Death
12 people dead in a minibus accident . No one too sure yet what happened. But the media and the public will do their nine day shock.. there is a recent spate of deaths which we are reeling from - the girl whose parents are charged for murdering her; the baby in the car, the other child in the hospital, the women in child birth, the women being killed by men who supposed to love them, people being shot.
Lusignan was 11, Bartica was 12. The President and Cabinet ran down to those areas. However, with this minibus one.. Minister of Health only so far.
When the weapon is not an AK47, the society is not as outraged or shocked. There are reports of trauma though in this case - one woman's blood pressure raise at the horror, another man vomited apparently at what he saw, the families are in shock, one reporter apparently told her boyfriend that she is scared to go out on the road now. But no counselling here.. Guyana is like that.. we go on, Death happens in thousands of ways. There will be no prayers and so on for a peaceful Guyana.
Minibus driver and me talk about death.. gruesome deaths and deaths which happen nicely. We agree that death is inevitable, and that there are no such things as untimely deaths. So you have the people who join the minibus to go about their business. And you have the elderly Pandit who clean his mandir and who passes away as sits on the mandir steps while his wife gets some lunch for him. And the other man who cleans his house for Diwali, and goes to bed and not wake up. But the bus driver say that you cannot do anything about 19 road. It is a free way he says. So no speed bumps there. He say that drivers in Guyana no longer care.
The world media carried the Lusignan and Bartica massacres. They probably not going to pay much attention here now.
So we console ourselves.. yep, no such thing as untimely death. We got to go when we got to. However, we still do things to try to prevent death - make life more bearable and time of death predictable. We have security forces, and health systems and things like that to ensure that life should go on. The road is not supposed to be a killing field.
There are families suffering all over, their losses. Some of us who have experienced 'untimely and sudden death' of loved ones, are kind of bandaged. The traffic fines are high, and the 'raises' given to police and others to overlook fines, and so on.. are now a cost attached to living, a way of paying tax which we would otherwise not pay.
So while we accept that no death is untimely and that things should be left as they are. .. A lot of us travel on those new roads and celebrate the time it takes to get from one point to another. We know of death .. but we say.. well if we gah fuh guh, we gah fuh guh. Some might ask the driver to slow down, others would say no. This accident though, they say was not speed. We will hear what happened. Though one wonders, if it would matter or change anything. I see my facebook friends talking about some all black party somewhere.. yep, Halloween, ghouls, ghosts, jumbie.. let us all celebrate!
Lusignan was 11, Bartica was 12. The President and Cabinet ran down to those areas. However, with this minibus one.. Minister of Health only so far.
When the weapon is not an AK47, the society is not as outraged or shocked. There are reports of trauma though in this case - one woman's blood pressure raise at the horror, another man vomited apparently at what he saw, the families are in shock, one reporter apparently told her boyfriend that she is scared to go out on the road now. But no counselling here.. Guyana is like that.. we go on, Death happens in thousands of ways. There will be no prayers and so on for a peaceful Guyana.
Minibus driver and me talk about death.. gruesome deaths and deaths which happen nicely. We agree that death is inevitable, and that there are no such things as untimely deaths. So you have the people who join the minibus to go about their business. And you have the elderly Pandit who clean his mandir and who passes away as sits on the mandir steps while his wife gets some lunch for him. And the other man who cleans his house for Diwali, and goes to bed and not wake up. But the bus driver say that you cannot do anything about 19 road. It is a free way he says. So no speed bumps there. He say that drivers in Guyana no longer care.
The world media carried the Lusignan and Bartica massacres. They probably not going to pay much attention here now.
So we console ourselves.. yep, no such thing as untimely death. We got to go when we got to. However, we still do things to try to prevent death - make life more bearable and time of death predictable. We have security forces, and health systems and things like that to ensure that life should go on. The road is not supposed to be a killing field.
There are families suffering all over, their losses. Some of us who have experienced 'untimely and sudden death' of loved ones, are kind of bandaged. The traffic fines are high, and the 'raises' given to police and others to overlook fines, and so on.. are now a cost attached to living, a way of paying tax which we would otherwise not pay.
So while we accept that no death is untimely and that things should be left as they are. .. A lot of us travel on those new roads and celebrate the time it takes to get from one point to another. We know of death .. but we say.. well if we gah fuh guh, we gah fuh guh. Some might ask the driver to slow down, others would say no. This accident though, they say was not speed. We will hear what happened. Though one wonders, if it would matter or change anything. I see my facebook friends talking about some all black party somewhere.. yep, Halloween, ghouls, ghosts, jumbie.. let us all celebrate!
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