Many Guyanas and the one Venezuela , etc?

Many Guyanas 

"Please a tousand" the Indigenous child said in the open air restaurant/bar area to the coastlanders and any other person who would listen. A colleague assisted the child.

The hotel is nice, A/C and running water. I am in a village, Indigenous community. I am not writing the name because I did not seek permission from anyone I met or didn't met to write about the place, or about them.

The village centre seems to be around the airstrip, like other villages. Much like how other places might be built around rivers, the transportation hubs. I can't see any creek or river.

"Today is holiday, only one person come to work.. Toshao say we must employ local people" the owner of the hotel said. I am not sure if he considers himself local. The woman who cleans the hotel, who comes to work every day, is the only Indigenous resident of the community with whom I speak.

There is a nice small shop, unpainted boards. Big TV.  Grill to do 'roast'. I think it is a 'shack' .

Portuguese sign. I mumble in Portuguese and buy Guarana ..'original do Brasil' , for money which I did not want to pay a Guyanese woman for a parcel of mangoes. 

I buy a nice Brazillian cake of the cassava flour for money which I did not want to pay a Guyanese woman for a parcel of mangoes because I thought it was too much money to buy mangoes but enough to buy a Guarana. and a cake.

Listening in on conversation, couple of men sitting. Two speaking English, the rest speaking Portuguese. Miners, and labourers around the mining.

First night, I wonder around to get a vibe as sun sets. Shack is nice to sit down.  

One of the  men gaffs with me as bored people do in random places. Border dangerous so he has moved here to wait awhile. He is glad to practice his English, shows photo of his TIN certificate and his home in Brazil which is far away. 

He mixes English and Portuguese and I think he tells me he pays the Syndatico to avoid any trouble.  

But it seems trouble is too much now.

It is not clear where he mines.. whether in Guyana or Venezuela as it seems there is no border.  I hear Spanish. 

Early first morning and I get up, 515am or so to go for walk. In another Indigenous community, I walked to the creek, nice trail, plenty dogs, did the walk every morning and afternoon. A nice set of trees around it.

In this community, I walk to the airstrip. Past the yards with machines and so, one yard has a nice flower plant. I walk on the airstrip.. fumes from the tarmac and from the diesel generators which will shut off once sun rises. Trees around here loom in a way, and I decide not to walk through them.

Wondering where water is, creek or so. People say yeah they have one but is a far away. Not like exercise walk away.

I drink bottled water and brush my teeth with bottled water as colleagues advise me about typhoid and other water borne diseases.  I wonder what the 'locals' use.

The plane coming in was full of all the other civilised stuff like liquor, the snacks I buy in shiny packages , sodas and so.

I meet coastlanders who are working in the community. One of them tells me things about the Indigenous peoples which I imagine colonisers said about all of us. That we rejecting civilisation and development if we did not want to be colonised.  

That civilisation cannot mean drinking water coming on a plane from Georgetown. 

In plastic bottles which have to burnt in the forest.

The coastlander says '' yeah Christopher columbus was a long time ago, what that got to do with today?" The coastlander is a duty bearer of the State.

I try to listen and feel ashamed that the coastlander thinks I am somebody with shared values about the Indigenous communities. And ashamed that I am polite and not sure if I want to cuss up now. 

We do not talk about Venezuela wanting to take over Essequibo. Last time I talked about it, I realised that it was out of my hands, and that Venezuela in Guyana was another one of those things. 

One Venezuela, etc?

Come back from my walk, sun still rising and the man cleaning the restaurant area smiles and tells me .. cafe? and points to the kitchen where another  man is frying empanadas.

Cafe in the flask, the sweet strong Brazillian style. I ask the cook for 'leite' hoping that it is a word in Portuñol/Portunhol

The man who cleans tells me another day that he speaks Spanish. His employers speak Portuguese.

Another man tells me that he cleans and works , he speaks Spanish not Portuguese but the woman he works with speaks Spanish.  

Brazilians and Venezuelans. The hierarchy of labour in Guyana.

And the hiring of the 'Spanish' .. for work which they get paid less than Guyanese and so. 

And I wonder about the Venezuelan Vice President say that Venezuelans in Guyana are getting bad treatment. 

The people who have left Venezuela because Venezuelan Government and others treating them bad.

But hearing her owning the people who have left her Country for better.

And thinking historically, when people who feel they are treated badly, when they rise up against those who are treating them badly.  

Like at Elections and so in Guyana when we have periodic protests. But not at any other time.

The coastlanders tell me that many people do not speak English as their first language, and hence the coastlanders' work on behalf of the Government and others has to be translated sometimes.

I have not heard anyone speak the Indigenous language, but I hear the  Spanish , Portuguese and English.

We move around. Holiday afternoon, music and drunk people, one man lying on the ground.  Latin Music. Another night, I hear Latin Music, and some Chutney

Two men mumble to me one evening and I pass as I get the vibe of having to give a 'raise' or something.Drunk.

Woman tells me that she advised the owners of a business 'nice people, church people, they didn't want to sell beer but i tell them to sell beer because that is how they will make money'

The Indigenous child passes a day and asks a man sitting in the restaurant for money. The man speaks in Spanish on the phone, says hello to me. His English to me sounds like mine.

The Indigenous child does not ask me for money. 

I am not sure if I would have given the child any money as my culture says not to encourage children with begging, and to find their parents and to report them to Childcare and Protection Agency.  Or that I would protest with the child to get part of the gold money and oil money and so on.

I do not know if the Indigenous child would have understood me.