Sea Wall Gaff
17-Dec-2007
Georgetown
Tubers, last night: 'Don't think about tomorrow, don't think about yesterday, think about today!'. I might have written the words for him.
We went to the sea wall. All the old crew are in 'Town: Moses, just finished the Christmas term of his last year at GTI, returning to the Rupununi on the Tuesday night bus; Bernard (Tubers) and his partner (Nathan?), fresh out of the bush working for a private mining company; Benson and Clea, looking for work now that they've finished their CXCs (as my fifth form) last summer, staying with their aunt in Grove, near Janelle; and Janelle (my Amerindian sister) and myself.
We drank Banks beer and ate hot-dogs (one of which nearly made me sick) and gaffed. Moses and Janelle talk of Mr Frankie, the owner of the store they both used to work at, before Janelle left to become a teacher and Moses returned to college. Mr Frankie is not quite what he seems: his surprising wealth comes not from the store but from drugs, and if he wants something, he is not easily denied it. 'It's not like Aishalton,' says Janelle, as she describes how he will threaten a whole family.
Tubes and his friend are lively: they're making good money in the bush - $500,000 a month, ten times as much as I earnt as a volunteer teacher - and are living like kings in Georgetown, staying in the Regent Guest House ('my house', as Bernard grandly calls it). They haven't slept since arriving yesterday, spending all of last night in the Red Dragon (taking Moses with them), where more than just drink is sold - as I had learnt from tales of a past volunteer's drunken birthday escapades, which he may be living to regret right now. But they're drinking their food money for now - tomorrow is pay-day, and others know this too. While we walk, Aunty Doro, in Georgetown frantically shopping to fill the shop back at Burning Hills in Aishalton for Christmas, phones Tubers asking to borrow $100,000.
Aunty Doro seems to have a bad habit of borrowing money from friends - perhaps she should try a bank instead, or maybe they're not quite flexible enough for her. Aunty Jenny and Uncle Manley - Janelle's parents, with whom I am staying, downstairs in Joyce's house - each tell me on separate occasions the story of how Dorothy approached them some time ago, asking for a similar sum. The Thomas's (Manley and Jenny) are not a rich family, and they only happened to have the money in compensation from the Minister of Amerindian Affairs after their home - and all its contents - was destroyed in an arson attack. They lent her the money, asking her to pay them back in the form of zinc sheets for the roof of their new house they planned to build - until a series of scandals - overblown and exaggerated, and not a little thanks to Dorothy herself - caused the whole family to move to their current lodgings in Town. The zinc still hasn't materialised.
But as we gaff, and yet another round of Banks Beer is forced into our hands, all worries are forgotten. According to Bernard, yesterday has gone, and I may be dead tomorrow - live for today. But I'm not sure he's right.
Georgetown
Tubers, last night: 'Don't think about tomorrow, don't think about yesterday, think about today!'. I might have written the words for him.
We went to the sea wall. All the old crew are in 'Town: Moses, just finished the Christmas term of his last year at GTI, returning to the Rupununi on the Tuesday night bus; Bernard (Tubers) and his partner (Nathan?), fresh out of the bush working for a private mining company; Benson and Clea, looking for work now that they've finished their CXCs (as my fifth form) last summer, staying with their aunt in Grove, near Janelle; and Janelle (my Amerindian sister) and myself.
We drank Banks beer and ate hot-dogs (one of which nearly made me sick) and gaffed. Moses and Janelle talk of Mr Frankie, the owner of the store they both used to work at, before Janelle left to become a teacher and Moses returned to college. Mr Frankie is not quite what he seems: his surprising wealth comes not from the store but from drugs, and if he wants something, he is not easily denied it. 'It's not like Aishalton,' says Janelle, as she describes how he will threaten a whole family.
Tubes and his friend are lively: they're making good money in the bush - $500,000 a month, ten times as much as I earnt as a volunteer teacher - and are living like kings in Georgetown, staying in the Regent Guest House ('my house', as Bernard grandly calls it). They haven't slept since arriving yesterday, spending all of last night in the Red Dragon (taking Moses with them), where more than just drink is sold - as I had learnt from tales of a past volunteer's drunken birthday escapades, which he may be living to regret right now. But they're drinking their food money for now - tomorrow is pay-day, and others know this too. While we walk, Aunty Doro, in Georgetown frantically shopping to fill the shop back at Burning Hills in Aishalton for Christmas, phones Tubers asking to borrow $100,000.
Aunty Doro seems to have a bad habit of borrowing money from friends - perhaps she should try a bank instead, or maybe they're not quite flexible enough for her. Aunty Jenny and Uncle Manley - Janelle's parents, with whom I am staying, downstairs in Joyce's house - each tell me on separate occasions the story of how Dorothy approached them some time ago, asking for a similar sum. The Thomas's (Manley and Jenny) are not a rich family, and they only happened to have the money in compensation from the Minister of Amerindian Affairs after their home - and all its contents - was destroyed in an arson attack. They lent her the money, asking her to pay them back in the form of zinc sheets for the roof of their new house they planned to build - until a series of scandals - overblown and exaggerated, and not a little thanks to Dorothy herself - caused the whole family to move to their current lodgings in Town. The zinc still hasn't materialised.
But as we gaff, and yet another round of Banks Beer is forced into our hands, all worries are forgotten. According to Bernard, yesterday has gone, and I may be dead tomorrow - live for today. But I'm not sure he's right.
Labels: Gapping In Guyana
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