Thoughts of a minibus traveller

The law student looked at me as though I was mad when I asked him if he would come spend a few minutes at the People's Parliament.  We were talking about law and so on and rights.  But this is not how he imagines public discussion about rights. The carpenter said that he passed plenty times but never stopped. He said is a good thing to have this thing where people talk. He finds that Guyanese are not proud of their country like how Jamaicans and Trinidadians are. He said that this race thing got to stop.. he is mixed race and he learns from everybody. He says that we need each other - he said that as a carpenter he could look down on the labourers who work on his worksite, but then the carpenter would not do the labourer work. He has a lil cough though, so he going home. He cannot stay on. He did not want to be recorded. The teacher is young. He pass and then stops. He teaches at one of the problem schools - he has been a teacher for 7 years. He does not have to beat chi...

[ A student,  Vieira Linderova,   is doing a survey of telecentre use around the world and sent this questionnaire to ask for my views. I had worked on one telecentre run by the Cummings Lodge Hindu Society and organised by SEWA. The telecentre closed for various reasons. There are many other telecentre models in other parts of the world.  1. What role can MCTs play in social and economic development, particularly in rural communities of developing countries? I believe there is evidence that in many parts of the world, telecentres have been part of the economic and social development of rural communities. Rural economies have faced serious challenges . The theory goes that communities with limited access to telecommunications and technical capacity can use the MCTs to access information and knowledge. There are telecentre models in urban communities as well with poverty.  2) In your experience, what have been some successes (especially concrete examples) o...

Two guys this week asked how things .. and when I told them, I got the kind of shocked question and reaction which implies that there is nothing for me to be depressed about. I agree.. there is nothing for me to be depressed about. However, I have to manage the depression which creeps up from time to time. Sometimes it is easy to do, sometimes it is not. Masking depression is often easy to do. Sometimes it is not. Sometimes the masking leads to more feelings of anger and failure that I am not being honest and just pretending. Or when I do talk and get a reaction, I feel I should not be imposing my miserable self on people - that is not mannerly.  It might be easy to say to avoid people. Coping mechanisms do work but sometimes, they do not. The important thing is to realise what is happening and to do healthy things to manage the feelings and the mind. Don't indulge in the sweet or the crunchy snacks.  Avoid people who seem noisy and loud. Go and feel the heat of the sun...

I floated through the clouds hovering over me and walked down to High Street to Occupy GT.  Two women are there and some of the guys. I sit down. Place cloudy. The posters are there to write up. High Street has bursts of traffic. Plenty people with their children A woman sees me. I recognise her from a temple and say Seeta Ram. She says she recognises me from TV and she reads my letters in the papers. She comes and sits down on the embankment. We talk Ramayana, domestic violence, her children school. She tells me she is looking for work but like older Hindu women cannot find work. She balancing home life and work. S. comes up. She passing. She is going to church she said. She hopes to be selling later. She will pass back when she is finished. S. has been supporting the picket. Other people come up, they write on the card board. Change the Government. Overcome race hate. Some do not write. Some pass by. Some ignore and look at us like if we mad. Some say they coming back. O...

You think you can plan a day to get through some important tasks. Some tasks require prior knowledge and are simple, others rely on brain work. The routine is good,, get up, do the yoga. Part of you wants to lie down flat but there are things to do. There are emails and messages to respond to. There are things in the head to do - projects and ideas which float. But some people ask for things and thankfully, those are like sparks. It is like taking small steps at moving. I am craving food and I understand how it must feel to want alcohol and drugs. I feel like going on a chocolate binge but my body is not moving to change the clothes to go on the road.  I know it is wrong. Like how the person who is married who wants to meet up , and the other person who is married who say that I would have been the perfect choice. There is some moral compass which is there, so I am not dead yet. I contemplate what it must be like to be dead - not the dying part thinking of those who are dy...

[ In September 2003, I took a minibus to Paramaribo. I wrote this and I keep fantasising of taking a minibus to ... different parts of Guyana - trying to write about our own travel here ] Georgetown to Suriname - overland Bobby, the bus driver calls at 3am, they coming in 15 minutes or so, then they reach about 6am and we start off. people snoring in the bus, reach rosignol, one must have fish and bread. cross the river in the morning, have this book i am reading which i did not know was funny, so i was laughing and people watching me funny. one nice lady asked me to share the joke with her. so i stopped reading. we reached moleson creek, and wait two hours for the famous ferry, humidity high, and only flocks of birds moving. ferry eventually arrives. takes awhile for customs and immigration. soldier on the ferry says how stupid life is, we inherit these crazy border structures from english and dutch, and we descendants of colonised people fight over things which the original pe...

The Ramayana is a complex text, an important Hindu narrative which is part of the rich culture. We sing from it, we make ballet dances, we act and tell stories from it. The graphic arts are part of the Indian art tradition as well. Sita's Ramayana, according to the blurb on Tara Books, "shifts the point of view of the Ramayana – the saga of a heroic war – to bring a woman’s perspective to this timeless epic. Narrated by the heroine Sita, it is a powerful meditation on the fate of women, as they become pawns in the wars between men and kingdoms. But Sita is not just a patient victim of events – she endures her fate with fortitude, until the moment she decides to challenge it. The book unites two women from very different backgrounds: young urban writer Samhita Arni collaborates with Patua scroll artist Moyna Chitrakar to create this unusual graphic novel." The Hindu traditions of the feminine are complex - the divine energy Shakti is feminine , and in so...