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By Mavis Beckles |
Bridgetown, Barbados, Sept. 3, 2005: IT IS AMAZING how things does go around in circles, ya hear? You see all this talk going on 'bout the amount o' Guyanese in Barbados? Huh! I tell ya.
But some Bajans is something else doh, nuh? Ting, there is never a dull moment with some o' duh, 'cause if duh ain't got one thing to complain 'bout, duh does have to find something or somebody else to jump on pon.
I don't know why sensible Bajan people getting themselves all involved and worked up over a few stupid people talking a whole lot o' junk or who just want to hear themselves talk.
Look, I always hear that the answer does bring the row; and look, if nuhbody doan tek on the few Bajan people who continue to lambaste the Guyanese people, Ting duh cahn carry on so all the time 'cause nuhbody ain't tekking duh on.
I ain't saying that all Guyanese people is sweet-breads, 'cause duh got some real criminal-minded ones, some crooked ones, and some that are downright disgusting and silly. But duh got some very, very good Guyanese people, and you and I know and like them and have lived and worked with them for years now.
Look, offa the top o' my head I could rattle off a couple o' real good Guyanese people who have been living among us here in Barbados for years now; who have made a significant contribution to this lil island, and who I am sure that some o' these very same people who carrying on and getting on like duh mek themselves or them mek a island name Barbados, have come in contact with, or dealt with in some way, and don't even know that duh is Guyanese.
You know that fella Ricky Singh who does write columns for THE NATION faithfully every Friday? He is a Guyanese.
That entertainer who does play guitar in 4DPeople, Philip Forrester? He is Guyanese. Shane Forrester mother, Rita Forrester, who up to now is the only female calypso monarch Barbados ever had, she is Guyanese.
The editor-woman down at THE NATION newspaper Roxanne Gibbs, she is Guyanese too. Folk singer Aubrey Cummins, he is Guyanese.
The man at the university that write a whole dictionary by himself, Dr Richard Allsopp, the actor Michael Gilkes, dem Jhagroo doctors
husband and wife the lawyer Latchman Kissoon; and I even hear the other big-mouth lawyer that doan want nobody to hang, Alair Shepherd all o' dem so is Guyanese.
Wha' 'bout the body who does run the needy children fund, who some o' wunna does be depending pon to help wunna out wid stove, pots and pans, school clothes and all sorts o' other things that wunna could get up off nuh tails and wuk fuh, Olga Lopes-Seale. She is Guyanese, too.
But ya know something? Some o' these Bajans that jumping up and talking the dog, ain't got one damn thing to do. Duh need to get a flipping life and try and go and find something to do that will help in the development and growth of this same island that they saying, them trying to protect.
Looka, them talking 'bout Guyanese people coming 'bout here and tekking way them jobs; whaâ wait, them doan go up to the states, New York especially, and tek way the American people jobs too?
And apart from that, tekking way what jobs what? If all them so did have any interest in a job or even had a job fuh that matter, they won't have the time to worry 'bout nuhbody else.
Ting, the Guyanese can't tek way wha' wunna ain't got nor wha' wunna ain't want.
The other thing is, some people talking 'bout how a lot o' them is criminals and the Immigration Department ain't doing duh jobs properly.
Well, my feeling pon that is this. I think that the criminal-minded ones makings bad for the ones who come here to work hard and honest for their families back home, so the Immigration Department should get their act together in order that we could get rid of this criminal element.
But then again, when ya say A, ya gotta say B, 'cause ya don't know who will do what. When they come in at the airport some does overstay their time and stupidly go and get involved in criminal activity.
Now tell me something. The Bajans don't do the same thing up in New York too?
But you know wha' happen to all han' o duh? Well duh feel that them got it made. Barbados is a paradise and all the other Caribbean people want to come here to live; yet still them is the very ones who don't do diddly-squat nor know nutten 'cause duh don't go nowhere other than New York.
Finally though, Bajans got short memories. Them forget the men who went in Central America to help build the Panama Canal and got involved and come back home with their Panamanian wives. Them forget that a lot o' the men also went to what we used to call in those day "BG" for British Guiana. Therefore the Guyanese and the Bajans got some of the closest ties in the Caribbean.
Good! Try and move on and talk 'bout something else, do.