So It Go

You’re going to have to stay with me on this one; it’s quite an experience.

The information from daily reportings of various traumas in a country, whether from government actions or personal behaviours, can become a surround creating a feeling of hopelessness in the citizens. 

We have a number of folks with very perceptive eyes writing columns or letters to the press on a daily basis pointing out various traumas or irregularities in the country. 

It’s not on the main road, so you can drive by it every day and not know it’s there, as thousands do. 

It happens without fail: every time I come or go from our major airport at Timehri, I’m caught up in a memory of the time in the mid-1950s when I worked there as a youngster.

From a youth in Saints, dealing with Mr Singh and Mr Stanley Fernandes who taught us English, I was drawn to the intricacies of words and the shades of meaning that one could extract merely from word choice. 

Somewhere in the early ’80s, Tradewinds came to Guyana to take part in Mashramani with a substitute bass player, Burman Scott, from Cayman.

When I lived in the Cayman Islands, I became friendly with a young businessman there largely based on our interest in Caribbean culture, personalities, social movements, etc. 

Guyana is up in arms this week over news that the Chinese are building a Marriott Hotel here but not employing any Guyanese in the construction work, and that we’re also going to have a Chinese TV channel; yes, Sumintra, a Chinese TV channel in Guyana.

In recent weeks, probably propelled by fading hopes for “a new day” with our new Parliament, we have seen some stirring letters to the press citing Guyana’s diverse difficulties and calling for the citizenry to become more socially active.

In just a few months from now, the regional airline LIAT will begin using the expanded facilities at Ogle Airport ferrying passengers to and from the Caribbean.

Anyone who knows anything about my work in music will know of my commitment to Caribbean dialect.

On civic matters in Guyana, while there are often opportunities for discussion or exchange, we have a marked tendency to eschew that route and simply make pronouncements. 

Wherever we happen to live, our end-of-year diversions usually include the media interest in New Year resolutions.

From the start of Tradewinds, I’ve always had a thing with ‘dem Bajans.’ 

Good musical sense is the ability to know, without being directed, what to play and where to play it and, just as importantly, when not to play at all.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve had this interest about understanding how things work, about the intricacies at play, about the skills involved.

Among the many admirable qualities in mankind, probably the most galvanizing is the willingness to say, “I was wrong.”

Sorry to disappoint you, but the widely popular notion of art as being the result of a spur-of-the-moment inspiration, of a bulb lighting up, is one that is generally false. 

Many of us in the Caribbean have it in for the USA – the interference in the affairs of other countries; the deadly machinations of their agencies such as the CIA and the FBI; their massively corrupt system of lobbying government running in the millions of dollars daily; their opiate problem – the list goes on – but there are times when you simply have to hand it to America.