THE struggles of Mangru (only name), a cane harvester at the Rose Hall Sugar Estate, resonate with the families of many sugar workers. He was employed at the estate since he was a teenager. Prior to that he did odd jobs to assist his mother eke out a livelihood for the family. His father was a cane-cutter, but alcohol consumed his life and little or none of his earnings reached his home on paydays. His first stop was at the local bar. As eldest brother to five siblings he had little choice but to leave school at a tender age and help to augment the meagre earnings his mother garnered from her kitchen garden and the poultry she reared. When he had reached legally employable age, he sought work at the sugar estate and was employed as a cane-harvester.
Like most rural youths, Mangru was married by his parents to a girl he hardly knew, whose parents had asked his parents for a match between the two young people. Five children followed in quick succession and Mangru swore that his children would be spared his fate.

He did his back-breaking job, wielding his cutlass on the canes and fetching the heavy bundles to be loaded onto the punts, in rain and sun. The pay from that job he handed over to his wife to run the home. She helped by cultivating a kitchen garden and rearing poultry as his mother had done.
After he returned home from the canefield he would still work on a plot of land he had been gifted by his father-in-law, where he cultivates rice. Both his jobs are labour-intensive and punitive, but he was determined that each of his children would be provided the education that he had been denied. He also sells fish he catches in the rice and canefields.

The family live frugally, saving as much of their meagre earnings as they could. They invested in no luxuries such as television sets or a refrigerator. Basic labour-saving devices such as blenders and toasters were out of the question, and only one light is used at any given time, except for rare occasions, because electricity, although necessary, has to be used sparingly. The children are encouraged to study during recess and lunch breaks at school because they had chores after school, after which they would study and complete homework at the kitchen table while their mother prepared dinner.
All the children helped their mother tend the kitchen garden and the elder boys had to help their father in the rice field after school, after which Mangru’s eldest son, Suresh, had to take the produce from the kitchen garden, and eggs if there were any, to sell from door to door.
The two girls helped their mother with the back-breaking housework, which was done using the most primitive methods.
Then came the day when Mangru, surreptitiously wiping away tears, proudly watched his son graduate from high school. His elder daughter graduated the following year.

Today, both of Mangru’s eldest children are studying at the Tain campus at the University of Guyana; but their once-bright future became uncertain and gloomy because Mangru’s job at the sugar estate was axed, Rose Hall estate was closed and many of the employees and their dependants became collateral damage.

However, Mangru was determined that his two older children would get a university education, but the choice was hard, because he had to sacrifice the education of the younger siblings. The family started to eat even more sparingly, so not only the education of the younger siblings was compromised, but their health was also jeopardised.

Mangru’s story is replicated by hundreds of families in every sugar-producing community in which the estates had been closed. Sugar workers are not paid as much as public servants, their benefits are scanty and subjected to achieving production targets, and their work is gruelling, highly labour-intensive and mainly performed in all types of weather, but they augment their incomes in many ways, with every family member contributing. However, most of them live very frugally, build homes and educate their children.

Closure of the estates severely impacted their access to sufficient disposable incomes and lessened their spending power; so, indirectly, there were thousands of householders whose income-generation depended on the spending power of the direct employees of sugar estates.
Today, hope has been re-generated and the realisation of dreams are again achievable with the re-opening of the sugar estates. One more PPP/C Manifesto promise has been fulfilled in less than 100 days in government.