I was a country boy of almost 21 when I migrated to Toronto, but almost immediately after my arrival there I began to notice the disposition in Guyanese to improvise, to fix things, to repair and recondition, which was not nearly so widespread in the Canadian community where there was a tendency to discard and buy new, instead of restoring or repainting or patching up. Part of it, of 
course, was the lack of financial wherewithal among us, the recent immigrants, many of whom, like me, had come from very humble circumstances in Guyana, but a part of it, I gradually came to see, even in myself, was this ability to be good with our hands, to almost immediately become a handyman. It’s something I see again, living in Guyana, where so many people have this inclination to fix the bicycle, or tune up the motor car, or patch the wall, instead of always hiring somebody to do it.
