By Miranda La Rose
Many of us will remember entering the New Year either partying, drinking champagne or a choice wine and or eating cook-up or some other specially prepared dish. Some of us remember going to a church service or a midnight mass praying for a better year or singing praises to our God.
Either way, church or party, we put on our best clothes to while away the night and welcome a New Year.
Relishing the moment
For doctors Gavrielle Cave, Alex D’Aguiar and many others in the medical or nursing profession breaking the New Year’s tending to patients is an inescapable yet satisfying service. Doctors spending special holidays at a hospital with colleagues, other staff members and even patients has become a norm with everyone being part of the extended family.
Dr Cave recalled that she broke the 2023 New Year’s Day event free, but the hours that followed were filled with life-saving activities.
“Going into midnight, we had no emergency or pending cases in the internal medicine department of the Georgetown Public Hospital [GPH]. It was blissful. We all toasted with a glass of non-alcoholic champagne, took a few pictures, had some nice chocolate and a few good laughs.
It was also raining at midnight and shortly after the toast and wishing each other the best, we went outside to get a feel of the cleansing rain and at the same time we saw it as blessings from above.
It was such a joyous moment in which we actually had some time for ourselves. Shortly after relishing the moment, we were called in to take charge of an emergency and after that it was work until daybreak,” she recalled.
“I enjoyed that Old Year’s/New Year’s night. It was a memory to cherish. The next experience won’t be the same.
I would have loved to be around family but we know in those moments we have to be there for the patients who need us. Sometimes we spend more time here at the hospital than at home, we end up seeing each other as family members.”
New Year’s Day baby
For Dr D’Aguiar, three of the past four years he spent on the residence programme at the GPH, he worked through Old Year’s night into New Year’s morning helping mothers to bring their babies into the world.
“It’s a profound and joyous experience. The year 2021 was especially memorable. We had two expecting mothers and two teams awaiting the birth of the first baby for 2021. Obviously all babies and mothers are special but awaiting the delivery of the birth of the first New Year’s Day baby is especially special for the team delivering him or her. Even though there is already a camaraderie among all staff, there is just that special bonding awaiting the birth of this New Year’s Day baby. We were all excited in keeping with the spirit of the season. It was like a race. Both teams were checking in on both mothers-to-be. When our baby was born, which happened to be the first, it was a wonderful experience. We were so happy and delighted, because it was a smooth delivery with no issues.”
Dr D’Aguiar is now working with high risk obstetrics and gynaecology patients in 13 health centres on the East Coast Demerara from Better Hope to Mahaica.
Church-hopping
For administrator Anjie Sukhai of Grove, some holidays and weekends may not be the best because of dealing with a stressful situation in the home. The mother of one, Sukhai grew up in a Hindu household and converted to Catholicism 30 years ago.
“As a child, Christmas was the best thing for me even though I was a Hindu. Then I’d get sad because Christmas Day was over but then there was New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day to look forward to. We cleaned up and stayed up late to welcome the New Year with neighbours and friends. At the stroke of midnight, I would shower and then go to my altar and do my devotions as a Hindu,” she recalled.
“When I came to live in Grove closer to my in-laws, who were church goers and who have since passed on, I joined in their tradition and I have kept it up, of going to church at Christmas Eve Night and Old Year’s night.
“The 2023 New Year was especially special. I went to mass at 8 pm on Old Year’s Eve. After that we had a get together and I rang in the New Year with my church family at Diamond.
“I always feel good being with my church family. They help me to stay calm. Because I needed to stay away from home, I went church-hopping on New Year’s Day. It was actually exciting. As is the custom I made sure that my home had cooked food to ensure the home has enough food throughout the year.
“At the end of this year, I am very grateful for life. I lost my best friend to breast cancer at the age of 46 this year and it is the first time I will be celebrating the New Year’s without her. It’s the second year, I’m celebrating without my big sister. The good thing is that my son graduated from university and started a job on December 27. I am most thankful.”
Aranka New Year
For Collins Herman entering the year 2020 was memorable because he was in Aranka, Region Seven (Cuyuni/Mazaruni) when he would have preferred to be at home with his loved ones. Aranka is the site of one of the oldest of worked-out mines in the country yet with a high concentration of mining activities.
“I was in the gold mines in Aranka in Cuyuni. The son of the owner of the company wanted to spend time with his family on the coastland. He had been in the interior for about six months without leaving the area. I was in Georgetown in November and I had gone back to Aranka at the beginning of December. He had asked me to stay and help the general manager. He said he was going to be back by the second week in January. That sounded reasonable to me. At the time I was supervising the crusher. I decided I was going to stay, as much as I did not want to. It was really difficult to get workers committed to do any serious work because there was a lot of partying taking place in Aranka. The general manager, more or less, gave up on getting the guys to carry out their tasks. He said he didn’t know what to do about the men. ‘When them men start work they will work’. He said, ‘Who want go home can go and who don’t want to go, well that is it.’ He told me to take over and make sure work is done on the dredge too. I said, ‘Buddy how you gone do me that? I can’t be on the dredge and on the crusher too.’”
Herman said he listened to the general manager, obviously homesick, relating not seeing his grandchildren and wanting to go home but he could not. Herman, on the other hand, had a lot of invitations to lunch, dinners and parties.
“The people knew I was the supervisor for the crusher and they believed I could have left the worksite at any time I wanted. That wasn’t the case. It was days and nights of partying. A lot of people didn’t want to reflect on missing their family but I missed mine. I hadn’t seen my son, Diego, since the end of 2017. I was in Guyana and they were in San Martin in Venezuela at the time preparing to return to Guyana,” he said.
At the time, he noted, the mining camps gave workers a quota of drinks and they bought what they required.
“There were lots of drinks in the mining camps and people gave you once you passed by their camp. There was lots of food too. Lots of pepper-pot and baked chicken with pot bakes or bread flown in from Georgetown. All drinks were strong alcohol because Guinness and beers were expensive,” he recalled.
“Communication was also difficult. We congregated at a WiFi hotspot. You gotta pray you get a call before anybody else. Lots of time I had to send voice notes or just texted messages.
“There was also an influx of Venezuelans at the time. Some were still bringing down fuel and lots of women who were in the prostitution market. From 2017 to 2019 there were a lot of Venezuelans in Aranka to be exact.
“A lot of fights took place among miners once they had imbibed and the police became somewhat overwhelmed by what was taking place that they themselves ignored the law breakers. People did what they did. It was the holidays. It was a Old Year’s/New Year’s season I’ll never forget.”
