The Incense Seller

Why did you want to come to Guyana?….I was asked this last Sunday by a 73 year old Rasta gentleman who I stopped to chat with after he offered me some incense for sale. (It was a drive by sale, I was on my bike and he pulled up beside me with wares in his basket) We then pulled over to complete the purchase, $100 GYD or about 50 cents for crappy Chinese incense that I will never use, but I wanted to support him as he had asked me so nicely to buy it. We then started talking and he told me some great stories of the old days, when Georgetown was the “Garden City of the Caribbean” and pointed to where Jonestown prophet Jim Jones used to come to drink tea and we even talked about the current political situation and upcoming elections, a subject I tend to avoid out of respect unless brought up by locals. It was an awesome and intellectual conversation and after awhile I finally said I had to leave. He then asked me to come around the corner and see the ghetto with him (a VSO off limits zone I realized afterwards - whoops). “You must come to the ghetto, for what will you have really seen of Guyana, if not this…” He must have seen me hesitate slightly for he gently touched my arm and said “Don’t worry you are with me, and nothing will happen”. For reasons I’m still not sure of I instinctively trusted this old gentleman, maybe it was the peaceful cheap incense as his choice of wares to sell that inspired a subliminal confidence in him, or our conversation or maybe I didn’t want to let him down. I don’t know, I can’t really say, but I felt comfortable with him. We got back on our bikes and turned the corner and toured the ghetto together from the relative safety and perch of our bicycle seats for a few blocks. I didn’t know what to expect, I suppose I was a little afraid of what I might see…and I did see.. tears came into my eyes and what I saw made my small shared cold water flat in Kitty suddenly seem like opulent luxury accommodations for I have floors, a roof, running water, a stove, more than one room, a toilet, internet and electricity and what I think of as my terrible bike also suddenly seemed fancy and new, despite it’s thrice being smashed to the ground scars and bent basket I felt like I was driving a BMW. I had never seen anything like some of the living conditions I saw there, and I used to live a few blocks away from the infamous Downtown Eastside often called Canada’s worst neighborhood. Some people did tentatively wave to me as we passed and I nodded or waved back, yet the air was hushed and I noticed no one called me blondie or baby like usual. It was the longest four blocks of my life.
We then pulled back around to the main road from “Tiger” as this particular ghetto is called and my 73 year old Rasta escort then told me it is fact where he lived, that the ghetto is his home and he wanted to thank me and share something with me for as it turns out I was the only person to stop today to buy incense and now he could eat a meal and had been just about to go home hungry for the evening when I stopped my bike. I was truly humbled by this man, still so proud, so full of ideas and words, still charming and funny and wise and able to engage his views with an idealistic foreigner here to try and help his country. That he took the time to give something back when he has so little was deeply moving to me.
I thanked him for his tour and refrained from further offers of unnecessary incense purchases lest I somehow insult his dignity and what he had genuinely offered me of himself. We said goodbye and shook hands he then asked if I was going to the pool, and I actually was and somehow I felt so obviously like the 1st world interloper that I am. Here I am a volunteer in a developing country and still I can afford to engage in 1st world privileges such as an afternoon swim on a hot Sunday afternoon.
Why did you come to Guyana he had asked in our conversation…and I have been thinking about our encounter and his question ever since…for why did I really come to Guyana?
I came to Guyana...
To try and make a difference
To understand how things are for most of the people on this planet
To be grateful
To challenge myself
To learn about a new culture
To give back…
Yes to give back… but give back what exactly…? Perhaps the gift that fate has given me to live where and how I have in this world thus far. I’m sure none of us would choose the ghetto…but if it chooses you and is your home how wonderful if can take enough pride in yourself, your country and your being to share it and give something back of your self. Thank you incense-selling Rastaman for this, for you made my week, my month and maybe even my whole trip.

Everyone Loves a Road Trip!

In my three plus months here I have travelled now to eight different places in the “hinterlands” as any area outside of Georgetown is called and once to the neighbouring country of Suriname. Five trips have been for work to visit regional care clinics and three have been recreational. Travel to anywhere outside of the city is by private 15 seater minibus, 4 person shared taxi’s and 30 seater wooden river speed boats. I have used all of the above methods sometimes in combination and negotiation skills, observation, a steely will and the ability to say NO are all key in securing comfortable travel within Guyana. First thing to learn (the hard way of course) is that unlike in my home country here they are all private transit operators and as such they do not have to nor WILL they operate at a loss, so all of the busses, boats and shared taxis only leave when they are full, not according to any time schedule, even if a time schedule is posted. Sometimes there is a small amount of room for negotiation at the very end of the day for example and they have to get back to Gtown and you might pay more or less depending…but mostly the price is set, and is fairly applied to all and it means you will just have to wait until your mode of travel is at the optimum passenger level. This is somewhat inconvenient if it happens to be a very hot day and you want to be somewhere at a set time and the bus/taxi you choose is sitting in the baking sun while they try to recruit the last few passengers. A few weeks ago on the return trip from Linden in the interior I truly thought I was going to faint, sitting stagnant in the broiling bus, knowing I needed to stay put to keep my relatively good window seat (= fresh air once rolling) while we waited desperately for just two more riders to choose us. No one wants the last two seats on any bus you see, as they are the fold down bumper seats and for a two hour trip uh lets just say they don’t provide a very comfortable ride and this I know from first hand experience as of course on my first two bus trips whitey got stuck there. While baking to death in Linden I was willing everyone who came anywhere near our bus to have mercy on us…”please lady I would pray…please choose us, pick our bus, just take the bumper seat, it's not so bad...help us leave….pleeeassse”. Finally after sitting for nearly an hour like a dog locked in a car we disembarked….and…ahhh the window seat. The bus parks are a crazy place of competition, salesmanship and tactical marketing and when you arrive you will be aggressively approached from multiple drivers simultaneously speaking to you and grabbing your arm to direct you their way, and each promises to leave “just now”. Don’t believe this for a minute. In fact some busses go so far as to pose “bats” or fake passengers that appear to be waiting on the bus to lure others on board, then they “fly away” (hence the name bats) as soon as you get on. This tactic works well as logically you will choose the bus that you think will fill up the soonest and therefore leave the quickest, so part of your assessment of what bus to choose is one that appears to be pretty full of passengers already. I was told that although this practice is highly illegal, they do recognize that it creates employment – hah! If you get duped, and feel tough, full of moxy and internal strength you can walk away and try another bus or boat, although they will use guilt, cries of unfairness and broken promises and will likely follow you and claim title to you if you try and get on another bus and often rather loudly, this “stealing” of passengers is rampant and competition is fierce. Once on board the bus awaiting your fateful and unknown time of departure you can purchase wares from the vendors that sell things to the captive audience through the bus windows. Some items for sale make sense like “hot nuts, fresh juice, plantain chips” and a myriad of other delicious things to snack on, but others are so odd, tarpaulins, hammers, shoes, bras and car touch up paint have also been offered to me as a impulse purchase directly through the bus window… WTF? ..Tarpaulins?? who randomly sitting on a bus might need a tarpaulin?. I wonder what his mid month sales sheet looks like? Okays snacks and plenty of water and maybe a bra or two loaded into your bags plus any hardware store style impulse items that you may have purchased stowed away and you’re off. Be prepared to hurtle down the highway at speeds that are alarmingly scary to notice on the speedometer. The record speed of I think of any travel in my life in an automobile was on the outward trip to Linden where I happen to get the front bumper seat on a mini bus (the middle fold down seat over the console between the driver and front seat passenger, and a very bad seat as it turned out, as your head hits the ceiling over any bump and it is way too close to the blaring music and the loads of stinky air fresheners that are so inexplicably popular)This speedometer was kept steady at about 140 km the whole way as the driver skilfully avoided other buses, horse drawn carts, passed tankers, cars, donkeys, cattle and motorcycles at rip roaring speeds. I even asked if he could slow down a bit at one point as I hung on with white knuckles and thought about the last update to my will and he just looked at me sideways and turned up the music. Most other drivers I’ve experienced here travel at a much more reasonable (comparitively)100 – 120 km hour. I have noticed that they will actually stop rather than hit a cow, but all other livestock seems to be fair game. Speed is essential as of course in a free enterprise model the more trips in any given day they complete they more profit they make. Occasionally you will get pulled over by machine gun toting police for checks, or have to wait for the toll bridges lunch closure, where they just all stop working to have lunch and let the traffic pile up…do they really have to all take lunch at once? - well apparently they do! Also bridges close daily for boats to travel underneath and that can take hours as well, which means you have just missed your meeting. Otherwise you may stop for gas or you also might stop so the driver can eat or take a detour to complete errands like pickup his laundry, his step child, a 50 kg bag of garlic or stop to yell at a drunk.
The boats traverse the scenic river waters ways in similar fashion, they must be full before leaving, have no set schedule but do seem to be somewhat more cooperative in filling first one boat then the other rather than several half filled ones all vying for customers at once. By law all passengers do need to wear a life jacket, and they actually insist on this, which is nice to see. The speed boats are brightly painted low cut wooden speedboats armed with massive outboard engines that render speech impossible and blast off skilfully down the river stopping at scenic river villages to drop off and pick up passengers. The scenery is indeed lovely with little islands and mangroves dotting the landscape, parrots flying overhead, and look in the water...was that a caiman?, nope a log, oh well. As soon as you land at the harbour you will be accosted and offered taxis, busses, more snacks and juice and again enter into fierce negotiations for the next leg of your journey. The 10 hr bus trip back from Suriname was even more nefarious with a pre-arranged 4am pick up (that didn’t arrive until 5:30am, and let’s just say this caused a little stress for a certain someone) then a flat tire in the middle of the savannah, where it was hot and rainy at the same time and they skilfully changed the tire while the nine passengers stayed on the bus, with the engine running and music blasting the entire time, losing only about 20 minutes time all in, it was a rather impressive feat actually. We topped this escapade with a side road passenger switch to allow for a illegal border crossing then endured the most insane border crossing ever with us two white girls standing quiet trying hard not to laugh, lest it be a crime to mock procedures and protocols, which are taken VERY seriously here.
I now embark on 7 more journeys over the next three weeks to introduce the supervisors training programs that I have developed and despite the chaos of travel I kind of look forward to driving down the highway like Super Mario dodging livestock, and seeing if you can stay alive until the next round. I love seeing the goats, sheep, and cattle all free and roaming the beautiful countryside dotted with shanty shacks, hindu prayer flags, farms, rice, pineapple and sugar fields. We will be passing through the candy bar named villages of Good Hope, Belvedere, Charity, and Pleasance at breakneck speeds with the Bollywood Chutney or Reggae music blaring, the air fresheners pungent chemical smell wafting in among everyone’s snacks, children maybe sitting in my lap, passengers with perhaps Rasta tails or burkas all looking at and smiling at the strange white girl in their midst. I can’t say that I haven’t enjoy the thrill of the ride, even if I do need to update my will...and who knows maybe I’ll just pick up that souvenir tarpaulin I didn’t know I needed next time it’s offered.