Driving in Guyana - 2

Having experienced the heart-stopping, unforgettable-as-if-were-yesterday moment of seeing my younger sister come inches from being run over by a car after she toddled off to see what the family was busy doing - unloading stuff that my migrating Aunt had brought down from Berbice about 35yrs ago, I was very saddened to learn that a 3-yr old got 'knocked-over' actually flung to his death apparently while waiting on the side of the road by an impatient young man overtaking on a (relatively) narrow road., yesterday. It boggles my mind to think of what speed the car had to be going but just before I left England they had mounted an very thought-provoking campaign showing the damage, permanent injury and death to a child while driving at speeds for 20mph,30 mph and 40 mph respectively.
The situation like Life isn't so straight-forward: there are lots of people on the Road who project their ignorance into their driving ( and pedestrian s in their Road Use)-- is their Road and if you try to overtake them although they are in no apparent rush-- laughing on their Cell phone, they get aggressive and speed up, the friendly little toot of the horn to alert drivers that you are attempting to overtake results on them speeding up also! Or they slow right down - to 'teach you'.
Having been forced to be a Road-User at 10yrs-- cycle if you want to go somewhere and we haven't the time to take you-- my brother's warning to keep to the kerb and ALWAYS look around your shoulder before pulling out to overtake anything to make sure you are not inadvertently getting into someone's way seems to have gone by the wayside and both Motorcyclists and Bicyclists never observe that Rule now that I am in a car. In fact, it seems to get personal-- who can intimidate who-- and I hate to say it but when there is an accident I look to see that both parties are the same Race so the Racism element doesn't rear it's ugly head!

The daughter of a prominent family recently made it to the Newspapers for knocking down a 20yr old at a place that had a fairly good road-- in Guyana this means drivers can speed. Being comfortable with controlling the car at 40mph I remember my elderly English Instructor telling me you should always drive at a speed that you can make a controlled stop in an Emergency -- again I don't think it's a rule that must be taught here in Guyana. The sad reason it got to the papers was that the unfortunate young man died - and the 'bus' wisdom is that she had alcohol above the limit in her system! So much for my view that women make safer drivers as in Guyana everything is turned on its head and some mornings I have to grit my teeth when a neighbour- the wife of a nouveau-riche Lumber dealer, among other things, drives so appallingly in front of me that I have instant visions of Blasting a Shotgun at her head and all my Right-Wing Elitist views that the ignorant masses should really have better Public Services so as to do less harm to everybody come to the fore -- sigh.

Who's advising these people?

A friend describes the present administration as a ‘runaway train to nowhere’.

Guyana has suffered from over-reaching ambitions from Independence. The man (Cheddi Jagan) who had practical Ideas had been thwarted by the geo-politics of the Time. Many of his ideas have been taken out of context with disastrous consequences. It looks as if since then we have been subject to various administrations desperate for Success stories, embarking on schemes without apparently having the ability of ‘thinking it through’, launching some big and expensive project with great fanfare which only turned out to be a White Elephant or a miserable failure partially due to poor Human Resource management.

Sadly now seems no different, in spite of the numerous bad examples that at the very least should have stood as warnings about what NOT to do! I always find it instructive to listen to the common man about how changes will affect them – a lot of Taxi drivers are of the opinion that filling in the drainage canals to expand the existing roads AND packing with white sand is not the way to go and will lead to grief in the long run. Several men/women on the street feel unease about the large buildings going up without regard to Fire Safety and proper foundations—someone even claimed that an engineer/surveyor told her that the City of Georgetown is sinking!

The much touted emphasis on Agriculture got shot in the foot by the merging of Gaibank (– one of Cheddi’s ideas about providing loans to small farmers—maybe even before the Grameen Bank – check out the PPP manifesto – August 3 1957: http://jagan.org/0155.pdf

“THE PARTY PLANS TO ESTABLISH:

1. A system of agricultural credits which

will be less rigid and bureaucratic as that

obtaining at the present time. More money

will be provided to the Credit Corporation

for further aid to agriculture and industry.

Provision will be made for greater elasticity

in cases of non-payment of loans due to crop.

failure.”)                                                                      

 with the PNC ruined GNCB at the behest of those economic ‘experts’ at the IMF who always have the hapless countries’ interest at heart in any country they are ‘invited’(not!).Sadly it took the Germans to come up with a practicable AID system that encourages Farmers to re-invest back into their businesses.

In their quest to provide Medical Services -differing Medical Systems have been superimposed on the existing English-based one, resulting in a general drop in Standards and no accountability.

I rest my case.

Arshilata

Thanks to the varied composition of the Bookclub we have interesting book selections - this is a 2007 collection of short stories written by women mainly from Bangladesh and a few from India. The men from the sub-continent fared very badly - it is a misandrous collection that I couldn't read all in one sitting. Granted that the men in that part of the world are pretty chauvinistic I felt the book lacked balance - there MUST be a few good ones at least.
Having said that, it was interesting to read about the Convent-educated woman with a philandering husband who chooses not to leave him for the sake of her children/society and who grow old and apart; as I am meeting quite a few people apparently unhappily married for 50yrs who can't stand the sight of each other! So much for my romantic view of older couples happily and contently enjoying each others' company towards the end of their days! ( Reminds me of my favourite joke: George and Martha in the twilight of their years were rocking contemplatively in their chairs on the Porch after a Lifetime of One-Upmanship. George says to Martha: Well Old Girl if you die before me I'll have them mark on your Gravestone: 'Here lies Martha - Finally silent and at Peace at last.'
After a few moments of rocking, Martha spits her Wad of Tobacco (American of course cos they are both Clowns) and says: Well George, if You die before me, I'll have them mark on Your gravestone: Here lies George - Stiff at last!)
The unsavoury topic of rape featured quite a bit but then a recent study reckoned that 1 out every 3 women in the world experiences some form of sexual violence (http://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/news/stories/02/28/sexual-violence-rates-in-the-caribbean-highest-in-the-world-report/)
In the story 'Yellow is the Colour of Longing' the writer made some sweeping generalizations about men and women: 'When after many years, a woman is sought out by a man's eyes, and when she's sure that they were indeed seeking her and her alone, she will find her heart a-brim.'  and 'That's the problem with men. They can see women only as bodies. They keep worrying how this woman would judge them in bed. In short, it's terrible for men too, after a certain age.' I tried to get a man's opinion about the first two lines about men and was summarily dismissed (Summarily dismissed means that you are not going have a chance to discuss it.) that that was just a prejudiced feminist's opinion.

At risk of sounding cruel...

... but Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest seems to hold true. A young(ish) promising up-coming local cricketer died last night while losing control of his car- I acknowledge this is a sad loss of potential, I also see that if you're not given the tools to deal with 'success' it will contribute to your downfall. The local papers had a recent comment about how some of the younger, promising cricketers were unable to fill out the Immigration Card properly - and it is this 'forced-ripeness' that is contributing to the demise of people with genuine talent - they seem unable to cope with all that it takes to being in the public eye. A certain amount of maturity and common-sense are necessary requisites for living/making sensible decisions: I was fascinated by a father who let his 18yr old son take all his 4 younger siblings to 'drop' a visitor home a couple of years ago - on the return trip the son hit a pile of sand at the side of the road and only the 11yr old survived the trip - in the olden days-- the visitor might have got a 'tow on a bike back home' - I wondered how the parents felt to bury four of their children and felt Darwin's Theory came into cruel focus.

The Rose and The Ring by W.M. Thackeray

A little known, sadly out-of-print, charming little book and a surprising choice by one of the newer Bookclub members. I was fortunate to borrow a treasured copy of an actual book as Laparkan lost my copy from BetterWorldBooks and the illustrations and one-liners at the top of the pages certainly added to the enjoyment.. but for the rest of you a free accessible online version  exists:-
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/897/897-h/897-h.htm

Having spent most of my childhood with my nose in a book, I hadn't come across this tongue-in-cheek Fairy-tale first issued in 1855, probably the first in taking a satirical look at Fairy Tales.It had all the elements  - the Good Guys having to bear their misfortunes cheerfully but 'winning' in the end and the Bad Guys getting their come-upperances and a quirky 'good' Fairy saving the day/s. I was amused at the silly titles given as favours to hypocritical fawning couturiers, then reflected that things haven't changed much in the modern political scene! Always a mark of good literature-- the universality through the ages. 

The Golden Jaguars

So Guyana's footballers shocked themselves by beating The Soca Warriors in 2011 to qualify for the pre-qualifying matches (third round) to compete in the 2014 World Cup football matches in Brazil. I feel Dwight Yorke, the Trinidadian player who plays in the English League was either absent or having an off-day-- mind you having a Star Player doesn't necessarily mean that you'll win but I suppose from the psychological point of view the rest of the players feel more confident as in Cricket - once the 'star' at position 3 + 4 loses his wicket the team generally collapses-- but I digress....
Reality began to set in shortly afterwards when they had a re-match in Trinidad against the Home Team (Trinidadian) but minus a lot of their (Golden Jaguars) overseas-based players - and lost. So yesterday, they had the first in a series of International Friendlies run by FIFA- versus Guatamala, playing at 'home' but minus three of their International Players and lost 2-0. I happened to switch on the TV when I saw three of our players fumbling near the goal and a Guatamalan player tip the ball easily into the net - I switched off and went back to my book.
Like most sport in Guyana, lack of facilities and training means our most talented Players have to look overseas for training -- only competing under the Guyana flag because they most probably have too much competition in their adopted country. Which brings me to an interesting point-- what the heck is going on in Sport??  It is now getting to be so that practically entire teams can be composed of 'foreign' players! So admirable aims such as Sport Institutes like what used to be in the Soviet Union would not be funded if the 'best' players will be pinched- in a most bizarre public-private enterprise!

* UPDATE: http://www.stabroeknews.com/2012/opinion/letters/03/14/too-many-technical-deficiencies-in-golden-jaguars-game-against-guatemalasome-players-not-up-to-the-task/

What's education for..?

So read an interesting and thought-provoking article on Education : http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/docs/StopStealingDreamsSCREEN.pdf

Of course, looking at blog numbers I realise that precious few will actually read through this article so I've cherry-picked a few interesting points:
'Large-scale education was not developed to motivate kids or to create scholars. It
was invented to churn out adults who worked well within the system'

What's school for?
To create a society that’s culturally coordinated.

To further science and knowledge and pursue information for its own sake:-
 We spend a fortune teaching trigonometry to kids who don’t understand it, won’t use it, and will spend no more of their lives studying math. We invest thousands of hours exposing millions of students to fiction and literature, but end up training most of them to never again read for fun (one study found that 58 percent of all Americans never read for pleasure after they graduate from school). As soon as we associate reading a book with taking a test, we've missed the point.

To enhance civilization while giving people the tools to make informed decisions:-

Even though just about everyone in the West has been through years of compulsory schooling, we see ever more belief in unfounded theories, bad financial decisions, and poor community and family planning. People’s connection with science and the arts is tenuous at best, and the financial acumen of the typical consumer is pitiful. If the goal was to raise the standards for rational thought, skeptical investigation, and useful decision making, we’ve failed for most of our citizens. (interesting documentary: http://www.openfilm.com/videos/here-be-dragons/?ts=136)


To train people to become productive workers- this one is the most accomplished goal I think!

'At the heart of Horace Mann’s push for public schooling for all was a simple
notion: we build a better society when our peers are educated. Democracy was
pretty new, and the notion of putting that much power into the hands of the
uneducated masses was frightening enough to lead to the push for universal
schooling.
Being surrounded by educated people makes democracy stronger, and it benefits
our entire society. In the words of John Dewey, “Democracy cannot flourish
where the chief influences in selecting subject matter of instruction are utilitarian
ends narrowly conceived for the masses, and, for the higher education of the few,
the traditions of a specialized cultivated class. The notion that the "essentials" of elementary education are the three R's mechanically treated, is based upon ignorance of the essentials needed for realization of democratic ideals."'


'In 1914, a professor in Kansas invented the multiple-choice test. Yes, it’s less
than a hundred years old.
There was an emergency on. World War I was ramping up, hundreds of thousands of new immigrants needed to be processed and educated, and factories were hungry for workers. The government had just made two years of high school mandatory, and we needed a temporary, high-efficiency way to sort students and quickly assign them to appropriate slots.
In the words of Professor Kelly, “This is a test of lower order thinking for the lower orders." '

'the Internet is the most efficient and powerful information delivery system ever developed.'

'Will the next generation know more facts than we do, or will it be equipped to connect with data, and turn that data into information and leadership and progress?'

So this is only a quick skim through 1/4 of the article - too bad not many people would be bothered to read it!

So my thoughts about the relevance to Guyana-- we have aggressive people waving degrees and demanding highly-paying jobs but refusing to tackle problems. We have semi-illiterate youngsters highly confident, tech- and dress-savvy but unable to use their initiative (so ok this may just be a peculiarity of my age). We have drivers with no concept of politeness on the road, transferring their innate aggression to the roadways. We have disgruntled workers who are acutely aware that they are not earning a living wage but not seeing that the large-scale stealing will cripple any expansion... sigh-- the list could go on.