How do men in Guyana support their families?
Many are cane cutters, some are fisherman and a few have horsecarts or carts to carry loads for others.
Meet Andrew. He has a horsecart (pronounced harse key-art) and he gets paid to carry loads for others.
I hope you like this picture-perfect photo as much as I do. Everything seems to be posed just right...even the dog! Notice the "Jesus Forever" painted on the side of Andrew's cart.
I want you to know I had to climb up the slanted board to get on the cart. Who says I'm old and just about to have another birthday?
Here he is with baby Andrew, the youngest of his 7 children.
And here are all the rest on a bench under the home he and his wife built.
They cook on an outside kitchen that is called a fireside. It looks similar to the one pictured here. Many families do all their cooking on this type of outside fireside.
His wife, Tasha, is my special friend and is the primary president in the Rosignol Branch.
Now, meet Brother Lewis who pushes a cart in the marketplace.
Every day he pushes his cart from his home in Cowdam down to the big market place in town and carries loads for people. At the end of the day, he has to push it back to his home which is probably 2 miles each way.
Every time we see him he promises he'll be in church on Sunday. He hasn't been to church since he was released as the branch president several months ago. Promises, promises...
Meet this precious little jewel, whose name I can't remember.
Her daddy is a fisherman, Solkar.
We were visiting with this little girl's family last week, along with the branch president, President Mintiesingh Tenisingh (do you like his name?), when her daddy, Solkar, arrived home from fishing all day. He had three ocean fish wrapped in his sweatshirt that he promptly said he was giving to us.
(Solkar is wearing the faded red/pink shirt with his crocheted fisherman hat on his knee.)
His wife, Mala (who is sitting next to Elder Bullock), quickly cleaned the 3 fish and handed them to me in a plastic bag to carry while we continued our visits.
By the time we were riding the ferry back home to New Amsterdam, I was getting a little worried about the condition of my 3 warm fish. I used my womanly charms to coax a chunk of ice from one of the venders on the ferry to add to the bag I was carrying them in. I carried those fish for 2 hours!
Yum! Yum! The ice must have done the trick because they tasted great after I fried and carefully deboned them like daddy taught me to do when I was just a little girl.
Here are the rest of Solkar and Mala's children. So adorable, aren't they?
And here's the whole family. It was beginning to get dark and the photos aren't the best.
I was determined to get a photo of us crossing the bridge from where their home was back to the path we had taken. There just wasn't much light but you can still get the idea. Can you imagine the family carrying their babies, groceries, furniture, or whatever across this bridge? It is the only way to get to their house.
On the other side of the bridge you can see the path we had to walk to get to their bridge. As we walked the weedy path, I kept watching for snakes. Later, the family mentioned that there was an Anaconda nearby that they had been trying to kill but it had alluded their attempts. That really made me feel safe!
Speaking of bridges, they are everywhere across the trenches. Here is another one we crossed that was pretty scary! It seems there is always a missing board or more and some of them aren't fastened down so one end flips up when you step on it.
I was the last 'man' over this bridge carrying my camera. Can you imagine how excited I was to cross over?
Now you must meet the cane cutters because that is probably what most men do...cut sugarcane.
This is Asha and BJ. BJ is the branch president of the East Canje branch. His mom lives in Canada and 16 years ago his mom "sponsored" him so he could move to Canada. Instead of joining his family in Canada, he chose to stay in Guyana with his new bride and baby. He would have had to leave his wife and baby behind.
His mother's words to him when he told her he wanted to stay and live in Guyana were, "Do you know what you are doing?"
In the early days of their marriage, he and his wife about starved to death trying to eke out a living. He earned 3,000 Guyanese dollars ($15.00) a week and that was just enough to pay for their baby's formula.
They had 2 chickens that layed 2 eggs a day. They ate one egg in the a.m. and the other in the p.m. They ate the little fish he caught in the trenches with his bare hands because he couldn't afford to buy any fishing equipment. He did any work he could find, including climbing the tall coconut trees in his yard and the neighbor's yard to pick coconuts to sell.
It wasn't until life became really hard that he understood his mother's question.
Now they are older and they have both worked really hard to build their own home and to make a good life for them and their 2 boys. In addition to BJ's job as a cane cutter, Asha has a little grocery store attached to the front of their home.
She, also, raises chickens so she can sell the eggs they lay and they slaughter some of chickens to sell. We've bought a few of those bloody little creatures from them to feed the elders!
There just aren't enough jobs here in Guyana and the workers are paid barely enough to buy food and nothing else.
The other night we were invited for a "fireside" dinner at BJ and Asha's home. Elder Bullock, your dad, was invited to help BJ cook it. How much assistance do you think Elder Bullock gave? He stirred the pot once just for this photo!
In the pot, cookup rice was cooking, which is a very popular Guyanese dish made from rice, coconut milk, beef, fish, blackeyed peas, canned mixed vegetables, shallots, and hot peppers. It tasted great and we were happy to throw the little pieces of beef gristle from our plates to the puppy for a treat.
Let me tell you a bit about BJ's job as a cane cutter.
Here is the special padded hat that he wears when he cuts cane. It has a special purpose. After he cuts the cane with a huge knife that looks like a big machete and ties it in bundles, he carries the heavy bundles on his head to the little barges that line the cane trenches.
He and his team (2-6 men) work together to fill 'their' barge and are paid according to how much their load weighs at the end of the day.
I was a little anxious to see how it felt to wear his hat and carry his 'weapon of destruction'.
The next morning, we drove to where he was cutting cane to watch him in action. We never found BJ but took these photos of the other workers.
The cane is burned first to remove the weeds and underbrush. Then, the cane cutters are able to whack away at all the cane, piling it as they go and tying it in bundles to be carried to the cane barges.
They get up at 4 am to go to work, carry their lunch, which their wives have prepared at 2 am. They work in the hot equator sun and arrive back home about 2-4 pm. What a day they must have!
Take a look...
This is President Bennie of the New Amsterdam Branch. He's a cane cutter, too...and a fisherman when there's no cane to cut.
These men must all be exhausted at the end of their day's work!
They don't have to lift weights and diet to look trim and muscular! It comes with the territory.
With elders as hardworking and as darling as these two traveling elders, of course it can and will happen.
Elder Lee, who is brand new to the mission field, is in the font with Alan just after Alan's baptism. Cliff is watching. He was just baptized but jumped out of the font too quickly for me to get his photo.
The talks and some hymns were followed by a toast of punch.from each of the children.
