There are ongoing efforts – with the US Embassy’s cooperation – to encourage Guyanese to visit America as tourists. Imagine that!! Seems like it was only yesterday that Guyanese were shelling out US$10,000 a pop to that US consular officer Carroll to have him stamp your visas!! Other Guyanese without the connections were doling out more than twice Carroll’s vig on the other less safe “backtrack” routes!! What a difference 11 billion barrels of oil makes, eh??
Now your Eyewitness can understand those backtrackers shelling out all that dough because they were jobless in Guyana and without any prospects. They had the example of their relatives who’d schlepped to New York with just a borrowed shirt on their back and in a few years had emerged from basements to become homeowners in Queens – with a fancy car parked in the driveway!! But now that Guyana has so many job openings – and the govt just announced they’ll transport the jobless to where the jobs were – why go to the US??
On your Eyewitness’s last jaunt a month ago, all that struck his eyes were the homeless on the streets. Not just the ho’s on 8th Ave to Times Square. They’ve been there forever – even in other cities. Back in 1989, Genesis’ Phil Collins had released the mega-hit “Another Day in Paradise” with the lyrics: “She calls out to the man on the street/ Sir, can you help me?/ It’s cold and I’ve nowhere to sleep/ Is there somewhere you can tell me?/ He walks on, doesn’t look back// He pretends he can’t hear her/ Starts to whistle as he crosses the street/ Seems embarrassed to be there/ Oh, think twice/ ‘Cause it’s another day for you and me in paradise?”
Collins explained “I wrote this after being in Washington DC where I was amazed by how many people I saw living in boxes.,.. these people were trying to sleep on the grills where all the hot air was coming up, and you could see that it was in the shadow of Capitol Hill. I thought it was an extraordinary contradiction.” Your Eyewitness wants you to know that things have gotten WORSE since Collins’ epiphany. The flotsam and jetsam of America that fall through the cracks are now not only ALL over the five boroughs of NYC and other cities – but in all the small towns that form the Rust Belt between the two coasts!!
The Guyanese who backtracked to NYC now buy vacation homes in Florida to escape the homeless horror. So rather than shock our sensibilities going up north, why don’t we mosey over to Mainstay or Arrowpoint or any of the dozens of resorts that sprung up across our fair land??
…colonial minded
There’s this fella who signs his prolix letters as “Chairman, The Cooperative Republicans of Guyana”. Who are these “cooperative republicans”?? Are they the ones who reject the “capitalist Republicans” now headed by Trump in the US of A? In his most recent missive, the fella gets his bukta in a knot to complain that it’s most infra dig for the Ministry of Education to say that Bishops is well on its way to being a model VocTec High School!!
He snorts that Bishops “is filled with some of the best young minds in the nation. To have their talents used for vocational education… appears to be the reversal of a firmly established education strategy.” What’s that strategy?? The colonial one that insisted “bright minds” shouldn’t use their hand but only their minds?? Isn’t this why Naipaul could say we in the West Indies have produced “NOTHING”??
And what’s that crack about the “bright students” can’t respect a head teacher who doesn’t speak “proper English”? Gwan da side, peasant!!
…bonus
It was just announced that all 12,000 members of our Disciplined Forces gonna be getting one month’s pay as a bonus. Now last your Eyewitness heard, the Police – about half their number – are corrupt and non-functional. And they get a bonus??
