Thoughts of a minibus traveller

   2003. The Gay Rights bill is coming up again to Parliament. Two years before, President Bharat Jagdeo succumbed to the prayers of Bishop Juan Edghill and his homophobic Christian crew and refused to assent to the bill.  Durban Street PNC office. Lurlene Nestor MP has convened a forum to discuss the gay rights bill. I am standing in front of the crowd. Namela Henry at some point comes to stand next to me. Woman with gold hair and big mouth shouting at her comrades in defense of gay rights. February 22 2021 - Namela tags me in a Facebook memory hailing up Sherlina Nageer and in memory of the Peoples Parliament and other protests. I think that I have to message Namela and catch up.. find out how things are in the pandemic how she is doing. Last time we talked was a hug and gaff on the road during her lunch hour.  We had lost touch after 2015 when her beloved party won the elections. Good times Always a hug. Even when we did not agree about things. March 25 2021 - N...

  Paper boats "Do you think the paper boats on the river are us and life"?  Stephanie Bowry asked us. A woman had shared a poem she wrote after making paper boats with her son for the first time and putting them on the Berbice River.   We talked a bit about rivers, currents, destiny and whether or not we were paper boats and how Caribbean people had moved against the currents.  One woman said she heard the joy of the child folding the paper boats and putting them on the river. Poetry In March 2019, I folded newspapers into hearts and stapled poems on them to share at a Groundings event,   telling people to "Come, take a poem." People on the avenue were surprised.. they hadn't read poems since leaving school (primary school even) .  I hadn't discussed poetry either since the English B (Lit) exam in June 1986 when I am sure I did not get much marks for the questions about the poem. And since March 2019 I have not really engaged much with poetry apart...

  Friday morning after the 51st anniversary of the Republic of Guyana and the Ministry of Education tweets a beautiful meme with a rainbow covered pride heart with the Minister of Education Priya Manickchand affirming to 'all persons of the LGBTQ community' like the beautiful hymn about Jesus "you have a friend in me" The comment was generated in response to the bizarre comments made in the Parliament in which a couple of Members of Parliament of the PPP and PNC and AFC - supposedly gay friendly political parties - used homophobic slurs in their references to their Honourable colleauges. The comments included a sickening reference to an allegation of child sexual abuse.  It is nice to think of some Government official responsible for propaganda and promoting Education programmes going to find the nice rainbow images to create the meme. It is easy to embrace the Minister (and all other MPs) who are not like 'the rest'. In 2015, another of the Minister's co...

 "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...

  Lips moving. Lips in smiles and laughs. Lips forming words, easy conversation. Air between the lips filled with the sound of openness. Work, work, family, life. work About sex, attraction.  Possible attraction to each other Work, and work. Lips moving.. nice sounds. easy sounds.. relaxation and connection building. One set of lips saying to another set of lips... both lips smiling.. 'do you want to do something'.. not saying what something is. Lips not smiling and talking about not wanting to be an outside man with lips smiling and saying nothing... but saying' no no.. is not about outside man.. nothing deep' Lips not talking about the racing mind and the surprise and the thoughts of what the hell, this was supposed to be about work. One set of lips talking about promises made not to be the outside man. the other lips smiling.. smiling. Both lips smiling in moving to a place.. one set of lips saying 'you sure no body will see us' and the other set of lips smil...

  Blood "Somebody get shoot?" the boy asks me politely.  I say yes. "But we aint seeing the blood.." he says.. I smile to myself. they come looking to see the blood. I say "it deh inside the yard.. .. but I have some on my hand .. look" and I show him my right hand which has my neighbour's blood.   Saturday afternoon in a usually quiet area Nice breezy Saturday afternoon.  Two shots which could have been anything else. My neighbour's screams..   'Don't go outside.. don't go .. ' my mother shouts at me. But I don't hear the shots really, I am concerned about the scream. And I know people say while other people run from bullets, Guyanese apparently tend to run towards them. As I write though, I am  fed up with a place where we live in fear of virus and guns and so many other things. And that in growing fed up and weary with the stupid country, that the "fellow citizens who might have recited the national pledge to love their ...

    This blog is one of a series of Facilitation Thoughts which look at various aspects of facilitation.  The Covid-19 pandemic has made it necessary to conduct different kinds of meetings online. I facilitated my first virtual session in April 2020 .  I continued to learn with each subsequent 'online' session - as a participant and as a facilitator.   These are some additional points to the Facilitation Thoughts to enhance the virtual facilitation experience. Learn/Adapt The virtual environment means that facilitators have to adapt and be creative. Working virtually means thinking of how to achieve the facilitation objectives in a  different space.    It does not mean transferring the face to face, to the computer/tablet/smart phone. For example, presenters have to check the legibility of text on their presentations. In face to face , the presentations are magnified through projectors on to a wall - in this virtual environment, th...