Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Old and new Sitting in the Georgetown Club. Thursday 30th May .  The Pride Symposium is one of the events for the Pride activities. The 2018 symposium was about LGBTI and Family. There were powerful stories - sharing of family acceptance, and family rejection. About adopting children, and about being banned from seeing children. Symposium is a kind of formal word. But symposium could mean a interactive  gaff. I made an effort to be here again. Colleen McEwan introduces Guybow.   Guybow was f ounded by Andre Sobryan to offer support to gay men dealing with HIV/AIDS in 1990s. Guybow now does work with lesbian, bisexual and queer identifying women. It is the 'oldest' LGBT organisation.  In the conversation, Colleen and Maeve talked about the Mother's Day concert they had, and the fun day for the families . Different from the beginning when HIV/AIDs first came to Guyana. The other partner for the Symposium is Equal Guyana . The newest LGBT organi...

Things are getting worse. I hear my name call, shouting in a way . I run. I feel stone inside, still, that there will be no temporary break, that I will be expected to do more of the duties which I cannot do, or to find the emotional intelligence to manage the increased suffering. I feel sick. I don't sleep. . Part of me is staying away from the rest. Trying to be logical, to say hey.. you are reacting violently to the change. You knew it was coming. So distractions.  Random things to also think about with the suffering. Gratitude for the rain, for the rain makes the ferns and so grow nicely , and the wet ferns could make nice pictures for blogs. Gratitude for the young woman and the young man who laughed at things I said. Gratitude for the young man who laughed with me at the changing circumstances. GPL ended the conversation. Gratitude for the woman selling pineapple. The pineapple was bad, I did not curse as much as I would have done. She asked where I had been...

Dear Brilliant Woman, It is raining and I am walking around with the camera trying to get a picture. I want to use the picture for the text of an letter which I would never write to you personally. Thank you again for offering me work. I am in awe of your intelligence and the work you have done.  I know that working with you will be an important intellectual exercise for me. In normal times,  I would have been able to push myself beyond boundaries, to be excited about doing things which I have not done before. That though, is in normal times, times when the depression could be managed easily and I could shift the dark clouds aside or forget about them and then manage the mind into things which could be useful. I felt foolish when I asked you to cancel our meeting after I had agreed to the meeting. But I am exhausted mentally and I know that I would probably embarrass myself more in the conversation. I also know that I would be even more ashamed to withdraw the work...

Picture of St James The Less Cemetery, Subryanville taken just for this blog... (This is not a review of A rundathi Roy's Ministry of Utmost Happiness ) Graveyards I live within walking distance of three graveyards - the Muslim Burial ground, the St James-the-Less (Christian) cemetery and a small Hindu burial ground which is no longer used. A man , Ali, who does odd jobs  lives sometimes in the Muslim Burial ground. The St James-the-Less cemetery is fenced off now, probably to stop the one or two people who used to sleep on the tombs. The last time I passed the Hindu burial ground it seems to have been turned into a rubbish dump. The book starts  with vultures dying from diclofenac poisoning. I laugh when I think about the first page  because I have 75mg of diclofenac in my body and contemplating another to deal with a pain in the foot. I am not laughing at vultures dying. The book then moves to the graveyard and introduces Anjum who "lived in the graveyard...

The poems Two of the book club members and me are in a minibus heading to Enmore for our May book club meeting.  The book club selects a book around India/Indians for Indian Arrival in May. This year the book club decided to go outdoors, and to join one of the members in her home village of Enmore.  The book is Sacrifice : Poems on the Indian Arrival in Guyana by Peter Jailall The minibus driver playing Chutney and spicy bollywood remixes. It seems appropriate for the journey which is taking a while due to the road works. Every now and then I try to "Screw some bulb and winin' out of time" like the  Coolie Bai Coolie Bai is playing in the bus. Our directions said to stop at Big V taxi. Conductor stop us at Lucky 'Big V aint got taxi'. We heard later that there is a link up between bus drivers and taxi service and bus driver stop you near their friends. Taxi driver took us in, said yeah he know where we going. - the Peepal Tree Monument Gardens. ...

Guava jelly "What was the colour of the jelly like?" Ms Magda Pollard asked me. She had arranged for me to  get some guava jelly from the Carnegie School of Home Economics to take for a relative. The jelly was delicious. I didn't think about colour. She explained that the presentation was as important as the taste. The jelly should be clear, and have a reddish brown. She told a story about making a jelly dessert during her student days. The jelly was made in layers. They had to do each layer separately then let it set, and it took a day or so to do. I remember when someone had donated a cake to an event we both attended. A lovely rectangular cake, laid out in a silver baking foil tray. The person had surrounded it with white flowers and leaves. I thought the layout was pretty. And that it reminded me of a body lying in a coffin at a funeral. I remember there was a little disturbance. Ms Pollard had intervened.. yes that is the word I am thinking of - and remo...

Grief I opened the lid of the non-stick frying pan and realised there gravy was gone and there was only the brown crust on . This was it, I thought, failure again to do what I used to do well, without thinking, in the past. Failure to be mindful that everything has to be done like for the first time. The ochroes were young, green, bright green. I had not cooked the recipe for a long time since my mind on other things or on nothing at all. I stood up at the front of the stand wondering if I should buy them. I thought nah man, is okay, you can do this, would be nice, something nice that you used to enjoy. I forgot though, the low heat, the lowest heat. So the deep sense of loss, not only of the ability to cook the nice recipe which I had done many times before, but of so many other things. Breathing I sit on the floor , breathing. I should be doing the exercises, the yoga stretches which sometimes help to move the dark fog in my mind and at least make the body feel light eve...

Image of Nina Simone from Feeling Good video on youtube . (Commonwealth Writers launched the book We Mark your Memory : Writings from the descendants of Indenture in Guyana at Moray House Trust on 7 May, 2019 ) Nina Simone and Tabla Alana Warde strummed her guitar and started the beautiful words of Feeling Good. Amar Ramessar was on harmonium.  They started the musical interlude while waiting on the tabla player, Tarun Daodat. I started singing along in my own way at the back of the room. I was feeling out of place as I didn't really want to come. Invitations had arrived from different people so I thought I should come. Tarun came in quietly , set up the table.  And just started playing some beats on the tabla. Feeling Good sounded even more good ..  And I didn't feel too bad to be there . Relieved that Indus Voices was going to be playing music at the Guyana launch of the book. Music in the Caribbean on my mind , musician descendants of indenture. ...

Horse.. Body in pain and mind not moving. Sitting starting the computer, documents open from which I could have easily taken the information and weave together into an analysis for a woman who had told me this would be interesting and I would like doing it. It is the last thing I want to do. What I want to do, I dare tell no one. I know I have to let the woman know that now is not the past, that  I have lost the ability to focus and do interesting work, but I try to think that this is a chance to help her someway. I hear a sound outside, a gentle sound. I get up and look and realise there is a horse eating, gentle neigh. White horse which I had not seen before. A few days before , two mornings in a row, there was rubbish scattered outside the bin. I had cursed the 'junkie' the first time, cleaned up and left the bin. And I thought I could leave some money to buy food or something but I am not that kind or good a human being. "He had to chase the horse, was a...