< Situations and Revelations Of Passing Notice in Guyana >
Locket #3
Fyzabad and I were classmates in secondary school. He had this thing about
dogs and cats. You wouldn't catch me dead hugging a dog or petting a cat,
but Fyzabad (that was our name for him) would get angry and shout at people
throwing stones at animals.
Years later he make this big turn, and now he is this big animal protector.
I was in the gold fields trying my hand at shaking and sorting. (Actually I have big
plans: setting up an employment Agency for the gold fields; with me as Chief of
Operations; yes, man). On a trip back to the city I heard he was in trouble with
his Village Council. And I want to believe this all started with late-night cinema
shows.
Late-night weekend cinema was our schoolboy passion. It look like he never
really gave up the habit (electricity was not reliable where he lived). After
the show, while people on the road drinking and arguing, or planning nefarious
activities with guns in their cars, Fyzabad hurrying home on his bicycle, the
orange reflectors flashing on the pedals; slowing down only when he pass
animals on the public road; a stray cat, a stray dog.
He started riding with a shovel, cause some cars and minivans blasting through
the night does lick up anything that don't get out the way fast. Drivers leaving
animal carcass like tire tread strips on the road. All of a sudden he is this burial
man for hit-and-run animals.
He would stop, lean up the bicycle; scoop up the dead animal, and bury it in a
shallow grave off the road.
If you driving home on the country road late at night, and you notice somebody
digging and digging on an empty piece of land, like he find a map and he
searching for buried treasure, that was Fyzabad.
The property had to belong to the government or somebody; he never stop to
find out; wasn't worried an officer might jump out the bush and arrest him. In
the heat of the moment, in the dead of the night, he there giving these animals
a proper resting place.
Eventually he had to stop. Somebody sneak up one night and steal the bicycle;
left him right there on the road with the shovel and a crocus bag, looking round
in the dark, wondering how his bicycle could disappear just like that.
He buy another bicycle but the same person or somebody else sneak up and steal
that one too. That was how the whole late night burial business come to a halt.
I hear next that Sanita, his wife, went back to her mother with the children,
saying she tired staying in the house all day cooped up; couldn't even relax
outside in her vegetable garden.
What really distress her, and this is what start the problems with the Village
Council, was her husband's new occupation. Fyzabad was now driving round in
a van rescuing animals. In the middle of the night he out there in this van
looking for stray dog and stray cat.
He decide next to open an animal sanctuary. When I visited him he had 99
stray dogs and 31 stray cats in his backyard.
He started giving each of them names, but he had too many animals, or maybe
he run out of names; so he stop with the names. But he kept correct count and
'Date of Rescue' in an exercise book.
"These creatures are like family. Nobody want them. I taking care of them," he
told me. Then pointing with owner's pride, he said: "You see these two?
Spartacus and Shane?" He whistled, and they came over. "They show more faith
in this country than most people I know, I'm telling you." (Spartacus and Shane
were assigned front yard warning duty, to keep intruders off the property.)
People in the village were up in arms: who in their right mind would drive
around saving stray dogs? not missing pets with collars, mind you ̶ stray
dogs! This country could barely afford anything like a Dog Pound, and he
there playing big Dog Saviour.
The backyard with the mango tree and with wire mesh fencing and food
bowls and the galvanize shed was a living disgrace. It was hard to imagine a
place like this anywhere in the world.
The next door neighbors condemn it as a big health hazard; the owner not
even qualified or trained to look after animals. "He bringing these dogs from
the public road into the village, which in turn bringing down property values,"
the lady across the road was saying. "At least with chickens, they give you eggs
you could eat or sell. All we getting from his backyard is noise and smell. And
on hot windy days this place is real hell."
Fyzabad was convinced he had the only human solution to the problem: "All
they doing is complaining and complaining, they wouldn't lift a finger to take
care of these creatures. You see the people I have to live with? Hold their nose
at corruption, everywhere is corruption. Smelling to high heaven. But you
should hear how they address an honest working man like me."
I wished him all the best. I told him to be careful; do what he think is right,
what make his life start up and run every morning; but look outside every now
and then just in case somebody sneak up in the dark and thief the van while he
at the back with the dogs and the cats.
T. Sennah
Georgetown, Guyana
FARJOURNEY CARIBBEAN 