One of the striking things about the Guyanese culture is our disposition to improvise, to use our ingenuity, to use our wiles, to try and overcome. We find replacements for parts that cannot be sourced; we improvise different materials when the foreign one is not available; we get around problems in daily life by coming up with inventive solutions or compromises, even somewhat shady ones, in order, as Guyanese would phrase it, “to get through.”
It is a condition I came to recognize vividly living in North America. I saw it in myself in items for my house I would try to repair instead of replace; in my inclination to improvise when a tool wasn’t handy; something my eldest daughter, Luana, born and raised in Canada, would remark on. Living here again, looking at things through that lens, I see the condition is alive and well.
There is an enterprising vendor (somewhere up the East Coast) who has given her business a unique kind of mobility by building a kind of enclosure around the front of her motorcycle, with space on both sides of the handle bars for her to display her goods. She can change location in minutes, and when her day’s work is over she doesn’t have to look for a minibus. She just packs away her goods, cranks her motorbike and that’s it.
Here’s another clever stroke. The column I write for Stabroek News has a comments section, frequently interesting, and two enterprising Guyanese, one in the US and the other I know not where, have taken to using that section to exchange pleasantries and nostalgia with each other. Until the editor puts a stop to it, these two dudes have turned that space into their own personal Facebook. Sneaky but ingenious.
A few weeks ago I played a concert for the Organisation of American States organized by Guyanese Ambassador Bayney Karran. The hall, the beautiful Hall of the Americas in Washington, is just around the corner from the White House, and parking is very hard to find. Five Guyanese friends of mine, who came to Washington for the function, showed up at the hall but could not find parking. Security was tight, and they were losing hope. Then one of them, Cletus Faria, spotted a security guard at a gate, controlling some parking. Cletus drives up to the guard, leans out of his window and says, “Excuse me, sir. We’re with the band, but we can’t find any parking.” The guard leaned over, opened the gate, and gaily waved the five impostors through. Guyanese ingenuity.
We take this creative streak with us wherever we go. There is a civil engineer named Paul daSilva, now retired in Florida, who used to work for an Ontario firm. I don’t know the details of it, but in his time there, Paul came up with the idea for a waste-water treatment process that won the Schreyer Award in Canada, the highest engineering award in that country. I used to know Paul as a one-time soccer fanatic who used to frequent our We Place nightclub in Toronto, hustling the ladies like all good Guyanese boys, but as it turns out he was also applying his ingenuity at work.
It seems there is some kind of reservoir of resolve, perhaps tempered by the difficulties and impediments we encounter here, that takes us through those difficult times and equips us to handle whatever is thrown at us. My recent column, ‘From Kaieteur to Niagara on a bicycle,‘ featured Terry Ferreira who used his ingenuity to pull off a 7,500-mile ride that he was told was impossible. How he got through, almost on his own, is quite an accomplishment. Terry’s take is that it was largely because he was “lucky to be born Guyanese.”
Here’s one from my Tradewinds days. A promoter in Trinidad, named Noel Agostini was in a bind. He had Carla Thomas on tour in Trinidad, due to perform in Guyana, but he had no airline booking to get her here, and all the flights were full. He called the local promoter to cancel. The local guy told Noel the singer’s show was sold out. Agostini said, “Sold out? She coming.” He rushes Carla to Piarco. He grabs two of the guys handling baggage at the curb, gives them US$20 each, and tells them. “Ask the next two taxis that pull up, if the passengers are for Guyana. If they say, yes, tell them the flight cancelled; they should go back to town.” With 5 no-shows, BWEE had room to spare for Carla. Now I must confess that Noel was a Trini, but his wife was from Plaisance; he caught the Guyanese craftiness from her.
We get around some vexing problems with this ability to strategize; take Gem Mahdoo and Ron Robinson. Some years ago, they were coming to Cayman for the ‘Raise Up‘ show I had written, and they volunteered to ship two large Guyanese carvings for me I had bought in Guyana. Understand they weighed about 160 pounds (the carvings, that is) and one of them was almost six feet high. I assumed the things would come as cargo which would take weeks. Up to this day I do not know what combination of lies, bribery or blackmail the two of them conjured up, because the carvings actually came on the same plane with Ron and Gem and the other actors as, believe it or not, baggage. Can you imagine the brass it took to call something six feet high “baggage”? That scene at Timehri must have been the epitome of Guyanese “getting through.”
This inventiveness has stood us in good stead for decades. It has come to our aid outside the region and in it. A good many years ago, the late Regan Rodrigues, of Ricks and Sari, was late checking in for one of those late night overcrowded BWEE flights from Piarco. Concerned about not getting a seat, Regan, with his two bulging suitcases, began pushing his way to the front of the line. The Trini resistance was immediate. “You have to stay in de line, fella. Why you pushing so?” Regan was prepared: “Ow, man. Mi mother sick; ah have to hurry. Burnham teach we fuh hussle, you know.” The Trinis waved him through,“Go brave, padna. Go brave.”
