Ashma John

Even if you tried to avoid the videos there is absolutely no way one could have missed the commentary surrounding video footage of Kenesha Vaughn in her last moments desperately fighting for her life as her toddler stood completely shaken in the background that somehow found its way onto social media earlier this week.

Even when you are miles away, there is something about Guyana’s election season that somehow manages to  rope you in.

Gift giving can be a painstaking task. Besides birthdays and holidays such as Christmas, there are so many other small and niche occasions like housewarming parties, dinner hosting events, and baptisms that there is no one-size-fits-all protocol to follow.

I think one of the worst things that can happen when you have been abused, in addition to being abused, is to have it plastered everywhere in the digital space.

From wearing a black tux in her first formal photo and donning a hat that seemed to reinstate her need for personal space during the inauguration of her husband, I can hardly tell if Melania Trump is trying to tell us something or playing along with popular culture gossip to generate more chatter and hot takes on her life. 

Something I will never be able to absolutely wrap my head around is people of colour gleefully supporting racist leaders in a foreign land from their own country and I have seen it all week on my Facebook feed since Donald Trump came back into office.

Much of what women wear to the gym, and anywhere really for that matter, is somehow misconstrued as them fishing for attention.

Now that I fall under the category of ‘Diaspora’ I feel a type of way when they come under fire for daring to have opinions on Guyana.

I am not much of a beer drinker or a big drinker for that matter under any circumstances, but saying yes to Oktoberfest in Munich was an easy one.

It has been approximately one week since I became a German citizen, and no, I haven’t given up my Guyanese citizenship to attain it.

I was around 14 years old when I experienced my first raid at home by members of the state security apparatus.

What started out as a desire to do more girly things and expand my social settings in order to make new friends turned out to be what feels like if I’m fighting for my life for two hours every week.

There is nothing more terrifying to me than going for a routine pap smear check.

A big part of socialising often involves eating or drinking out and as opposed to intimate home settings which usually  tend to see the guests guarding their behaviour and respecting social cues because of the on my turf like nature of the social meetup.

Death is inevitable and even though it is sure to knock on the door of everyone, it still somehow manages to deliver an astounding shock every single time; even in cases where it has been highly anticipated due to illness.

I miss dating whenever I hear about the stories of some of my girlfriends even though I abhor  that it often felt, and probably still feels, like an unending time-wasting Netflix series.

After so many countries have plundered and dug through their lands or invited others to do so for them, exhausting their environmental limits and pushing local communities out for capitalist gains, we are yet again reminded that climate change isn’t just a safe cause or talking point.

Childless people navigating friendships with people who have children can be a prickly issue.

If I were 93 years old and on my fifth marriage, I too would probably rock sneakers to my wedding, I thought when I came across Rupert Murdoch’s latest wedding photos.

Fighting 2,000 pound bombs with an Instagram post feels pointless. Yet, without social media so many of us would have remained in the dark to genocide and other global problems far from our shores.