Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Time Friday afternoon after I say right, let me pretend that I am in a modern progressive city and walk to relieve the stress from the difficult workshop which had to deal with geopolitics, gender-based violence and the powerlessness felt by Guyanese when dealing with 'outside' forces and local politicians. Lamaha Street with the fancy courtyard where the train station once stood, but no real pavement as these things go.  School children coming down laughing as they do, jostling each other. Some with umbrella to protect from sun.  Group comes up near me and I prepare for what I think is normal to allow them to get into single file and pass. The youths , the leaders of tomorrow like the leaders of today don't make room though.. determined not to break up their formation and collaboration and their unity,  they push me aside.. one girl shouts 'Uncle.. dis is nah time fuh you deh pon de road.. "  I manage to step out of their way and hope that no vehicle would als...

  Writing to the photograph   May Day in Guyana and the woman in 1979 Paris is lying in bed looking at me with a half smile . One hand is on her stomach and the other hand is behind her head. I am typing up with others from around the world on Zoom to answer "Why did you choose this photograph? What does it evoke for you? What does it remind you of?"  We are facilitated by author Julián Delgado Lopera who is leading the Writing Club at Home: On Intimacy organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.   Clock is ticking and I start typing up something and editing and so on. I am typing here because I do not want to be typing up on the blank documents which relate to work things - complex workshops, letters, emails, notes. And personal things like the deep journal - easier to write to a photograph from 1979 than to write to myself about myself. Day before, I sat in another Medium Writer Circle, with people around the world and writing Fiction. Deciding wher...

Tomato jubilee Man weeding the yard said look you have a tomato plant near the gutter and I said okay, not going to touch it, let me leave it, throw lil water on it.  Seeds from other tomatoes grown in other parts of Guyana (I try not to buy Brazil tomatoes but I not sure.. )settle in the sediment of the gutter which then generate at the side.  I am in awe even though last time the tomatoes dried up before they ripened and then the plant dried up   I have zero expectations when anything grows in the yard.  Tomatoes in the market were 600GYD a pound and visitors who live in other countries with rising prices keep asking me, why are prices so high in Guyana (even as they are high in other places)?  It is not as though we are further from the Strait of Hormuz than anyone else.  I don't know myself but as the nation which I am part of but feel apart from talks about Diamond Jubilee for the Independence and I see that it seems the Government has organis...

Section of Birth of Kaieteur by Ohene Koama (2024)   Unknown   The entrance to the gallery frames a piece with orange overtones and some bright circles. There is no label. I thought maybe that it was a deliberate act of the artist. I asked and it seems the organisers of the Burrowes School of Art 50th Anniversary exhibition at Castellani House could not find the information.  Was the information lost in the web created by the insecurity of the leaders who cannot trust their technical staff ?   There is no catalog, and nothing really which says anything about the story of the ER Burrowes School of Art, which perhaps says a lot about Guyana 2026. (The linked news article has more information) Unknown here probably linked to the oil flowing over the past, seeming to wipe out history and limiting how history and culture are important as we actually move through this unknown future created by oily wealth derived from killing girls and adults in Iran and which is g...

  Passion Fruit Walk in the market and see apples for GYD100 each and a young woman with a tub of passion fruit. I ask her how much and she doesn't turn around as she tells me 5 for GYD1000 .. she leaves me to pick out the five because I think passion fruit is good for me, and that a passion fruit a day has benefits like an apple a day though the way things are in Guyana.. it seems like is foreign things, things imported from outside are cheaper, and so economically better (even for rich people like me) than things from Guyana  Bus driver says 'dis guvament is stupid' as the bus with people from different origins laughing and celebrating the wheelbarrow of coins which one friend take to pay his other friend costs a few weeks ago. 'New Wheelbarrow..' Does the guvament care that locally grown passion fruit is more expensive than imported apples? Do people care anymore? 1616 to 1966 to 2026 1616 - the Dutch come and found Essequibo  1966 - British Guiana turn Guyana...

     The Dog  Pete is one of the rescue dogs at Hope for Animals Inc in Lusignan and he comes and jumps up on me and I do this kind of fake embrace to say nice to meet you but don't come too close because I am not one of those people who love love love dogs and cats and animals.    But many dogs and some cats don't really seem to care and in my self-righteous way I think okay since they say that animals know nice people and so,  then I must be a nice person then and this picture could be used to get votes and so on when I run for President.   Two visitors from France who love animals, both vegetarian for animal rights, said yes to going up to Lusignan.  Big smiles and watery eyes when they met some of the animals which Genevieve "Judy" Beepat single-handedly cares for - over 50 dogs and over 50 cats. Judy knows their names, histories, personalities I am a bit nervous as I wonder if any of them would attack me given some of their ...