Letter to the Editor | Week 3, Lesson 1 | Grade 9
Letter to The Editor
But first, let me tell you a story.
Last week friday, I was in New Amsterdam to buy some textbooks. After I bought what I needed and, walking back down N/A stelling road to the bus park, I decided to go visit an old friend of mine. Her snackette was located close to the stelling itself.
When I used to go to High School, my friends and I would be at her snackette every afternoon, rain or shine. The food was great, the place was well kept and always busy. Aunty Jenny and her husband ran that snackette and bar and they are very nice people.
This was during the time the Pontoon was operating, this big, long ferry that would be packed every morning and afternoon with school children from Multi, BHS, and NATI. This pontoon and the presence of so many school-going customers kept all the businesses alive and prosperous down that stelling road.
Flash forward to 2020, the boats have stopped carrying passengers between Rosignol and New Amsterdam, stelling road gets less traffic, the flow of people that more than 15 individual businesses had relied on - slowed to a trickle.
When I visited Aunty Jenny and looked at the place where some of the best times I had occurred, I was saddened. Her snackette was still there, the family was still there, but they had to make a lot cuts to their spending. She managed to stay open, but the pandemic's lockdowns and rules against people gathering meant that some days, the food she made to sell - barely moves. If it wasn't for the money she had saved up, she said, she would have not been able to pay the bills.
She was lucky to be still open, she told me, smaller snacketts and businesses had closed down and the mangrove trees and vines slowly took over the buildings they left behind.
You must be wondering why I am telling you this story. You see, I was angry at the government for the way it handles public transportation facilities like the ferry services and stellings; It lets them fall to ruin. Then the pandemic restrictions made it so that the boats no longer carry any passengers between Rosignol and New Amsterdam. The business of stelling roads on both sides of the berbice river have been especially impacted by the steep drop in customers because of these two factors combined.
Today's topic is "Letters to the Editor". In Guyana, people write letters to the editor to have them published in the News Papers. They may write to complain about a problem in their community, or a problem they experienced personally - like a robbery. You can also write a letter to bring attention to an event, or just to respond to something you saw in the newspapers before.
When I got home from New Amsterdam, I wanted to write a letter to the Editor of Kaieteur News. In my letter I would talk about what I experienced and learnt from the people who live and work down Stelling Road. This letter would be received and published in a future edition of the Kaieteur News, and hopefully be read by some important person/government official. The goal of writing letters like this is that, when people read it they learn something and are inspired to help fix the situation.
If you ever want to get your views heard, or want to let the public know about some problem that has been affecting you/your community (police harassment/clogged drains/bad roads/etc), you can write a polite letter in standard english to the editor of any news paper in the country; and yes the letters can be sent over E-mail.
This image shows a sample of a Letter in the May 18th edition of Kaieteur News - Notice the email address in the top right corner.
In the letter above the writer wants to tell you about something he thinks is important. He is explaining that he, the president of the Region #3 Chamber of Commerce, is supporting the clearing of mangroves. He says that he knows that Mangroves are important to protect the coast, but that the Oil company that is clearing the trees to build a shore base will make sure to build protective structures to prevent the flooding that may occur because the mangroves are gone. Mr. Khan supports the building of the shore base because he believes that the jobs will be created that are more important than the loss of a section of Mangrove.
This letter is written in what is called "Block Style", with the address, greeting, body, and salutations / signature all lined up on the left hand margin.
The body of the letter is split into 3 main parts:
The introduction to the problem and the people involved (paragraph ends at the words "sea defence")
The development, which takes the form of a response to the problem and makes the FIRST point explaining how the problem (cutting down the mangroves) is not actually that bad.
The conclusion which talks about how the problems you may get from cutting down the mangroves are less than the benefits of the Oil Shore Base.
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