Coolie driver, black chirren, loud music, rubbish, mental health

I am late so I jump in a bus which I hear before I see. Music pounding. Front seat. Coolie conductor. Coolie driver. RadhaKrishna murti on his dashboard.

'Is you bus?"
"Nah.. is me mother own, I driving it"
" Why you playing dis loud music'?
"Is dem like it.. he said quietly and vex and looking at de back.."
Dem is de black chirren in de back of de bus, bupping wid de coolie conductor who seem to be de most energetic bopper"

"Yuh see dat picture deh, you is de driver, why yuh not uplifting dem'

He look at me sideways like i mad or something and relieved when I got out.

Trying to imagine the Hindu woman praying for her son and so on, and that part of the marketing strategy is to make sure that the bus shine and got loud music so that the chirren dem who would find Granger Big 'B' bus boring, would go to school, all pumped up, ears probably damaged.. and waiting to learn.

Mental Health and Peace of Mind are probably not the same thing in Guyana.  Some young men had said listening to 'culture, soul, reggae, gospel' music would ease their mind when they felt troubled.

A woman said 'Guyana is a depressing place' In the last year or so, two of her cousins attempted suicide and she was trying to find affordable services for another relative.

I walked in Georgetown one Saturday morning , early. Most of the persons who were about seemed to the mad, the homeless. I said good morning  to people who I didn't know, including the people who were dressed in mad people clothes. Some people responded. One man asked me for a raise. Some did not respond.

Many people keep hoping that the 'mad' would be removed from the streets. The 'vagrants'.

Like rubbish.

I saw the rubbish bin, empty in the island of rubbish opposite GRA. Seems that whoever picked up the bin, did not think to clear off the rubbish. The rubbish seemed to be the litter of the sane.. boxes from the fast food places which could not be crushed.  It doesn't take long to full up a bin or bag with empty cups, boxes and the symbols of prosperity.

Sanity must be ignoring all of this, and not teking on. Sanity must be minibus drivers pounding music with sickening lyrics into school chirren ears.. 'because dey like it;'  Sanity must be drivers who tell me they immune to the lyrics but is so the business is. Sanity must be doing business without any sense of community responsibility.


Madness is writing about rubbish bins and minibus music and the lyrics which are supposed to be 'cultural' over and over again.