Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Oct 11, 2015 Features / Columnists, My Column
Guyana has a population of fewer than a million people. I must admit, though, that it is a beautiful country in which the people simply cannot accept that they are poor. These are the people who would more often than not, make believe that they are as good as people anywhere else. And they take every opportunity to prove that they are as good as anybody.
There was a time when Guyanese simply wanted to get away. And they had good reason to; they saw on the television screens the kind of people they pictured themselves to be—driving cars and living in fancy houses while wearing fancy clothes.
I still run into people who left these shores and never returned but to hear them talk you would believe that they have been in Guyana all the time. These are the people who know how bad things are here and wonder how we live. These are the people who would have no problem begging us for some money although they had just regaled us about how bad Guyana is.
And back home I saw people who dressed fit to make a comic laugh. I saw girls wearing high-top winter boots in this hot country; I saw men wearing leather as though it was the best thing when the country is hot and cotton would be the best thing to wear.
Those were the people who left Guyana with a visitor’s visa and as soon as their feet touched the soil of North America they decided that they had reached a new home.
A lot has changed since then. Many of them struggled and sent for their children who failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. These children made Guyana and to some extent Jamaica, household names on the lips of the Americans. They ran the streets and distributed drugs. They made life hell for the locals and pretty soon Guyana developed a new term—deportee.
But there were those who survived long enough to make so much money that even their most cautious parent learnt to turn a blind eye and smile indulgently. After all, money can make so many things different. These parents sent money back home to relatives who were also struggling; they sent barrels of clothing and for their part, the relative back home concluded that America was the land of milk and honey.
A lot has changed since those heady days. People coming back talk about how hard it is in America for people who are now going. And with that information more people are going to see for themselves. The United States is not averse to allowing people to secure a visitor’s visa. Such is the confidence that just recently the embassy reported that there has been a more than ninety per cent return rate.
But this does not mean that there are not people heading there to cash in on the money that cocaine can provide. And it is this that made me shake my head when the news media reported that a popular young man is now hiding. It would seem that somehow or the other, the Canadian authorities got wind of the happenings in which a group indulged.
Unlike the Guyanese police, these Canadians busted the drugs and got the person they busted to work with them. Last week I recalled that there is no honour between thieves and so it had to be in Canada. When the Canadian police felt that they had enough fish in the net they closed in. They found cocaine, cash and guns. Somebody in Guyana has lost a large sum of money and must now be mourning.
I did say that some of those who left placed Guyana on the map to such an extent that every Guyanese who enter that country gets some special attention. I remember one night when the Delta flight that I travelled on at that time landed. Something must have gone wrong because the aircraft was stalled outside the airport, ostensibly waiting for a gate.
When I got off I never recalled seeing so many security personnel. It was as if all of them expected to see each passenger had a quantity of drugs on their person. On another occasion, the aircraft had to be stalled on the runway while the authority changed every baggage handler. I later learnt that the new handlers, by simply going about their job, helped the authorities collect a quantity of cocaine.
Guyana is known for other things. The police would routinely tell you that they have had to go to Guyanese homes and get the man out because he is abusive. Fortunately, they have not yet concluded that every Guyanese man is an abuser. And indeed they are not. American women are excited to secure a Guyanese husband. She boasts that he can cook and that he is very loving.
When I meet with a countryman who has his American wife, I find out that he is submissive. And for good reason. For one, he is illegal and he knows that anything stupid would see him busted and sent back to his homeland. But the time he is ‘made straight’ he has already been house broken or as the experts say, conditioned.
The good thing is that tide is changing. There are not enough young Guyanese men who rush to live illegally there. They have seen many of their friends who made the move either get deported or get killed on the streets.
Yet there are many who cast their eyes northward. Some go to Canada, but then again, life is not easy.
Listen to the man that is throwing Guyanese bright future away
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