Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The road is never ending. Styrofoam, plastic bottles, coke cans, carib bottles, coke bottles some with zero sugar are indicators of Guyana's development. We are now avid consumers and we can throw away anywhere. The dhal at Peter and Ruth comes in a small plastic cup - I guess it is either a throw away plastic cup or water to wash cups which can be reused. The dust rises in places where the road is not wet. There are butterflies, blue, white, yellow. Sometimes, there are flashes of bright blue and green or blue green as lizards dart across the road. We see animals darting across, two monkeys, then a powis, one or two birds, flashes of red as the red backed agouti come out and run back in, looking confused and frightened. I feel ashamed really, that this road is needed for human progress... massive safaris of trucks lorries, four by fours, minibuses, taxis, big buses , this thing called progress which leaves rubbish on the forest which no one will clean up. And frightened animals....

The first Navratri for 2010 is finshed. Thanks to the Ramayana Gole, I was privileged to visit a few mandirs . I am no devout 'keeper' of 'Navratra'. Parsad as we call it is the offering, made with ghee, flour, sugar, milk, fruits.  And no purist is going to cuss me and tell me what is the right thing. Where I come from in Guyana, it is called parsad. So I ate a lot of parsad this Navratra. I could have eaten more because there is always a lot. Some of my non-Hindu friends like parsad. One or two though.. ask first.. was this made for a puja, because even though they like parsad, they belong to religions which talk about devil food, so they have to abstain from it. There are different atmospheres in the different mandirs. Some of them are crowded, some of them are not so crowded. Some people have quieter services while others have services which feature multiple activities. I liked how the Ogle Mandir integrated the Ram Lila enactment, if only to keep the children i...

Kuch Kuch hota hai was playing and the boy and girl dancing on the screen. They had two couples in front of me lovey dovey cuddling up. Nuff HIV AIDs posters on the wall all around. 7:30am I turn up there. I see the famous Duke Lodge and I friken to walk on the catwalk where I hear plenty of the Duke Lodge revellers does urinate right here. Over de road, the Sharples house beautiful, brukka down lil bit, and de door half open an' I glad is not night time or else i would ah friken. Nobody in sight dere. The guard lady checking people paper and so on. The guard gotta mek some decision about who is who.. she ask a lady to wait because the lady married a man and did not change she name and all the papers mix up. That happen plenty in Guyana. It dont happen to man, at least not yet. Ah mean, when man start fuh marry man, den somebody name gun gotta change right? The rain sprinkling and I say, lord thank you fuh breaking El Nino but dont wet up meh visa form because I aint able do...

The woman sitting alone called over to me and told me she wanted to ask me something. I was sitting with some people who I saw just as I had come in. I was feeling weird, seeing this amount of people and wondering if I could disappear. So then the people I am talking to, I see them looking over my shoulder. So I realise they not too interested in what I am saying, is just passing time.. until some other people come and I realise, oh oh.. they done with me so now I am supposed to run over. I say excuse me and I run over to the other lady. The lady start talking to me, and after about five minutes she also looking over my shoulder to see if anybody else coming. She still aint tell me what she got to to tell me, when she smile and then she start talking to somebody she know. No "excuse me ". I am left with words in my mouth and thinking, crap.. here again. When I get up to go, the lady so no no wait wait, she got something to tell me. So I stand around looking at everybody, ...

He told me that it was important to have a good cry. I told him to come see the film at the ICC on Saturday and we were chatting about films. He said Kal Ho Naa Ho was one which had him crying. He told me it is important to have a good cry now and then. This is a guy who I have never met in person, only chatting on Facebook.  In the weirdness of semi-anonymous chatting, there are things my friend will not let out, and things that he will talk about. It has been a month of stories and people talking about things , and talking about things which they are not going to talk about. My other friend, a woman with a disability talks about having a good laugh.. let it all out. Another friend said she doing good because she is laughing at the absurdities of her life which could keep her feeling low. I don't cry, my eyes well up during some scenes in Bollywood movies, but not recently. There are things I have wanted to cry about, but somehow in the life cycle, there are more important thi...

The woman told me that she liked my tee-shirt and she laughed at me when I nearly stumbled.. I was on the seawall, huffing and puffing so could not think of something to say.. like asking her "what about the man wearing the tee-shirt." The first International Women's Day 2010 was a note by a young man that 8 March was going to be male bashing day.  No woman bashed me.  The day started with reading of the suicide of a young teacher in Lethem. It pains me to hear when young women feel that they have no hope even as they are in places to offer hope. Another young woman and I talked about depression and her sense of not wanting to survive, even as I begged her to keep writing and talking because the things she has been writing have been inspirational. So many women, regardless of their achievements are made to feel that they are less than worthy. One of the lessons from working with Help & Shelter is listening to women, and listening without prejudice. And I learnt...

Life is strange.. I had grown dependent on the running and walking on the seawall, till the knees gave up, then this week after the savannah, the back has a glitch so in this weird twist, the things I rely to keep the body in motion .. they not working so I have to find other things without cursing fate.. and i cannot drown my sorrows in ice cream.. the seawall was not so good today since I kept envying all those running and walking past me Weird things since I have come back, the mind is in a whirl of work activities to do, and things not done, but then other things which intervene about human connections and at the same time about things which I cannot do and about things which seem futile and not working. In the middle of a busy work day, my three year old nephew haul me downstairs to play.. and i spend an hour or so playing with him instead of doing work.. and I realised that it was more important and not felt guilty that I should be doing 'great' things on a Friday morn...

Grazi puts on the music and asks me if I know what it is. I know the beat, girl from ipanema and then she reminds me bossa nova and she shows me the steps to dance to it. I cannot do the steps, but I dance anyway and the french guy Jerome, laughs. I had a choice, go back to Georgetown for Phagwah or head to Boa Vista. I decided for Boa Vista much to the dismay of many who know me. I cannot explain why I like running away from Phagwah.. in 2008 Phagwah day was in the mountains behind Ocho Rios in Jamaica, and this year it will be in Boa Vista.. something to do with the bad memories around Phagwah day.. of the tensions which are there. So I walk over the Takatu Bridge, hot sun, back pack, laptop, and in good old rubber slippers. A few people wave at me as they pass. The cars are speeding. I then realise that I have not changed money, and I get a feeling that I am being robbed by the taxi driver.. but I give it to the world, things have a way of balancing out. The Hotel is dusty, din...

The moon is above, and the moonlight lights up the savannah. I could see the trails. There is no need for a torch. I am walking the Rupununi in my rubber slippers, amazing rubber slippers (after the shoes were broken) which have been with me on TV and now in the Savannah. This is the last night. We come to the road and then civilisation hits us as vehicles speed on the road. It is crazy, this place. While I had hoped to have a peaceful walk in the moonlight, the conversation was about the savannah and its uses, and why large scale agriculture was not going to be good for it, with the rivers being full of fertiliser. So.. this is the dilemma, the tension. God's country .. moonlight savannah mountains , wide sky.. under threat, always under threat and it seems, dying. The rupununi is good for the soul, well maybe the space, and the sense of freedom. Escape really. I planned this trip to run away.. but there is work, and there is my laptop with me all the time. I saw a thundersto...