Parabara, 30/07/2007
The rain had eased; the sky outside was golden, afternoon fading into the precious half-hour of twilight before the tropical night's sudden onset. Lying in my hammock, I set down my book. The balmy stillness outside beckoned - I picked up my towel and soap and headed down to the river.
Outside the school, where I was staying, the path wound through the centre of the tiny village; over a bare patch in the grass, children playing hop-scotch in the sand; between the village's benab, a tall, round, conical-roofed communal building, and a solar panel, supported on two poles and sheltering a 12V battery beneath; past the daub-and-wattle or wooden houses, all leaf-thatched, children running in and out and adults languidly chatting through the windows and over the kitchen-fires. Even the school did not look out of place: zinc-roofed and government-yellow, still it had the appearance of a rural English Post Office or train station, surrounded by a neat white fence, neat bushes bordering the front door, window frames painted a dark brown. All around the village, bush rose up - the rainforest, untamed, threatening to close in on this ephemeral clearing. Banana leaves revealed where the rich soil had been claimed for farms - the village's lifeblood and sole reason for existence.
The path passed a run-down building - one wall missing, wooden planks stacked up inside - and the Toshao's house - three one-room buildings, two of wooden slats and one daub-and-wattle, surrounded by over-loaded grapefruit trees. It dived into semi-bush, not exactly wild, but unruly undergrowth - barely 100m from the school - and, about 20m further down a slight incline, reemerged at the sand and clay landing, from which we had departed two weeks previously and where we had arrived, on the return journey, earlier that afternoon.
Six o'clock: no one is at the landing but me. The clay, after the rain, is soft and slippery under my bare feet. There is a slight drizzle of rain, but barely felt, given away more by the splashes on the river's slow-moving surface. On the opposite bank is true bush: immense, impenetrable, the luscious green of unbridled growth. It stretches out of sight, up- and down-stream; likewise on the side on which I stand, the landing is but a small clearing in an otherwise unbroken line of tangled trees, all raised above my shoulders, the landing being lower than the rest of the bank.
I wade into the water - it is cool but refreshing; combined with the faint rain, it sends an almost-shiver all over the body, like the remnants of a defeated and receding fever - a reminder that I am dead-tired and worn out, but also safe and near my journey's end.
And now I look up, and the beauty of the scene is complete. To the west, the setting sun, hidden behind the jungle-wall, sets the sky burning, now gold, now orange, fading as I watch into a red and then purple - warmth, comfort, evening colours, signifying an end to the day's work and a time for rest. To the east, the sky is blue, almost drained in comparison to the vital colours up-stream, but this only serves to make the green of the bush even bolder; and, there above it all, spanning the river, is a perfect, complete rainbow, unbroken from end to end , a triumphant victory arch.
And yet, when I look up again from bathing, that glorious rainbow has disappeared. The rain is returning, and I know that soon those crimson sunset hues will also fade to blackness.
I am in Parabara only for a night, in transit from one destination to another. There is nothing for me here, except a change in transport from bullock-cart to boat, or boat to bullock-cart - bush to river, or river to bush; this, moreso than anywhere else in Guyana's remotest corners, is simply not somewhere one 'visits' - life is the farm and the river, and the river and the farm are life for the 133 inhabitants - the tourist has no place in this universe. But to me, this is perhaps a little closer to paradise, a little more genuine, than Gunns, from where I had just returned, four days further into the interior by river, protected by Conservation International, constant buzz of workshops and conferences on preserving the environment and indigenous ways of life. Here, in Parabara, people simply get on with it.
And unlike Aishalton, my savannah home - much larger and much closer to the outside world - suffering from a culture crisis and reacting with over-the-top assertiveness, culture here means nothing more - nor less - than the way people live their lives. There is no need to define it, but rather it wells up out of the day-to-day interactions of community life.
And, like the passing rainbow, tomorrow I will be gone, back to Aishalton and from there, to Lethem, Georgetown, and England; and this village, community, way of life, too, will pass in the heart-beat of a generation.
But I am content that, in that half-hour between afternoon and night, it was there, and I was, too.
Outside the school, where I was staying, the path wound through the centre of the tiny village; over a bare patch in the grass, children playing hop-scotch in the sand; between the village's benab, a tall, round, conical-roofed communal building, and a solar panel, supported on two poles and sheltering a 12V battery beneath; past the daub-and-wattle or wooden houses, all leaf-thatched, children running in and out and adults languidly chatting through the windows and over the kitchen-fires. Even the school did not look out of place: zinc-roofed and government-yellow, still it had the appearance of a rural English Post Office or train station, surrounded by a neat white fence, neat bushes bordering the front door, window frames painted a dark brown. All around the village, bush rose up - the rainforest, untamed, threatening to close in on this ephemeral clearing. Banana leaves revealed where the rich soil had been claimed for farms - the village's lifeblood and sole reason for existence.
The path passed a run-down building - one wall missing, wooden planks stacked up inside - and the Toshao's house - three one-room buildings, two of wooden slats and one daub-and-wattle, surrounded by over-loaded grapefruit trees. It dived into semi-bush, not exactly wild, but unruly undergrowth - barely 100m from the school - and, about 20m further down a slight incline, reemerged at the sand and clay landing, from which we had departed two weeks previously and where we had arrived, on the return journey, earlier that afternoon.
Six o'clock: no one is at the landing but me. The clay, after the rain, is soft and slippery under my bare feet. There is a slight drizzle of rain, but barely felt, given away more by the splashes on the river's slow-moving surface. On the opposite bank is true bush: immense, impenetrable, the luscious green of unbridled growth. It stretches out of sight, up- and down-stream; likewise on the side on which I stand, the landing is but a small clearing in an otherwise unbroken line of tangled trees, all raised above my shoulders, the landing being lower than the rest of the bank.
I wade into the water - it is cool but refreshing; combined with the faint rain, it sends an almost-shiver all over the body, like the remnants of a defeated and receding fever - a reminder that I am dead-tired and worn out, but also safe and near my journey's end.
And now I look up, and the beauty of the scene is complete. To the west, the setting sun, hidden behind the jungle-wall, sets the sky burning, now gold, now orange, fading as I watch into a red and then purple - warmth, comfort, evening colours, signifying an end to the day's work and a time for rest. To the east, the sky is blue, almost drained in comparison to the vital colours up-stream, but this only serves to make the green of the bush even bolder; and, there above it all, spanning the river, is a perfect, complete rainbow, unbroken from end to end , a triumphant victory arch.
And yet, when I look up again from bathing, that glorious rainbow has disappeared. The rain is returning, and I know that soon those crimson sunset hues will also fade to blackness.
I am in Parabara only for a night, in transit from one destination to another. There is nothing for me here, except a change in transport from bullock-cart to boat, or boat to bullock-cart - bush to river, or river to bush; this, moreso than anywhere else in Guyana's remotest corners, is simply not somewhere one 'visits' - life is the farm and the river, and the river and the farm are life for the 133 inhabitants - the tourist has no place in this universe. But to me, this is perhaps a little closer to paradise, a little more genuine, than Gunns, from where I had just returned, four days further into the interior by river, protected by Conservation International, constant buzz of workshops and conferences on preserving the environment and indigenous ways of life. Here, in Parabara, people simply get on with it.
And unlike Aishalton, my savannah home - much larger and much closer to the outside world - suffering from a culture crisis and reacting with over-the-top assertiveness, culture here means nothing more - nor less - than the way people live their lives. There is no need to define it, but rather it wells up out of the day-to-day interactions of community life.
And, like the passing rainbow, tomorrow I will be gone, back to Aishalton and from there, to Lethem, Georgetown, and England; and this village, community, way of life, too, will pass in the heart-beat of a generation.
But I am content that, in that half-hour between afternoon and night, it was there, and I was, too.
Labels: Gapping In Guyana
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