Like any poor country, Guyana is replete with occasions for despair about standards in everyday life. We can see the list in its various forms constantly in the news media, and it is a lengthy and well-known one – no need to replicate it here. At the same time, it is also true that caught up in all that gloom we often fail to notice that there are individuals in the society who show that high standards can be accomplished by persons who are committed to a cause – that, in the darkness, and sometimes unheralded, there are people making a mark.
One such is Stabroek News photographer Arian Browne whose informal photographs appear daily in a special section of the newspaper. It’s headed simply ‘Photos,’ but don’t let that simple heading mislead you; it’s actually much more than that. What Arian is giving us, every day of the week, are amazing, sometimes startling, but always powerful views from the galaxy of life in and around Georgetown. From the range of the subjects – a man using the glass window of a business as a mirror to shave; a trailer moving down the street pulled by a man instead of a horse; children playing in floodwaters – Arian consistently and humanely shows us Guyanese coping with adversity and doing it with elan, or at least composure.
How he manages to secure these images, some of which are obviously fleeting, is in itself an achievement, but it is in the selection of his pictures that Arian shines. In the range of the images, and particularly their connection to everyday life, he is showing us the sociology around us, and to do that on a daily basis is a big ask. He is also great on detail. He spots things in our society that elude most of us like his photo of two dogs on a high, wooden perch secure from the flood below.
His photo of what at first appears to be a huge bundle of weeds moving down the Embankment Road, which was actually being carried by a man walking inside it, is one of many such standout portraits. Arian is a gem among us.
Another such is a young lady named Syeada Manbodh who has dedicated herself to what is almost a staggering task in Guyana – the safety and humane care of our animals. Where Syeada finds the time and the energy, not to mention the stomach, for her undertaking is a mystery but she seems to be everywhere there is an animal in distress, sometimes bundling the wounded or ailing creatures up herself and taking them to places for treatment.
Whether it’s a cow or a horse or a stray dog, Syeada’s compassion comes into play and she will confront people who mistreat animals as if all animals were her own.
That may well be the propulsion behind this kind of dedication, particularly in this country where our attitude to such creatures is often abysmal as people abandon animals that serve them, and even family pets, without any compunction. Syeada is out there, near to home or far, looking out for those creatures in what must be one of the most difficult environments. Her contribution is singular; she’s another gem.
In a country where we often find standards lacking, Clive Prowell of the Le Classique dance troupe is truly deserving of some kind of national award for what he has been able to achieve with that unit. In show after show, year after year, he somehow manages to put together very impressive, polished, artistic presentations that leave audiences spellbound. From my relationship many years ago with a dancer from the Trinidad National Dance Company, I have some idea of the grinding amount of hard work that goes into theatrical dance. In my opinion, it is the most physically taxing work of any artistic endeavour, blood actually flows, and in our dance environment, where the financial rewards are slim, Clive’s ability to motivate dancers is clearly in play.
That he is able to propel these presentations at the Cultural Centre, with the dancers and the costume designers at such a high level, makes the man unique.
A few miles away from the Centre, there is another gem among us on Duncan Street, in the person of Burchmore Simon. In a small building with no sign, Burchmore operates one of the top recording studios in Guyana, mixes and produces many of our popular recordings, mentors many of our young singers (Tennicia DeFreitas; Vanilla; Bones Man), and also teaches music (guitar, bass, drums). The striking thing is not so much that he does so many things, but that he does them all to such a high level.
Burch, as he’s commonly known, is a stickler for professionalism, for detail, for doing it over. He takes the time to get it right, which is not a common quality among us, and a lot of his success is owed to that attitude.
Burch has no problem admitting his very humble beginnings (his mother was a Bourda market vendor), and indeed he points to that experience as the factor propelling his commitment to excellence wherever he becomes involved.
He may be less well known than Syeada and Clive, but like them, he’s a gem among us.
Achieving standards, of course, also applies to smaller endeavours. There, too, the commitment shows as in the food vendor Miss Nicola who operates on the western side of East Street just south of Balwant Singh Hospital. I can’t speak for all of the items in her glass case, but I can tell you her cassava pone is a winner. Miss Nicola obviously takes her time with it, even down to ensuring the little bit of “bun bun” at the bottom that pone aficionados relish.
Mind you, you have to go early, because most days by 11 am the pone is sold out, but the point here is that Miss Nicola, in her own way, is also a gem, and amid all the points of gloom you will find these people like Arian, Syeda, Burchmore, Clive and Nicola – gems among us.
