BACK TO GUYANA

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Protesters calling for removal of Commissioner of Police

I have never been back to Guyana since the the late editor of the Gleaner, Hector Wynter sent me there to cover an election some time in the mid 80's. That was quite an experience since the late Forbes Burnham did not like anyone from outside observing his elections. So despite the fact that I was "Caricom" they only gave me a visa for 3 days! It took me the entire 3 days just to get it extended.

 What I remember most about that visit is how dark it was. The flight had arrived after midnight from Port Of Spain and the trip from the airport looked extraordinarily long and scary, mainly because of the darkness.

 However on this trip although we arrived 1.35am, it was so noticeable how well lighted the route had become. Our local host had however assumed that the flight would have been at 1.35 in the day and was not there. Anyway we met an Italian architect who offered to share her taxi with us, so no problem.

 On the way over, we were stopped by police manning a road block but after exchanging a few words, the taxi driver moved off, telling us it was an "illegal road block". He said if he never had foreign passengers, they would have shaken him down for GUY$1000 (US$20), adding that while the police are poorly paid, they tend to live in big houses, demonstrating that crookedness was the order of the day. Crime here is very low however and I have rarely seen any police presence anywhere else.

Quaint Christian churches, Mosques and Hindu temples are all over

 As I related the experience the taxi driver had to a Guyanese journalist a few days later, I was told that it was no surprise for since the head of the stream was dirty, the force was dirty all the way through. You see, the Commissioner of Police here has been charged for rape and it has naturally caused quite as stink with women's organizations calling for him to be fired. For while they recognise that he has not been tried or convicted, because he is claiming it was "consensual sex" with someone who had sought his assistance as a law enforcer, they maintain that it makes him unfit to hold the office. I agree. I also saw a small demonstration in front of the Court house in Georgetown calling for his removal. However it is not easy to move him as the office comes with serious constitutional protection, but he is "on leave" until  "such time".

A number of things have struck me about Georgetown on this trip. Among them,
1) How dirty it is
2)How cheap it is in comparison to Jamaica
3)How few potholes there are (and it rains heavily every day!)
4) How orderly their transportation system is

City Hall

When I commented to a friend how dirty the place had become, she said it was because the Easter holidays had just passed and they have not had a chance to clean up, but a journalist told me that garbage collection has fallen down badly here. Especially noticeable, she said, if you had been around in the Burnham years, for Georgetown had been among the cleanest cities during that period. "Not because of the government wanting it to be so," she continued wryly, "but because during that period there was so much shortage (of everything) that no one threw away anything !"

Now everyone throws away everything and they dispose of it mostly in the drains. Georgetown needs a serious public education programme about cleanliness, just as we do in Kingston, but I do believe they have the edge here, so city hall which is housed in a very impressive building, needs to step up to the plate! (Would you believe that Hamilton Green, the former Prime Minister, has been mayor of the city for years! Shame on you sir!!!!!!)

Stabroek market

 I must say however Stabroek market was a surprising exception, as for an extremely busy  market that carries everything from good gold jewellery to yam and potatoes, it was surprisingly clean. Another thing that stands out about that market is the fact that unlike Jamaica and places like Haiti and Mexico, no vendors harass you or beg and plead that you buy something from them to save them from starvation!

 Although there are very few sidewalks in the city, the pedestrian crossings are very well marked and a number of roads have sleeping policemen which forces drivers to cut their speed. Walking here is a pleasure too since one does not have not have to put up with the constant barrage of sexually suggestive comments from just about every male on the road as one tries to go about their business. And I'm searching hard, to find potholes in what has become an extremely bustling city.

There is now a mini fuss regarding license plates which I find quite amusing. The private vehicles have license plates with three letters all beginning with "P" followed by four numbers. Because of the meaning, they decided not to use "POO" but now that they have reached "PPP" there is an outcry in some corners. For you see, PPP is the common name of the leading Indian party (The Peoples Progressive party) which is the majority party in the coalition government so APFNU members are incensed at seeing this on the license plates!

Transportation around the busy city is orderly and efficient with only minibuses plying all the routes. They drive carefully (No racing around like ours) and stop only at the designated stops. And they line up at the depot and when one is full, it moves off and the one behind moves up. So orderly! While they are allowed to play music, it is kept quite low and is definitely background music, nothing more, nothing less. Most the taxis are painted yellow and are only differentiated by the company names and logos on the side and travelling by taxi is also very cheap.

A Hindu temple

I have become so accustomed to everything in Jamaica costing an arm and a leg that I have been simply bowled over at how cheap things generally are here (the same things we import and from the same sources). Take the troubling issue of gas, all imported (they discovered gas recently but have not yet started to extract it yet), here they pay around Ja 90 per litre as compared to our $114 up. Liquor is about half the price of ours, cigarettes so cheap it makes you want to smoke and food and clothes dirt cheap by comparison. It really makes you angry to once again be reminded that what makes up the bulk of the prices of goods and services at home are taxes, not production costs or profits!

One can't help but notice the signs of serious progress here as the board buildings of the past are rapidly being replaced by multiple storey concrete ones.( Because of the serious flooding that affects the country yearly as their rivers swell during the rainy season, the houses used to be built on stilts) I had been a bit curious to see that every building had plastic water tanks, surprised since Guyana could never have anything close to a water shortage because of the two huge rivers, Demerara and Essequibo, but I was told that these are only used to build up the pressure, not for storage. The water in Georgetown is not potable however so purified water outlets are making a bag

 While Guyanese often comment on the influx of Chinese businesses "taking over", commerce in general is still controlled the the Indians who make up almost 45% of the population while the those of African descent who make up just over 30% of the population, have tended to control the civil service, army, police and some professions. Apart from the two major races, there are nine Amerindian tribes, Brazilians, Europeans and Chinese here so you know that the food offerings at the restaurants are really wide, reasonably priced, tasty and exotic.  I also love the religious tolerance which leads to churches, mosques and Hindu temples being almost side by side on some streets and in the Kitty market, I saw two stalls beside each other, one saying  'Jesus is lord" and the other beside it declaring "Allah is the greatest". Our host was born a Hindu, married a Muslim and converted then became a Christian after divorce. In fact, everyone I ask tell me they go to all the religious festivities. This religious climate here is really refreshing in comparison to ours where christian dogmatism is so suffocating.

 Incidentally, while Guyana is at  least 20 times the size of Jamaica and their population about a third of ours, based on their economic development they obviously have much more effective politicians than we do. For whereas we have been struggling between negative growth and anemic 1/4 and 1 percent growth., they have been performing well since 1989 and really barreling away since the 2000's with GDP averaging above 5% between 2007 and 2011 with estimated growth to be 4.4% this year.

 This turn around in the economy has led to an steady climb in the number of returning residents in a country that had long had a reputation for the migratory tendencies of its citizens.