Coil: Guyana Shining..

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 unhappy customer.

Two young men, brilliant men working in state institutions had told me they are contemplating their way out of their agencies. One had voted for the President, but found constant surprises and similarities to the PPP and other obstructions to getting work done. He wasn’t interested in the PPP return but wondered about the clashing visions of Guyana. The other man has not done the quality of work he wants to do. He has found himself dealing with strange new battles and viciousness which reminded him of the past.

Another bright young man said he was glad he made his move from private sector to a public sector agency. He is fortunate perhaps, because he is screened by two or three layers of people who have to argue the vision.

A bright woman who was hopeful after May 2015 after the jubilee, cuss in a way I never hear her cuss.. ‘social cohesion ministry should be disbanded’.  Another bright young woman who went to all the schools I went said she felt that the Hindu structures and the presence of more and more buildings that resembled was Indian/Hindu people wanting to hold on  to India and not be Guyanese.

And we went to school in Republican Guyana in which all races and so were to be respected. So we had a conversation about worship, churches and so and that it should be possible to have a Guyana in which it is possible to be different and to be seen as Guyanese

A young man I know from a good family give me a big wave as he stepped out of his new car. He was in prison for fraud. His smile was direct, his wave was cheerful and he was sprightly. I wondered what else he had up his sleeve. I waved and smiled back .

I keep hearing about the American Dream..and many of the people who were here for the jubilee seemed to have part of the American dream. Who knows what the dream was in 1966? Fifty years later though, the dream of the jubilee is in numbers of people, and dollars made.

Nothing else.

What would a Guyana dream look like – beyond making money? What does Guyana mean – beyond making money?

Guyana for me is different types of bhajee/callalloo. Eddoe Leaf, Poi, pak choy, mustard, spinach, chowrai, chinee , saijan leaf (moringa), sweet potato leaf,  and one man mentioned a woman cooking pumpkin leaf . There are no known experiments with bhajee made with ganja.

Unlike  Charles De Gaulle’s ‘difficult to govern’ France with 246 cheeses , it must be easier to govern a country where people could be resourceful enough to use what is available and create 10 different kinds of bhajee. There are many people of course who do not eat bhajee.

The Guyana dream beyond the jubilee dollars is a place where

• people stop beating children as a form of discipline, and would suitably discipline those who think it is okay to beat children
• people recognise that it is possible to learn not to beat children to discipline them
• people acknowledge openly that the love and unity message is fake, and that racism,homophobia and other prejudices are alive and well  and are not the problem of ‘others’ alone
• people fix the problem of their prejudices and focus on good governance rather than race
• there are pavements on public roads so that pedestrians can feel safe
• traffic lights work at junctions
• criminals can educate about the why the jail makes no difference to them
• people work seriously at preventing domestic violence , and transform relationships between men and women
• people learn about suicide prevention
• minibus drivers take leadership, slow down, change the music when it is dutty ness. Some Guyanese dream that there will only be dutty music in Guyana after the morning devotions
• people use the National Library more, not only for books, but access the space to learn from others and to dialogue and have conversations to break down some of the barriers and stereotypes
• people visit Castellani House more often, and recognise that Castellani House is public institution which works well. I have never been disappointed at any of the events
• people stop littering
• there is justice , there is equality, there is acceptance of diversity, there is space to resolve conflicts
• the Ministry of Social Cohesion goes to Region 5 and work with the RDC to resolve the madness
• every citizen can read and write, and where they can’t read and write, there are places and incentives to learn to read and write
• dollars is not used as indicators of success
• different dreams can be realised by people who dream differently, once dreams are meant to be liberating and not to  oppress others. The Constitution of Guyana does not allow this at the moment as winners and losers take turns in punishing each other as part of the current Guyana dream.

In October 2015, I made a submission to the Commission of Inquiry into Guyana’s Public Service on the use of Free and Open Source Software(FOSS). This week, I confirmed a contract with the Ministry of Public Telecommunications to develop a policy on FOSS use in the public sector.  A young man who likes FOSS laughed at me and said, “you know they watching you over at Social Protection deh right?. I wonder if dey gun let you in now fuh talk about FOSS”

Some Guyana dreams might be realised, others will not.