Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The young woman told me ".. a nd another thing, you are cute.. if you were ugly I would have been distracted by wondering why you so ugly" Due to some cosmic irony, fate has pushed me in the direction of getting invovled in doing training - mostly around domestic violence and child abuse prevention. Irony because I am inherently anti-social and do not like 'public speaking'; my preference is to avoid socialising with any group which has more than three persons. My inability to manipulate my karma has resulted in facing the challenge to find ways of animating so that people could learn the content.  Pedagogy has all kinds of styles.. and I think that the massa style.. wild cane, rote, examination , ridicule .. has prevented us from thinking of other ways of teaching and learning.  I was fortunate though that in the learning for the work to be done with Help & Shelter, the facilitators and trainers all used participatory methods and encouraged full interactio...

V E R Y VERY S E C R E T - DO N O T L E AK  EL DORADO 0000000000000 SUBJECT: APPRECIATION SCRUTINY REF: A. EL DORADO non B. ELDORADO  sens Classified By: [This is a complex case and we have added another agent on this matter. We need a code name which is not used often, a name which would reflect the national identity, the rarity, the cultural heritage of El Dorado. Political Officers Cassava Ball and  Sour have joined with Konkie. Konkie has put her long blond hair in dreadlocks and befriended a taxi driver and a minibus driver so has good intelligence networks] Classification :  DO NOT LEAK : for no apparent reason.  1. (C) SUMMARY : The Embassy has been puzzled by the 'Appreciation' being planned for the Supreme Leader/Champion/President. We have received invitations and seek advice on whether we should attend.END SUMMARY 2.  (C) The Embassy received an unmarked package of invitations and VIP banners for an Appreciation Day. We scanned th...

V E R Y VERY S E C R E T - T O P OF THE L I S T FOR L E AK I N G EL DORADO 0000000000000 SUBJECT: EMBASSY REACTS TO CABLE LEAKS REF: A. EL DORADO abc B. ELDORADO  xyz Classified By: Political Officers Cassava Ball and Sour for no apparent reason.  1. (C) SUMMARY : The Embassy was caught off guard by the recent leaks. .  Then we understood. Some officers are annoyed because they would have liked to have had a say in which ones to leak . The officers are also annoyed because there has been a backlash END SUMMARY 2. (C) Our switchboard operator has had to deal with irate calls from people in Georgetown who are upset for various reasons. a) Some people are offended that after providing real information to our spies that their names are not listed in the cables. They did not realise that our spies wanted gossip or else they would have provided gossip. Some people would like us to issue the new cables and leak them with their names so that they could become fa...

This if for Iana, who said  " Have no idea why i waited so long to read your blog...great stuff! I feel good about still being here because people like you, "still deh hay"  and for Samantha who said that there is "real good stuff to be found here". This is the 200th post on the blog. A year ago , I wrote on the 100th anniversary that All work should be God's work.. , and that the intent of writing should be to try to lift conversations and open up some space for dialogue and also try to add Guyanese voices to the blogosphere. There are some great writers in Guyana, but they are busy and I wish that they would also find a way to write their own blogs and to own them.  After reading Arshilata , I mourned that the Guyana Prize winners again seemed to be mostly no longer living in Guyana. I look forward to a time when writers who live in Guyana would be publishing in Guyana.  We cannot forget how people like Edgar Mittleholzer and JW Chinapen published ...

Arshilata - a small quilt (kantha) made from discarded saris and loungis used to wrap mirrors or toilet articles ed. Niaz Zaman, Published 2007 writers.ink, Bangladesh God is good and every now and then, a brilliant book comes my way by accident. I have not been reading the book club books due to time, but this book had me. This is a book of 20 short stories written by women from India and Bangladesh. Some were written in English, others are beautifully translated from their original Bangla, Urdu, Telegu, Marathi, Malayalam and Oriya. The nuances of language might have been lost in translation, but the impact is still the same. The stories are about women and girls, in different circumstances and doing different things. One of my bookclub members from time to time says things like 'this is not true, this is incredible, this is not how people behave' but that is the importance of telling stories to share other truths and fantasies of the truths. In Make-up Box , Malli...

A lot of us are fascinated by  what the US Embassy wrote about Guyana ,. The Wikileaks revelations are telling us about the US concerns about the appointment of Commissioner Greene, about the death threats against public officials, about the opinions on matters. The cables are from 'intelligence' officials and funnily enough, they do not say anything new.. they reflect all the rumours which rumble around Georgetown. The US Embassy reported all the gossip as it happened in Georgetown it seems. I blame Burnham for my inherent suspicions of the American, British and Canadian Governments and their agendas. The Iraqi war was based on some evidence that Saddam Hussain had Weapons of Mass Destruction. The cables are not comprehensive. The Guyana Government kept asking for evidence that Commissioner Greene was involved in drug trafficking. But no evidence was given it seems unless the missing cables will show that evidence. There are death threats reported to the embassy, and again...

A man who received a lot of recognition for his charitable work in Guyana said that he was frustrated by Guyana, and Guyanese people. Another man asked me why did I return to Guyana a long time ago and why am I not leaving. Another man on a restless night said he felt angry, that nothing will change, it will be more of the same, abuse of Government powers; reduction of police professionalism, increased crime rates. The Government has said that Guysuco nor no one in Guyana could run the modern sugar factory. Some people are poor, cannot find their way out, and there are many young people who cannot read or write. Another woman's blog is a litany of woes about Guyana and Guyanese society but she does not own those views. Another man said he lost his wallet, and someone called and returned it to him with everything intact. Other people are making a lot of money hosting lots of big events. There are many students who celebrated their success at exams. Guyana is more than the Governm...