Thoughts of a minibus traveller

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...

Far Left: Joshua Tujay Macey: Right Mad Cow, Stilt Walker and flouncers from Victoria Renegades Masquerade  Saturday afternoon, humid. Loud drums, triangle and flute making noise all over the Guyana National Museum - Museum which is usually quiet except for traffic outside. The music is floating around all the old things.. historical things - which relate to Guyana.. the beats and tweets I imagine could be absorbed by the things which are in cases .. things which are 'dead' in a way.. dead history....  Masquerade though is living history..  and so I turn the corner and see the masqueraders.. and the musicians and the people brought together by the Masquerade Association Guyana Inc   for the first Masquerade Day on 29 November, 2025.  A man tells me 'masquerade is for outside, open spaces not inside .. too confining' and it is true.. but something about how this masquerade is weaving .. the Museum 'used to have' an exhibit in one alcove of masquerade but it was...

Screen shot from " Items used in research into Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture"   (Re) writing ..  "How can all this work on the archives ,,, help us ?" the man asked in the discussion during the Launch activity for the digital collection of  Items used in research into Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture"  by Gaiutra D. Bahadur. The launch event was held virtually on 30 July, 2025.   This discussion happened before fire destroyed archives of the Guyana Trades Union Congress on 1 August, 2025. Dr Lisa Edwards of the Institute of Gender Studies at the University of Guyana welcomed the collection as it increased access to younger scholars who did not have access to the colonial archives in Europe and elsewehere. The Institute of Gender Studies hosted the event with the Guyana Gender Hub.  Gaiutra Bahadur read from the book. She talked about writing with the archives and writing against the archives, and filling the gaps and silences in the arch...

 (The Moving Circle of Artists' work is presented in the 2024 Indigenous Heritage Exhibition at Castellani House until 30 September, 2024. ) There was no print catalogue available. The QR code image was around, but I did not have the technology to use the QR code even with assistance of the attendants. I hope the organisers will put labels on the work items for viewers who cannot access the QR code. I apologise to the artists whose work I reference without the proper attributions Going into the unknown Place hot and I feeling a lil jumpy despite the yoga routine earlier in the day. Some unexpected challenges which pile up and then come in to chill out in the gallery and find that I have to do guess work on the art and so. Switch my mind, thinking yeah, go into the unknown.  NO titles to guide you.  Friends on social media had shared pictures of some of the most striking pieces so there is a familiarity in a way. And a helpful attendant shows the PDF on his phone to che...

  Qaddafi in the minibus  Same day that the US Government issued their updated sanctions list, I jump in a minibus with my mind on my collapsing teeth which have been going out of line and breaking up and filled and so on (including with gold) much like how some roads and bridges and institutions supposedly fix in Guyana.. fix for a time but never really fix.  Bus driver looks like he is a Guyanese of African Descent and I hear the name Allah call and the man over the bus speaker talking about George Bush and disasters in America. and Brother Qaddafi and about America and Libya and Osama and some names call there that I wonder if I should jump  out the bus because my mind on how the US say just so, they sanction some Guyanese . The first whatsapp I get that day was from another man of African descent sending me a video about Mutabaruka saying America is a third world country. The man who send me the video has been doing amazing things in Third World America. And in...

  Sinners and stones Guyana 2023 and it seems any criticism of the PPP administration is met with stones of "illegitimacy", 'defunct', 'enemy' and 'why you didn't talk when..." The  PPP responded to GHRA's criticism of the EITI debacle and the decision to go for electronic ID systems without engaging citizens. The response of  the PPP then used 'law' to say that the GHRA is 'defunct' and therefore should not be saying anything, and slurs like 'one man show' . Another commentator who has never gotten personal with anyone in the PPP has to ' set the record straight'  when the PPP leadership does not respond to the issues he lays out without cussing anybody.  In this time of Easter, imagining that the righteous in the PPP shout 'Those of you without sin should cast the first stone' , and then the PPP working hard to determine the sins of the critics and find stones rather than deal with the issues which th...

  Hate The young professional on the phone is frustrated. The young professional is experiencing a vindictive campaign while in the employ of a Government agency.  A campaign of hate which is meant to destroy the young professional's integrity and livelihood. A campaign of hate which will not bring the same attention as  the most recent hate speech in oil rich Guyana.  The young professional condemned that hate speech while experiencing the hatred. Hate speech in which WPA leaders used their right to freedom of expression to express their thoughts as to how Africans in the police and army with legitimate guns in Guyana could overturn what they see as the PPP oppression nurtured by Indians. The young professional identifies Indian (or Indo-Guyanese), one of whom the WPA leadership might have been thinking about who nurtures the PPP oppression. The young professional though, has no legitimate access to guns. and the WPA leadership (and PNC leadership too?) has not exp...

  "Buxton at it again" Sun is hot. The social media timelines in Guyana are full of the sound bytes from actress Letitia Wright - returning to Guyana after leaving as a child. Then the messages float up.. 'Buxton at it again.. ' and so on.  Some of the people sharing those messages were not sharing the admiration for Letitia Wright.   "Godfather" 300 to 400 citizens who remained in Guyana took to the East Coast Public Road on the day that UG conferred an honorary doctorate on Letitia Wright. The citizens were reportedly upset that the Police fired shots in Buxton as they chased a man they suspected of having marijuana. Some of the citizens call the man  their Godfather.   On the day that Baba Prezzy gave the framed birth certificate to her while  PNC leaders and supporters were expecting her outside City Hall, some of the citizens burned the truck which had transported rice. Some of the citizens who were blocking the road also robbed another c...

Heavy I am the heavy table in the images from D PI 13 May, 2022   which are part of the OneGuyana  I a needed to show in show that the four men need some barrier between them and I am part of the OneGuyana keeping them apart. Any photograph to show all of them at the same time, will have me, the table there.. dominating.  I am the heavy table, made from wood from the forests which might or might not be around for much longer.  They put plastic bottles with the name 'Rainforest' and water on top of me to wet the throats which don't like like they are doing much talking and laughing. I would have liked these four men to go meet in the rainforest near to some of the real healing waters which are not in plastic bottles.  And to let the trees which are  my origins instead of dividing them, be encircling them, covering them together. I am the heavy table, but the tension in the room, the mood is heavier than me.  I sense from the faces above me that nobody r...

  Scrolling Facebook timeline and then get into discussion about how another public event had Christian prayers only. Swami Aksharananda wrote a letter about thi s event. and invoking the history of how Christianity is unofficially Guyana's religion no matter how much people try hard to do the 'prayers of major religions and so on' at official events. I should be doing nice productive things instead of worrying about doing God in the divided country. I go listen to hear the MC did announce that the young man would reciting a Universal Prayer. I wonder if Swami has been wrong. And I listen and I hear Tagore's words coming through with the Heavenly Father and Prayers for the President (of all people, what happen to the teachers and students and so on?) and then a nice Amen at the end. And prayer being said during the period of Navratra when many Hindus were worshiping the Divine as Mother. Universal Prayer written no doubt by someone whose religious view of the Universe i...

  Bus "I aint see you fuh a long time" bus conductor says and I could hear the smile behind the mask as we bump fists in the Covid greeting.. I jump in the front seat. Radio playing and bus driver and conductor stopping, reversing, looking for passengers and having nice back and forth conversation that kind of mellow and cool in the hot sun. Driver with cap and so.. mask on his chin . Driver tell me jump out so passenger could come in. Tall woman, yellow tee shirt tucked in white jeans and yellow band around her afro. She says afternoon, and sits between me and driver. Radio man talk about how to eat avocado with some crush up Club Social and put honey on it and driver say whah.. and conductor say yeah honey... you aint know honey does wuk good wid anything and we talk about what to eat honey wid and how some people have 'honey roasted chicken' on de menu board but is really bun shugah chicken..  Conductor ask if we never drink XM wid honey..  woman on the radio say h...

 "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...

   Mothers.. "Hi Mr Kissoon.. " the woman smiles at me. My shoulders tense up. Social gathering for a baby's christening. Woman calls out to her daughter.. "come come.. see Mr Kissoon' .My head goes.. no no.. , smile is on my face. "Tell Mr Kissoon how you doing.. ' woman tells the child  who is not looking at me., body language showing discomfort. 'Okay' she says. I say.. .look how place hot eh.. . how you doing.. to the smiling mother. I met the child and her mother 12 months or so before the christening. The woman had brought her child for counselling (frontline). 'Her father want to sex with her.. I trying to tell her to bear up and that I would not leave her at home.. is since she was 5 years old .. but I trying to leave and go away and he supposed to go away.. but i hope you could counsel her.."  I am horrified at the mother. Face calm thinking of the 'non-judgemental thing' . Trying to listen to the child, while not hating...

Bus driver wearing mask on his chin. I next to him on the jump seat with cloth on my face. Woman next to me with mask on. Covid-19 regulations relaxed. I had opened conversation by saying that I forget my manners by not saying morning. Woman said 'is okay'. Midday news on radio. Story about the baby who died from Covid-19 at West Demerara Regional Hospital.  The Chief Medical Officer had confirmed that the b aby might have contracted Covid at the hospital   I mutter something about nothing aint gun happen.  Baby dead in Guyana's public hospital system. Woman is silent. Mask on. Looking out the window. Probably wishing I shut my mouth too to keep in the Covid.  Bus driver says.. 'well leh we see what dey gun do about dat' .   Nothing has happened we know about. Babies and other people might still contract Covid in the hospitals. This story coming at the same time as the story of a baby girl, found floating in a trench at Crane. West Coast Demerara. Left ...

    Dear Isaiah, Joel and Haresh,  Thunder is rolling and sun is shining while I write this and think about you,. and wishing that I could have gone to your killers, and said, chop me instead,  kill me instead and may you drink my blood and find satisfaction. In 2001, citizens killed 10 year old Mervyn Barran and his father in the Enterprise Backdam. You probably never heard of him or his father. In 2003, during another racial crime wave, citizens kidnapped and killed 16 year old Roy Bell. Red Thread had a vigil then afterwards.. and I now think that in the vigil then, it was for those children and adults killed and maimed in violence - from other citizens, from the police, , and for those to come, not yet born. I don't know if any of those citizen killers voted, or if they are like me, they didn't vote. I don't know if they have killed before, or will kill again, it must be easy to chop children. I have a cutlass which I keep just in case, and I hope that my hands c...

      Hot Saturday afternoon.  Moon is moving, dark clouds hovering over my capacity to do major tasks. I decide to make a pilgrimage to a new painting which is sometimes covered by the sea. Moving off from liking the virtual Facebook posts , to seeing the thing in real life when I don't really feel like going anywhere. Professor Vibert Cambridge initiates a discussion about a CARIFESTA 2022. A woman messaged me about  diversity in an event she was organising. A writer messaged me about writing a letter to restart the Guyana Prize for Literature , to figure out a way to stimulate more writing opportunities and exposure for writers in Guyana. A diaspora poet invites me to participate in an interesting poetry project which would have involved me writing a poem - I declined as I aint a poems man. I worry that I am an impostor and poseur getting asked into things which I only do as 'like' and 'not like'.   A young economist who plays dholak and sings chow...