Month: January 2021

  • Lure of the bush

    Lure of the bush

    In Guyana I never heard the term ‘rain-forest’. People used ‘backdam’ or just ‘bush’. Even ‘forest’ was not used, though we lived in the middle of it. These lands were not truly uncharted because people, mostly Amerindian hunters, and loggers, had long gone along the trails that we drove on.

  • Leading from the front

    Leading from the front

    One of my major learnings was that responsibility, variety, challenge, and satisfaction in a job are largely in your hands if you use your head and can influence people. I was not the only person who saw the way the forest was treated or who saw that timber that was being burnt could become an…

  • 1997 – Guyana revisited

    1997 – Guyana revisited

    Living thoughtfully is living responsibly. Leaving a legacy is not about showing others. It is about justifying to yourself that you returned something for what you consumed during your life. What was that return? Was it a good return on the investment that all those who encountered you, made in you?

  • WhatsUp with WhatsApp?

    WhatsUp with WhatsApp?

    For those who want to say at the end of all this, “What difference does my leaving this space make? After all I am only one person.” I say to you, “Even if you can’t stop them, don’t join them. For in the end, it is not about them. It is about you. It is…

  • Guyanese politics – 1979-83

    Guyanese politics – 1979-83

    That was an important lesson for me to take away; if you win, you will find that you have a lot of supporters. If I had been reprimanded by the Minister and ordered to withdraw the letter, then I don’t know how many of my supporters would have stood on the same side of the…

  • Fridolin, Peter and an Anaconda

    Fridolin, Peter and an Anaconda

    It was a beautiful idyllic existence doing all that I loved to do and doing it all for free. I know that you could spend thousands of dollars to take a trip up one of the major rivers in the Amazonian system, camp on a sandbank by a fireside and spend the night in a…

  • Kwakwani, live and learn

    Kwakwani, live and learn

    The language of the Guyanese is called Creolese. It is an English Patois and as distinct with its own flavor as French Patois is from French. Creolese has the taste of Cookup, the sound of the Steel band and the aroma of the rain forest. It is a language of the people and reflects their…