Christmas is just a few days away. Over the past few weeks the airwaves besieged me with a host of Christmas-themed music. These were designed to put people in the mood. We all know that stores and malls rake in more than fifty per cent of their annual takings during this season. People just seem to go into spendthrift mode at this time. There is no thought about tomorrow. And January, considered to be the toughest month in the year, is like tomorrow. People are out on the streets and in the stores in their numbers. Try driving around in the city at this time. It is a nightmare.
Minibuses are even more bullish. They push their fronts into any opening in traffic, no matter if a vehicle already has a head start. Many people accept the bullying since that is cheaper than facing the repair shop even if the minibus owner or driver has to foot the bill. It is cheaper because no time is lost; there is no inconvenience of being without transportation and there is no need to secure a lawyer to make court appearances.
To make matters worse on the streets, huge trucks have become part of the downtown traffic. These things are scary and even more bullish than the minibuses. Which vehicle is going to take them on?
Store owners are smiling. Many still remember the year—it was 1997—when the late President Desmond Hoyte told his supporters that there will be no Christmas that year. The merchants cried. And as could be expected people did not find the next month as difficult.
This year, the government offered the workers a 6.5 per cent increase that failed to address the high cost of living. Needless to say, the army and the police got an extra one month’s salary, tax free.  The average public servants will receive about $90,000 over 12 months representing the increase on their pay. And that is if they are earning $120,000 per month. But that being what it is, people will try to enjoy the season to the fullest. They are not being helped by the government but they are not making that a problem.
On the radio there was the news item that despite Guyana’s growing oil receipt, people are more dependent on foreign inflows by way of barrels. I have repeatedly said that Trinidad did wonders for its people with a daily production of 140,000 barrels per day. Guyana’s production is more than 400,000 barrels per day but the people are worse off than they were before the oil find.
Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo who has a penchant for linking me to anything under the sun, told the nation that the volume of infrastructure precludes the government from giving the people enough money to live by. One would have thought that with people living better, the infrastructure works would have been enhanced. Ptolemy Reid once said that people are more important than things. That is not the case in Jagdeo’s book. Many people will not even use the infrastructure that is being constructed.
On the lighter side, Christmas is about family. Gone are the days when Christmas meant the smell of varnish and polish. There was a time when the sound of hammering permeated the air on Christmas Eve, when people took home new linoleum. Drapes and curtains were not for the ordinary person. They were content with coloured blinds of relatively cheap material that faded after a few weeks of being bleached by the sun.
Today, curtains and the likes come from overseas. Carpets have replaced linoleum, cheap toys have replaced books. One good thing is that toy guns are not in vogue. Families aren’t as united because they can’t afford to entertain large groups. One way around this is for each group to walk with some food and drink. Sometimes, strange people turn up professing to be family. But this is the season of goodwill.
It would be nice if people could trace their roots. For most people of African ancestry, this is difficult. Few can trace their ancestry back to the days of slavery. And that was less than 200 years ago. My maternal grandmother had a Bible with the semblance of a family tree. Her Bible went back to her grandmother who lived during the last days of slavery. It was the same in other households. I cannot find that Bible because some other family member took it and caused it to disappear.
My family tree has roots in Barbados. Three brothers left Bimshire and travelled to Guyana. Each went to a county so I have relatives in every county. My family line is rooted in Demerara. I found some in Berbice and some in Essequibo. I found one of them in the East La Penitence Post Office the other day. This was the Essequibo strain.
That is why some people organise family reunions. That is where people learn of those they never knew existed. I see on television a programme called ancestry. Ancestry seems to be able to track people but it surely wouldn’t work in Guyana. Many of us have birth certificates that read, ‘Father’s name not stated’. Some grow up with grandparents thinking that they are their parents. Old people knew how to keep secrets.
As an aside, I was in my 50s when I found my father. He must have done something to upset my mother because she never mentioned his name until then, and not to me but to a sister with whom she was staying. I found him and for a few years we tried to catch up on what we missed. I found two other brothers and so another branch of my family tree grew. But I am hard pressed to find the root.
The General Registrar’s Office will be of some help but only so far. I hope that those records are computerised. Some of the volumes were heading south. Most dated back to the 1800s. So in the new year I am going to make it my duty to spend countless hours in the Georgetown Post Office. What better way to spend my last years than compiling a family tree?
