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.