Every morning eighty-five Buxtonians awaken to the same feeling of deprivation and rejection. It fills their entire day. Each moment is a requirement of personal and family expenses and responsibilities they are unable to fulfill. The days have turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. There are service providers, small neighbourhood shops and groceries that provided to that community on the premise that they would be compensated by these eighty-five persons who undertook a task that had been left in abandonment for almost twenty-three years.
Each morning those eighty-five persons had left their homes, some as early as 6:00 hrs, and joined minibuses and trucks armed with cutlasses and other implements required for their day’s work and journeyed into the city to the LeRepentir Cemetery in Georgetown to clear the 254,000 square yards of dense jungle.

THE CONSEQUENCES
The task was beyond what was expected. It was not only the encroaching jungle they had to deal with. It was not only huge trees and the bushes they had to chop down, but there were damaged TOMBS that kept breaking as persons walked on them.

The broken tombs exposed carcasses of rotting bodies; the swarms of angry marabuntas and the anger of over three hundred swarms of disturbed Africanised bees who had built swarms within the trunks of trees and bushes, attacked relentlessly as the workers, both male and females, laboured to complete the task that were additional to their job descriptions; yet the Buxtonians laboured on. They laboured for seven months trusting the goodwill of their employers to compensate their efforts.
There were shopkeepers of groceries, other service providers who in communal spirit had supported them and their families while the job was being done. The job has now been done for eight months now. But their trust has been broken. Compensation is yet to come.

CONFRONTATION
I live in Buxton. Early one evening, some days ago, I met a gathering of men and women of the village. It was not a scheduled event. They had however, learnt that I was writing again in the Chronicle. They had concerns they needed to ventilate. They needed to bring their plight to the attention of persons in authority. They requested I listen to their story. I told them I had heard of it but they insisted that I not only listen to their side but to bring it to public notice since I was an integral part of the society and had an interest in all things Buxton. It was important, one man said, that I hear their side. I listened. I was compelled to; I had taught many of them at school, at the Republic Co-operative High School Eusi Kwayana had founded.
They rhetorically asked how could the Government not address the payment for the workers. They have addressed the Walter Rodney Commission; they have addressed the GuySuCo problem; the Thrill company problem and the rice farmers problem. Are they, Buxtonians, not counted for the work they have executed so dearly?
Is Government system applicable only for a certain set of people in this society? Can’t the working poor who do diligent and serious work be looked at, or must they just suffer? Can’t the Ministry of Communities, or the Ministry of the Presidency make an immediate intervention to alleviate the hardship that they are going through?
I understood their plight for I was a member of the same community they lived in. Buxton had suffered much especially during the past decade and a half. There were no great industries within the community that provided employment for villagers. Two Bakeries were presently the main industries that provided a flow of daily cash. The situation was rough on both men and women. For the women it was more problematic. Many of them were single parents and at the moment the children are home on school holidays which had put a strain on their personal economies. There was greater use of services such as electricity which impacted negatively on their meager resources. The situation is critical. The workers of Buxton need and seek an intervention by the Government of Guyana.

By Ras Michael