I
was in Miami airport recently, waiting to check in at Caribbean Airlines, and I ended up in an intriguing conversation with a Guyanese, living in Florida, who was travelling to Trinidad on business. It was revealing in the sense that this young man, who did business in Guyana, was clearly very familiar with all the trauma connected with life here, and we laughed together at various episodes in that vein, some his, some mine, we had encountered in recent years.
As the conversation wound down, he turned to me and said, “There is so much of Guyana I love and cherish, but I couldn’t live there. Every time I go there I end up seeing or hearing things that confirm that. Ironically, look how close I am in Miami, and at the same time, look how far.” I agreed with the irony of what he was saying, but then he paused, looked at me, and said. “How are you coping? How are you dealing with it?”