Thoughts of a minibus traveller

by Vidyaratha Kissoon A PPP supporter curses me all the time about the ‘change’.. so you vote for change, nutting aint doing, money aint coming, parking meter, container, etc. etc. ‘Is whuh Moses does really do? Yuh ain’t hear he deh downstairs of Harmon and he gah fuh report to Harmon? “ I didn’t realise that the Prime Minister’s office was now in the Ministry of the Presidency compound. I thought it was in Kingston somewhere . Even though I read the papers and the GINA Newsletter every day, I really don’t know what is the portfolio of the Hon. Moses Nagamootoo MP, 1 st Vice President and Prime Minister. According to a June 2015 article in the Guyana Chronicle , there was to be a website at http://www.opm.gov.gy . The site returns the 403.Forbidden message . This brought back memories of the nineteen nineties when Internet first came to Guyana and Moses Nagamootoo’s Ministry of Information used to apply filters to block sites deemed unsuitable...

The young man said 'we have to walk in single file'. We were near Thomas Lands & Camp Street, outside Queens College. We had both attended the school , about twenty five  years apart.. and we had both walked home from school along the same route. I said nah man.. we used to make it two aside. Single File brings back memories of corridors and stairs.. single file left hand side. Except now, the cars are faster on Thomas Lands.. and we had to walk in a kind of single file and feel the breeze of the vehicles passing close. There is nowhere really for pedestrians to walk now and with the prosperity in Guyana, every road is a race track to show off. But it was interesting walking home from school.. 'cross the road here.. you will see that it is easier than walking straight up'..  and cutting across a muddy part which was not there before. Walking and thinking of 'A' levels and what would happen post 'A' Levels, and almost 30 years later walki...

Young man abruptly said 'I am leaving now' and walked off. His friend and I quickly realised something had gone wrong in the conversation. His friend said, he does that sometimes. I kicked myself over and over. The young man's father had abandoned him. He was amazing in his talk about technology. I thought I was encouraging him to take one step at a time before he achieved his dream, and to hold the dream one side while he got work and some experience to aid in the dream. The place where he was staying was noisy he said. I managed to make contact with his caregiver and hope that they could check with him and that some repairs could be done. If I was in a counselling or other situation, I would have been working my mind through the usual steps of listening. There were other things the young man mentioned.. that's not my name, i hope to change it, to finally get rid of my father.... I have applied counselling skills, and I think managed empathy, when peop...

Fate carries me back to one of my secondary schools - almost 30 years later. The steps are there.. memories of running up when you were not supposed to. I had to go up and down a couple of times and said to hell with , then it was rules , now it was knee pain, painfall psoas muscles and feeling heavy. It is easy to think to walk up gracefully, but memories though of raising up the legs to run and skip not only one, but two sometimes and then almost tumbling when you reach the top. The important exercise is not generating the effects it used to as the body decays in places and the pain where pain never existed stops the extremes which used to be reached through overcoming, not pain, but some stiffness. So days now, when the clouds press down on the heavy body, and there are steps which you don't feel like climbing.. there is a burst sometimes, of moving the legs skipping up them until the top and then when the legs start shaking to say to hell with it and hold on to the han...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon Man in the minibus shows the driver his phone. “Look nuh”.. in a voice which looked like it was a mix of a little horror and plenty fascination. Driver says.. ‘whuh stupidness is dis’… Man with the phone says.. ‘she is nine years old.’ Man show me his phone.. it is a picture of a child. The child ‘poses with underwear’ and her hands are lifting up the top in ways which are not about play. And no, this is not going to be a discussion about whether pornography is in the head of the viewers or in the head of the people who encouraged the child to pose and to share the picture on the internet which is available in Guyana. I tell the man to delete the picture and stop sharing it. Man says’ is not me., is facebook it deh pun, I cyan delete it’ I tell him that it could be a crime to give it life by sharing it around. People share around and celebrate women who pose similarly so somebody probably thought is goo...

After 464 pages, the book ends with "Is there anything more dangerous than dissatisfied and irresponsible gods who don't know what they want?" A review in the UK Guardian more eloquently describes the book. I would not have picked this up by myself. It was a gift and I was reassured that this was not a text book and the language is not obtuse. Harari is a professor of World History. He argues that there were six species of mankind a hundred thousand or so years ago, and gradually one specie dominated.  He manages to take bits and pieces of archaeology, anthropology, biology, history and weave together in a very readable way, a story which could be credible. The book was easy to read, because it is divided into chapters and sub-chapters. Heck, there are even some pictures too. As the Guardian reviewer noted, there are some problems in the history, but what the hell, history is like that. Harari talks about the origins of capitalism - and empire. It wasn'...

Dear heat.. Is what really going on? Am I feeling you more now because I am older? Is something wrong with me that make me sweat in my house sitting at a desk typing without a shirt? Is the fat under the skin rebelling against you? Is this how it is going to be for the next couple of months? So powerful that even the wooden walls seem to radiate the heat and the bed at night is warm . Last night I had to use a fan to deal with you. I don't normally need a fan in the night.. or is something wrong with me? Hot flashes? I have more oestrogen than I thought? I used to walk in you, and walk fast and not really sweat. But is how come? What happening.. is a big rain coming? And on my  heaviness, it feeling a lil more heavy.. is a contradiction how the light bright and so, but something weighing down... I can't remember it ever being like this.. I watch dem grey clouds and hope dat rain gun fall .. soon and cool down the place but then I know that after dis heat, the stea...

I glad fuh de lil wuk. I find de socks and de ole faithful shoe dat Kubu de expert shoemaker had resoled two times. I got meh shirt in me pants.  PUn de road.. mo' driver signalling me if I want taxi, so I mussee could pass fuh a consultant who dress up nice going into public officials buildings, as opposed to when I have two salt bag after market and nobody bodder to ask except de drivers by de market. Meetings in sequence. Nice order. Lunch time come up.  I know I had said, sometin bland.. like a lil pastry or suh which aint gun lef no taste in de mout. My foot kerry me tho' to the hole in the wall place which not far from my next meeting venue.  The balls of coconut chokha are nice, tempting, right in front deh.  There are some odder bland tings... I whisper .. 'you have dhal'... hoping dat if he seh 'no , it done' you could seh.. arite.. Yes.. man, we have dhal, white rice, brown rice.. you tell me.. dey had bhaji.. i could have had de plain bha...

by Vidyaratha Kissoon Waiting on the car to fill up. Woman talks about vegetarian food and healthy eating. We talk about places which sell vegetarian food. She talks about not eating food cooked by women who are menstruating. I don’t say anything. “You are Hindu, right?” “Yes, yes” “You workshop Lord Shiva right?” I say , um yes. “You is Hindu, you should be a vegetarian” I squirm a bit, I know I know. Black woman in the car,  here sounding like one or two of the pandits and devout Hindus I know. We talk about Navratra – season to worship the feminine form of God. Shakti. “I keep my fast during Navratra, I don’t eat salt, I do ‘mudda work’ too” Mother work is the workshop of the forms of Shakti – Durga, Lakshmi and Saraswati. The car was small and I did not want to fight about menstruation and draw attention to the contradiction that worshipping Mother while stigmatising menstruation makes no sense. The motives are selfish...

The last part of the weekly cleaning is mopping the tiles downstairs. It is a nice kind of feeling.. as this is the signal that the four hours or so work has completed and the house 'light up nice' and so.. at least for a couple of days until you know it is getting time to clean again. Restless nights around a workshop which was difficult to do left the body in a kind of pain. Mosquitoes which fed on my body and might have exchanged zika for nourishment balanced the nice feeling of breakfast near the  back track operations on the Corentyne. roti, aloo choka, baigan choka, salt fish .  The car man driving from Berbice bridge to Georgetown was doing 120 and 140 Km/h and my body still has the toxins from the stress of that speed driving and the man's assurances that he normally makes Gt to skeldon in 1 hour and 17 minutes. I thought of saying no to one of the paid assignments, but when wiping the tiles I thought, okay,, so far so good, day is going good.. you can do...

Domestic violence and entrapment by Vidyaratha Kissoon “If you interfere in me woman story , I gun kill yuh’ the young man told the older man in a wheel chair. The neighbours heard, as they always do , the threats to chop up and kill . Sometimes there are sounds which of hands knocking on tables to demonstrate the threat. The neighbours called the older man to find out if he was still alive. The neighbours complained to family members. The day before this threat, the younger man had lovingly brought home the older man from the Clinic. He had cleaned the house and cooked. Some nights, the younger man curses all night. The older man says that things have been stolen. The younger man has been in jail, most recently three months after a neighbour complained about the tiefing. The younger man came out of jail and came back. Within a week, the behaviour resumed. Sometimes the neighbours smell marijuana. They plead with the older man, ow man, y...

Man from outside of Guyana asks "What has to happen for you to feel more motivated in your life in Guyana? " . I wonder if I should bother considering this question as though life in Guyana has opportunity for freedom and motivation. Unexpected blessing comes this week. Young man with two screens , quiet intelligent, generously sharing knowledge with no expectation of any result. Awesomeness in the amount of work done, including self learning and in the complete lack of any narcissism which sometimes accompany the talented programmers I know. I remember those times , the joy of writing code and the code turning into something workable or also the celebration of fixing bugs and finding mistakes with yeah.. I can do anything.  The room is dark. I ask him.. man.. He smiles and says 'I focus better in the dark' Focus. I can't focus though on what he is sharing as there mind is preoccupied with chasing away clouds and concentrating.  There is no point goi...

" Hi vidya..please continue the column." the message from the editor said .  I asked for one more week off as I tried to get my head around the whole writing wuk. The column is The Co il - on the Guyana Mosquito I am grateful for the work but there is anxiety about the work since this writing thing is accidental. The last coil I wrote is called Living with Stagnation.   I was bothered by being in a rut and writing about the same things , sometimes in different ways.  Circumstances enabled a pause in the writing, with the editor asking for resumption before I expected. No one asked me 'whuh happen to de Coil'. I could feel a way that the absence of new Coils did not cause any national crisis. I am more concerned about the loss of income which came about from my inability to put words together. There is a routine, a cycle.. Coil published, obsess about the feedback (or lack of feedback), start thinking what to write about, or take a picture and write aro...

The woman asked if I wanted saeme. I caught a whiff of the fragrance.. remembering when we had a saeme vine and how the sweet smell used to linger after picking and 'stringing'. There is some ritual about 'stringing' the side of the saeme, and this adds to the time. I can't remember cooking this on my own. My head a lil fuzzy from feeling that I have not done anything new and radical in a long time. So I thought, what the hell.. let me break with culture, tradition and so on.. do something radical.. and cook the saeme 'just suh' without stripping the fine vein from the sides of each saeme. Coconut milk is needed. There is a ritual of grating coconut, leaving a bit back to eat with sugar and getting the milk from the rest. The saeme smells nice in the pan. I go easy on the masala, not sure of how things will work out. Aloo in the mix because I forgot to buy the eddo. It cooks, I am nervous, the saeme will get too soft. But it doesn't. It i...