Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  Principles  "I aint want you tell me nutting about de music' the driver of the minibus which was about one third full said as he drove past me when I signaled  I would like to jump in. Rain set up, market bags heavy. Music aint too loud and front seat empty. I was prepared to psychologically block my ears if the driver had raised the music. But the bus man had strong principles, and he aint taking no passenger who going against his principles.. the loud dutty music with the sexist lyrics is worth more than my $100 Many of us let the buses pass when we realise the music loud and so, and now of course the buses also filter screen out passengers according to their principles. Prejudice So this filtering out and so, even though there might have been an opportunity for some dialogue. But..bus man holding on.. Principles on my mind this week as Winslow Craig's sculpture which has been in development since 2016 seems to have found a place  in the public.  Well at lea...

  Spider Go down in the yard , wondering if I should so something about the banana suckers which springing up all over, in my mind some story to spread them out and then others saying lef them  and then I look between the broad green leaves and see the large delicate web.   In the middle, the black and gold/yellow spider being very still.  I have not seen one of these before and I realise that I have not seen spiders for awhile in the yard or the house (maybe the lizards? ). And so I try to move under the banana leaves, in between them so as not to disturb the web and to check out the spider. And I check it every day that I go down. Other animals might move when they sense 'humans' but in the hot afternoon, the spider is still.  Bokeh I fiddle with camera, reading out about bokeh and trying to understand how I could catch cobweb on an image with the spider on it, much as I suspect the spider has me caught in a way.  I check for it every time I go down...

Finding...  "That tree look like it need lil help".. the woman tells me politely about the turpentine mango tree which had a lot of blossoms but now covered with the thick bird vine. I was waiting on the last mango which was kind of bright red hanging, smaller than usual, to fall. But one day it was not there on the tree or on the ground near the tree.   Tree might have to trim deep but with news of how mango tree helping with air pollution and so on , I want to leave it right there, but then I might end up with a dead tree with bird vine which nobody eating. The other tree had plenty blossoms too but not much fruit, and people had come to ask for 'green mango'.. this is a strange tree where the mango taste nice turnin' and green and make nice achar and so but ripe, is not even close to buxton spice. But is a day when I sit down and realise that even though I is a big man, earning my own money, and the ice cream trolley them passing up and down and I could buy o...

 ( Echoes of Resilience by the Division of Creative Arts, Faculty of Education and Humanities, UG continues at Castellani House until 19th August, 2024. I apologise to the artists whose work appear in photos here without the credit to them by name )  Masculine "All dem man wan look like woman.. " the bus driver says near Bourda Market as a man with long locks on a motorbike cut across him. The bus driver sounded angry,  'He got a  <d.,.k>;' ... Proud man that he was, made in God's image. he had just told a woman passenger that she look 'nice wid she big belly' .. the woman had laughed. Another man in God's image , riding a bicycle, with his crutch across the handlebar had stopped to tell a woman joining another minibus that 'you looking beautiful today' and so on.. and being very close to the bus window so I was hearing, he could have been talking to me too.  So I told him 'uncle you looking beautiful too' and some passengers laug...

  August heat is on and I feel like a cup of tea more than a cold drink of lime water.  There is some thing in some part of my brain where a woman descended from now Pakistan had said 'hot drinks cool you down' and I was never able to prove scientifically and so I go light stove in the hot sun.  I can't see the flame but I hear it. Put some elaichi and so in the water and wait for it to boil up. Bubbles come up and I turn to put in tea bag. I  realise that there are some particles or bubbles or something dancing and jumping up from the surface of the water and glinting in the light. The bubbles making a sound and I think I start imagining music. I wonder if it is spice or dust or what and racking my head to school physics and remembering that water bubbling is boiling but can't remember that there will be these particles jumping which are visible in sunlight And I stand up and watching the pot boil and then go look for camera.  And the camera not showing the thi...