Dear Editor.
I am venturing into deep water here. I am about to make a layman’s comparison in relation to a complex crisis. However, my comparison is born out of observing the way of life in Guyana since my return in 2009, having been gone for 24 years prior to that.
I have been observing the way the average Guyanese uses the roadways, both as a pedestrian and an operator of vehicles and cycles. I observe their scant regard for their own lives and those of others, in the way they ride and drive.
We were taught in school to walk on the right-hand side of the road, facing the oncoming traffic. Today children and adults walk – sometimes three abreast – backing the traffic. The cyclists no longer stop at major roads. They just ride straight across or turn in front of the oncoming vehicles.
The pedestrians – young and old alike – seem completely oblivious to the tooting of horns. Some of them don’t even flinch as the horns are blown just behind them.
I have lived in and travelled to other countries and I have never seen the kind of lawless disregard for the usage of the roadways by both pedestrians and motorists that I see in Guyana. Now here’s my comparison. I am wondering if the chronic and pervasive hopelessness of the Guyanese citizenry is not contributing to how we use the roads. I am figuring that if these folks who walk and drive in the wanton way they do had hope for betterment in life, they would be a lot more careful.
If they saw themselves owning their own homes, working for living wages, travelling the world, enjoying their retirement or earning enough to comfortably enjoy life, they probably would not be so careless with their own lives or the lives of others.
I think that the way Guyanese use the roads tell the horrid story of a hapless and hopeless nation, in which the rich are getting richer and poor are getting poorer. We see in this singular regard a behaviour steeped in desperation and despondency, where a dark cloud of gloominess has sapped the viable possibilities of a good life out of the citizens.
Something is definitely wrong with the way Guyanese view life, and it is obvious in how they use the roadways. And this did not happen overnight. I want to wonder also if our record suicide rate is not tied directly to this prevailing hopelessness we are made to experience. I am just wondering. Maybe one of the professionals in the field could guide me on this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Pastor W P Jeffrey
