By GHK Lall- It is 4:30 in the morning. One scene is passed. Then a second. Followed by a third. The fourth is last. There is certainty that more exists in different parts of the brightly lit city, outside of it, some close, some far. In moving, there is encountering some of the different faces of Guyana. Others cringe from speaking of them. I write of them, speak of them. Think of them, too.
The first scene is just past Church Street, a crowd that’s loud in parts, with the riotous effects of several hours in varying states of control. It grows thinner and quieter as Regent Street is approached; gone by the time that Charlotte Street hovers in sight. The road is empty and lonely again, barely a denizen of the night seen or heard. In that first happy face of Guyana are so many young, so many given to the call of the night. The call of the day is answered by those with backpacks, gathering in ones and twos, and speaking in a discernible foreign vocabulary.
Save for the language, I recognise myself from approx. 50 years ago. Gosh! It has been that long, that hard, and that which sticks. Thus, there’s affinity with the backpack battalion. Faces number two, repeated ad infinitum. They wait for a minibus at street corners; I see in my mind’s eye a lone figure waiting on a train way back in a big, boisterous town that never slept. It’s the luxury of the native born that they can pick and choose, including their long, unending hours of leisure.
Outsiders do the heavy lifting, the dirty work. It tells me that Guyana must have struck it rich. Hence, Guyanese, none more than the young, tell themselves that easy street is here. It isn’t so easy for the third citizen met later. I cross a bridge and before I passing through a gate, there’s another face of Guyana. One of many seen throughout the day. Hand outstretched. A practiced plea sails on the winds to ear. How about a l’il help, Faddah? Another promotion taken in stride. Hang tight. Will be back in a few, don’t go away.
From that one voice in the dark, there comes a haunting of the soul. How many more are there, like him, or worse? In a country blessed with so many gifts, but afflicted (some would say cursed) with so many walking, crawling wounded. Surely, this shouldn’t be. But it is, for they are there. The happy with no responsibility; and the poverty-stricken with no choice but the street.
It’s approaching five o’clock, and a fourth face enters the vision from the periphery. It is of a man with a cane and a knee as rigid as a piece of greenheart. He limps. If he makes one kilometer an hour, that would be a stellar achievement, a heroic day. Half a km may be doable, but then he is done from sheer exhaustion. It may be an arm, or a leg, not as often a heart or a head. But, in aggregate, they represent another dimension of this El Dorado known as Guyana.
Unlike the ones of seafarers’ dreams, and forest myths, Guyana’s El Dorado is real, can be felt in the fingers (for those so fortunate) and read in the media, by those who can read. And understand. I, too, can read, and I have absorbed ‘world-class’ being attached to many things that matter in Guyana. Then, I come across these classes of Guyanese, and ask how come what is world-class passed them by, didn’t even glance in their direction? Then I saw it.
A big, bright, blinding flash racing away. My word! What a warhorse for a trophy, what a statement! There is somebody in Guyana who is doing extremely well, and is so confident of what tomorrow brings that they think nothing of flaunting their muscle, wealth. And their arrival. Meanwhile, there are those other Guyanese already going down. Or in such a state that heading down that road is just a matter of time. It’s but a tiny snapshot of the faces of Guyana. A few only. Now multiply by any number that pleases, and there is a headline that speaks to the real story of the real Guyana.
