Disaster on the way to see Shepard’s Christmas tree

Dec 20, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Ronald Shepard of the Region Three administration invited me to see the midwifery of the Region Three Christmas tree on Tuesday night gone. Leonard Craig insisted that Shepard was kind enough to invite us and we should go. I left Kaieteur News at 7 p.m., picked up Dennis Atwell from the AFC and went to Vreed-en-Hoop to see the birth of Shepard’s illuminated thing.
After we passed Pouderoyen, something happened. We will come back to Pouderoyen after an involved digression. This country is amazingly stupid. Almost a hundred percent of Guyanese know that there is a West Bank Demerara village named Pouderoyen. I know of no friend of mine despite their fantastic doctorates who is aware that the legal name is Klien Pouderoyen.
The stupidity of Guyana is that the road signs say it clearly – Pouderoyen. I have read countless times before and after the 2015 election that Minister Joe Harmon has a constituency office in Pouderoyen. Letters are delivered with the address as Pouderoyen. The legal notices served on litigants are addressed as Pouderoyen. UG students gave their addresses as Pouderoyen and received mail addressed to Pouderoyen.
So we have this book titled, “Gazetteer of Guyana.” It is supposed to contain all the names of geographic places in Guyana, and I mean all. But as Guyanese would know, nothing works well here. The gazetteer has a village in Canje, Berbice by the name, “Good Banana Land.” There is no such village in Guyana. It is “Goed Bananen Land.” But the compilers of the gazetteer chose at random when to be legalistic and when not to.
So you cannot find Pouderoyen in the gazetteer. It is listed as Klien Pouderoyen. Would most people look under K rather than P?
In the gazetteer, a full description is given of the exact location of the district, village etc. A simple thing that should have been done was to list it as Pouderoyen then next to it, the words, “see Klien Pouderoyen.” I am betting that most people looking under P for
Pouderoyen, would give up and not go to K.
Back to Shepard’s Christmas tree. When we reached Pouderoyen, traffic came to a standstill. It looked like Shepard’s tree was not the simple ceremony I thought it would be. We were stuck in immobilized traffic and immediately I sensed that there was chaos in front because there was no competent police direction of traffic. Once the police are there directing vehicles and creating space, the line moves, even though slowly, but it moves. At Pouderoyen, we were stuck. Crazy motorists created bedlam.
They didn’t recognize any lane-driving. They just drove all over the street to get to Vreed-en-Hoop. So the cars began spilling over the roadway. We were going to get to the Region Three office at midnight and would miss the illumination of Shepard’s tree.
I told Dennis Atwell, it was time to save your sanity; it was time to return to Georgetown. This is how Guyana damages the mental health of its citizens. We are going to be helpless in the traffic for hours, no police rank will see the wisdom of directing traffic and your impatience will explode and damage your psychology. This is what a wasteland like Guyana has done to its citizens.
It is a hellish country where nothing works, nothing can be done and citizens are reduced to unavoidable humiliation. It was time to miss Shepard’s tree and reclaim sanity. I suggested to Dennis, we must refuse to let Guyana humiliate us. Let’s head back to Georgetown, grab a bite, talk about the weekly one-man picket he stages every week outside the Venezuelan Embassy, talk some AFC politics, and forget about the failed state that our country has become.
Getting out of the madness wasn’t going to be easy. We were on the highway facing Vreed-en-Hoop. To turn around we had to make sure there wasn’t an additional lane forming to the right of me making turning impossible. And it was forming. I hurriedly turned onto to someone’s bridge, and headed back to Georgetown.
By that time, the roadway from Versailles going north was complete madness. All because there was an official ceremony at Vreed-en-Hoop and the Guyana Police Force, the Government of Guyana and the Region Three administration didn’t have the common-sense to send ranks to direct traffic.
When we reached Georgetown, we touched down at Pizza Hut at Camp and Regent Streets. I bought a large pizza for my daughter. Then Dennis and I had dinner at Excellence Restaurant on Charlotte Street.
You know what I hate about Guyana – next year at Vreed-en-Hoop, the disaster will repeat itself.

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