– Using small businesses to survive the pandemic

By Michel Outridge

VASMEEN Bacchus is a teacher attached to Lady Kadiga Play School at Zee Zight Village, West Coast Berbice and after schools were closed becase of the pandemic, she had to find another means to earn.

She began preparing home-made snacks and food which she placed in front of her house in a glass case she purchased and became a food vendor.

Bacchus related that business has been slow because a lot of people are not working on a full-time basis, but she is “holding on.”

The mother of two told the Pepperpot Magazine that since March this year she has been at home and thought about what to do and since she is versed in cooking and making delicious snacks, the idea was developed.

Bacchus, a devoted Muslim, is a well-respected member of the village and her home is always open to children who frequent daily to engage in home-schooling with her daughter.

When the team visited, she was busy preparing some food at an outdoor fireside in observance of her daughter’s 14th birth anniversary.

She stated that daily, from 07:30hrs, she would take out her glass case with food and snacks such as fried rice with chicken, pizza, egg ball and other things to sell and when the glass case is empty, she would end the day’s selling.

“I was home doing nothing and I thought why not ‘do something’ right from home to bring in an income to the household and the idea was birthed,” she said.

Bacchus is a pleasant, easy-going woman who teaches three and four-year-olds in preparation for the nursery level and admitted that she misses the little ones and was asked to have classes at her house, but she is sceptical with the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) being so prevalent

The Lady Kadiga Play School where she works is privately owned and has 15 children, but it closed its doors when Guyana was hit by the global pandemic.

As a side-business, her husband Rustom Bacchus makes concrete firesides at home and would sell them, depending on the side.

He is a sugar worker attached to the Blairmont Sugar Estate.

“You can’t sit and do nothing and as humble people, we are trying to make an honest living by doing small things from home,” she said.

The retired sugar worker
Meanwhile, the Pepperpot Magazine also met Mohamed Nizam, a pensioner, who was grazing his cow and her calf in front of his house.

The 70-year-old is passionate about gardening and has invested his time to plant some flowers to enhance the environment along his fence and inside his yard; he has a kitchen garden of seasonings including basil, thyme, broad-leaf thyme, married man pork, peppers, eschallot and other plants.

He has been a resident of Ketting/Zee Zight for the past 14 years and is among the 40 families who were relocated to the community to accommodate the building of the Berbice River Bridge.

Nizam related that he has utilised every space in his yard to plant, a hobby he developed over the years, to pass time, and does just about everything in the yard to keep it tidy.

He reported that these days he is just trying to occupy his time; because of his age he doesn’t work anymore and depend on his monthly pension.

Nizam is, however, worried about his ailing wife who he would have to take to the hospital often because of her diabetes and hypertension.

He retired after 46 years at the Blairmont Sugar Estate where he started out as a cane-cutter and moved up to a timekeeper.

The father of three said things are a bit boring these days because of the pandemic. It is dismal but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, since their grandchildren are being home-schooled via WhatsApp.

“At least the children have some classwork to do and my daughter-in-law would assist them daily because the work is graded. My son isn’t working now, he is a school bus driver and when schools [are] closed he is on the breadline and would do some manual work with farmers at times,” he said.

Nizam added that life is fair but it would be further enhanced if they get some street lights, since that section of the village is very dark at nights.