Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Two beady eyes are staring at me as I eat the dessert. There is some new thing going on with the lizards, that as soon as I have a small bowl and spoon , I see the eyes looking at me, without moving. One, sometimes two. How the hell do they know? The lizard dung is on my papers, on the phone, on the computer sometimes. I am about to get up to take the bowl into the kitchen and I see the graceful brown head turn. What the hell.. let me put down the bowl and watch the lizard come and lick the remains. I am not unselfishly loving  because I have a secret desire that that the Universe will reward me with the flexibility of the lizard as I feed it and clean the dung from all over the possessions. Selfish love is also a motivation too as I am grateful for the opportunity to do some good work with the medical outreach team. I know there is no  making up for the bad things but the secret desire is there that things will balance out somehow. There is a rule that drunk peop...

I sent a tentative email to a loved one in the UK after the Brexit vote. Previous emails had gone unanswered over the last couple of years. Got a quick response  "It’s all a bit of leap into the great unknown. Life will go on, however… have a concert tonight and there is still food on the shelves. For the moment! " The last couple of months have seen an escalation of negative changes which have impacted on my mental health and physical health.  The energy  of responding and adapting to the changes has not been easy to replace. The coping mechanisms and chemicals are no longer available.  I have choices to make every time in terms of how I decide to live well or wait on decay. The hibiscus tree has almost died, and then come back. It will not last forever. The flowers bear now and then. Yesterday they were two , a rarity. The two are dead today as the flowers last one day only.  There are buds though, beginnings which bear into flowers which will die....

Panel (L to R - Dr Alissa Trotz, Dr David Hinds, Dr Janette Bulkan at WPA memorial to Walter Rodney, National Library, Guyana 21 June, 2016 Early Saturday morning. Empty bus stops. Driver alone. Going East Coast. I jump in and realise the driver is a woman. Hair pulled back. Slight furrowing of the forehead as she looks ahead. Body postured comfortably, leaning back in the seat, one elbow on the window. Dressed in jeans and shirt. Colourful shirt and colourful shoes. 'I used to teach.. but after one time is another' "Is nice to wuk by yuh self, but the road hard. Last night I came in after 12' She started work at 6am. "I have light bill and water bill to pay.. so I coming out everyday. I aint know how I making it every month." We approach Sparendam and she puts on her seat belt, in a kind of second hand reflex action. . She doesn't smile, but there are slight raises of the sides of her mouth. While talking to me , she does not look at me.. eyes...

The nude woman looks like she is running away from the photographer in one image - on a bridge which is ruined  , so escape as so many women have found to their detriment in Guyana.  The anonymity a brutal reminder of the judgement passed on women .. you too fat, you too ugly, you too dark, you too tall, you too hairy.. . In another other print at the end of my walk around the island of beautiful photographs on black cloth , the two women at the bottom of the stairway to heaven are positioned in ways that remind me of the pictures of ship holds and the position of bodies imprisoned as slaves. This is perhaps Guyanese culture where heterosexuality and 'natural attraction to females' involves subjugation and domination, and where objectification is constantly reinforced, and where men with 'unnatural attractions to women' remain silent when those use 'natural attraction' to defend violence against women. Visions 2016 is a curated exhibition of photographs...

The cashier was thinking of food.. 'I like dhal bad, I does mek it when I deh home because I want to eat it two tie'. I hear her asking someone for some dhal and calaloo while I contemplate the ice cream order. After I collected the order, we gaff about sijan in the dhal and healthy food over the .. well.. ice cream. 'You get fat '.. I hear three times today .. one time before and two times after indulging in what I discovered is an 8oz Cup from the Demico Ice Cream Lounge on Main Street next door to the Arapaima Qik serv.  The syrup - Strawberry - actually has strawberries in it. I looked at the price board and I realised that the syrups.. were peach, raspberry, strawberry. Even though I boycott the jubilee, I ask the attendants.. where the passion fruit, guava, mango, soursop..and they look at me and say things like 'well.. this is what the company has'.. I think they understood though.. about the absence of the local fruits. The place is nice, a lo...

The favourite faded khaki trousers have holes and scruff marks now. I can wear them as style I think but I am not sure. I wonder if I had been wearing these holes for a while now and not noticed. I celebrate the values which have me holding on to the pants with the holes and frayed edges. - I care sometimes about what people think about the clothes I wear when I have to impress people. I don't have to impress people too often these days and I celebrate people who are impressed by me even if I am wearing pants with holes and frayed edges. - The pants is comfortable and each wearing seems to degrade it more. Comfort zones do not last forever. - I am okay with old clothes. At some point I will have to invest in new clothes which can cover well, but clothes and superficial things do not bother me much. - It is a brave thing to wear old clothes in a society which is obsessed with dress.  When I have nothing else to feel brave about, these pants which are decaying faster th...

Saturday morning. Baigan choka and roti at the roti shop on the East Coast.  Some mornings there is vicious cussing and so but it is a nice quiet morning . A 'gay' walks in.. (male to female transgender). Normal occurrence in many parts of 'rural' Guyana where there is acknowledgement that people can be different. A man in shades and with tattoos hails up and there is banter between the two.. the 'gay' playfully brushing his hand on the young man's head before going to eat.  Free space.   Saturday morning. Strange headline in the Chronicle " Can’t fight hate with hate — Simpson calls on Guyanese to reject Islamophobia.  There was a private function hosted by Scheherazade and Kashir Khan who have rejected the violence committed in the name of Islam.  The event was co-hosted with SASOD.   I know the Khan family and I do not believe they have to accept responsibility for anything that any other person does in the name of Islam. I was a member o...

Dear loved one Last night I stayed half awake waiting on the call . We had spoken and you said you would call though you did not want to wake me up. I said no , it was okay.. feel free to call .. if I could not talk to you I would let you know. I woke up and sent a text when I realised you had not called. You had told me you had read a blog I had written. I did not realise that you read my blogs. I could send this as a letter to you but there is no point really since I had decided long ago to keep my distance, respectfully and not be intrusive. I also am nervous about adultery since you are married and I have no intention of stepping over boundaries. I am happily single and have no interest in cheating though I know how easy it is to slip up sometimes.  I wish you had called and that we could have had the conversation about neutral things. I had saved up some things I wanted to ask  you, nice neutral things. I know that sometimes I find it difficult to fill the s...

Day started off early and it felt good as chores were completed . Body not so stiff. Night before I had tried to brush aside the triggers from the past , but many memories coming back and thinking of what might have been Important work to be done but mind whirling over another thing to be done so that is done and emotional exhaustion sets in. An affirmation received that it was okay . the work. But feeling that more should be done and fighting to shift the work to the other work to be done. So crunching starts and then a dip of the spoon into the honey jar. Then later on go for a walk and buy more junk. Then eat.. and belly feels full. Then pace a bit to calm down and the work thing which requires focus not being done. Then craving more , sweet but resisting and succumb to some. A fitful nap.. the place is hot. The work thing on my mind which has to be done. An ice cream cone. Thinking of walking to go and get more sweet and just eat. Mangoes bought the day before provide...

  The man had on a tie and was walking past. He turned and took a book.  "Did you know Rodney" and he said yes, he was a youth and they used to go to his meetings. He did not know that Rodney was so big outside of Guyana until later and he felt Guyana lost an important soul "So what can you do to remember Rodney" I asked him (rule was that you take a book and you answer a question.. ) "I think tolerance. We can't get far if we hate each other. That thing in Orlando. In my office, I keep telling them, that it was wrong.. that Isis would find a reason to kill them too and not only those people . "  I said , oh you mean your office people felt okay with the killing of gays. And he said yes,that it seened progressive thinking died with Rodney. It seemed that his office people sympathised with ISIS in killing the gays.. chants in music brought to life.  A minibus driver earlier in the day who was playing kick in she back door said that m...

Alarm goes off and rain starts falling - Monday morning and I think what the hell, if I wake up late I can always make up for it later. Reality hits though because other men have woken up earlier and started working.. rain or no rain.. the garbage collectors will around by 7am. First chore is to grate coconut on the old iron grater that has been around as long as I can remember.  There is a comfort in the familiar. Basin, backstep.. and rain is falling and some drops splashing on the step.. but the coconut will make milk anyway so it does not matter. I am used to this. The comfort zone is nice. Using this to ground because I have to take on a small project which is needed 'asap' and I will be using things which I cannot learn asap but I will have to learn them. I do not know if I could grate coconut any other way.. has to be bar grater, back step and basin. I think it would be a nice picture... to write the blog.. go and get the camera and then the battery done. I laug...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon The drains with stagnant water could be easily be cleared if the culverts are fixed. In August 2014, the then Ministry of Public Works met with Subryanville residents. The PPP/C government wanted to give out money to people to clean drains but not fix culverts. In May 2015, the government changed and the Ministry of Public Works became the Ministry of Public Infrastructure. The residents thought about fund raising to fix the culverts. There was need for Official Approval though because of  logistical issues (such as blocking roads , diverting traffic, sanctioning the prosperous capitalists who had received permission from the City Council for enterprises which damaged the drainage. Subryanville resident, Damian Fernandes worked with others to determine the cause of the blockages.  The presentation document is a testimony to the interest of the community to analyse the problems.  There are probably thousands of documents in G...

A not so bad day and I am walking after managing a front of the room three minutes speaking thing. My hands find the number on the phone of the woman whose laugh is medicine. Though I think we are both intelligent people, we end up talking nonsense with ease which is not always possible. Survival means that talking and communicating are important. I keep the communication open though I make sure that I am honest about the degree and space.  The text chat .. Facebook and so are good.. I mute a conversation with a woman who is intense.. her illness is not clear but she sends lots of stuff .. I reply politely because I know how it feels when in a chat , it suddenly ends and there is no reply. A man dealing with poor mental health told me that he felt pressure from me and I said.. it is okay man, stay away if you have to. He said don't worry.. though I worry about what I said because I want to ensure every interaction I have is positive with respect even if there is disagreeme...

I am not a big music fan, and I judge basically on if ting sound nice or it doan sound nice to me . During the last couple of months, I listened to Guyana tunes which moved people. Some of them were nice, some of them were troubling. In the Stabroek News  this week, Teacher Earletta Weekes said about the flag raising ceremony "I felt my skin grow when we sang the national song “Guyana The Free” and the National Anthem. " The collective singing of any song does have a joyful unifying  effect ( it is perhaps a nicer kind of mob mentality)  and communal singing of songs is uplifting for many people.  It is not often that Guyanese get together to make nice music in large numbers.  I I had a nice feeling in 2011 when hearing, singing the last stanza of the National Anthem at a concert in the St George's Cathedral at a Christmas Concert from the Georgetown Chamber Chorus. (Yall dont need to stand when yall play this) More recent renditions of the N...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon “This eggball taste sour, it aint good” the woman told the man selling snacks and food. The man looked surprised. How you mean? I cook it today. Her companion said, ‘My own is okay’ The woman said “I know, I used to make and sell too. I start midnight and then I come down to the landing’.  ‘Taste it and see’ The man looked a bit stunned’ No man, I can’t eat whuh you eat’ . The other woman said , no, this is okay. The cassava would have run if it was spoil. The man agreed. Two Amerindian woman. One coolie man who had told me he grew up with Muslim mother and Hindu father. The egg ball seemed to be a uniting symbol more than the Golden Arrowhead ever could be. He had converted to Christianity as a teenager. He had his food business. We were talking and he told me told me that ‘I am lucky, every day I get up now and I have a work that I want to go and do”. It was nice to hear him talk like that, despite the unhap...

Man sent a text "Anything I can do to help you when you are in one of these moods' . I thought it was a nice polite thing to say but didn't want to get into a conversation that this was not a mood, but now a way of life . Conversations can be normal or become incoherent and communication can be problematic. Managing and functioning require different coping strategies.  Focussing on the routine, getting tasks done, not trying to think through things. Not promising anything for the future beyond the contracts.  Trying to maintain necessary conversations, and to limit the unnecessary ones. A call from a woman in the market .. come buy something from meh nah man.. and she had spinach which I had not eaten in Guyana. Doubt about buying it, as I thought .. heck.. I don't feel like cooking anything  beyond all the other things I have to do.. but she already packed in the bag and pushed in my hand. Helping perhaps in pushing a new thing.. something flickering in ...