Walking on the road in Guyana 2025

Walking 

Sun come out in between the rain and I decide to go walk on the road as they say movement is medicine. People in my street try to keep road and parapets tidy but development.. road had been fixed, then edges broken again by GWI to replace pipes and sand and mud in the rain, then sand again. 

Walk in the corner is a joke now on many parts of the development roads as the corners might have puddles, holes or rubbish. But movement is medicine... and I think right, is Sunday, could walk away from where the sand gathers at the edge because walking on sand is not easy to do. 

Trees touching me

The low hanging branches of some of the flamboyant trees, lush after the rains brush my head and it feels nice.., like if trees blessing me. Part of my street has a kind of canopy where the people behind the trees have not cut them down to concrete the parapets as happened in other parts and so the branches meet across the road. 

Parapet 

Rubbish bins out as people faithfully put out bins on Monday as development has not meant orderly collections and so on. 

It used to work, the collection on Mondays before the oil and gas and so, but with the oil and so now, some weeks they don't pass. Some people plant lil flowers on the parapet, some citizens who are developed have littered the parapet as Guyana is one big rubbish heap. 

Gardens

And walking and admiring the gardens, grateful for all the people who plant flowers and so in front yards and even parapets. Less and less though.. back in the day I understand my neighbourhood used to have garden competition. Road don't have traffic but that doesn't mean that the developed persons and drivers will not want to race the new fancy machines on the empty roads. 

Deathly roads 

Started the morning listening to a bhajan sung by a young man who died on a development road last night. 

Is it blood for oil in developed Guyana? So much death, . the children, the women, men, and injury. And nothing is slowing things down. Walking is supposed to be good exercising, rolling shoulders and so to ease tension. But walking on the road in Guyana 2025 though could be tense. 

Morning 

Young man passes me on the road and I say morning, and he says nothing. Thinking of the conversation with men who say that now you can't say morning to women because that is sexual harassment, but we all know that there are ways of saying morning to be polite, and ways of saying morning as sexual harassment.  

Man passes me on a scooter and I hear a mumbled morning and I shout it back. Another man on a scooter nods his head in my direction. Others pass me straight

Noticing things

GWI vehicle pass me calling on people to pay up their bills. They don't say morning first.  It was because of walking recently I noticed a leak and it was hell to report as the whatsapp AI wanted to know all my business and then it took 15 minutes at the call centre. Leak could not have been seen from a car window. 

Prayers 

Walk down another street. Hear the loud voice of man singing aarti in his Shivala. Down the road, hearing testimony from a church. Head going all over, seeing the flowers, some of the old yards with plenty space to plant in the ground. 

Admiring the flower trees which look like the growing wild, which deading in my yard.. Some people plant flowers on parapet knowing neighbours and others will pick for their daily puja.

No parking

There is a faded sign 'no parking on the parapet' behind a parapet covered with cars, some old, some injured, damaged.. paint looking shiny and new. Graveyard for development. 

Have to come out to main road, Sheriff Street. Cross at a traffic light, not sure if drivers would stop at the pedestrian crossing. See two strong men , possibly Venezuelan immigrants, waiting for minibus. One of them with umbrella open to shield from the morning sunshine. I walk with my head bare in the sun. The two related Chinese supermarkets open opposite the nonChinese one which has closed.  Some cars are parked across the pavement.

Stomach things 

Go into another supermarket, buy things for the stomach and gaff with customer and clerk about things which help the stomach. Walk down the road, the Doubles stand only have two customers. Doctors say.. careful with curry and so on, I say to hell with it, if Universe did not want me to buy Doubles , there would be a long line as happens sometimes.

Doubles being sold by two women with Guyanese accents and one who might be Venezuelan migrant. I put doubles in the same bag which have the two bottles of stomach medicines. 

Pavement

No gardens, here, some potted plants. Empty containers. Lots of rubbish. Pavement does not make sense as it is uneven, I have tripped on the edges of the paving stones. The dips for some places have mud and water where the drainage does not work. Better to walk on the flattish road. See the tattered Indian flag on a post not far from a place with bright coloured sign selling alcohol and tobacco. 

Past the church with the 'Littering is insanitary sign and the empty plastic bottle in the middle of a flower plant like some person saying to hell with God. Cross again where the road markings are fading for those of us who want to walk on the road. GWI vehicle repeating again that we should settle our debts. 

Reach home, grateful that I had the walk, and grateful that the  development has not killed or injured me