ONLY A STRUGGLE!

Mar 01, 2014 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Guyanese overseas are catching their tail. Things are tough.
The bed of roses has become a bed of thorns. The financial crisis and the ability (or rather the lack of ability) to become successful by First World standards is ever constant reminder of the word failure.
They had left one struggle only to enter another. The discovery is belatedly made that while fairness was wanting back home the lack of fairness seems to be the norm in their adopted homeland.
Life is a struggle. Not holding down a job, can determine whether there is a roof over your head or food on the table. Back home that was never a consideration. There was always a roof to look up to. Job or no job, back home, food could always be had somewhere.
Things are rough. Life away from the sunshine of Guyana has been reduced to paying bills and living to pay bills.
The weather is also unforgiving. Dealing with the cold and particularly the snow leaves many like summer leaves, blooming brightly but anticipating the impending withering that will emerge with the change in winds.
The winds of hope have turned into the winds of despair. Things are tough. It is time for a break from this miserable existence. This is not living. This is a struggle, a damn hard one at that.
When they come back home to visit it is as if they had just returned from heavy shelling on a military mission. They expect to see destitution and want. They expect to be mobbed by beggars. Instead they see people have a good time. They see people happy with the little that they have. The pace is slower and people are happy. But how can this be?
They are shell-shocked. Where are people finding all this money from? Surely everybody cannot be into something illegal. Things have improved, enough for them to question why they were left out of the progress.
They find it hard to think that this is the same country they left eons ago. Many who still leave and experience the harshness, the discrimination and tiredness of living in another man’s country, wonder why they left, what dreams they were really chasing.
They tell everyone they meet how good they have it here. Not so where they have just come from. Money does not fall from trees. You have to work hard. Perhaps it is time for them to strike out and return home. There is enough encouragement to do so.
Some do; most don’t. There are strong pull factors. But there are uncertainties. Politics is ugly business here. There is uncertainty about the political fortunes of their homeland. They see an opposition bent of settling scores and hiding the shameful narratives of the past. These narratives speak to failure; failure to do anything right.
There are other reasons to discourage remigration. Concerns about crime; life seems cheap here. Concerns about health; you can literally age while waiting for treatment at some hospitals; concerns about mosquitoes; those nasty biting insects, concerns about the driving; it is like going on a roller coaster ride. Good enough reasons to stay and fight it out wherever they are.
Some do take the plunge and return. They often come with an attitude though. This makes one question why they ever did return in the first place.
When they return it does not take long for the negative vibes to roll off their tongues and pens. Everything is seen as dysfunctional. Nothing works. The country is teeming with persons looking to swindle them of their millions. They claim to have developed eyes behind their heads. Everyone is out to make a hustle. No one is to be trusted, not the least the government which is viewed with more scorn than suspicion.
The government is never up to scratch. Why is this not fixed? Why is that not working? Why are wages so low? They seem to have all the answers.
These are the classic symptoms of a condition known as foreign-mindedness- the idea that everything in the western world is superior. Nothing here is ever good. They accept that Guyana is a third world country. Yet they want first world service?
Makes you wonder if they have all their marbles in the right place. Why if everything is so bad, did they decide to come back to live? Why stay? Why not return back overseas?
Perhaps there is no life to return to? Only a struggle!

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