The Coil: Plantain chips and the future of Guyana

By Vidya Kissoon
The plantain chips lady who walks Brickdam after lunch probably had the most sales to the protesters the day bheri ramsarran was allegedly relieved of his duties by President Ramotar. The chips were warm and crisp – maybe from the sun. I think even the police bought some.

People have been muttering about how crazy it is that Guyana imports plantain chips from Costa Rica, Trinidad and Suriname and it does not seem any is exported – not even in cocaine.
Plantain chips are linked to our history of self reliance. Didn’t Rabbi Washington (American who came to Guyana during PNC days) make a  name with chips and fudge?

There is something about how we trust our vendors – one clear plastic. No labels with any names or so of people to sue, no ingredients listed, no expiry date. Pure trust. Trust cannot be exported.  And the sour option cannot be exported either. And in front of the Ministry of Health which does it best to protect citizens from bad food, there were the citizens buying plantain chips without the labels.
In 2015,  it is a surprise not to see any mention of plantain chips in the APNU+AFC/PNC manifesto – is this part of the PNC breaking with its past and not going back to those days when plantain chips might have been the only snack on the menu?

But the PPP/C promises in its manifesto to build Chips (plantain not silicon) factories in Wakenaam and Leguan to employ 40 women and  youths and to add value to plantain. What is not clear is where these chips would go or how these chips would flood the international markets or whether the people around the country would have to only buy from the Government owned factories.
Right there outside the Ministry of Health on that same day a young man pulled me aside and asked me if I ever wanted to buy he had to sell. I asked him what he was talking about. He put two fingers to his lips like if he was smoking a cigarette. So there in front of the Ministry of Health and not far from the police I seemed a likely customer for ganja.

I do not know if  discussing ganja and buying improperly labelled plantain chips near the Ministry of Health is the secular transgressive equivalent of say,  paying for sex near the Cathedral.
But this might not be transgressive for long as there seem to be some interesting shifts not only in plantain chips but also in ganja. When contemplating the ganja issue a few weeks ago, I had noted that “APNU’s Joe Harmon said that APNU would open the debate on legalising ganja. It seemed that Mr Harmon was thinking of the potential voters who are in jail for smoking or selling ganja who can ‘help to build Guyana’.  Mr Rohee of the PPP said that the Government/PPP has zero tolerance for ganja.  He accused APNU of being immoral by  playing ganja politics and that the PPP will keep the status quo and weed will remain illegal and progress will continue with ganja growers, sellers and users fulling up the jails or doing community service depending on the scales which are used to weigh the ganja which is found. “

Well, stop eating those chips or you might choke no matter how thin and crunchy they are!
The PPP/C in its manifesto promises to Review the Marijuana Legislation after Minister Rohee said no way. The Minister probably did not get to read the manifesto himself. Meanwhile, the  APNU+AFC manifesto mentions NOTHING about marijuana or ganja.  So is this why President Jagdeo was reading the APNU+AFC manifesto last week Thursday? Was there some confusion between the two manifestos?

There seems to be a similar PPP/C policy shift when it comes to suicide. The PPP/C promises to “reduce suicide by 25%” when they claimed the statistics were false in the beginning so it is not clear  which numbers will they be using to know that the suicide cases will be reduced.
People who are interested in  issues and the manifestos might find these two word clouds useful. The show the frequency of some of the nice words used in manifestos. The word ‘development’ scored quite high in both manifestos and over shadowed everything else so is not here.

The manifestos do not  have “God”, “sex” or “pleasure” (well apart from marijuana for those who use). “Music” is mentioned in both manifestos and there is reference to religious leaders and organisations so it seems that God might have indirect influence on the parties.

Both parties surprisingly talk about not discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation. For those who did not realise , this means acknowledging lesbian, gay bisexual people as not being evil and so,  but no commitment to gay marriage, and no  commitment to recognising transgender rights.

There is no clear statement about not beating children in schools or homes. The PPP/C has some vague reference to promoting non-violent forms of discipline in the ‘society’ rather than in the schools; while APNU+AFC say nothing. It is not time yet for some things to change.

Neither party will do anything more about Mosquitoes than is not being done currently. The manifestos are old  news anyway, so maybe it does not matter whether we will export more plantain chips than we import or how many persons will continue to go to jail for using ganja.