Na tek no worries fuh 2020...

Nah tek worries
"Ow man, nah tek worries, nah tek on nutting" the woman told me. She comes now every Friday to collect her part of the payment I owe to the Universe.  Her face was relaxed, she was smiling. Hair combed neatly with a side part (not the middle part which I know most women of her age use).
Bright red blouse and flowered skirt. 

Her voice was strong when she called for Inside Inside.

The cough was gone. One one of her visits, she wanted money for treatment. The cough was bad. Tears  came to her eyes every time she coughed.  Two visits afterwards she told me that a doctor from where she lived took her to the Health centre and she got treatment and medication.

"Like a ting a wuk.. thank God.. a saline and injection ah wuk"

She asked me how I was doing.  The day was one of the rough ones.  Body pains, and stiffness , dark clouds hovering in the mind.  Struggling to think and talk.  And I told her as I do now when anyone asks.. the truth .

Her instinctive response was to nah tek on worries. I think was more than just any economic interest in my well being, that it she had come this far by not taking on worries.

Worries
"I don't have anything to worry about" the woman  in the market tells me before selling me the weekly dose of plantain chips.  Her marketing strategy includes a bit of chit chat or long conversation depending on the number of customers, but conversations in a positive way.. listening and so even after collecting the payment.

She and a customer were finishing off the conversation about how 'when you look around and realise that things could be worse, you have nothing to worry about". She saw me and stood up and asked,  her arms wide, across the vegetables and the bottle with the chips made from half ripe - tunin'- and green plantains, and the individually wrapped sugar cake and the bottle with the guava cheese. "What do I have to worry about?.. I don't have anything..to bother me"
I mumbled something about not wanting to compare my misery with other people's but she was determined and so cheerful, that I shut up and kept my negativity to myself and collected the three bags of plantain chips which I would binge eat later to deal with the misery (all three made from 'turnin' plantains)

New Year's morning and the Pandit asks us to pray for the protection for every citizen. 2020 is a time of elections and the anxiety over who wins and loses is less than the anxiety for peace and that life could go on without racial violence adding to the other kinds of violence.  The stakes are high, the oil money and so. Climate is changing, the days already feeling hotter again.  I manage to avoid the political talk, but it aint easy. My barber who is a Jehovah Witness and who, like me, doesn't vote , also talking about the elections. Whether we want to or not, we will worry about elections and the divisions.

Hindu is nah people tuh?
Tangerine season will finish soon. I have been buying too much sometimes , but better than buying too much ice cream or cake. New Year's morning and on the way home from mandir, I slip into the market. I have two bags of parsad.  I see some nice tangerines. The stall has bush medicines and other things. A woman comes up. She is not smiling. 'What you want?" , quiet like. Serious face. No chit chat here, no happy new year or good morning.
I ask for the tangerines. She gets the bag. Her hands are dirty, fingernails have the dirt under them. Or it could be stains from handling the bush..

As she looks for the change. I ask her. 'Do you eat parsad, can I offer you one?".  Her tone is serious, 'yeah , why not? ..  I said well I know some people say is devil food and so, thinking of the devout Christian man who said the people who worshipped with jhandi flags were responsible for the recent deaths due to dangerous driver. And his followers and admirers who said that religious freedom meant that he could say those things.

"What happen, Hindu is nah people tuh.. Guyana got six races".. she tells me as she takes the parsad from me.

Another Christian website has a Bible study, which states that people advocate for LGBT equality, for 'sexual immorality' are messengers of Satan.  It is bad enough in Guyana, with the PNC/PPP versions of who is evil and who is righteous, and I keep wondering who else thinks I am evil and doing evil and would therefore wish for me and people  like me to be destroyed


Nutting mo'?
The woman continued to tell me about not taking on worries and not bothering with anything. She then asked m'" You nah gah nutting mo' ".  She always asks for more.  It is one of the annoying things as I said ow nah, be content nah.

But I think of her asking for more help though, thinking of contentment and accepting things as they are, and not taking on worries.. while at the same time wondering about asking for more from myself instead of just accepting limitations and thinking that in 2020..  that it will be possible to not take on worries while doing better, and being better.

That living better could reduce the worry of the body pains and shift the dark clouds, that I ask myself to love better and to love more , including loving those who think that people like me are evil.

And maybe 2020 will not have so much worries.