downtown Georgetown very well. “I know how to deal with people, with every category of people. So, I had no problem… I asked them if they had a beautiful morning and things like that.”
Gulliver trained as a polling clerk in 1990, “long before I had children,” she said. She recalled that at one election, she worked as the acting presiding officer. But she did not work in 2015 and was happy when she was allowed to be part of the team again on March 2.
“I was happy when they called me to get training because a lot of the things I didn’t really remember. But I catch on back quick and I think I do a good job that day,” she said.
At her polling station, Gulliver said, there were 221 ballots cast. She arrived at the polling station at 5 am and it closed promptly at 6 pm and two hours later she was home.
“Everything went smoothly, and we did good,” she said, showing a copy of her statement of polls “everyone had to get a copy,” she added.
The presiding officer at her station was Sherry Sobers, for whom Gulliver was full of praise as she was very patient and helpful. For her, the only problem she had was calling the names too quickly and she was forced to slow down at intervals.
She recalled that most people voted in the morning so by afternoon just a small number of persons visited.
“For me, it was not just about the money. Yes, I make an extra dollar. It is just something in me, so long I doing it like I just like doing it and I would do it again in 2025 if I am given the opportunity by God’s Grace,” Gulliver shared.
When she was initially trained, Gulliver said, it was a case of her needing the extra cash as she was thinking about building her house.
“You see, if you don’t have a need, there would not be a purpose to work,” she added brightly.
‘A lot of anxiety’
Gulliver and many like her who have completed their work on March 2, like the rest of the country, are awaiting the final results of the elections.
Because of this, she said, there is a lot of anxiety among Guyanese. “But you know what? We just have to go on doing what we have to do, you know, not worry too much and hope that it all ends well and we just have to move on as a country and live together,” she said.
And even as she commented on the ongoing elections issue Gulliver is also very much aware of the coronavirus (Covid-19), which is wreaking havoc worldwide, including in Guyana. She shared that a relative of hers in the US has contracted it.
“That is what is touching us right now, all over the world,” she noted.
“Of course, I am keeping myself safe. I am at home all the time and, you know, sanitizing and trying to do what I have to do. I looking after two grandchildren and is just my children, you know, they have to be out. The girl works at the post office and the two boys are soldier and police, so they have to be out working,” she said.
And while she is at home, Gulliver said, she is farming. She is encouraging others to get into their own gardening because no one knows what can happen in the future.
“I see people stocking up, but they’re not stocking up on the right things,” she warned. “They’re stocking up on sweetie and snacks and so on. You have to stock up on greens and peas. You know if you don’t have rice you can use split peas and greens. We don’t know how long before this will end. I think people should even stock up on wood, a lot of matches. You don’t know if GPL will run out of oil. You have to think about going back to basics…”
‘Only on Sundays’
For years Gulliver has been walking or riding the streets, rain or shine, selling newspapers. She subsequently became known as the walking store as she sold haberdashery items as well.
She shared that it was during her difficult years that she met well-known newspaper vendor Phyllis – now deceased – who walked her through the steps to becoming a newspaper vendor.
She remembered that even on Christmas Day she and her children were out in the streets selling newspapers and after a time it was just a routine. As they grew up, they knew that selling newspapers was the family business and they all had their sections.
But it was not a business they were keen on continuing and as they grew older, they all took up different careers and soon Gulliver was alone again.
Over the years the sun and rain took their toll and in recent times she has reduced her selling on the streets to just Sundays. She pointed out that at the age of 57 it is time for her to call it day but for now she will continue selling on Sundays because it is something that she loves.
“But I want to do more, you know. And I think farming is a big thing, so that is what I focusing on now. When I home, I just doing my little farming and we start getting some things from it. I just get paid from GECOM and I invest some of that money to buy seeds. Farming is the thing now,” she said proudly.
Her only regret in life was not completing her studies at the University of Guyana as she had dropped out with the intention of returning. But she got married and then the children came, and she never had the opportunity. She recalled that as a young woman she started her working life at the age of 22 as a typist in the Ministry of Education. Over the years she also worked as a clerk at the Continental Group of Companies, a job she had to quit when she had her first child. Later, she worked at NALICO selling insurance, but many days she sold no policies and at the end of the month the money she made did not do much for the family.
It was then that she started selling newspapers. Today she is proud to be known as the newspaper vendor, but she also wants to be known as the farmer. Farming and taking care of her grandchildren would be her retirement package. Not bad for a woman who once pounded the streets every day to take the news in written form to many homes in Georgetown.
