Thoughts of a minibus traveller

  (This list was first created by a group of people facilitated by Carinya Sharples, the late Keshav Joshi and Vidyaratha Kissoon. The list is made available for information purposes only. Some details might have changed. We do not have all persons who practice counselling here in Guyana.   Check Guyana Suicide Prevention Gatekeeper Training Resources hosted by Williams James College. Update 21 May, 2022. We only list persons who provide counselling or pscyhotherapy services. Persons who would like to see psychiatrists can get referrals from their health centres, hospitals or other health professionals. The Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation has a Psychiatric Clinic which operates on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Referrals can be had from Kitty Health Centre, Campbelville Health Centre, Diamond Diagnostic Centre and Enmore Health Centre. Please share widely) Counselling & therapeutic resources (Name, address, contact of individuals and organisations wh...

 The monkey pot   "I have a surprise for you.." Cosmata told me as we were getting ready for the Groundings . She took the small light mud coloured object from her bag of books and put it in my hand.  I had not expected to hold one again. The "monkey pot"  or the shell of the fruit came from somewhere on the Berbice River. The story goes that monkeys reach their hands inside for the seeds of the fruit and their hands are stuck. There is some tale about a wise monkey saying that you have to take one seed at a time. The first time I held one of these was in a creative writing workshop. I had gone to the workshop to learn to write better creative non-fiction rather than fiction. We had to exchange random objects and then write stories around the objects. Cosmata had brought a monkey pot. I wrote a clumsy short story then around the monkey pot. There was a critique. The lecturer did not understand the story, the timeline was mixed up. Some people liked the story....

  Ganja smoke The smell is familiar , heavy wafting over use like some kind of blessing over the random interactions of books and poems.  We are next to a man wearing  dirty brownish three quarter length pants and not wearing shoes or not wearing shirt but wearing a smile on his face. He leans sometimes against one of the concrete poles holding up the roof sheltering him and us. I look over and see him put the yellow lighter - bright on the grey day and against the greenish brownish pant.. back in the pocket. The colour of the joint is similar to the colour of the pants. Slight flame at the end. He ignores us except for when he asked for a $100 with the joint in his mouth and I told him nah after giving another man who was barefoot and who explained the calculation of his age to us and was going to repeat it so I gave that man the $100 to move on. Maybe his joint was hidden in the calculations The man with the joint leaned against the iron post and continued to ignore us...

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...

     Pointlessness  "You got a ol' pointer broom' the man asks me 'me son build a concrete strip fuh me and ah need an ole broom fuh brush out the rainwater".   I keep old pointer brooms to sweep the yard. Shorter, harder , they are good to swipe the mix of dust, dry leaves, hard seeds . And I keep the short one so I could bend at the waist and imagine I am doing forward fold yoga to heal the back rather than break it while bending and moving shoulder back and forth to move broom, changing hands when one hand might become tired..  And also watching as the dust pushes back the dust, and even when I think I am sweeping with the wind, there is a circling when like some game , the dust changes path.  Sweeping is pointless activity, temporary pleasure in a clean place. And the whole t hing about sweeping and meditation and the Buddhist views on an activity that sweeping mindlessly is a good time to clean the mind , and being one with the breeze blowing...

   The *X*@# horses.. oh @##  Inhale for 4. This is why you don't like animals and you don't have pets  Hold for 5: Universe says it dont matter, you have some duty to them  Exhale for 4: Lef dem, nothing you can do now.. let dem eat and mess up is same clean you gotta do ..   Inhale for 4: Shoots, rubbish truck coming.. gotta drop everything and go now  Hold for 5; I wish i could get some proper food for dem.. the neigh you hear is not de horse laughing at you  exhale for 4: Cleaning up after them is making up for the prayers you didn't say this morning..

  "You is a customer" the woman I call Aunty tells me as she puts the four oranges wrapped in the string netting in my hand. 'Tek dis for $400 .. is $500 but you give me 4" and I take it as she then continues the weekly check in on health and wellness which is why I don't really worry about the price of oranges or anything else which she sells because is a nice connection to talk about random things. She sells two sometimes three varieties of limes - seedless, rampoor, long - but I don't need any because I have juice left over from last week's exchange. I am nervous about buying the oranges as I can't tell if they are  nice or not. I have had dry ones when I thought the skin showed that they might be nice and juicy, and had nice and juicy ones when I was worried that the they would not because skin rough and so. Can never tell until you cut really as it is with the other thing I took on thinking I was okay for it and then realised as I got deeper in...