Within a month or so of returning home to live, I found myself in a well-known lawyer’s office in town to have a document notarized.  I had met this gentleman about a year previously at a Guyanese function in Florida where I was playing with Tradewinds and where he and I had been featured speakers. So after the notarizing, we chatted about the Florida event – it had been a true Guyana celebration evening – and at one point, my lawyer friend turned to me with a quizzical smile on his face. “Boy, you’ve seriously come back to this godforsaken country?”  Newly back here, I wasn’t confident I could challenge the tease, so I dodged the question, entertainer style, by saying, “Well it can’t be so godforsaken – you’re still here.”

Now, almost three years later, and with some back-home mileage under my belt, I met my lawyer friend briefly last week, and while I didn’t reopen the question I did remember the occasion. He may read this and come at me again, but this time I would have a more direct response.

Going in, I have to concede that the description “godforsaken” can properly be applied to Guyana.  In fact, you don’t have to bring God into it; the ordinary man in the street would agree it is so. However, like most sound-bite descriptions, this one, true as far as it …..