Many still hearing call of Guyana

“The only things that are keeping us away from that country are the crime and the politics,” said Ayube Hanif, who left Guyana 28 years ago when the country’s executive president began to rule the country increasingly harshly. According to the U.S. Department of State, human rights and civil liberties were suppressed, and the president orchestrated two major political assassinations.

Hanif was one of many who said the autocratic government left the country with such serious problems that immigrants don’t dare return, even though the country in 2006 held its first nonviolent elections in nearly 20 years.

“I’m more safe here,” said Ryan Mohamed, who owns El Dorado Bar on Crane Street. “In Guyana, life was tough in terms of politics.”

He left home at age 25, during the worst years of the autocracy, sneaking under a fence from Canada to get into this country. He

got his citizenship after returning to Canada for one weekend and then entering the United States legally.

For 27 years, he has been happy here, he said.

“Stability is good here,” he said. “But the lifestyle, the day-to-day social life . . . ”

For that, he said, Guyana is a far better place to live.

An effusive welcome by former mayor Al Jurczynski has brought more than 3,000 Guyanese from New York City to Schenectady, where they have been praised for renovating whole blocks of the city’s crumbling housing stock. But they insist they still haven’t put down roots.

“Listen, who want to live in cold climate?” Hanif said. “Crime [in Guyana] is all that’s keeping us here.”

Until then, they’re content to live here.

“I won’t go back to live unless the country gets better,” said Parbatie Mohabeer, who owns an ethnic grocery store on Crane Street. “They’d have to build the roads . . . I think I made the right decision. But I was happier in Guyana.”

Mohabeer still hasn’t gotten her citizenship, although she’s lived in the United States since 2001. She says she’s going to — someday. But she’s clearly conflicted.

“Here you can afford to have your own house, your own car,” she said. “But Guyana — it’s better over there in some ways.”

She’s not alone in her hesitation. Bharath Arjoon is so torn between his homeland and his chosen country that he has houses in both places.

“I go in between,” he said.

After leaving Guyana in 1974, he became a U.S. citizen, a veteran and a Schenectady homeowner. But he returned to Guyana four years ago to build a $100,000 retirement house in the tropical, watery country.

He says he won’t live there full-time because his children get a much better education here and he has access to better medical care.

“I’ve got medical issues. I need to stay here,” he said.

Still, he said, the longing to go home is always present.

“If there’s improvement . . . ” he began, before shaking his head and saying dismissively, “It’s never going to happen.”

Even so, the country has improved enough that he enjoys spending months there every year. “It’s more relaxing. There’s no stress,” he said, trying describe why he’s drawn back to his homeland. “When you wake up here, you have your whole day planned out for you. In Guyana you have a lot of flexibility. If job says 9 o’clock, you go in at 9:30, even in government offices.”

But that’s also why he believes the country will never improve.

“It’s too relaxed. You need services,” he said. “You can dial 911 but that doesn’t mean someone’s going to come. . . . They’re like in the 19th century.”

It was the only time he referred to the Guyanese as “they” in the entire interview. Only a sentence later, he was identifying with them again, as he said, “Technologically, we behind times.”

Even his 7-year-old daughter has picked up on the lackadaisical culture in her ancestral land. When asked if she would like to live there, she nodded enthusiastically.

“It’s nice and hot and relaxing,” Anita Arjoon said. “And you don’t have to work there.”

Her father huffed.

“I would like her to stay here and pursue her studies and be successful,” he said, but added that he has no real worries that she may move to Guyana permanently. His teenage sons aren’t at all interested.

“One of them won’t even go back there,” he said. “You make the money here, you’re used to a higher standard of lifestyle. You go there, you can’t maintain that standard of lifestyle. You have to cut out a lot of things.”

That lifestyle may be why nearly every younger Guyanese interviewed for this story said they have no intention of spending the rest of their lives in a developing country.

Many of the Guyanese who fled when their government turned autocratic three decades ago have children who are nearly grown. If the family leaders go back home someday, they said they may have to leave their children behind.

Nehru Mahabir’s teenage children have only been in the United States for three years, but already they are here to stay, even though their father wants to go home.

“If things improve, I would go,” Mahabir said. “I still want to go back now. My country’s great. I’d love to go back . . . but they don’t want to go back.”

Guyana, which is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, has few high-paying jobs. Many residents wind up making less than the minimum wage, according to the U.S. Department of State.

And conditions can be primitive, according to the State Department. Planes must be used to get to much of the interior. Where there are roads, traffic lights are often ignored. Even in Guyana’s capital city, the water system cannot be trusted because decaying animal carcasses are periodically discovered in the water supply.

Many children of Guyanese immigrants said it’s just too hard to make a living in Guyana. “It sounds easier here for me,” said Angela Megnath, 21, who came here with her family five years ago. “I don’t think I want to go there.”

But some still hold out hope that they can return to their birthplace.

“This is my home, but all my traditions, everything is Guyanese,” said Unus Zaman, who immigrated here at age 9. “If Guyana is better, definitely I go back to Guyana.”

Now an adult, he has two children, ages 13 and 14. They would be a little more resistant to the move, but he shrugged off their concerns.

“They’d adjust,” he said, adding that he lived in three countries before he turned 13. “I’m accustomed to the American lifestyle, that’s the problem. Driving around with a fancy car. But the only reason we’re here is because of the crime and the security there. Guyana was a beautiful country. We don’t need to be here.”

Share story: