THE VERANDAH AND THE PORCH

Jul 10, 2010 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A VIEW FROM INSIDE OUT

The driver was quiet soon after we pulled off from the airport. Judging from his nervous looks during that first ten minutes of driving, I presumed that he was trying to concentrate on his driving and was therefore, very much unlike your typical Guyanese driver, not keen on conversation while at the wheel.
He drove carefully and slowly. He did not utter a syllable during the first ten minutes of the journey. It was not until we had driven for about four miles on the way to the city that he mustered the courage to speak.
But while he was silent, he was, as I discovered, observing me all the time. He said, “I notice that you looking at all the houses. You impressed by the progress Guyana has made.”
I was stunned. I did not need to look at the houses along the East Bank Public Road to acknowledge that there was progress.
I just needed to judge from the smoothness of the ride. On one journey in 1991, the road was so badly potholed that it took almost double the usual time to get from the airport to my destination.
But I was, as the driver correctly observed, looking at the buildings, but not necessarily in admiration. Some of them were really beautiful but the vast majority were ordinary structures and many of them were simply wooden structures in stilts.
My interest was not in the opulence or modesty of the houses. It was in their design features. I was doing a survey of the number of houses that had verandahs.
I have always been fascinated by the rise in houses with verandahs which are usually small compartments that jut out from the front of homes.
I have found that a great many houses in Guyana are now being built with these verandahs, which in the old days, were called balconies.
But I have made an unusual observation about these verandahs. Despite their obvious attraction and utility in a tropical country, they are hardly ever used by the occupants of homes.
Many homes have these extensions, but you can literally count on any evening or even morning, the number of households whose members spend time relaxing in these verandahs.
Yet a family is going to spend thousands of dollars and is going to insist that the house must have a balcony and despite this hardly make good use of the damn thing.
I raised this observation with the driver. He pondered over it a long time and when he spoke, it was not to confirm the observation, but to offer a defence.
He said, “It is television that is the problem. Before there was television, people used to sit out in their verandahs and enjoy the evening breeze. But since television come, families are spending more time in front of the television.”
It sounded to me as if he was speaking from personal experience.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I have nothing against television. In fact I watch at television when I am not working.”
“Do you watch with the family?” I asked
“Not all the time. Most of the time, I have my programmes which I enjoy and the rest of the family have their own tastes.”
“So you spend a great deal of time in front of the tube?” I asked.
“You can say so!”
“Is that a yes or a no?” I asked
“Yes!” he said then added a chuckle.
“Do you have a verandah?” I asked.
“Yes!” he replied and as if anticipating my next question he added, “But I hardly sit on it. I am busy on the road most days?”
“Or in front of the TV,” I said.
He gave a hearty laugh.
Then he asked, “What about the houses from where you come from? Do they have a lot of verandahs?”
“Not as how you have them here,” I said. “But many of the homes have what we call porches.”
He looked interested. His next question was, “So do you and your family spend a lot of time relaxing in the porch or whatever you call it?”
It was now my turn to be quiet.