More than 50 Guyanese pensioners resident in Barbados turned up last Saturday when the Guyana Consulate held its first tea party for that country’s elderly who have made their home in the island.
Styled a ‘Tea Party with Rum Punch’ and held at the Consulate’s Harbour View House in Highgate Park, Collymore Rock, the open-air affair for these Guyana senior citizens was an occasion for much laughter as, with the help of Guyanese music from decades back, folks reminisced on time back in their homeland.
Some 8,000 Guyanese nationals have registered with the consulate their presence in Barbados as residents, and of those there are to date 100 persons over the age of 60 who make up a growing number of seniors regularly attending the office of the Guyana representative to have their life certificates signed in order to collect National Insurance Service pensions.
Consul General Cita Pilgrim said her consulate came up with the idea of the tea party as a way of thanking the elderly Guyanese because they “had contributed in many ways to Guyana.”
Special gifts were handed to some of these Guyanese who stood out in different ways including the oldest female pensioner, 90-year-old Ismay Hawker; oldest male pensioner, Lloyd Hugh, 85 years; and first pensioner to uplift a life certificate since the Consulate’s opening in 2012, Elva Hall, 85 years.