Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Woman looked at my ID Card and then looked at me and said 'dis is you?" I said yes, what.. I doan like dat? She said no, I say what, I only lil older. She said 'dis look like you pick up yuh son ID and bring it.. " Minutes before I had been plodding on the road, feeling a bit dazed by trying to avoid the vehicles pushing me onto the grass and then wondering about the things which I had to do and fighting the urge to find somewhere to go and sit down. It was a strange week and a weekend with 5 paracetamol for no reason other than the body could not cope with sleep loss and the crunching up which comes with mental health issues matched with stress and also wondering if the paracetamol was fake but it seemed not to be. There is writing to be done, but the words and ideas are not flowing as fast as they should as there is a kind of underlying thing about wondering if this is the kind of work I should be doing . Emotional intelligence is needed for another job ...

By award winning heritage blogger Vidyaratha Kissoon The young woman who owns a snackette not far from the place where the National Conference on Gender and Development Policy was taking place said, “It aint really bodder me, de equal woman in government. I want young people .. is pure ol’ people. I aint know why dey doan have young people’. “Ah mean, look de woman, Webster [Westford], wid de $600 million ting. Stupes” (Editor’s Note: No charges have been laid to date regarding any missing funds) I pleaded about equal rights and that not all woman bad and so, and she said “man mo mek fuh dem ting, dey know fuh manage an suh” and I said, ‘But you got yuh own business’.. she said “yeah yeah , woman could got mo sense dan man.. but is where de young people deh?” We talked about work. “Yes, is good fuh wuk pun yuh own..’I went fuh wuk wid an Indian store, and dey had a vacancy sign, and dey she dat dey doan have wuk, but a Indian girl come and get de wuk.” “Bu...

The woman asked me "How would you rate yourself in transferring the knowledge to your students?" The question stumped me for a bit since different students The interview was about the facilitation of the practical component of the Online Multimedia Journalism course at the University of Guyana. I have been involved in the course since its first delivery. The woman was doing research around the use of ICTs in journalism. I told her the most challenging aspect of teaching the course was that an average of 10% of the students are interested in journalism, and that reinforcing journalism principles required much more work than the ICT component. The new programme is in its fifth year , time flies and I realised that the delivery has not been peer evaluated.  It has not been easy teaching Online Multimedia Journalism when the Internet is slow in the lab so that the Online part sometimes has to be demonstrated or imagined or left for students to pursue in their own time. I...

by award winning heritage journalist Vidyaratha Kissoon  The young reporter was hustling to get into parliament about ninety minutes or so before the official start. “I have to get my seat… if we go late the seat would be taken.” I asked him, “Man, what about your own writing, how can you guys keep writing that crap that comes from there?” And he said “We have to report… but today is the last day.” A young man smoking a cigarette on Camp Street said he wants to filter his news because he feeling depressed about the way the whole Parliament debate has been going and wondering whether things will go forward in the country. He was not impressed  by my pleas to smoke local ganja instead of foreign tobacco. Another young man posted on his Facebook about a “A house filled with Hate, bitterness, revenge, rage, resentment, acrimony, antagonism and hostility.”  Other people have no problems or probably are not bothering. At the National Stakeholder Conf...

The woman walked into the meeting with a bunch of limes in her hand "I hope yall aint start talk about de book". "Please help yourself to the limes' and the people there start crushing the leaves because the leaves give off a nice scent. It might have looked like a ritual. At some point we start talking about the book , and then we move off to talk about other things and then come back to the book, and then go off to talk about future books and past books. I started book clubbing in 2005 - first meeting was in the Botanical Gardens and then the first book I read was Kafka's Metamorphosis - I remember reading, as I have done since, the night before the book club like when I used to read for literature exams. The meetings are once a month. Some months 2 persons, some 7,8 - visitors, authors sometimes.  Some people do not like the strident arguments - the politics can be strong and so. One or two times, some serious book people so we do get some constructiv...

There was a lotus pond inside the Brickdam Cathedral on the same day that the PPP went back to Parliament. The Festival of Flowers at Brickdam Cathedral was a creation of different people including a man who had been hauled in last year for questioning for drugs in pastries and who seems to have resumed his life. The exhibition included live music performances on different instruments. There was something about looking at the positioning of lotus in a purain leaf like how we do it for puja while listening to a young man playing violin, first alone then accompanied by a man on a piano.. There was steel pan music earlier . A woman asked me 'where you from' and I said 'right hey'.. though feeling sad that 'hey' was a place where the newspaper front page or TV news or online news which I saw did not think that it was newsworthy to report on the people who were arranging flowers in a Cathedral, and musicians were playing at no cost to the public and that as...

by award winning columnist Vidyaratha Kissoon  “I just come from wuk. Some days de wuk so damn hard, ah doan get a chance fuh tek a drink” said the veteran public servant I call Uncle. . I said . ‘Man, that sounds like a good thing’ and he said “Nah, nah.. must tek a drink” Earlier in the week, the Minister of Finance did not talk about rum or alcohol in the 2015 Budge t Speech “A Fresh Approach to the Good Life in a Green Economy” There was no mention of rum or alcohol in the 2014 budget either even though rum and alcohol dominate Guyana’s economy and life. Chicken sausages in packets (and not in tins?) are in the Budget  – they are now VAT free, but the hot dog rolls still have VAT.  Hot dogs might remain at the same price. The woman sold out of the hot dogs she was selling outside the National Cultural Centre the night after the budget . She said she had noticed that people were not coming to shows, even the free ones. She was sur...

The man said he was glad I stepped up the writing from the blog and got on to the Coil. He described one of the sentences I wrote as "nice flow, stream of consciousness" . The blog was awarded first prize for the 2015 Godfrey Chin Prize for Heritage Journalism. The prize is managed by the Guyana Cultural Association of New Yor k Inc. The second prize was awarded to Dr Maya Trotz for a video recording of an interview with her father Dr Ulric Trotz. The third prize was awarded to Akima Mcpherson and Stanley Greaves for the series "Conversations on Art" in the Stabroek News. In 2014, the blog won second priz e. It was an honour then to be nominated. I was surprised that the blog was nominated again this year.   I feel nice that the blog win a prize. I feel anxious too , even more so than last year, about the feeling that I should keep writing 'well'.  There are some people who I wish would blog more . Some of them are journalists and have stories w...

Image from http://yalepress.yale.edu/book.asp?isbn=9780300169508 How free are we to choose? What influences the choices we make? How much personal responsibility should anyone bear for the consequences of their choices? Kent Greenfield ends his book saying "I do believe that most of us, most of the time, would do well to recognise how often real choice is a mirage and how frequently the rhetoric of choice is misleading. But it need not be so. " Greenfield is  a Professor of Law but writes in a very light, 'accessible' style with many interesting examples to support his arguments that well.. free choice is probably not so free(dom) after all . The first part of the book "Centrality of Choice" looks at issues such as consent vs coercion and how the law operates regarding different kinds of consent and choice. The second part of the book questions more how choices are made - looking at the brain being wired, the role of power  (with disturbing resea...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon  The man told me “You know, if you have access to dem coalition people, tell dem dat dey have to do something about de economy. It aint moving”. The man had campaigned for the PPP in the 2011 elections and was involved in the 2006 campaign. He voted for the Coalition in 2015 and still could cuss his former party comrades.   He said “I don’t think this Minister of Finance got it” and we talked a little about who is really responsible for creating the economic plan for Guyana. Another coalition supporter vex bad – after the janjhat about the lack of women on State boards, he said “Is not only women who not on State boards, is nothing from the 45,000 young people who vote for this coalition. Is a set of old men..!” At the time of writing, it  has been  89 days since 11 May, 2015, 67 days since 1 June, 2015 , 2 days since 6 August, 2015 which was  30 years since Forbes Burnham died and people were trying desperately t...

The sugar and bad eating take their toll as the clothes getting tight. A nice promise to eat less, cut out sugar, and go and do exercise even if the body hurts.. but some karmic things as a fall during a normal yoga pose and unlike the old time when I was able to just cut out everything  and go run on the seawall.. A lot of things about not going back to the past.. but the rush that came from running again on the seawall.. ignoring the pains which are not the pains of muscles.. but feeling .. and wondering if the feelings are real or just memory of how it feels to have breeze in your back, and sweat in  your head and chest pounding as you go.. next line on the wall, next line. steps, pump station.. Managing depression requires some mindfulness of the present.. so the fall , was followed by a resumption of some poses to conquer the despair that things are changing faster than I could imagine. Pine slice around so yes, it has to be eaten and it gives nice relief even t...

The man asked if he could use one of my nice photos to put in the article.   I stuttered and said yes even though the black and white picture of the boat tied on the nice river had nothing to do with what was in the article. Social media platforms display a 'featured image' or select an image from a page or text when a link is shared.  People apparently are more drawn to click on the link if there is a nice picture, than if there isn't. I guess this is more important if people are not well known or if the profile picture is not pleasing enough to the viewers on social media. So I have gradually become more obsessed now with featured images when I do the online writing. The anxiety over any piece is increased by whether the image would be beautiful. And since I have never been trained as neither photographer nor writer, the effort now is increased. There might be words and ideas which are in the head, and then I wonder, where am I going to get a proper image for th...

By Vidyaratha Kissoon  The woman’s phone rang and she said “Y’all listen, hear how he does talk to me”. She put the phone on loud. Car was driving and breeze was blowing. A gruff voice asked ‘Where you deh , where you deh’ . The woman said “I not at home, I will call you back” . There were three women in the car. Coming from Berbice.  The woman with the phone told us that the man “controlling”. He took a knife and made the fashion cuts in her jeans.  She had divorced from a man who had nuff woman. She used to hit him after she found out he was cheating on her. She had a picture of them on the phone. “I like he , but I aint putting up wid nonsense” “He does call me and ask fuh we mek up back” Her family wants her to marry the man who took the knife to rip the jeans more. She does not want to marry him. She is going to meet a man, who is ‘nice, he does talk nice nice”. The phone rings. She talks and hangs up. “You see, how soft he talk”. Another w...

The  body feels wobbly, out of co-ordination. A searing pain on the right knee and thigh as I jump out of a minibus like normal.. face grimacing and holding on to the stumps on the avenue and wondering whether I will make it to the two blocks down. But perseverance, it was not a cramp. And moving and wincing and gradually the pain eased off and I was walking like nothing happened. Easy to just cuss when the dark clouds are hovering and wondering what the hell, that the care being taken of the body is not enough or whether it is worth it. Wondering what else is to come if the joints weaken as the claw foot condition ages  and then thinking, well is a good thing to walk. I celebrate with chocolate from a lady near the bus park. Sweet craving all the time and saying to hell with it. Cravings and indulgences. Every bad habit, eating badly and drinking grape flavoured sweet drink. Cussing myself because I think that Guyanese should tell  Thrill, tek yuh US millions w...