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Don Gomes for Mayor of Georgetown.

In Guyana , there is a concerned patriotic Guyanese by the name of Don Gomes, this gentleman has been waging a one man battle to turn this city into a better place for everyone, to bring Georgetown back to it's former glory.

Georgetown was once called the "Garden City", now it's easier to simply call it the Garbage city. Don Gomes returned to his homeland a few years ago after spending a number of years in Canada and he has been taking the fight to those who throw their garbage wilding around the city, he has spent much of his own money to improve the area where his optical service is located on Brickdam in Georgetown. I spent a few hours with Don as he took me for a tour of his neighborhood. The photos below shows the compassion and love that this one of a kind Guyanese has for his country.

 
I passed by Don Gomes to see how he was doing, even though his office was flooded out, he still in a good mood as usual. He took me for a walk to show me the reason for the flooding around Georgetown Water almost level with South road equals to the kokers being closed. Soon Don found some help to assist in removing the plastic bottles and food boxes from the gutter This crazy chap was taking his morning bath in the South road canal.
Gomzie then decided to clean the Cummings St canal and pick up the bottles there by hand as well. We went to the real source of the flooding, a totally block alleyway on Cummings St Even though the city council claims to have spent 50 million dollars cleaning the city, I doubt that they worked here. Residents claims that this alleyway has not been cleaned in over 5 years We moved to a second alley way a bit further up Cummings St, this one as well was clogged and dirty.
Gomzie organises and some self help work is started. Soon residents pitched in, these ladies got their hands dirty in the process. This helper pulling out the bushes that has overtaken the alleyway. Gomzie was not afraid to get his hands dirty  as well. This is how the alley looked after a while, maybe the city council will now be embarrassed into doing some real work around the city?
 

Completion of the project 1, phase 2.
 

We returned to the Cummings St alleyway project a few days later to see the completion of Don Gomes's self help work. With assistance from a team of City Council's workers, the project was completed much to the approval of residents in the area.

 Persons passing along either Cummings Street or Orange Walk can now have an unobstructed view from either side. This is just a small indication of the power of one human being, it shows that the fight to save Georgetown from being totally overtaken by garbage and grass is not yet lost and that there is still some hope left. Maybe it is time that we think of asking Don Gomes to become the Mayor of Georgetown, he just might be the guy who can turn this garbage infested place back into the "Garden City" once more.
This is how the alleyway looked when I got here for phase 2 this alleyway was not cleared in some 6 years and it shows. Looking in from the Orange Walk side   This huge pile of debris was only part of the stuff that was taken out.
Don diving into his pockets to buy refreshments for the workers. Taking a snack break Discussing the work with a rep of the Georgetown, City Council Back to work Don making access to the alleyway, the brutal way :-)
Here Don is caught twisting the arm of a man who threw garbage into the alley :-)  just kidding, actually he was helping the guy to pull something out of the gutter. Crew workers had a hard time getting to where the tougher work was. A man of action, Gomzie got into the thick of things as well. A bit better than before. The alleyway is now starting to look clear.
This is now the view from Orange walk And this is the view from Cummings St Admiring a job well done. A resident of Cumming St says thank you to Don Gomes for his work. A before and after shot of the alleyway.