Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Image edited from http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/467642 "The Museum of Sex is supposed to be good, but I wouldn't pay the 17.50" the woman in the tapestry room us. "The sex shop has all kind of interesting things though... that might be interesting to visit if you don't want to waste money in the museum.. apparently they have the first porno picture from Thomas Alva Edison of a couple kissing closed mouth.." There are the beautiful tapestries hanging on the wall in the Cloisters museum with the medieval collection. Conversation had started with how people can watch through the stained glass windows and see the bad weather coming in. The woman explained the tapestries and then we ended up at sex... Big city and lots of people walking around. I keep hearing loud voices and I wonder if people are talking to me but when I look back , they are talking to themselves.. or rather their phones. I see a man sitting at the b...

This is not for you Zenita because really it is late. This is for me, angry that even though we had lost touch and even though our politics were very different and the hugs were sometimes awkward and that even though the last time we talked , we talked for two hours before you said 'but that is not what I call you for'..angry and guilty that the last days of your life that are being unravelled showed that I, and the woman who knew you and who is also deeply mourning .. that we did not manage to let you know that hey.. you could call on us to do whatever.. beat up the man and all if that was called for. This is not for you Zenita. This is for me because I am confused as to how to now wait until you are dead to pay tribute to you even as the values were different and things had shifted and in real life I had witnessed some of the things you did and wondered whether I should have found ways to say to you.. hold on, take your time.. that is not right.. you have to learn about...

by award winning something or other Vidyaratha Kissoon The smoke from the fire consuming the hope of persons on and off of social media who could not believe the salary increases of the Government, mixed with the smoke from the fire used to burn the soon to be banned Styrofoam , mixed with the smoke of the l egal ganja of the future have helped to create a psychotic hallucinatory conversation between the smouldering coil and a strange man who has not left Guyana even though he could. The excitement and hope of the coalition supporters and the despair of the opposition supporters and the apathy of others has not deterred William Walker from making and selling his bake and salt fish as a viable alternative to his other interest, journalism. Smouldering Coil : Thank you for appearing in my psychotic hallucinations so I can have a conversation with you about recent events. WW :  Why would I appear in your psychotic hallucinations? Smouldering Co...

dear loved one who has been calling in the night.. I am kind of amazed and wondering what has changed in your life. I am happy to hear from you. You asked if I was sleeping.. yes.. one or two times since you have started calling late in the night on your way home, I am usually sleeping. But love is.. waking up to answer the phone until you reach home. I have not asked you as yet what has brought about the change and why you are calling. I know that , sleepy as I am, I am trying to keep the conversation neutral and not talk personal stuff.  While I imagine that you have a need for someone to talk to on your way home, I cant imagine that it would be me after years after we ended the friendship. When you hang up the phone, I wonder if I am like a sweet man, an outside man.  Now that I am 45, I have to laugh at myself  at how I have ended up with late night conversations about nothing really with a loved one who is married . I don't want to marry you. I like hearin...

So while Marlon James get his Man Booker Prize for A brief History of Seven Killings, with his more than 70 characters, there is another nice book, a collection of roving anecdotes with Jamaican characters in all kinds of places. Robert Lalah was tasked of bringing Jamaica to the readers of the Gleaner. My experience of going to Jamaica, beautiful island is not really moving beyond the ice cream shop at Devon House. Robert Lalah went looking and found some things that they do not sing about in the dancehall music that I hear in the minibus in Guyana. Things like Swims from St Elizabeth, and..  the best dumplings from Christiana And Lalah encounters death.. like the Graveside Party in Nonsuch, and the Tombstone with unknown inhabitants, and the places where nobody would go except a reporter from the Gleaner.. the Devil's Watchglass at the border of Manchester and Clarendon where people have disappeared. And there is a range of healing.. the obeah man from St Joseph ...

Text message said that a 43 year old man had died.. healthy man, I did not know he was 43 apparently from a bacterial infection. Last time I saw the man, he was a bit cynical about the new Government even though he was a supporter. Text said. enjoy every day.  Days are moving quickly. Some days are easier than others.  Enjoy every day. Work to be done. Head hurting and paracetemol. Chocolate cake made. For celebration. With banana instead of eggs and perhaps some mistake in the mixture, so it is crumbly but rich as hell. 600 blog posts since February.  The writing is good to help. Young man who works as a journalist talked about the difficult of writing. I know, I don't like to write for money . I am glad for the work and the Universe tends to send things which are not what I want. I want chocolate cake. Enjoy every day. Hope to be useful and build good relationships and enjoy them. The protest on Tuesday and Thursday. The active man with the megaphone, ...

Navratra creation demanding quick fixes.. you could have different vegetables or just put all in the pressure cooker and 10 minutes later you have enough to carry you through a period of not only controlling carcass consumption, but also controlling the desire for variety etc.. But sweetness of channa (pre pressured), sweet potato, pumpkin, ochro, with hopeful goodness of bhajee and sweet pepper and then spiced up with lil bit geera, onion, ginger, tumeric, no salt, garlic, wiri wiri pepper.. and bang.. soup that is not photogenic but hot and spicy even when the heat is gone. And nice feelings that you eating something nice even as you contemplate the other junk that could be eaten.

You know you are a good person really and you want to be helpful to people and kind to people and do at least 7 hours of voluntary work in helping people a week. You see all the nice things about 100 things to say to a depressed person and 500 things not to say to a depressed person and you know that there are people who are depressed or mad around. You are annoyed because you do not want be guilted out into doing something about people around you who are mad depressed. 1. Manage  your social media account - Facebook is good Unfollow those Facebook friends who are posting those links about what to say and what not to say and how to listen to depressed, mad people. You can unfriend them if you like, that way you would not feel too guilted and be reminded that you should be trying something. Be careful that you do not become Facebook friends with actual mad people because you could then become inundated with really crazy posts when you are not awake ot moderate your page...

Bus pull up, door open; Lamaha.. driver seh yeah and wave he hand behind he. Old man comes out the bus. Driver seh siddown deh. I vote to go in de bus and siddown deh betwen the old man and an old lady and another lady with a bag. 4 pun a set mek fuh 3. But I vote fuh dis Lamaha bus instead of de odder Carifesta bus because I late and I believe it gun kerry me where I want to go. Bus look full. Reach Pere Street and is two people who want to come in. Dey vote too , to come in de bus even though it only have seat fuh one  We waiting on de driver. De leader who we accept pun de journey. Old man jump out..  more bus passing. Driver seh 'tek a squeeze, somebody coming out just now'. Nobody complain. Old man is not do conductor. De driver has de money in his hand.  At least de music is low and nice and de bus not moving so fast like de odders. Old man come back in, somebody sit at de back and I think is 5 on a row mek fuh 4 and another one in front. The peopl...

Forget the Nobel Prize or any big award for writing. Forget censorship and forget that you could be killed, shot jailed for anything you write publicly. The real danger of writing your mind publicly is well.. if nobody bothers with it. Back in the old days of the print media , it was an honour to have your letter to the Editor printed (or even the letter to the Helen Haynes love advice column) because then the editor's approval was all that mattered. It used to be nice if somebody would do a reply to the letter to the editor as another letter to the editor even if is one to cuss up. Then came social media and Internet and not waiting for the approval of the editor. Now to write and then hit publish and then post. And then the nasty habit, much scorned. Waiting to see the responses. See if anybody would like or.. even better.. make a comment.. or or.. better 'share' to others. Some people use social media cautiously. They do not click "like" thing...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon  “Do you want to see my riches? Let me show you – one of my riches just walked past here… he is a doctor now.. he has a disability,” the woman who has been teaching for over 20 years told me after I asked her if she could do with a million dollars a month salary. “No, we don’t want to make this a money thing because you will only get people who coming for the money and not to teach/” President Granger confirmed on Friday, that yes, the taxpayers have to bear up since this difficult decision was  “ an investment in quality governance “ . Did the Ministers say to the President dat de Minister wuk cyan pay and dat he gotta stump up? While President Granger had to deal with President Maduro at the border, did President Granger have to make a difficult decision to increase the salaries of the people who teking less money and who were going to bail on him.  Are those the options he faced? While capitalist talk about investme...

Man asked 'How's the depression?' and then quickly said 'I don't really want you to slip into a phase'  . It is true that people could be scared that reasonably seeming functional human beings could trip out, break down, cry all over the place and just become really difficult to handle.. so things have to be handled gently with people who have disclosed they are mad. I tried to explain that really and truly there are no deep phases, just times which might be triggered by various things when it might become harder to mask things or to function. Other times of course it is easier. A lesson I have learned is to not pretend with anyone and also to know when people might be bored or bothered so as to gently say.. let's move the conversation on because you don't really want to know. One thing with learning to move the mask is to cut through crap and try to work on being honest without causing harm in the communications. People have asked 'what d...

Woman asked me if I had work to do and I said.. well taking a break, mental health thing and she asked..'Why you not going on medication' and I said.. well well , no .. I am doing some tests at .. and she said.. 'you trust dem, dey nearly kill me sister'.. Lab tests have everything normal and I look at the woman who give me , part with relief that biology seems okay and also thinking life goes on.. cloud and fog will be there "Well if hey seh everyting arite, i going and see ah obeah woman den' and the woman laughed and said.. no man, you arite. Sun is hot... so hot that with the breeze,  the sweat drying on the skin fast as it is forming.   Walking on roads with nuff traffic and wondering how nice it would be if there were pavements. Dodging traffic.. this is not the destressing walk. Thinking of getting some sweet stuff to celebrate the test results but then is Navratra and well, controlling desires and so on.. New found addiction.. the cucumber gr...

"Walk , exercise, do something" is the alert that comes up in the afternoon. There are things about short sabbatical or short breaks. Try to do things new and complete. Self employment though and there is work lingering. Man asks if I would give a talk to some high school students and I say no, no.. but I will help to find someone. And feeling guilty about it. Contemplating asking about a break from another job, which is one of those if you don't work you don't get paid kind of jobs. Don't want to ask . There is a book with some essays which I thought I would read on the break so I could improve the writing after the break. There are exercises I want to try.. the days go by, but the break is not happening and there is anxiety that the time allocated for the break will pass and no break has happened. Feel that I am wasting time and that I should be consumed with productive tasks while of course saying, but you supposed to be on a break. There is probab...

The woman looked at me and smiled and said.. oh, you had called right? Nice happy face that generated a laugh from me.. how you know? And she said.. well I see you taking out your card.. I said.. you could be a detective.. Woke up and felt complete fatigue.. feeling like if it was the end of a fight. Tried to do the stretches and so, the coffee did not really help. It was supposed to be the first day of the break but it seemed like breakdown . Things to do. I decided not to do them.  Two blasts from the past. Body aching in parts and I think I could detach from the body with frivolous things but heaviness prevails. Lunch was good.. first time dhal rice and eddoe leaf bhaji . Still feeling heavy. Decide to go take the nap which isn't always good.. kind of fitful and the heat.. Body moving and decide to do a task. Then a cup of tea with some of the strong haldi, tumeric. A little bit and the whole cup is yellow and tasting. A bit of this and that. I thought of the tests...

A strange few days and wondering if the strangeness was not made more strange by the mental health management - trying to seek nice positive things and move away from negative things... and remembering gratitude. Gratitude for the empty bird nest.. another set of eggs laid, birds hatched and they have gone away. I feel as though my part was done well  and while nature say that the birds could be eaten.. well.. Gratitude for the whims which were born out of some risk.. like cooking the eddoe leaf bhaji with ginger and other things.. and then having it praised by an unexpected teenage guest - I know other teenagers are finicky. Gratitude for the whim to go and talk about one of the lost causes in Guyana, free and open source software in the public service   lost causes are often a reason for living.. Gratitude for answering the late night phone call while dozing. A loved one. Gratitude that I was able to have a civil conversation while sleepy even as I wondered ...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon, Georgetown’s premier flaneur    The young taxi driver said as we were on Camp Street “even dough’ money aint moving, place still feel light” .. I say ‘whuh yuh mean.. wondering if he had a lil smokes before he pick me up.. “Light. You know.. place clean, at least de place clean, de heaviness gone.. money aint deh but de place clean.. “like when yuh clean yuh house”.. “light up de place” A politician on Facebook put up something about how everybody talking about an upcoming concert and I started drafting a response about circus in the time of economic downturn and ministers’ salary hike and then I decided what the hell, people can do their own cussing. But the taxi man, I mean, it is not that a clean environment is meant to be as distracting as say a circus. This week, the Canadians said they wanted o ne of the members of a popular team of organisers of circuses for drug runnings.. the man described in this GEM July 2011 article ...

Image from Hilton Chan Man said "the music is good.. but he should have had the clair de lune or was it moonlight sonata with the night time images' and I said no, no.. Hilton is probably being sarcastic and maybe there is deliberate synchronisation of the moonlight music with the photographs in bright sunlight.. The invitation said an evening of photography with music. 400 slides.   Moray House Trust has held a series of Photography Sessions in which Guyanese photographers discussed their work.  My own interest in photography was generally as talentless voyeur saying 'wow', until recently when the interest has become more functional to sort out images for the writing. The man had thing about flowers and rainbow on the invitation and I read 'interex' as Intersex and I wondered what Hilton  and Castellani House were going to do. There was going to be 6pm and the place is getting dark. The Art Gallery is cleared and there are the p...

Woman working as security guard saw me smiled and gave me a big hug.. long time.. she said.. she stopped working at the place I used to work since she is not doing shift work. 'Like yuh stop write'.. and she asked 'why yuh getting gray suh'. I say well, ou know.. I writing a weekly thing now on this websit e. thing and when I done, sometimes i aint able fuh write no mo' and she said.. "okay.. I aint know whuh is duh .. i never hear bout it.. but well if yuh gah fuh get de lil change" I do not know if it is the gray hairs or the muddled mind that has to be focussed on mindfulness  - things are taking longer to write than they used to do and then words don't flow together. There are a lot of things to write about , but gone are the days when it would take a short time to compose a letter to the editor. I am grateful for the recent opportunities to be paid to write, though  it seems to write things that the woman who hugged me and asked would not...

Key points in the Statement to the Commission of Inquiry into Public Service to be made on 7 October 2015 Theme : The use of Free and Open Source Software to improve the efficiency of the public service in the discharge of their duties to the general public. The headline in the G uyana Chronicle of 24 September, 2015 which told Guyana and the world “Public service technicians ‘hack and steal’ software –because previous govt refused to buy them” was shocking. The headline drew attention dilemma which had been faced by Information Technology support technicians in the Government when they had to give unlicensed software to other public servants. As a Guyanese citizen, I am moved to testify to this Commission of Inquiry that public servants in Guyana have options to choose free and open source software(FOSS) to support their tasks. No public servant in Guyana has any reason to use pirated software. I have a degree in Computer Science and have been an active user of F...