Thoughts of a minibus traveller

Many Guyanas  "Please a tousand" the Indigenous child said in the open air restaurant/bar area to the coastlanders and any other person who would listen. A colleague assisted the child. The hotel is nice, A/C and running water. I am in a village, Indigenous community. I am not writing the name because I did not seek permission from anyone I met or didn't met to write about the place, or about them. The village centre seems to be around the airstrip, like other villages. Much like how other places might be built around rivers, the transportation hubs. I can't see any creek or river. "Today is holiday, only one person come to work.. Toshao say we must employ local people" the owner of the hotel said. I am not sure if he considers himself local. The woman who cleans the hotel, who comes to work every day, is the only Indigenous resident of the community with whom I speak. There is a nice small shop, unpainted boards. Big TV.  Grill to do 'roast'. I th...

  Rubbish  Diwali morning early and I come out to go mandir. Place quiet, nice and cool.  Aunty V is out with her dogs - one on the chain, one with three legs running around. Someone had chopped off the fourth leg, Aunty V took the dog in and looked after it.  Is a kind of blessing, to witness this kindness to the animals. Walk towards the seawall. Rubbish all over.  The Diwali motorcade was successful the night before, thousands of citizens  coming out to support and enjoy the spectacle.   The citizens left the rubbish all over. Not sure which HIndu scriptures say that people should worship and then litter the place. Seawall would have been nice to look at.without the rubbish. Laxmi Maa with the rubbish  Minibus passes the Kitty roundabout. There are Diwali decorations , the pink lotus. Important symbol - the lotus- for growing in mud while not having mud on it.  The ground is littered .. plastic bottles, bags, cups. Signs of the pros...

Still from The Procession by Hew Locke   Madness  "What is wrong with madness?" Bassodee Dolly asks in the film playing in the art gallery which once housed Burnham as I explained to the people from Belize who did not know they were standing in the space Burnham might have stood over Guyana which Janet Jagan converted into the Art Gallery. Bassodee Dolly talks about being mad through Joan Cambridge-Mayfield in a film with some amazing archival footage which moved too fast. She wants to sell her land for 10 billion US dollars and dares anyone to say why the land is not worth that amount. The film Just 3 People Talking doesn't seem to go anywhere or to be about anything really, but  it is about everything now. Ancestors,  African, Indian and others.. 'all our ancestors' , and imagining that they are speaking to ask to act now. Joan Cambridge-Mayfield explains that she and idea for a Jumbie Jamboree,  and she felt The Procession by Hew Locke was that Jamboree....

  Guava on the ground  Woke up early and watched the sunrise through the windows open for breeze in between the reading about twelve year old Sai in a Thai fantasy world.  I mean to get up with the sun but I started The Last Mapmaker by Christina Soontornvat, and then the sun on the bed brings me back to adult stuff in the present day. Come downstairs and thinking of the intense madness of the day and months ahead as the Universe gifts have come all at once. On the grey concrete, in the shadow of the fence as the sun has not risen yet there, small yellow fruit. I think oh no, small yellow mango again dropping from the tree before ripening as part of the climate change madness. Pick up the fruit and look at it. It looks like a guava.  I smell it. Beautiful guava smell. There are no marks on the skin, no bites, no holes for worms.   Far from any tree  And as I inhale the guava smell early in the morning, I think nah, what guava doing here , there ...

Afghani Borani Banjan..  Rough time as body feels the 'year ago' significant events even as calendars and time are just artificial things. But knowledge and opportunity are there to also shift things away and to let bring new memories for the body and soul to feel. And strange things.. listening to a man talking about 'clapping lash on his children' and cussing silently to the man cutting my hair. Thinking of when is good for education to big men who beat their children that they are bullies. But then is a busy day.. no time to cuss up anybody and then try to recover from it.  Every day can be a cuss day. Wondering what else to make with baigan and thanks to the internet , end up  with the Afghani Borani Banjan dish. And thanks to the Internet .. as one of the cooks says, there is no one way to make the Borani Banjan. The baigan is basically sliced, fried (lord that oil!!) first, a tomato sauce is made with garlic and spices, and then the baigan is mixed in. ...

Hindus and Muslims  2021 and a Hindu man tells me that Muslims are saying that their time has come, in Region 3 where President Irfaan Ali is from.  According to 2012 census, 25% of the population say they are Hindu, 7 % say they are Muslim.  There can be no assumptions about Hindus or Muslims vote. Hindu organisations condemn the Pandit from the PNC who asks if the President does not want to work with him because he is Hindu.  A man picks me up on the road to mandir and we talk about Bhagvad Gita, and the teaching and the lessons and consequences for the bad governance and the corruption in Guyana which many Hindus do not seem to object to. He tells me that .. "and now the Muslims are getting anything.. " and shares stories about the discrimination against Hindus in favour of Muslims in the awarding of contracts at local Government level. He has no personal experience because he tells me in his years of doing business in Guyana "I never get a government contract ...

Yellow flowers   'Mr Kissoon , I come for lil bird seed' the weed man tells me. The grass is thriving in the concrete cracks in the heat - grass, bush, pusilane (hog weed). Is nice to see the bird seed grass there. The man tells me it just does not grow in his yard, even as it grows wild everywhere else. Now I wonder if I should weed them down.  But the patch though, early morning -ish and the bush which survived the tomato and pumpkin and other things which died before bearing.. yellow flowers every early morning.. and then on the ground another 'bush with another kind of yellow flower and at some point the pusilane/hog weed has tiny yellow flowers. Place hot, and mind is on snow and ice and days when the windows closed to lock out the cold breeze and not on three kinds of yellow 'wild flowers' which come and go... I tried some of the pusilane a day which tasted nice but I think give me belly wuk so I will leave them to thrive and cover the concrete and bear smal...