Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The Satguru Bodhinatha Veylanswami (of the Himalayan Academy in his discourse in Georgetown said that we should look at all our work as God's work and not think that the day/time we are engaged in active prayer are the only times to think of God. In thinking about how exactly should I know what should be God's work, I saw this couplet by Rahman Baba "Sow flowers, so your surroundings become a garden. Don’t sow thorns;for they will prick your feet. We are all one body. Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.”    This is the first anniversary of this blog. I have made about a 100 posts in the year. Yeah I know, I aint gut wuk to do (God or devil).  I am not sure why I started this blog - I know I wanted to vent and cuss up and show off a bit - a bit of narcissism which really means as much as standing in front of the mirror speaking , or on a road corner talking while people walk past - some listening, some ignoring you and maybe if you lucky, one or two people a...

The Banks Beer flags shocked me, this was supposed to be an event organised by young people at a National venue.  I felt sick that major funds seemed to have come from liquor (despite the other sponsors).. and Banks was sharing out free liquor. There was a nice crowd, nice folk music playing, and  breeze was blowing. BravoArts had been doing fantastic promotion of their Body Art exhibition, the first of its kind in Guyana. They should be commended - this is a group of young people who have an idea and managed to mobilise resources to get that idea out. I managed to reach early and went in to see the displays. There were two models outside and I thought, oh.. one was a girl with painting on her like leather lingerie and the other a guy with GT&T colours? So I thought, oh, oh.. this is about mashramani or something.  The attendant at Castellani told me that she was glad to see new things. I went in the room and saw the displays.. models who were painted and sta...

The girl looked at me and asked if I dun - I told her she was free to go where she wanted. In spite of several years of doing public education with Help & Shelter, I always feel incompetent around the 11 to 18 age group, and especially 11 to 18 boys because the creativity required in a facilitator to keep the attention span is beyond me. Most of the adults we deal with tend to want to be in the sessions. Children are usually there because they are told to be there because 'dey gun learn someting'. The boys especially, difficult to keep attention going in an interactive session and if they would rather be somewhere else. This group was special, they are temporarily placed in care because of abusive home situations. They have faced more in their lives than most of us have faced in lifetime, so talking about rights  to a 15 year old girl who was raped by her uncle and who had an abortion and who is uncertain of her HIV status.. who the hell am I? If she wants to sleep thro...

Gaiutra Bahadur is doing research to compare the wife murders from the late 19th century amongst Indian labourers with what is happening now. She is interviewing people who have been involved in the work against domestic violence. I am answering her questions here. 1. Has there been an increase in murders and attempted murders of women by their husbands? I believe there has been, though I am not counting since I believe 1 is as bad as 20. I know that over the last 10 years I feel that there has been a drastic increase in the murders. I also believe that if the deaths from suicide of victims of domestic violence are counted, then the number would be higher. We have had some deaths which are after years of abuse and which have not been called 'murder' though neighbours and relatives believe that they are. Women have also been killed by their sons. 2. Has there been an increase in domestic violence against women more broadly? I think that there is an increase i...

 At funerals, my mind wanders and I start to fantasize about my own funeral. A woman told me she has written in her will that she does not want a particular priest to officiate.. I dare not do that because with my luck, it might be that the only person available would be the person who I do not like.. what on earth.. I am supposed to be dead, so why does it matter?  Another guy said he wanted everyone to wear white at his funeral. I do not want a funeral really, but then is not up to me, is really up to the people who might be around me at the time. I have a feeling, as I get older and more crotchety and own way.. that I will start to be deleting more and more people from my Facebook.. i mean, my life .. so that if fate has it by the time for my funeral there would not be too many people around, and the City Council or the private garbage contractors would find my body and put it in Georgetown's up to date waste disposal mechanism. On the other hand, I fantasise.. what if, ...

So the question came.  No, I replied, you deleted me.. in my head, trying to say that when I thought that we were 'friends' that you were in fact undermining my work and engaging in unhealthy communication , In fact you 'deleted' me from your list of friends. This is not the way that I would want to live or deal with people, but there is a sadness when you think you living good with people and then you realise that they have different things in mind.  In the year since I had  written about Celebrating Friendship , I have grown less patient with people and they stupidness. It has been great to see old friends grow and to know about those friendships which are dependable.. dependable in the sense that you know those people, what they like, what they dont like and that most of the conversation is laughter and that there is always an intent to nurture rather than destroy. Some people who have moved on, I let them go without any animosity and one or two I have said to ...

The Pandit asked me to take the mic to sing the Hanuman Chaalisa and I wonder if his head good.. but the guy pushed the mic in my hand. Fortunately two of the expert singers were there as well so my voice was hopefully lost in the blending. Earlier this week, relatives of Jared Peroune organised a family recital.. was amazing to watch him play, without score on the piano. Today Sunday was fascinating for my Facebook.. opened up with Flo Bourne sharing Mahalia Jackson with me and I went on youtube in search of soul.. and as youtube goes , I ended up with Nina Simone 'Aint got no.. I got life".. and then to Hayley Westenra who I had not heard for about 6 years or so. Facebook good, Ish was posting a whole set of Bollywood  tunes, and then Nanda brought up the whole thing with the Thappu drums.. something in her head. I got people posting their rap favourites on my Wall as well. Tonight, went back to celebrate a 50th birthday with bhajans and baani style Ramayana

Comrades, on the 25th Anniversary of the emancipation of the soul of Founder Leader Burnham  from this earthly existence, I take this opportunity to talk to you about what is happening while waiting for my boarding call. Some people continue to criticise my decision to sell my house, and they want to know why I am building hotel. Well, I have decided that on my frequent visits to Guyana in the future, I will have  a Presidential Suite at the hotel which would be better than having a whole house. Those of you with houses know that it is not easy to keep a house, especially if is you alone. Thank you for your concern. This Government has built more hotels than any other Government and it will be our legacy. We know that some of the hotels are being boycotted by certain funding agencies because of their imperialist colonialist stance on drug dealing and so on, but too bad for them, because our friends will use these hotels and they will make huge profits. Some of you have ...

President Jagdeo announced that he plans to give laptops to the poorest families in Guyana, spending some US30 million over the next three years. Kwesi Isles who wrote the article in Stabroek News was looking for views from IT people as to this initiative. The increased bandwidth which GT&T is now selling creates opportunities, and no doubt the President is concerned that there is no digital divide in Guyana. Some IT people, Starr Computers , Brainstreet Learning and other IT businesses are aligning themselves to take advantage of the opportunities - with Starr planning to reduce the costs of laptops, and Brainstreet Learning offering access to its virtual learning environment. Any IT person would welcome the deployment of Information Technology, and IT people in Guyana have been advocating for the increase in bandwidth. The National ICT4D strategy had a lot of support. The strategy talks about the Government's support for the US100 One Laptop Per Child initiative. There ...

Mark Rice-Oxley is a man around my age who wrote about dealing with his depression . The things he talked about are important, some of them are not easily available in Guyana like psychotherapy. The comments on the article reflect the nice range of responses.. like stupes, what you got to bother about, you aint a poor black woman with kids or you not living in floods or disaster zones, to.. good thing to open up and talk about what is happening. One thing he said was striking.. that he learned to let time pass without trying to fill it. The last few months have been hectic for me.. and by the time I got to Vienna, I was tired and thinking what the hell am I doing there when I could be better occupied doing other things. The week ended up being messy, with me wanting to quit at some point and come back to Guyana. But I persevered. The Saturday morning I left Vienna for Salzburg was cloudy. The train had electric point and I was going to plug in the laptop to be useful and then said....

I spent a lot of time in transit these last couple of weeks... and with a mostly fuzzy mind , these things just strike me. Trinidad always amazes me.. I land there and get a sense of people who are assertive.. judging from the ads on the Caribbean Airlines video, there are all kinds of things that are promoted from Trinidad.. the University, the song and dance thing, the business thing, the tourism thing - Guyana promotions are El dorado rum, and Pegasus Hotel - which has come into light recently for more interesting governance reasons, but these are not on the Caribbean Essence video. One day we gun see UG advertising on the Caribbean Airlines flight.  it make me feel more bad when the lady say that this started in PNM time and it continuing now.. so it have nothing to do with which blasted political party in power. Nuff ting wrong in TT we know, but still...NO PICTURES OF KAMLA at Piarco that I could see, and yet we got the champion of garbage city smiling in the immigrati...