We are ignoring a national treasure

Jun 28, 2009 Features / Columnists, My Column

By Adam Harris
For the past few months I have been focusing on one woman. I met her 13 years ago when she was sprightly. As now, the rains were here but in greater intensity. The place she called home was flooded but that meant nothing to her. It was her birthday and a special one at that. She was 100.
When I met her she was all spruced up awaiting the guests because the home where she stayed had invited all and sundry as is often the case for centenarians. I was one of the invitees.
If I expected a somewhat feeble and demented woman I was wrong. I learnt that she had just carted two pails of water up the stairs to take a bath and that she was capable of doing everything for herself.

As is the wont of every reporter, I wanted to know as much of this woman as I could. She told me that she had grown up in Charlestown and that she never really knew her father. Precious little changes because a century before that day men were still the philandering type. They planted their seed and moved on.
The woman told me that she went to school at a convent, that as a young girl she was never allowed to have a boyfriend. I asked her about her sex life and got a smile, not that she was the shy type but she had grown up in an age when women never spoke about sex. Suffice it to say that she never bore a child.
She is 113 years old now and when last I heard, she was now not feeling well. For three years I tried to get the Guinness Book of World Records to take notice of this woman and I seemed to be getting nowhere. This year a door opened because one of the people who monitors the age of people above 110 contacted me. My day was made.

Of course they want verification and with the help of two people at Kaieteur News, we are providing the information. The man said that if her age is authenticated this woman, Matilda Lewis will be the 13th oldest person in the world.
There are six billion people on this earth and to be 13th must be an achievement. Parents throw parties for their children when they are in the top10 of a class of 30; University students go wild when they finish in the top half of a class of a few hundred.
I have been meeting her ever since and recently she lost her sight but she is taking life in stride. She is my treasure and I want to believe that she is a national treasure. But sadly enough, the nation seems not to be paying any special attention to this woman. Just the other day when the oldest man in the world died, and he was a little older than Matilda Lewis, the British were quick to claim the title. In Guyana, few people are aware of this woman and that is an indictment.

Priya Manickchand was there for her birthday this year; President Bharrat Jagdeo was out of the country. Matilda remembers him though. She described him as a handsome young man.
I expected the country to take care of this treasure but I cannot say that this is happening. I expect the government to cater for her every medical need up to the point of having a doctor check her round the clock (I don’t mean every day). I expect social organisations to pamper her but they do not because they are probably unaware of her existence. I do not expect them to read the newspapers and spring into action because these days we have become a selfish lot. We mind our own business.

However, the government cannot claim selfishness and more so, it is to the credit of the country that it can have a person living for so long. Something other than the genes must be at work.
The man who promised to bury her and who put everything in place for her funeral “because she has no one” died earlier this year. He was there for her birthday last year and that was when he told me. The man, Rev. Oswald Best, said that he even left instructions for his sons to execute his plans if he happened to predecease her.
I now ask Priya, my friend and a respected social service person, to pay special attention to Matilda. She does need much and surely you can manage Priya.
And President Jagdeo, you must visit her because she would dearly love to meet you although she cannot see you now. You can do a lot for her because she is doing more than anyone can imagine for this country by merely being alive.

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