Dear Editor,
A dictator saved my life by helping me get to America.
I thank God for the dictator President in Guyana. If Guyana never had a dictator as President, I would have never had the opportunity to go to America.
Let me tell you my story. I remember it like it was yesterday, even though it happened decades ago.
My aunt came from America to visit our family. I was 13, poor, hungry, suffering and a school dropout.
Living in the most horrific conditions and in a dangerous village, Albouystown. When my aunt took one look at us, eight hungry belly children suffering from profound malnourishment, she wept, wept and wept some more, for what seemed like a lifetime.
When she looked into our eyes, she saw death and hopelessness. We looked like Ethiopia’s refugees during the famine: Big bellies. Big head. Fine feet. Skeleton. Skins and bones.
On that awful day in that dirty village, my aunt was moved with compassion to rescue us from a life of profound poverty to take us to America.
We no longer had to beg for food. We no longer walked without shoes. We no longer went to bed hungry. We no longer had to eat rice (dog) flour.
Suddenly, we began to have hope. We wanted to live and not die. We felt someone cared. We felt loved. We started thinking and dreaming about the future. We were living dead, and we didn’t realize it. We began to come alive. We were walking dead. No hope. Life was not worth living.
Shortly after, we were living in the land of the free and free from the dictator. Free from fear. Free from poverty. Free at last.
Today, I thank God for that dictator President. Had it not been for his cruel and inhume leadership, I would not have made it out of Guyana.
Decades later, in 2024, I am working with children in a small village on the East Bank, near Mocha, call Barnwell North which is less than 10 miles from Georgetown. I see these children in that village living that said life I lived growing up and my heart breaks for them.
Put simply, life hasn’t changed for children in Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Anthony Pantlitz
