Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The taxi driver was not too sure where Sacred Heart is located. The old Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church burned down in 2004, and the new church was opened in 2015.  I had not visited the new church.  I was looking forward to hearing the piano concert by Maestro Pascal Gallet, organised by the  Alliance Française of   Guyana with support of partners and sponsors.   The first item was the National Anthem of Guyana, played by a teenaged Guyanese. Some of the audience sung along. Memories of school days when other students would play the piano and some of us would sing along  while some of us would stay silent because we knew Guyana didn't really belong to all of us, only to those in power and all them things like anthem and pledge was allegiance to power. And in a week when the Government succumbed again to the legacy of British colonialism and the police continued to harass citizens who protested against the colonialism, patriotism was not on m...

By Joshua Bryant, Demerara - John Carter Brown Library, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8571926 Hey charlie,  I can't call you majesty and king and so on because majesty for me is elephants and tall trees; and macaws and scarlet ibis and so flying overhead ,  and king is about royalty which has expectations of subjugation from those of us who not king,  as we know kings and queens in your family had enabled the enslavement of millions of Africans and other people,  The Dutch Government apologised in December 2022 for slavery but you refuse to apologise and still come to be treated like "king." It is a shame you cannot do the right thing to start the process which understands justice as reparative and transformative and encouraging accountability. It is a shame that you are being feted by a Government which cannot provide reliable public services for its citizens even as the plantation systems allow extraction of oil for wealth for those...

Dear Toisha (d. 13 October 2026), Orlando (d. 14 Oct, 2026), Akeem (d. 18 Oct 2026), (Keron d. 19 Oct 2026) and children who have died by suicide ;   the other children who have died with adults in the MV Barima disaster ,  the children who have died in preventable deaths in the fastest growing economy in the world.  Om Sadgati.  Family  I do not know you but if I believe in Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam that the world is one family, then you are my children and I failed to protect you .  There is something sick about this country where people kill children in direct action and through neglect and in failing to address the violence which is flowing like oil through Guyana.  And that all of us in Guyana are responsible for all children, especially those whose families cannot care for them. Bhagavad Gita says that death is part of the journey and our souls move.  Gita though also talks about addressing the injustices and the values which create the ...

Ancestors  Ancestors on my mind as the last of my mausi (maternal aunts) has passed, and Pitri Paksh ends today.  Thinking of ancestors again as technician put me down as East Indian on the blood donor intake form and I told her nah, I mixed because I honour the non-blood ancestors that had to carve out space for me to be here.  Including trying to build up a kind of society in which connected by blood or unconnected by blood , we could thrive and that I, us could be in some 'better ' place. Thinking of ancestors as I sat with relatives to do pitri puja , and then practising the Ramayana singing with some of the youths as another kind of puja for the ancestors who found joy in singing this Ramayana with all its contradictions.   Mental Health Finding joy as I lamented the weird stresses, new stresses which are emerging, the increased tensions and energies in the environment; the removal of green spaces Development apparently not making this calmer or cooler, b...

  Students in the USA A woman filed a civil  lawsuit against 7 students of Cornell University .    The 7 students, all male, violated her in 2024 . The evidence includes messages in a group chat which included about fifty other men   who did nothing .  This suit has revived the revelations about the incidence of sexual violence on colleges and universities.  In India , hundreds of women marched in Delhi to protest rape and other forms of gender-based violence, some of them connected to life at University.   There is another story of two male students who held another man who was about to molest a woman. However, many people, including young men, have commented on the silence of the 50 men in the brotherhood which facilitated rape. Army man In Guyana, a youngish army man turned politician   allegedly assaulted his relatives. Charges were laid in 2023. His brotherhood in the PNC then in 2023 hoped he would do the right thing and...

Walk   Bright morning sun, lil breeze blowing and I set out to walk when I thought was not going to walk because I was afraid. Afraid because men on bicycles have robbed me in daylight and in twilight and in places where I did not think I would be robbed.   Afraid because men on motorcycles recently robbed two men I know in daylight walking in places where they did not think anyone would rob them and I have been thinking about that fairly empty stretch I would be walking Afraid because the journey was to the shraad rituals of someone my age and the sickness and death stories of men and others my age and younger got me afraid. I choose to walk though  Bougainvillea  I learn from listening to an online gaff with two white women in the morning that is good to imagine body as energy and exhaling good energies (or something like that). Did some breathing exercises.  Before that the Hindu woman born in Ghana from ancestors who had moved from India had led us in G...

Junction Bus drops me off at the junction. Agreement was for me to wait here.  Previous time which was my first time, I had to rush to get a car to move in  different direction. Kind of like life sometimes at cross roads when you just have to move. This time though, I can wait. There is no space really to wait. Heat and dust. Gas station. Minibus. Food place. Chinese stores.. the huge Chinese store with the smaller Chinese shops. Man sitting near a deep blue cart, coloured cloth covering some things. I think it must be food.  Move closer to him as there is nowhere else to go.  See the man hand moving steadily . Shaving ice.  I think to hell with sugar warnings and ask him for a small one. He points to the two customers waiting, one of them speaking in Spanish to the other. Both descended from Indian immigrants like me.  Hand moving quickly, smooth strokes over the block of ice nestled in a plastic bag.  Watch him open the shaver, put the trapezoid shap...

> Micah 6:8  Sun cooling down, 430pm.. traffic heavy on the road, people going home. Car stops and window comes down and big smile from a woman from mandir.. she laughs when I tell her I am going to the protest.. "I thought so"..  I take my time, not sure of this gathering. A young man tells me to take a placard, or write my own. I pick up one.. Edghill Must Go. I recognise another man who encourages me to stand on some wider parapet. I hear that one of th e placards at the protest is part of Micah 6:8 in the Bible.   Mind moving all over the place when  I realise that I am in the protest with some of the Christian citizens who like the venomous beast-bitten Minister (is the venom still inside him?)  had protested against LGBTQI+ equality over the years..  Micah 6:8 (NIV version) says  "He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.     And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy     and to walk humbly...

Kàzaklak melu, Kato, Region 8 (part of pic from Rhea Loo)   Anna Iles (1960 - 2026) was a very kind woman who generously supported people in their work. She had praised my blogs many times, especially those around mental health. Anna is in my mind as I write this . Indigenous lives  Reporter asked me why I was supporting the Amerindian Peoples Association -organised protest. I mumbled nonsense because I could not find the words which would say that the lives lost in the MV Barima, -  in the Mahdia Dorm Fires of 2023, in the suicides, mining violence, other violence, other injustices to the Indigenous communities used to be distant from mine until I re-learned they are connected to mine.  Learning  Burnham's 1980s social studies curriculum taught me that there were six races.  Orlando De Jesus from the 'hinterland' in my class at Bishops' High School died of malaria. I never got more details of his life as an Indigenous student in a Georgetown school....

Pride   "Nah, dem gun be talking about antiman and lesbian and dem ting" the young man said as I was passing after a woman asked him if he was not going to the gender-based violence workshop.  I told him to come and find out what we will be planning to talk about. He laughed.  Another young man in the workshop was concerned about only two genders. He said homosexuality is a mental illness. Hands across chest , defending his masculinity and maleness and his normalness. Another woman in the workshop said something different - everybody is human, June is Pride month.  Workshop has an uneasy consensus that while we might not agree with everyone's way of being human, everyone deserves a right to a life free from violence. Conversation in my head driving me to the Guyana screening of the Queer Cinema for Palestine No Pride in Genocide Walk into the yard and see all the Pride flags decorating the place. Sijan tree provides shade.. Moringa used by many for various hea...

Dear Reuters Your article about how the US-Israeli killing of Iranian children could be a bonanza to Tiny Guyana came out on a day when many yards and streets and houses were flooded after rainfall which should not be unexpected for any country which is developing in  harmony with a turbulent climate and which uses historical experiences, evidence and data to guide interventions. Your  article comes at a time when the stench of stagnant water  reminds us that this 'growth' seems to be 'decay', the stench arising out of insecure egos of politicians who abuse their  power who push bizarre decisions or not make decisions instead of investing in competent expertise guided by global experience.  After all, we are not the first country to be cursed with oil and to learn how to deal with the curse of oil.  Your article about how the US Killing of Iranian children could be a bonanza to Tiny Guyana (or as you framed it "the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran" does talk ...

Time Friday afternoon after I say right, let me pretend that I am in a modern progressive city and walk to relieve the stress from the difficult workshop which had to deal with geopolitics, gender-based violence and the powerlessness felt by Guyanese when dealing with 'outside' forces and local politicians. Lamaha Street with the fancy courtyard where the train station once stood, but no real pavement as these things go.  School children coming down laughing as they do, jostling each other. Some with umbrella to protect from sun.  Group comes up near me and I prepare for what I think is normal to allow them to get into single file and pass. The youths , the leaders of tomorrow like the leaders of today don't make room though.. determined not to break up their formation and collaboration and their unity,  they push me aside.. one girl shouts 'Uncle.. dis is nah time fuh you deh pon de road.. "  I manage to step out of their way and hope that no vehicle would als...

  Writing to the photograph   May Day in Guyana and the woman in 1979 Paris is lying in bed looking at me with a half smile . One hand is on her stomach and the other hand is behind her head. I am typing up with others from around the world on Zoom to answer "Why did you choose this photograph? What does it evoke for you? What does it remind you of?"  We are facilitated by author Julián Delgado Lopera who is leading the Writing Club at Home: On Intimacy organised by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.   Clock is ticking and I start typing up something and editing and so on. I am typing here because I do not want to be typing up on the blank documents which relate to work things - complex workshops, letters, emails, notes. And personal things like the deep journal - easier to write to a photograph from 1979 than to write to myself about myself. Day before, I sat in another Medium Writer Circle, with people around the world and writing Fiction. Deciding wher...

Tomato jubilee Man weeding the yard said look you have a tomato plant near the gutter and I said okay, not going to touch it, let me leave it, throw lil water on it.  Seeds from other tomatoes grown in other parts of Guyana (I try not to buy Brazil tomatoes but I not sure.. )settle in the sediment of the gutter which then generate at the side.  I am in awe even though last time the tomatoes dried up before they ripened and then the plant dried up   I have zero expectations when anything grows in the yard.  Tomatoes in the market were 600GYD a pound and visitors who live in other countries with rising prices keep asking me, why are prices so high in Guyana (even as they are high in other places)?  It is not as though we are further from the Strait of Hormuz than anyone else.  I don't know myself but as the nation which I am part of but feel apart from talks about Diamond Jubilee for the Independence and I see that it seems the Government has organis...

Section of Birth of Kaieteur by Ohene Koama (2024)   Unknown   The entrance to the gallery frames a piece with orange overtones and some bright circles. There is no label. I thought maybe that it was a deliberate act of the artist. I asked and it seems the organisers of the Burrowes School of Art 50th Anniversary exhibition at Castellani House could not find the information.  Was the information lost in the web created by the insecurity of the leaders who cannot trust their technical staff ?   There is no catalog, and nothing really which says anything about the story of the ER Burrowes School of Art, which perhaps says a lot about Guyana 2026. (The linked news article has more information) Unknown here probably linked to the oil flowing over the past, seeming to wipe out history and limiting how history and culture are important as we actually move through this unknown future created by oily wealth derived from killing girls and adults in Iran and which is g...

  Passion Fruit Walk in the market and see apples for GYD100 each and a young woman with a tub of passion fruit. I ask her how much and she doesn't turn around as she tells me 5 for GYD1000 .. she leaves me to pick out the five because I think passion fruit is good for me, and that a passion fruit a day has benefits like an apple a day though the way things are in Guyana.. it seems like is foreign things, things imported from outside are cheaper, and so economically better (even for rich people like me) than things from Guyana  Bus driver says 'dis guvament is stupid' as the bus with people from different origins laughing and celebrating the wheelbarrow of coins which one friend take to pay his other friend costs a few weeks ago. 'New Wheelbarrow..' Does the guvament care that locally grown passion fruit is more expensive than imported apples? Do people care anymore? 1616 to 1966 to 2026 1616 - the Dutch come and found Essequibo  1966 - British Guiana turn Guyana...

     The Dog  Pete is one of the rescue dogs at Hope for Animals Inc in Lusignan and he comes and jumps up on me and I do this kind of fake embrace to say nice to meet you but don't come too close because I am not one of those people who love love love dogs and cats and animals.    But many dogs and some cats don't really seem to care and in my self-righteous way I think okay since they say that animals know nice people and so,  then I must be a nice person then and this picture could be used to get votes and so on when I run for President.   Two visitors from France who love animals, both vegetarian for animal rights, said yes to going up to Lusignan.  Big smiles and watery eyes when they met some of the animals which Genevieve "Judy" Beepat single-handedly cares for - over 50 dogs and over 50 cats. Judy knows their names, histories, personalities I am a bit nervous as I wonder if any of them would attack me given some of their ...

Stabroek News 16 June, 2007  Letter to the Editor  "Is who you really think you is?" was the only reaction I ever had to the first letter I wrote to Stabroek News way back in the 1990s. The letter was sent via fax in those days. I was happy that at least one person read the letter.  Many people have paid tribute to Stabroek News since news of their closing hit us. Many people have talked about the letters to the editor section especially.  Stabroek News has published many letters which I have written.  Many people have told me that they read the letters. Others said they hear I write some letter and I would then send the link to them. Stabroek News has also not published a few letters - at one point I thought they were not publishing the letters I wrote about the alcohol industry and its contribution to our alcohol problem in Guyana. I wrote in the third person, or sometimes, in the first person plural 'We' not as in the royal 'We' but hoping that I could inc...

  Pumpkin  Man in the market asks if I want the pumpkin cut at $400 which is the same as 2 pounds of carailla and 2.5 pounds of ochro and I say no, then I see that it dry and look nice and I have not cooked pumpkin for a long time as the price was too much in the oil and gas luxury range .  Visitor to Guyana asks me 'is that grown here?" and when I tell him yes , the man said "wow, that is so expensive"  and I tell him since oil flowing, the vegetables and fruits more expensve and he ask me why  and I say, 'I don't know'.  Kadoo And is a nice pumpkin and I think would be nice to make something else other than the regular pumpkin and the internet throw up 'Borani Kadoo' ..   کدو Kadoo  - is Pashto/Urdu/Persian for pumpkin though the pumpkin might be a different one from the expensive one which growing in Guyana. And 'Borani Kadoo'.. as with food, so many different ways to cook it. All start with slicing the pumpkin into thin slices and dee...

  Invasions  Day after USA invade Venezuela and kidnap the dictator Maduro, the man who supports PPP because he feel that no one else better while also afraid of the PPP - asks me 'So what yall gun do now about Farnum Playground"?   Residents of Subryanville  have been calling on the Government agencies to restore Farnum Playground to the community after the occupation of the land by private business interests who to this date, remain unknown. Much like the appeals to the United Nations on the other occupations in the world, it seems the residents' calls on the Central Housing and Planning Authority, the Ministry of Education, The Ministry of Local Government, the Mayor and City Council are going to be useless because the only thing matters as the USA Government showed last Saturday.. law does not matter, only power.  Venezuela/Guyana In April 2002, a woman sitting next to me in the square in Havana who offered me one of the cakes she was eating asked me i...