Thoughts of a minibus traveller

I hug the man up. One of my heroes. Man I wanted to be. And I notice that the hair colour is not right. It is too uniform.  A little thin. I say, wait , wait.. you dye your hair? He says, yes, ' you would not understand'. Everything is about image. I am like, but dude.. you of all people.. one of the reasons I wanted to be like you is that you never seemed to give a damn about image. When I was learning to be a man, I know women dyed their hair. Men shaved and combed and greased, but never dyed.  While being pagally and lampy pampy and not having nice muscular abs was a constant thing  , I  never felt ashamed of my grays.. and thought that masculinity meant accepting balding, graying and so on and laugh it off. So I am shocked like hell  now. Men my generation. Good men, nice men. Good looking men. Decent men. Dyeing their hair because they grayed too early. I feel like I am being unfair to them to be challenging them about the dye in their hair. To say...

by Vidya Kissoon Successive governments of Guyana have banned things with interesting results. The ban on roti, dhal and alloo chokha resulted in the beginning of the underground smuggling routes (and development of Crabwood Creek? ) instead of a shift in the local palate to soft cassava bread, locally grown pigeon peas stew and sweet potato chokha. The ban on cocaine and marijuana that was inherited from the 28 years of PNC rule  is not working – marijuana is reportedly even present in the prisons and Guyanese ingenuity and innovation are exemplary in the ways in which cocaine is smuggled. The ban on Styrofoam is another example  our democracy in action. Here is the History of the Styrofoam Ban in Guyana. 2012 June The intention to Ban on Styrofoam is announced. It makes international news 2013 August No banning, but heavy taxing proposed, also making international news. September Inews (which is not influenced by anyon...

Original image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Raw_cane_sugar_Demerara.JPG You know the thing.. you say, one biscuit, maybe two, then you say to hell with it what is the flipping point and then take the whole pack of about a dozen chocolate biscuits and you feel nice for a while and feel bad after. Yeah, I wish I was addicted to running or gym or so instead of shugah. When I am not succumbing to the jam, ice cream, cake, sweet biscuit, grape slice, cake with jam, more sweet biscuit, caramel crunch these are a couple of the things which work to head off the Honey Honey aint cheap. I don't know if Honey is any less dangerous than shugah and if people would stop poking me in meh belly or my pants waste would not brand meh belly if I move to honey instead of shugah. But honey has other nice properties so I spoon honey in the tea might work than two spoons sugar. But Honey don't taste nice in coffee if you want sweet. Money If you do not have money, you ca...

Prayers for the woman who reminded me that sitting in Mandir and singing and fasting is not good if there is no seva, service to others and faith in action. Prayers for the frustrated mother who sat in mandir with her chul chul boy child. I know you want to do the right thing by your child. You were not hitting him and you thought tying his foot to the grill would hold him down for a bit. It is okay if you want to go outside and run around and play with your child, regardless of what anybody else say. Your child is healthy, that is why he is active and energetic. Don't worry with the people who want you to hold him back.  Prayers for the black woman who I know wants to have justice and peace but whose fear of the PPP winning back elections has her spreading rumours too instead of not spreading rumours.  Prayers for the coolie woman whose memory of the PNC is bad and who does not want the PNC back in power and who questions why all the story coming out about Cheddi d...

There are many paths to wellness - a way of living in which there is a balance of productivity and restoration. There is always a struggle to manage depression. The Guyana elections brings on more uncertainty and tension and the whole live like a lotus in the mud thing becomes more impossible. The old 'crutches' do not seem to work and work, whatever work is, is taking longer. The feelings of being confined and thoughts going around in circles rather than moving in new direction take longer to go away. It is easy to trip out, and to despair when encounters with people seem to show their 'human weaknesses' more than any kind and when I realise that nice people burning styrofoam in their backyard and that I cannot find words to tell them it is not a good thing to do because I just eat food from them, even the whole principled living thing is crap. Death comes at its own time. Living while dying or Dying while living requires some ways to not be held back or held...

(Vidyaratha Kissoon) Less than two months to elections and people who want to vote on issues and not race are probably wondering when the two main political parties will identify issues and make proposals for them. Or maybe they have done so and people do not know. Or maybe there are thousands of issues so better not to pick and choose or not get into too much details in case you win the elections and somebody will remind you of the things which you said you would do. It is difficult to process the promises of the PPP/C – since they had some years to deal with many issues and nobody knows what will change. APNU+AFC might have had different approaches to issues and now that they are together, i t is not clear how they plan to resolve any differences so for the time being there might be a few APNU-AFC positions. Here are a few issues which I thought were relevant – all this could change of course :- ISSUE APNU + AFC/APNU – AFC PPP/C Mosquit...

In 2012, the Government of Guyana came under fire for seeking to purchase pirated text books.  Guyana has long had a trade in copies of text books due to the inability of parents to purchase orginal copies. Guyana's Constitution provides for free (without cost) education up to secondary level. The Government has to provide text books and other educational resources. Education Freedom Day   (third Saturday in January) not so much about free (without cost) education, but about  "educating the worldwide public and educators about the benefits of making and sharing free knowledge and the tools already in place to achieve that objective."  The idea evolved from Software Freedom as proposed by the the Free Software Foundation. Free Educational Resources (FER )  are ..  "..materials licensed with a Free license as defined by the Free Software Foundation used for teaching, learning, educational, development and research purposes. It's all about supp...

Food has to be made and there is an urge to just consume a whole set of sugar. It would be an idea to add to the Navratra 'fast' by not eating sugar as well. Blackeye is $160  a pint and Sweet Potato is $160 a pound. (Aloo is 2.5lb for $200.  ) Blackeye could be had in Chinee Cake and Carrot in carrot cake with banana icing. It has been a while since I have cooked blackeye. Sweet potato is put in the microwave and it comes out nice and dry-ish. Skin comes off easily. Skin is also nice and crunchy. Grated carrots, tomatoes, sweet pepper, sweet potato, blackeye and I guess anything else you want to add as a salad. The dressing is olive oil, vinegar, black pepper, honey and grated ginger. Have not made dressing in a long time. Thought of chipping up a bird pepper. Sweet food.

Woman walking behind me say that she putting jumbie pun dem, the killers, and that they must punish fuh dead. Place is crowded. The message on the loudspeaker calling for some order. Parade Ground - Independence Ground, funeral, vigil celebration. I see a tinted black vehicle wid drinks line up on the roof and a sign with 4 beer for a hundred and other prices. Music playing. Man I know who don't picket, he on his lunch break. He said, yeah.. is nuff like him, they leave their offices and come because it is all they can do. And vote. Another man said he could come because is not a political rally but a funeral. Many others are there because is funeral and not political (meaning APNU rally). Two women I had picketed with in the past stand up near a tree and I join them. We talking about police and rape and she said they have plain clothes walking around listening to we. There is a rape case going on in which justice is difficult to get because the police not doing their...

Are you more satisfied with life than you were in 2006? According to the results from the polls of  Latin American Public Opinion Project , more people in Guyana are satisfied with their lives in 2014 than in 2006. Perhaps people did not want to admit that they were not content because contentment is supposed to be a good factor in mental health and wellness. It could have meant saying that all the effort spent in doing things and in money spent and in investing was futile. Or it could mean that people have found ways to thrive like lotus flowers in the mud. In the film , Shawshank Redemption, there is a man who tried to kill another man so he could stay in prison because the thought of leaving was too much. He hanged himself soon after his release. Not all prisoners are like that. It might be possible to be satisfied with life in Guyana as a way of maintaining sanity.  So it means adjusting to the rubbish, and the fear of floods, and the corruption and the d...

(Vidya Kissoon) It is April 6 2015 around midnight when nomination day coming. De Presidential Debate of the Year is on. We on top de just opened Marriot so de high from de coil and de low quality ganja and de height from de top of de Marriot meking tings more nice. De hallucinations inspired by de events of de last week or so.. and sometimes ting does be giddy. Mosquito cannot fly high but wid poison coil and low quality ganja, anyting is possible. And dat light dere is not ship from Venezuela coming? Mosquito : Welcome to all de listeners and viewers. De breeze is high on top de Marriot and de light behind me is blinking fuh dem ship dat look like dey coming straight fuh we. We are happy dat President Jabdeo who had said dat he gun tek on all de Presidential Candidates one time. Mosquito glad because Mosquito aint able fuh tek on sixteen debate. De only person who reach de top of de Marriot fuh de debate is President Rumzotar. De man from de ganja p...

The retired teacher asked 'Should one slap break a marriage' and there was general murmurs of agreement from the group of mostly women, around 55 years and over. Religious women. One women said quietly "well counselling" and another woman said no way, by the time you have to bring in the third party the marriage done and others gave agreement. One woman said it started with love in that he used to tow her home on the bicycle about 5 miles from work and then ride back the 5 miles to where he lived. Her parents had warned her but she was in love. She said two years after the drinking started and then '' "he never used to hit me, but he used to choke me and curse me" .. this when the children came. She could not leave . 'in those days you did not '..  one day after the choking, when he was drunk on the step, eating food, and cursing her she picked up an axe handle and she lashed him several times .. his foot became swollen. She went downsta...

The brilliant woman said that she felt fear for the first time in her recent activism when she heard of Courtney Crum Ewing's murder. I also felt afraid .. fear which had been building up when I saw the PPP take on the Guyana National Youth Council. I remember the fear when my parents and us were in the car near a Kitty Market rally with Walter Rodney speaking and the PNC thugs attacked the car. I was anxious about the meeting on Saturday when the PPP thug broke up the meeting. I felt the fear for the jobs of the young people who not in political parties and thought that they were doing something that other Caribbean youth were doing. And more fear again after hearing Jagdeo's ranting and raving... not friken of him, but friken all the people on social media who were liking his rants and raves and sharing love for them. I friken dem bad . I friken how easy it is for me to be friken. I friken how people keep saying other people and not them are racial. I friken how I he...

I not hugging up black people de next couple weeks  and here is why. I friken dat somebody gun tek de picthcuh or dey gun see and seh.. ow, look how coolie people and black people does live good in dis country and why election time it does come up? Dis would ah nevah happen back in Burnham days because dere was no Facebook and now due to Facebook, like every time a coolie and a black have some kind of normal nice gaff or dey play lil phagwah or dey married or dey deh in love or whatever.. or a coolie man wearing a dashiki or a black man wearing a kurta fuh show dat dem aint racial.  And dat people have dougla family or dey chirren and grand chirren is dougla or some long memory of some ancestor who was from anodda race.. (I doan worry wid no family tree genetic ting because I had some ancestor who kill some odder man fuh a black lady.. and I does wonder if dat man genes in me and if I gun kill anybody ) Well leh me seh, dat I play phagwah and I hug up plenty people wid...

  In the dark times, when the depression needs more work to manage, there is craving for sweet and there is  also craving to do something which is creative and which shows some ability to see things differently. The point and shoot digital camera becomes this tool to try to push boundaries when you are not feeling like pushing anything.  I am no photographer. Blog posts require images - you have to tek a pitchuh and then edit it and make it relevant to what you want to say. Sometimes when playing with the camera and the GIMP software , you see things which you did not know were there. And while wandering around with the brain feeling misty, it is a kind of exercise to look around and see things in details and to turn things upside down. Like allowing  a camera to take a picture of itself in the mirror. One irony is that you realise that the final pictures do not really tell any more truths than exist. Pictures can lie, but they are some p...

by Vidya Kissoon The smoke from the LION BRAND, LIZI and GOLDEER coils  mixed with the smoke from the marijuana which was rejected from Brazil has generated deep and meaningful philosophical questions like ‘What if I was a homosexual who was interviewing Mr Edghill and Mr Bond on Pillow Talk? “ The Pesticides and Toxic Chemicals Board is right, these coils are dangerous as you will see in this intelligent conversation. Homosexual Hitting Hard Question:  Gentlemen, welcome to Pillow Talk. Why are you here when you could be out there campaigning for poor people? Thoughtful  Answers Mr Edghill:  The homosexual agenda is militant, it seeks to destroy the idea of family and poor families will suffer more if the homosexual agenda becomes real. We have to work against the homosexual agenda and the poor will be happy. There are many false and dishonest reports put out by the racial opposition parties about how many poor people are there, but this is be...

Fiddle with the software and grey skies become deep blue and you not sure whether the blue masks the grey or the grey masks the blue not that anything is wrong with either being grey or blue. A lot of work to be done. Meetings missed and carelessness resulting in hours of work being undone. Creativity is desperately needed. And the brutal Universe has  you watching a film about love and its uselessness when  a former loved one who touches you before the film and you are conscious of how in the past how the conversations used to be when there were no barriers or spaces and how politeness and civility are now the masks and laughing at how irony works when you think that there will be escape. The unsettled mind with book marks stuck in three books and not remembering anything which is in any of them, but dreaming of a time when it would be possible to read and enjoy a book one at a time.  Because you have this writing thing to do and you must read to write or everyth...

Jus' like how people dreaming about we gun have national unity wid people who gun tink exactly like we , de blasted low grade ganja in dis place had me dreaming dat i was a beauty queen and den i start to have psychotic conversations wid de nice Ms Harper, lady dat de PPP choose to run against Mr Nagamootoo. So I imagine dat if i was de beauty queen (I tink once a queen, always a queen) asking de questions , and what I would expect de PERFECT answers to be .. choking hey.. (dis weed is really bad and like it mix wid someting ) Me : You  have a beautiful smile and recently there has been an interest in the smiles of prominent women. How often do you floss? What would be a Perfect Answer from Ms Harpe r :  Thank you for having me here. I floss before and after prayers . Me :   How much money do you think a woman in your position should spend on her smile? Perfect Answer from Ms Harper : I also attend the Cheddi Jagan Dental Clinic  where I und...

Vidyaratha Kissoon Two old coolie men gaffing about politics. They used to vote Cheddi Jagan until 2011 when they changed  – one to voting for the AFC and the other not voting.  They were talking about the former Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Elisabeth Harper and Cathy Hughes from the AFC. They talked how both are nice pleasant gyal and how they look so much alike and how this race thing so stupid sometimes. The two old coolie men were talking about ‘decent’ as meaning well-spoken, educated and dignified. Quiet too. Stereotypes of a good woman which it seems that Ramotar and Rohee believed at the Saturday press conference launch where they spoke and Ms Harper did not speak . Guyana Times in their editorial which could have been written by other not so old coolie men also talk about Ms Harper’s “qualifications; moral stock or her integrity when compared to Nagamootoo “ . They conclude that “She is quite similar to Janet ...