By Ewalt Ainsworth
Carifesta is about pan. Not panhandling. Carifesta is we. Weed and feed the nation, the region and all who choose to come.
Carifesta is about building a head and getting ahead.
Carifesta is about our behaviour and behaviours and if we are going to affect the world, we cannot be affected by the world. Whatever we do, must have the residual effect of moving on. We cannot adopt a tit for tat protocol. We have to take care of we because we is we and is only we can save we from we.
Carifesta is about eating the banana and throwing away the skin. We must throw away the skin in such a way that we can recycle it so that it can come again as manure, chicken or pig feed. We have to be more responsible and take on more responsibility. Responsibility is a two edged sword. Responsibility also has to do with response ability.
Carifesta is about invoking the spirits…literally and metaphorically, to see if we going or we coming.
Carifesta is about how much luggage we can carry on and not how we does carry on, Carifesta is all that and more and this year, I have a sneaking suspicion that in spite of our best intentions, we will not live up to expectations. And let me explain what I mean.
At the airport, at the mall, in town and downtown, is so many people stretching out their hands. This kind of conditioning is a kind of preparation for what is to come. We seldom realise that the panhandlers set the tone for your visit. When you treat them bad, they have a way of communicating in code, to the criminal elements. Some of them play deaf and some play dumb but trust me on this, they are diagnostic tools in the society. For instance, this writer spent a month in Guyana, last June. The guy with the baggage cart at CJIA waved me through and installed me in a taxi. He got a decent tip. My stay was pleasurable. A sister who was with me, she attempted to bring the cart out herself and they almost tumbled her suitcase. They then demanded four thousand dollars for wheeling her through customs and immigration and later to a taxi. The taxi driver said he wanted fifty of her money as the fare. She gave him one hundred Guyana dollars. Fifty for the fare and another fifty as a tip for bringing her safely to Eccles. The taxi driver refused to release her suitcases unless she came up with rate of fifty of her money. She had to painstakingly show him that he demanded fifty dollars and she was travelling on a Guyana passport. Before the crowd could have gathered, she paid him twenty five us dollars for the ride.
This little incident served as a wake up call for my sister. Guyana is not quite ready for a mass invasion of tourists. Our behaviours are not far sighted. Every Guyanese, everywhere, thinks he or she or they are slick. Trust is a must and we have stopped trusting each other.
Another thing. We took out a friend and his wife one night. We went to a fish shop in kitty. The ambiance was great. But the five or six people that we were with recognised other friends in the bar and no sooner we got there, they advised us to sit on double seats. We quickly figured out that we were both on the heavy side and the plastic chairs would bend and sprawl. Guyana is known for all types of bamboo and hardwood, why in heaven’s name we insist on using the foreign stuff? The fish was good but they serving it to you with mustard and tomato ketchup.
Mango achar. Tamarind achar. Carambola achar. Even bilimbi achar. All these things go well with fish. We must eat what we produce and produce what we eat.
Carifesta is about showcasing what we are and who we are and whose we are. Carifesta is about making do with what we have. Carifesta too is about converting the residue from the soup and the coconut and the cassava and converting it into something tasty and nice and spicy. And one more last thing, carifesta is about looking at our behaviours and the residual effect of it all because is not what we do but it is how we do what we do. When we do, as a plural people.
