One interior region is making a conscious effort not to be affected by the disturbances in the city, especially in the education sector. Regional Chairman Senor Bell said residents and teachers of Region Eight (Potaro/Siparuni) took this decision because it is felt that the interior region hardly benefits from any protest actions by their coastland counterparts.
In the area of education, Bell pointed out during a recent interview with Stabroek News, that teachers in Region Eight continued to work, despite a call to down tools during March, from the Guyana Teachers’ Union.
The reason for this, he said, was because “Indians [meaning Amerindians], especially those in the smaller communities, travel two, three hours to go to school every day... two/three hours in the morning and two/three hours in the afternoon. And if the school is closed, automatically the Indians from the village would take their children and go further down in the woods. You wouldn’t see them back.”
Bell said if the teachers had struck, then the residents would have had no way of knowing when the strike was called off.
“You wouldn’t get these children to come back to school. The residents take the children for fishing and farming... that is what they live on... subsistence farming, and a little mining. So the minute school closes, if it is one day or two days, they have that opportunity to do their hunting,” the Regional Chairman told this newspaper.
As such, he said all the teachers made a conscious decision to keep the children in school. And the educators, many of whom, like him, are natives of the region, understand the situation.
But the other factor, Bell said, was that interior teachers do not benefit financially.
“Even though the teachers in the city strike, whenever they get through with whatever they have requested, it still is inadequate for the interior teachers, because their salary is the same and the cost of living is two or three times more. When a pound of chicken might sell in the city for $150 wholesale, it sells in [the interior] shop at $350-$400 a pound, depending on the distance of the shop from the airstrip. Sugar is $170 per pound... and these interior teachers now have to live off their $20,000-$30,000. When they would strike in the city for a $20 raise on a bus fare, the airlines would raise $10,000 and $20,000. So the interior teachers feel it more, but they are trying to keep things going. When the city is getting on with their confusion, the interior people don’t cry. Where will they picket?” Bell queried.
It was because of this and the recent problems in the mining sector, which resulted from the bridge blockade at Linden that prompted Bell to approach the government again to open the Bartica/ Potaro Road.