Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The moon is moving and the b-complex tablets are working their magic and I am coping in a kind of way. The dark clouds are hovering and the body does not want to move. It is raining, but not so cool and humid. I am trying to avoid quarrels. The quarrel a week ago with a loved one who asked me to call is on my mind as I deal at the shunning which comes soon after the attempt to reach out. The sun isn't out, body is stiff. Surya namaskar requires a back which could bend forward. I start doing it though and then realise that sweat is coming out of my forearms, not normal for me. The body moves, stumbles clumsily as the balance is lost. I am celebrating a couple of things like some of the work done by students who had told me they could not do it. Rainy morning and I am feeling nice in the market without the umbrella. There is some metaphor perhaps that instead of shielding myself from the dark clouds, that I just walk under them, through them, with them.  Market.. the shelt

The young man at the white board used the marker to draw some diagrams to explain the networking he was showing the group. I was in the group of people learning for the first time. The young man teaching me and the others had not been born when I graduated with the degree in Computer Science. It was one of those random moments when I have been relieved to sit back and be taught though I think this is the first time I more than twice the age of the teacher.  In another session on a day in which I was tired.. I had to demonstrate the OpenShot video editor which I had used to do some amateur videos. I was not familiar with all features. At some point, as fatigue set in, I realised again that younger people in the class were available to provide some guidance and I learned a few things which I did not know before. I know that for some things I have been asked to 'teach', I have had to learn quickly before teaching building on foundations. I forgot though, that there a

Nice evening, breeze blowing. Minibus with driver alone pulls.. up Campbelville Campbelville. Nice radio tunes playing, nutting loud and dutty. Bus empty and a few passengers jump in. Place is between day and night.  No conductor and I aint able sit near no door because Church road is a long way via Campbelville and I aint able sling door.. A school boy jumps in though.. sits near the door and assumes the control .. I feel a bit ashamed.. kindness number 1 in the minibus.. in fact many people just sit near the door to do the slinging in a voluntary kind of way. I imagine myself.. Dear god , I went and sling door (open and close the bus door) today and do me good deed from bourda market to church road.. how much sin dat gun forgive? (This year, nuff buses without conductors ..and I h ear one conductor shouting to passengers..choosing between his bus and another bus with driver alone.. yall doan go in deh.. yall gun gah fuh open door yall self) Bus stops and we see a bald hea

Man said that the butternut squash was $160 a lb.. 'the farmer I buy from does sell to supermarket and suh".. and I wondered what I would do with it because I aint able light up oven and waste gas just to roast lil bit squash. A farmer had told me that there was no market in Guyana really for butternut squash and I remembered the last time I bought , it was from a guy who had tried a thing but was not intending to plant more. He was selling butternut squash and mangoes and so on the pavement near GTM in Georgetown. The other times I saw it in 'supermarket' , it was a lil pricey though on reflection the price of one butternut was the price of almost two milkshake sometimes  and then I wonder really about the value for my money. So I look around for recipes.. and find that butternut squash is a nice 'winter vegetable' that is roasted first and then cooked into soup, pasta, mashed up as a side dish, make curry, make dhal , and so. A vegan man I know ha

Ginger and mint tea put in glass so I could a picture for the blog, and then poured back into the cup to drink Wake up after a fairly okay night and neck shoulders jaw, mouth , hands, back, waist knees all in pain. I try to move and I wince, almost about to cry out but memories of how this pain is helps to hold back. I stumble to the toilet, and kind of hold up and try to get my mind around why the body , now .. after about three months or so of not hurting.. is just hurting. Was it the additional ice cream on the weekend?  Did I overdo the sugar? and the dairy and the milk? Did the stress pile up and then the body just crumble? But thinking also seems to generate more pain.. At some point I have gratitude - that I do not have a headache, and that I am not feeling as I did before, .. overwhelmed and wanting to go back and lie down and wait to die to end the pain. I actually start planning how to try to deal with this. I try to stretch and move around but the pain is ther

Self-control and discipline I am standing in the supermarket, and thinking I need to sit down to breathe. My mind is on the early morning conversation which left me feeling angry at myself for being tired and incapable of doing an unwelcome task .  Part of me is thinking.. aye, you can't fall apart here ,while another part says just keep walking and moving and I walk up and down the aisles until I find the thing I had come to buy.  I have long managed not to worry about self control, I have stood up a long time in some busy places and looked around while getting my thoughts in order. Control for me is not about repressing the anger and confusion, but to own the feelings, acknowledge them and then work through the steps to shifting the anger and confusion to more productive emotions without causing harm to myself or anyone else. For many men though, self control and discipline are covers which hold back different emotions. Until sometimes, there is no holding  back. The