Dr Clarence Charles

In part nine of a series on the many nationalities that have made the Cayman Islands a true international melting pot, Steven Knipp takes a look at the Guyanese community.

According to official Cayman government statistics, there are nearly 300 nationals of Guyana holding work permits.

Picking a Guyanese out of a crowd, however, would be almost impossible, because this lushly beautiful South American nation of 770, 000 people is home to a richly diverse multi-racial society with no fewer than six different major ethnic groups.

Founded as a Dutch colony, it later became a British possession (known as British Guiana); the country achieved independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.

Aside from the bustling capitol of Georgetown (pop: 300,000) where some of Cayman’s international mail no doubt goes astray, Guyana has a vast rural hinterland and was once known as “the breadbasket of the Caribbean.”

Even today it grows large quantities of rice and sugar cane. The country also has regions of rainforests where eco-tourism is a growing business. Politically, this physically beautiful land has had a star-crossed history, in the past having flirted with socialism.

Acclaimed and much admired by his patients, Guyanese national Dr Clarence Charles is one of the most qualified gastroenterologists in the Caribbean, having received his medical training in Jamaica, the UK and the US.

He is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, and a Commonwealth Medical Fellow in Gastroenterology (UK).

Dr Charles first came to Cayman for five-and-a-half months in 1998. For eight years prior, he had been the director of the University of Guyana School of Medicine. And it was while on sabbatical from his post, and in private practice, that he came to work temporarily in Cayman.

He liked what he saw here and Cayman’s location was also ideal. “My wife is from Jamaica, and we had family in Atlanta, and so we thought about some place where it would be easy to attend weddings and birthday parties and graduations, and such, so Cayman was geographically an ideal midway point.”

Previously, he and his family had lived in London for a lengthy sojourn. And the family had even returned to live in Guyana for an extended period, despite the fact that the country at that time was roiled by both political and economic turmoil.

He returned with a purpose: “I wanted to give something back to my country, my society,” he said, recalling a strained time when the Guyanese capital was plagued by power outages and serious political demonstrations.

Since moving here permanently, Cayman has become a comfortable fit for Dr Charles. “In the end, I had to make a decision, for my family, for my children. Did I want my children to sometimes see violent street demos, where rubber bullets are sometimes used against non-violent protesters, every four years when elections come around?

This type of thing never happens in Cayman. In any case, for me personally, home is where I am.”

Though Dr Charles is clearly a man of science, he is also a man of strong faith. A born-again Christian, he quoted Psalm 24:1, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein” meaning that everything that happens in life depends on God.

Asked if a patient can rely on God completely, Dr Charles takes the question good-naturedly, saying, “But, of course, we all have to accept some responsibility for ourselves, for our behaviour in terms of living a healthy life.”

In addition to his devotion to God, Dr Charles is clearly a devoted family man. His wife, Janel, is the owner of a dance studio health food shop. The couple has three children: Colin, 25, who is a medical student in Atlanta; Ryan, 23, who has graduated law school and is now in London; and Elizabeth, 18, who has taken a year off before university to help her father. She has also worked as a missionary in Hong Kong, for the ‘Youth with a Mission’ organisation, and is acting in a locally made movie.

When not working, the doctor enjoys playing cricket, table tennis and chess. He also loves reading and writing. In fact, he is currently working on a novel. In addition, he loves to travel. He picks Florence, Italy as his favourite destination.

Jordana Ramsay is a Guyanese who has lived in Cayman for six months and works as an accounts executive in a marketing agency. She had previously lived here in 2004, arriving a mere four months before Ivan to work at a radio station, and so she endured the full fury of the massive storm.

“It was a very scary experience as the storm approached. I contemplated leaving for the duration but all the flights were booked. The hurricane had a devastating effect on both the people and the economy of the island,” she recalled.

The storm also forced the radio station to lay off most of their staff including Ms Ramsay. She then moved to Barbados where she worked for two years as the manager of a beachside kiosk selling specialty drinks and snacks.

After that, she returned home to Georgetown, where she was asked to take over her family’s business, a multi-service ad agency that offered a range of creative services. Unfortunately, due to a downturn in the local economy, the company had to close and so Ms Ramsay chose to return to the Cayman Islands.

Taking evident personal pride in her homeland’s embrace of various cultures, she said, “Not a lot of Guyanese look like me. The largest grouping in Guyana is the Indo-Guyanese [descendents from early immigrants from India]. And even within this group, there are Hindu and Muslim Indians, each with different cultures of their own.

“Then there are the Afro-Guyanese, which is the second largest grouping, and then there are the Portuguese. And then the Amer-Indians - that is, the original native peoples. And these people have different tribes in the remote rural areas, each with their own interesting traditions.

“Lastly, there are the Chinese, and finally, the many mixed-race people like me.”

Each of these groups has a strong cultural presence in Guyana. Ms Ramsay herself is a marvelous mixture of Portuguese, Afro-Guyanese and Amer-Indian, with a bit of Scottish tossed in. And her fiance, Kerry Gonsalves, is also a combination of Portuguese and Amer-Indian.

All these races get along remarkably well, said Ms Ramsay, “except at election time, when some ideas for development clash, but this only happens once every four years and that is mainly due to the fact that the country’s two major parties represent the Indo-Guyanese and the Afro-Guyanese communities.”