For many people, last year’s challenges were like none they had ever faced before in their lives. 2020 did not only see cancelled travel plans, but new financial constraints owing to job loss, others saw their studies come to a standstill, but for some, they almost lost their sanity too.
The following five people shared both the negative and positive impacts of the pandemic and despite the world crisis, have set out to achieve various goals this year whether personal, professional or spiritual.
Floreen James who hails from Paruima, Region Seven, currently lives with her family in Belle West, West Bank Demerara. “…It affected us when the school closed, and my children could not attend school. The feeling of anxiety and worry came over me because I was so scared for my children especially after the very first COVID death here. I felt like I was going to go into panic mode,” James said. She also saw it as a blessing in disguise as she did not want to send her two sons to school for fear of them contracting the virus. As another precautionary measure, she decided to send her children back to Paruima to stay with her parents; people travelled there less often and to her it seemed less likely that anyone there would contract COVID.
The family felt the worst of the pandemic when James’s husband who worked on a tug and barge was laid off. He was the sole breadwinner of the home and James spoke of having to stretch whatever little groceries and savings the family had to make ends meet. She later joined her sons in Paruima while her husband tried to find construction work.
James’s children stayed with family from March until August when they finally returned. During that time, she joined them for two months, but getting to them proved another challenge as travel to and from Region Seven was restricted. It was not until restrictions for travelling to the interior region were lifted for a period that she was reunited with her boys. When they wanted to leave, they found that travel restrictions were once more in place, as there was a possibility of a positive case or more in the area. “… There was another lockdown,” she related. “After the samples were taken, while we waited for the results to come back, we were able to get a flight out. Before we were able to [book] that flight, we had to get permission from the Ministry of Health, the National COVID Task Force. My husband had to do that, get their permission, get that to the airline, get it us, and that was how we were able to travel out.
“It was my faith in God that brought me through it. He knew all along what was coming in 2020 when we had our dreams and our hope for the new year to be a good one and a grand one, He knew what was coming. Knowing that and trusting that He knows what is best, is the only way we made it.”
James said her main focus is her family, and her spiritual life. She is also working on developing herself academically. She started two courses on Coursera studying project planning and logistics. These have been placed on hold as she has no internet for the time being, but she is working towards getting them done.
Holder of a degree in Medical Technology, Norma George is currently pursuing a medical degree at the Greenheart Medical University. The road there was not an easy one.
In fact, following a separation from her husband, George, a single mother of a two-year-old was living in a country where she had no family of her own. Some months later in August, in the company of her mother and daughter, she was relieved when she was finally able to get on a chartered flight back to Guyana.
According to George, after travelling in March, she suspected she was coming down with the flu and did a rapid test which showed that she was positive for the coronavirus. George recounted having to stay at home with her daughter in quarantine for two weeks. The country she lived in at the time was in lockdown and people who were grocery shopping had to join long queues. By the end of her quarantine, she decided to test again but instead of doing another rapid test, she did the PCR COVID test which proved negative.
“The pandemic affected me financially and emotionally. I wanted to return home and I wanted to study. We weren’t getting the right kinds of food there. The cost of living there went up due to the pandemic. Let’s say you’d pay US$140 for groceries for two weeks, when the pandemic came, that turned into more than US$400 for just a week,” said George.
Sometime after returning to Guyana, she started working at a salon in Georgetown, but transportation costs were excessive as she had to commute from Vive-La-Force to the city on a daily basis, so she subsequently left the job. Since then she has settled on assisting her mother selling at the family’s grocery which also affords her the time to pursue her MD.
Getting through the pandemic, so far, she said, is as a result of praying a lot and building on her relationship with God.
George founded a WhatsApp group called ‘Queen’ in April of last year. The group consists of forty plus members, all women. This forum is for the purpose of women empowering other women. George said she realized that often women are degraded by other women and wanted to do something positive about it. The women of the group have weekly Zoom meetings, share positive messages and try to uplift each other. “This group has been a blessing to me in many ways. During the pandemic, I had a lot of friends reaching out and they are going through, their own struggles and regardless of me going through mine, I found strength in encouraging others… Whatever I’ve experienced, I realized I could use that to make a difference in other women’s lives. Their genuineness and their friendship have been a tremendous blessing for me,” said George.
For Anthony Duncan, the responsibility of having a family to take care of was what kept him pushing on and trying to stay positive. Duncan is an operator with the Transport and Harbours Department and works the Georgetown to Mabaruma route.
“The risk was really tremendous dealing with people travelling back and forth. I was unable to determine who has COVID or not,” Duncan said. “I had to take extra precautionary measures. I had to keep doing my job because I am the sole breadwinner for my family.
“At one point, we were told that we weren’t going to the interior anymore because of COVID being there but then at another time we were told we had to go there because we have to always supply the hinterland. There were all the COVID-19 protocols we had to adhere to, sanitizing our hands, wearing face masks, temperature checking on a regular basis and social distancing.
“We would normally carry a hundred and twenty persons on the big boat, but we started carrying like fifty percent.”
Despite all measures taken, the man said there were times when he slipped up and touched something, forgot to wash his hands and would end up touching his face somehow. Duncan added that though he knew he was always being cautious, these slip ups made him fearful that he had probably contracted the virus. Thoughts of possibly getting COVID took a toll on his mental health one time but as time passed, so did the fear.
He and other colleagues are rotated to allow for more social distancing. He noted that he was one of the fortunate ones who not only kept his job but was not faced with a salary cut during rotation.
“For me, I always look at family, it means a lot to me,” he said. “As a man, you tend to go the extra mile especially when you become a family man. My job presently, it pays yes, and I do get benefits, but I am looking for more. What I have started doing is upgrading myself. Although I already have certificates, I’m trying to improve myself academically so that I can have a better paying job to facilitate my family and bills. I’ve already started working on it.”
Aside from the pandemic affecting her life and those of her husband and their three sons, teacher Rosel Hercules worried for the first graders she taught at Wauna Primary School in Region One. They have since been promoted to grade two and now she has a new batch of first graders.
“As a teacher I couldn’t go to school and teach as I was supposed to. We don’t get electricity during the day… We don’t have an internet service for all the children of Region One so what I do, I print out my materials. I have my scheme and I would print weekly materials or a few materials to cover the scheme and I will distribute to the children. Last year, with school being closed, I wasn’t going to school so I would ask the children to come at my home and uplift. However, now I’m at school and they would come to school, drop off worksheets for me to mark and pick up more,” explained Hercules.
She said the Education Department at Mabaruma provides ink and paper for printing and the school has a printer.
An ardent church goer, Hercules said her social life at church was affected but the pandemic did not affect her spiritual life. She and her family would sit under the mango tree in their backyard and worship. Sometimes a second family would join them on Saturdays for worship services in her backyard. However, since church has reopened, she is back in church. Asked whether the COVID guidelines are being abided by, she answered in the affirmative sharing that they wear their face masks and remember to adhere to social distancing. It’s been almost a year without their regular hugs, but they have adapted to the new way of greeting each other by touching elbows.
“As a Seventh-day Adventist, we believe that our King is coming soon and we know that perilous times will pass and I just want my family to be prepared so that’s what I’m working on this year,” Hercules said.
In addition she is also helping her children cope with the new learning mode by explaining the work they receive in printed materials or helping them to learn a topic virtually.
Maya William, a window technician at a local company, puts together sash windows and awning windows. A mother of three, William has in her care, her 13-year-old and two-year-old daughters while her son lives with her ex-spouse.
It has only been a year since she has been working with this company. She noted that at the inception of the pandemic, her company kept her on but as time progressed, she and other employees were laid off for two weeks.
“At first when they laid me off, I didn’t know I would be working back in two weeks. They didn’t tell us anything. I was worried about where I would get another job from, where money would come from to pay my bills. I was frustrated,” the woman said.
Though the children’s father would assist from time to time, she could not depend on his help as he did not provide the finance on a regular basis. In addition, William said, there was no family that she could rely on for help. A week and a half into being laid off, she got word that she was expected to return to work the next week.
She noted that with the closure of schools and day-care centres, she had to pay someone to watch her children.
“I’m working towards a better home for me and my children. I want to set up Wi-Fi for my daughter so that she could get to do her school work,” she said. “Right now I would use data and work would come on WhatsApp, but the data don’t last. She’s doing most of the work offline. The school [distributed] a workbook which is supposed to last for two to four weeks. The book has the four subjects inside. When that one finish, the teacher would call us to collect another book and we would carry that one in for them to mark.”
