Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  Friday morning after the 51st anniversary of the Republic of Guyana and the Ministry of Education tweets a beautiful meme with a rainbow covered pride heart with the Minister of Education Priya Manickchand affirming to 'all persons of the LGBTQ community' like the beautiful hymn about Jesus "you have a friend in me" The comment was generated in response to the bizarre comments made in the Parliament in which a couple of Members of Parliament of the PPP and PNC and AFC - supposedly gay friendly political parties - used homophobic slurs in their references to their Honourable colleauges. The comments included a sickening reference to an allegation of child sexual abuse.  It is nice to think of some Government official responsible for propaganda and promoting Education programmes going to find the nice rainbow images to create the meme. It is easy to embrace the Minister (and all other MPs) who are not like 'the rest'. In 2015, another of the Minister's co...

 "It ain't deh deh no mo'' the young woman told me as she collected the tattered hundred dollars from me. She was barefoot. Walking between the cars at the traffic light near to the monument to the 1763 rebellion and to the Office of the President and to the giant flag pole in the Durban Park Stadium. I had asked her about the huge flag which had generated a lot of excitement in 2016 . She was walking between the cars at the traffic light with two young men who were selling water, another young man who was selling car accessories, and another young man on crutches who was also asking for money. Not far away, people were cleaning the parapet and wrapping cloth around trees to celebrate the 51st Republic Day. I should have asked the barefoot young woman, the young man on crutches and the three young men moving between the cars at the traffic light what they thought of Guyana the Republic at 51 and the 258 years of the Cuffy Rebellion.  Walk between the cars with them. De...

  Lips moving. Lips in smiles and laughs. Lips forming words, easy conversation. Air between the lips filled with the sound of openness. Work, work, family, life. work About sex, attraction.  Possible attraction to each other Work, and work. Lips moving.. nice sounds. easy sounds.. relaxation and connection building. One set of lips saying to another set of lips... both lips smiling.. 'do you want to do something'.. not saying what something is. Lips not smiling and talking about not wanting to be an outside man with lips smiling and saying nothing... but saying' no no.. is not about outside man.. nothing deep' Lips not talking about the racing mind and the surprise and the thoughts of what the hell, this was supposed to be about work. One set of lips talking about promises made not to be the outside man. the other lips smiling.. smiling. Both lips smiling in moving to a place.. one set of lips saying 'you sure no body will see us' and the other set of lips smil...

  Blood "Somebody get shoot?" the boy asks me politely.  I say yes. "But we aint seeing the blood.." he says.. I smile to myself. they come looking to see the blood. I say "it deh inside the yard.. .. but I have some on my hand .. look" and I show him my right hand which has my neighbour's blood.   Saturday afternoon in a usually quiet area Nice breezy Saturday afternoon.  Two shots which could have been anything else. My neighbour's screams..   'Don't go outside.. don't go .. ' my mother shouts at me. But I don't hear the shots really, I am concerned about the scream. And I know people say while other people run from bullets, Guyanese apparently tend to run towards them. As I write though, I am  fed up with a place where we live in fear of virus and guns and so many other things. And that in growing fed up and weary with the stupid country, that the "fellow citizens who might have recited the national pledge to love their ...

    This blog is one of a series of Facilitation Thoughts which look at various aspects of facilitation.  The Covid-19 pandemic has made it necessary to conduct different kinds of meetings online. I facilitated my first virtual session in April 2020 .  I continued to learn with each subsequent 'online' session - as a participant and as a facilitator.   These are some additional points to the Facilitation Thoughts to enhance the virtual facilitation experience. Learn/Adapt The virtual environment means that facilitators have to adapt and be creative. Working virtually means thinking of how to achieve the facilitation objectives in a  different space.    It does not mean transferring the face to face, to the computer/tablet/smart phone. For example, presenters have to check the legibility of text on their presentations. In face to face , the presentations are magnified through projectors on to a wall - in this virtual environment, th...

    "Mask, mask.. " the conductor tells the  man coming on the bus. The man had just put out a cigarette. Eyes red. Clean bright red cap. Neat trousers and black shoes. Conductor and driver are older men, wearing masks. All the passengers wearing masks. First time since Covid come to Guyana that I hear a conductor ask passengers about the mask. "Yeah yea.. let me sit down"  I am at the last row, corner near the left wheel , half lying half sitting and face kind of out the window.   Man comes past me,  says 'hey' in a pleasant knowing way. I wonder if is one of the guys near the market who always calling me doc. He sits on the corner opposite to me. Pulls out two blue masks from his back pocket and chooses one.   I know the move.  I keep a blue mask in my pocket sometimes for the places which would not accept me with the plaid cloth which covers more of my face than the blue mask. ("Vidya , why you don't wear a proper mask, you look like ...