Thoughts of a minibus traveller

(L - Extract of projection on Petroglyph 1 by Maharanie Jhillu, R  - Detail from Into the Jungle by Chris Bissessar (artists' hand) ) Light "What do you think about it?" asked Akash Bridgemohan - Project Coordinator and Engineer of Immersion:Into the Jungle  , We were in the dark room, place hot.  He had played the video which resulted in light dancing along the frames and lines of the three pictures on the wall, and images on the box and in the frame. The pencil drawing of a jaguar turned into different colours. Blue light moved on the petroglyph, eyes following. There was audio which I did not hear the first time, because eyes on the light. I did not know what to expect. There were brown curtains on the door, and this jute rope saying 'no entry'. Akash Bridgemohan explained the process of projection mapping and the details of the work involved. And asked for feedback.  This kind of accountability, and interaction is precious now. A man had sent me the Stabroek ...

 Hugs "Give auntie a hug" the woman told her child.  He was wearing a Christmas crown and had a big smile as he hugged auntie, Lina. Lina had a sign with Free Hugs and was calling out Free Hugs to people walking on the pavement. Another woman told her ward to go and hug Lina. Some people walked , did not look or gave sideways glance like when you looking and not making eye contact. Some people walked past, changed their minds and walked back and hugged. Others collected books and hugged, others collected books and didn't hug. I was not giving free hugs. I had the 'free books' sign as a shield in front of me.  Another time a man had come up behind me and given me a big hug on Main Street. Then asked me for a hundred. I gave him the hundred , and he didn't hug me again. One man said .. " Free Books, this is good , books are knowledge".  He took an autobiography from a white male survivor of fraternity hazing and violence. We talked a bit, he hugged L...

Extracts from Left Morning on the River by Cosmata Lindie; right top - Toco Toucan: Psychosis Series by Roberto Teekah; Right bottom Golden Sun by Elodie Cage Smith Komorebi (木漏れ日) Rickeisha Perreira stands on dry bamboo leaves in front of blue butterflies and reads her poem Komorebi.  She explains that Komorebi is a Japanese word meaning 'sunlight leaking through the trees'.   The room is bright,  but the work around features different amounts of sunlight related to the jungle. We are at Immersion:Into the Jungle  ,   the jungle represented by 35 different artists.   The jungle imagined with jaguars, different birds, not too many people, rivers, waterfalls , plants , snakes, underwater, above ground , dark, light, flowers. And the experience of looking at Morning on the River and standing up and imagining what it would be like coming down the river watching the deer watching the people. The painting kind of draws you in,  but I woul...

    Katahar seed "I have breadnut seed, you want? the man asked me.  Sun cooling down, Kumaka Santa Rosa on Friday afternoon. Some stalls setting up for the Saturday market.  Last place I expected to hear breadnut seed and thinking that I never really hear anybody in Guyana call katahar.. breadnut. I had come over to check out the oranges. A whole set of oranges spread over the stall. And some other packs of small vials - 'thing for pain.. all kind of pain'. I had asked for one orange. He had peeled for me, one with a rough skin.  I was to make sure the outside of the rind did not come into contact with my mouth as I sucked out the juice. "Breadnut.. you mean katahar ?".. I asked him with orange juice at the side of my mouth and on my fingers .. 'is where you get katahar seed from.. how your katahar get to ripen, when everybody say it scarce." Katahar lil scarce and price gone up and so. People always asking where have, and peeling and frying and freezin...

Denisse Tramolao , CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons Red Shoes on the seawall  "You know this violence getting worse, this place getting more violent" the teacher told me as we ate ice cream on the seawall. There is a nice breeze, not too cool, and ice-cream was cooling. We were watching on a bit, far from the  The Women and Gender Equality Commission and Civil Society National Reference Group hosted a Red Shoe event on the Kingston Seawalls on 25 November, 2024 as part of activities to commemorate the 16 Days of activism against gender-based violence. In 2 009, Mexican artist Elina Chauvet   created an installation of red shoes- zapotos rojas- to remember Mexican women who were killed in Juárez, Mexico. Since then the event has been replicated in other countries as part of the activism against gender-based violence. In the minibus to the seawall, driver was playing music where DJ was talking about battyboy and how he not into violence but self defence (against battyb...

Watching India from far "Why don't you want to come to India. how can you not want to see India.. aren't you Indian"? the man asks and texts me after. 2am where he is in India as he is home for the wedding of a lover. He is tired and emotional  so I try to tell him.. look, I don't need to go to India, India comes to me.  Modern  India with its sophisticated foreign policies has been embedded in Guyana long after the first indentured immigrants came.  Modern India with Bollywood and other things pushing 'Indian clothes' and 'Indian culture' which means consumption of Indian goods and services , far away.. I don't need to apply for the visa to go. And even if there were no prominent political visits after Indira Gandhi, India has contributed education, technical assistance, cultural connections, money and many other things to Guyana. The man does not understand my not wanting to visit India.. His residence and income are in the Middle East, and h...