A couple years ago a regular contributor to the No. 1 talk show in Bubbadus, Down To Brass Tacks, threatened to deport the vendor “back to Guyana,” to wit he was going to send me home. I guess he thought that we had too much of dem Guyanese people ’bout here.
I wasn’t too sure ’bout the authority he had to make something like that happen, iffing he was employed by her Majesty’s Immigration department or if he had just gotten a big pick and was now minister of something with responsibility fuh nothing and therefore felt empowered to utter sweet nothings over “the air” .
That night I start to tremble and every time the wind rattle the li’l board and shingle two shed-roof house we live in, I break out in cold sweats wondering iffing Immigration was at the door looking to deport the Vendor, so I get up and start to check to mek sure me papers in.
and when I open de passport, I realise “wait, I got a bubbadus passport” and pun further checking I discovered “wait, wuh I born ’bout hey, right hey in Bubbadus and I got papers to showing that I is a bubbajan” and the next time I hear from that caller buse he till de cows come home and threaten he wid all kinds of violence fuh seeking to mislead me and de public. But I want to tell he that having just come back from Guyana, it woulda been alright iffing he did have that kind of power and coulda deport me, a born and bred Bajan with roots in at least four Caribbean countries, to a place name Guyana.
That place booming: the economy rising, they drilling fuh oil and I hear they find it, they building hydro fuh electricity and wherever you look de signs of prosperity right there. all over Georgetown new buildings going up, four- and five- storey buildings; hundreds of new roads being built; people driving the latest cars; restaurants and nightclubs abound; new hotels; manufacturing all over de place; and when I went to GuyExpo de last tuesday last, over 30 000 people did there enjoying themselves.
This place called Guyana is a different place from the one I went to a few years ago, so iffing I coulda get deport there, somebody might have done de Vendor a favour. I did hear mr Owen Arfur and in recent times Miss Mottley expounding pun de opportunities fuh we in Bubbadus to venture out into Guyana and sometimes I did wondering what air them did breathing but now I know.
A guyanese taxi driver remind me that them got an island in the mighty Esequibo river that bigger than Bubbadus, so land is not a problem. Them also don’t have no water shortage, and they got de gold, bauxite, the lumber, de food in fact this place is the land of opportunity fuh we.
when I did see a man like Dave Martins from the Tradewinds head back to live in Guyana, I thought he did lose he head, ’is true he did lose he head to love, but he coulda live anywhere he wanted to to and he choose home. now I know why!
Like anywhere else they still [got] some problems, some crime, some beggers, infrastructure still to be improved and so on.
Let me tell wunnah something, you have to visit Guyana; things happening there and they happening fast, you have to see the majesty of this massive country, that bigger than Britain by far, hundreds of waterfalls,rivers, mountains, the great plains of the Rupununi, drive to Brazil and come back, see the sea wall and taste the culture of its many peoples – africans, chinese, Portuguese, indians, whites, amerindians and all of the above mixed together.
An emerging power house in the region, if you miss the Vendor, I gone, voluntary to the land of plenty and opportunity.
But fuh the moment, I Market Vendor gone fuh now.
You have a blessed and a wonderful day, yuh hearrrr?
