Days in Guyana

Twenty-two years ago I was just eleven years old. My brother was seven we grew up in a small village named Prashad Nagar in Georgetown, Guyana. It was a quiet place with lots of wooden homes. Guyana has a very diverse population and everyone celebrates national holidays together. The main language is English but most times sound like they are speaking Irish sometimes with the way words are pronounced but the English language is what is thought and spoken. On the coast of South America it is always refreshing and the air always smells like grass or rain. In the early eighty's when we had many power outages and my house would be very hot because we lived between two other homes that were very close. So we used fans and I would be play out doors to keep cool. At nights sometimes I would lie on a wet towel if it got too hot this happened only a few times. Then there were mosquitoes but once you have a net you would be safe. The water was always cold for taking showers so I developed a method that would reduce the shivers. This technique is to put one hand in and then other body parts slowly.

I had a Caloi bicycle they were made in Brazil .It would take me where I wanted to go which was down the street and maybe if I felt adventurous to the back street. There was shop called "Singh's Shop" it was someone's house where they converted the bottom section into a general store. This was always the best place to get rubber bands and candies that you would buy for five cents. Climbing trees, eating fruits and playing games in the backyard was the way we spent our days after we got home from school. We knew many people that lived in the area and we would wave to them as we passed our home. Sometimes we would go visit them at their home. My father had grown up in a place called "Canal" which was a small farming village that is located on the West Coast of Demerara, Guyana. He was from a family of ten children and was bringing home the cows by the time he was 6 years old. After his mother died prematurely in her 40's the family moved to the city. My mother the eldest of nine children had grown up around this Georgetown. Her father died in his early 40s from diabetic complications he was a carpenter. Her mother left for the United States where her brothers had already moved too and started a new life and soon after her children followed. Guyana's history is bitter sweet to many because of the fact that everyone had been brought to the country either through slavery or as indentured workers. It has been a struggle for everyone and it is still a battle for many living in a third world country. There is great pride and beauty in being a Guyanese and unless you have visited the country you cannot understand its intense and natural beauty. Being a descendant of Indentured servants that migrated from India to Guyana is part of my history that I am very proud of.