By Miranda La Rose
“If you cannot help to teach your children at home and give them a good foundation for schooling, what then is the purpose of an education?” asked Angela Sawh nee Issardin, homemaker, community activist and mother of four sons, all Guyana scholars.
Sawh’s family is believed to be the only nuclear one in the country that has produced four Guyana scholars. The boys attended St Gabriel’s Primary where they wrote the common entrance examinations and secured places at Queen’s College (QC). Having completed high school with the title Guyana scholar, they all subsequently graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona Campus, Jamaica with doctoral degrees in medicine.
Today Dr Dayanand Sawh, the eldest son, is a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, practising in Kingston, Jamaica. He is followed by hospitalist Dr Amar K Sawh, pathologist Dr Ravindra Sawh and critical care intensivist and neurologist Dr Shailendra Sawh.
“I taught them a little school work at home whenever I could. I made sure they did their homework, their chores. My boys studied from 4 am. They were all taught by Ms Stella Archer for common entrance. Apart from the home, I was very involved in the affairs of their schools through their parent teachers’ associations [PTAs]. Parents need to get involved too. It is very important for both parents and children,” Sawh told Stabroek Weekend in a telephone interview from her home in Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, USA.
“Frankly, instead of being happy for us, we were the envy of a lot of people because of the boys’ achievements. A relative said my boys became Guyana scholars because my husband was a government minister. No way. They did everything on their own merit. They went to school regularly and were punctual. All four were scout leaders. They all played chess. They took part in the various club activities at school and we supported them in the things they liked doing and that were important to them. They were all prefects. Amar, the youngest, was head boy at QC,” she continued.
When the first three Sawh brothers won their scholarships, there was a shortage of foreign exchange.
“The People’s National Congress [PNC] government at the time could not give scholarships for students to study in England as was the custom because of the shortage of foreign currency. When Amar became a Guyana scholar, the University of Guyana was opening its medical school. Guyana was allowed five places at UWI for medicine in Jamaica, which the government scrapped. Amar was caught up in that. We decided we weren’t sending him to UG because the medical school was new. My husband’s ministerial colleagues told him, ‘You have to make an example of your son and he has to go to UG. We said, ‘No’. Even though our older boys were at UWI and were Guyana scholars, the government didn’t pay their fees. We paid. We decided Amar would join his brothers in Jamaica and that is how they all ended up at UWI.”
Despite describing herself as a homemaker, Sawh, now 79, was involved in different social and humanitarian activities outside of the home. A member of the Roman Catholic Church, she worked with the Young Women’s Christian Association and took leadership roles in her son’s schools’ PTAs.
She was a past secretary and chairperson of St Gabriel’s PTA, a service she extended to the QC PTA where she served as secretary, treasurer and chairperson over the years. “I was QC’s PTA chairman when the principal, Mr Clarence Trotz, was transferred to St Stanislaus in a rotation. They brought another head master, Mr Taylor to QC. Everyone rebelled against Mr Trotz’s transfer. I had to chair all those meetings and try to calm fathers and mothers who were agitated.”
Background
Sawh, now the proud grandmother of nine grandchildren, two grandsons and seven granddaughters – some of whom are also in the medical field – was born in Kitty Village and was the eldest of five children. Her mother, Ivy, a housewife, was from Novar, Mahaicony and her father, William Permeshwar Issardin, a barber, was from Golden Fleece, Essequibo Coast. They were both orphans so Sawh did not know her grandparents.
Her oldest brother was born four years after her, followed by two other brothers and then her sister, who was born 12 years after Sawh.
“My father was very influential in my life. Our house in Thomas Street, Kitty was a haven and a home-away-from home to several relatives and their families, some of whom we didn’t even know, from the countryside. We were their only relatives in Georgetown. They came to go to the hospital, to do shopping at Christmas and to do other businesses. Their stays were often over-extended. My parents never complained.”
When Sawh was six years old, her father sent her to Campbellville Government School on Sheriff Street because he said the schools in Kitty, “were rowdy. We lived by the Hollywood Cinema. It was a long walk every day for a six-year-old. My best friend was an older girl of African ancestry. She lived in Gordon Street and she made sure I got home safely.”
Sawh completed her primary education at Walkers Under-12 in Barr Street, Kitty where she won the Blair’s scholarship to attend the Bishops’ High School (BHS) in 1955.
Her mother died in childbirth in 1959 when she was 15 years old and in fourth form at BHS. “When my mother died our Black neighbours supported us. We experienced no race problems then. I grew up in that kind of atmosphere at Bishops as well. Hazel Campayne was the head girl when I entered Bishops’. There were a lot of children from influential Guyanese [homes] at Bishops but everyone commingled regardless of their parent’s status.”
At BHS then, she said, the majority of the teachers were halves of expatriate couples. The men taught at QC and the women at BHS.
“I did my exams in fifth form and there was no way I could go onto sixth form. We could not afford it. After my mom died, my father got a stroke. So with six GCE O’Level subjects, I was fortunate to get a ‘prestigious’ job at Barclays Bank, PLO on Water Street. In those days, only fair-skinned people were offered jobs in the banks. I was the second Indian to get a job at Barclays Bank. I had four siblings to look after and myself. I started working at 16 years and six months. I was the sole breadwinner for my family,” she said.
Meeting Dharam
Dharamdeo Sawh was the son of the late businessman/sawmiller Nagasar Sawh of Nagasar Sawh Limited.
“One day Dharam accompanied a gentleman from Bartica to the bank. He was standing with his arms folded in the lobby looking up to the rotunda at the top where I was in the accounts department. One of the tellers, who knew him, saw him looking up. She realised he was looking up at me. She picked up the intercom and said, ‘Angela, Dharam Sawh is looking at you from the lobby’. I looked out to see who he was. I guess I just left it at that. Later on, he said he had told the gentleman he had taken to the bank, [that] I was the girl he was going to marry,” she recalled.
In those days the cinema was the main source of entertainment and with Hollywood Cinema just four doors away, Sawh went there to see a show. It was Remembrance Day, November 1961, and tickets were sold out.
“Dharam was visiting someone in Thomas Street, saw me, stopped his car and he came out. We walked into each other. That’s how I met my husband, the love of my life. He was 24 years then, I was 18 and a tiny 98-pound young woman fighting life with my brothers and sister…,” she reminisced. “We got married in September 1962. He promised my aunt he would look after my siblings as a condition of marriage. I was torn between the devil and the deep blue sea because of my love for him and the responsibility of looking after my siblings.”
After they were married, the Sawhs had their sons in rapid succession. Dayanand was born in June 1963, Ravindra in January 1965, Shailendra in September 1966 and Amar in November 1968.
“My hands were filled full time with four boys to look after and that was the end of my working life in Guyana,” she said.
They lived in Charlotte and Oronoque streets at the time.
Moving to the US
On Easter Tuesday, 1980, Sawh was tied up in her home and robbed at gunpoint with her three younger children and a helper. “It was very traumatic,” she recalled.
Her brother encouraged her to move to the USA and sponsored her for residency. “My husband said he was not leaving his country. My brother filed the papers. It came through in 1992, 12 years later. We had forgotten about it by then,” she added.
When president Forbes Burnham died in 1985 and Desmond Hoyte took over the presidency and with general elections due, Sawh recalled Dharamdeo telling her at lunch one day that Hoyte had invited him to be a candidate for the PNC and he had accepted.
At the time Dharamdeo was an upcoming businessman interested in the development of his country. He was a member of the timber board. In 1980, he had opened his own lumber yard in Lombard Street, the business was doing well, and that was how they funded their children’s tuition at UWI.
That same year, Dharamdeo was appointed the first minister of forestry in Guyana. “It was a very trying time,” Sawh said. “He was Indian and the PNC was a Black people party. You can imagine what happened. I was ostracised a lot by my Indian friends.”
Later, the forestry ministry was restructured and Dharamdeo was appointed minister in the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Industry with responsibility for tourism.
“… He visited many countries in the region and beyond to learn about and to promote tourism,” she continued. “In 1992, the PNC lost the elections and you better believe it, my husband’s business was blacklisted. His business was losing money and everything was going bad. At that same time our papers for US permanent residency came through. Dharam said he was not going anywhere.”
His brother in New Jersey told him to take the opportunity and he could travel to and from Guyana. By this time all their sons were medical doctors.
Dayanand had returned home and worked at the Georgetown Public Hospital for a few years then returned to Jamaica where he still resides, to specialise in orthopaedics. Ravindra also returned to UWI to specialise in pathology.
“We began to travel up and down from Guyana to the US once a year to upkeep our papers. It was costly. Our business was failing. I took it on myself to move permanently. Shailendra was doing his post doctorate in critical care medicine in the US and Ravi was practising pathology in Texas. Amar was also in the US.”
In 2000, at 56 years, she moved to New Jersey, and Dharamdeo followed six months later. They subsequently moved to Virginia. Sawh worked as a supervisor for 11 years with one of the local offices for ageing in Virginia.
Humanitarian work
Sawh and her husband joined the Cave Springs Lions Club, which is across the street from where they live. Dharamdeo, now 85, and a Lion for over 50 years, was transferred from the Georgetown Lions Club where he served as president. He was also president of the Cave Springs Lions Club.
Sawh was a founder member of the Demerara Lioness Club, the first of its kind in Guyana. Previously Lions Clubs were all-male but the wives were supposed to be actively involved in the activities of the Lions. “I remember the Georgetown Lions hosting the Old Year’s night dance at Queen’s College. One year we had 900 people. At midnight we were washing dishes, even though Christiani did the catering.”
When the Lions accepted women into their clubs, the wives of the Lions decided they wanted their own club so they formed the Demerara Lioness Club in Georgetown. “We did our own projects and activities. Fund-raising and other social activities became a part of my life.”
Sawh served as secretary and eventually president of the Demerara Lioness Club. “We did a lot including vision screening for school children. Dr Karen Persram gave free glasses to some of them. We did blood pressure testing in addition to supporting the Georgetown Lions Club in their activities.”
As president of the Lioness Club she was instrumental in the development of the playground in Belvoir Court, Georgetown.
“On Christmas morning, we traditionally fed 100 children at the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre. I took my children there to assist. It is very important that children learn that humanitarianism and service are very important to humankind. You must share what you have. Then we went home to our Christmas lunch.”
For her contribution she was awarded the Melvin Jones Award, the highest honour a club could bestow on a member. Dharamdeo was also made a Melvin Jones Fellow by the Cave Springs Lions.
In Guyana, Sawh also joined the International Women’s Aid to Mahaica, an expatriate group of women who supported Mahaica Infirmary for people suffering from Hansen’s disease also known as leprosy. She was at one time the president of that women’s group.
