Anger and angst on the way to Abena Rockcliffe’s wedding

Mar 28, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The world is a superstitious place. People generally are superstitious. They say if an ominous sign occurs twice then be careful. It is simple; if you go to a shopping mall and you nearly missed being hit when a roof fell, then you will think twice about going back there. Then you went again, and you got stuck in a dark elevator where panic almost got you crushed. There is no way you are going back to that place. This is the way people think.
I meet with unfortunate incidents each time I attend a wedding of a Kaieteur News staff member. I took Leonard Craig with me to the Linden wedding of Edison Jefford of KN’s Sports Department. On Mandela Avenue outside of the business places of BK. Tiwari and John Fernandes, the car went into a huge crater in the road and twisted one of the rims. It was obvious that those container trucks of BK and Fernandes had created the crater. It was getting late and we were still in Georgetown because we couldn’t get a rim that could work on Craig’s car. When we reached Linden, we attended the wrong church ceremony and joined the wrong procession on the road (see my column; “Crazy things happened on the way to Edison Jefford’s wedding, KN, August 13, 2013).
Last Saturday was the wedding of the daughter of famous Guyanese musician, Eze Rockcliffe of the Yoruba Singers. She is a journalist at KN and one of the livewires in the place. At around 6.30 PM, the Deputy Editor, Nigel Mackenzie, Rawle Welch and I were having Malta and Guinness outside KN (I drank Malta; don’t use any kind of alcohol), when Nigel said we should attend Abena’s wedding early because it doesn’t look good to go after the official programme is over. So we each went home to prepare for Abena’s reception at Carifesta Sports Ground.
I was silly to take Sheriff Street from Homestrech Avenue. The signals at the junction of Duncan and Sheriff Streets have died the past two weeks now. This is a serious junction. Sheriff Street is a major artery in Georgetown. Crazy drivers were doing crazy things. This was to be expected. It is a holiday weekend. I am not a religious person so praying didn’t come to me but I was hoping I didn’t get knocked. I remember doing several columns of condemnations of the PPP Government for non-function of traffic lights at major intersections but the incompetence continues even though we have a brand new non-PPP Government.
I didn’t take the Railway Embankment. The traffic there was chaotic; obviously with the Easter weekend coming up. But the anger and angst had to come. I took the seawall highway and entered UG Road to get to my home. But it meant crossing over the Railway Embankment. Dead signals made crossing a nightmare. The Railway Embankment had non-stop traffic going both east and west. I just wished at that moment this country would sink into the Atlantic and just die; it doesn’t work. As I entered my compound, fear took over. The neighbourhood was in complete darkness. We had blackout.
I showered with a lamp in my bathroom with cold water because the hot water system in my home only works with electricity. I dressed with a lamp and really couldn’t see if my necktie was straight. I made the wedding reception in time to hear Glenn Lall give a very moving tribute to Abena.
As the night wore on, I walked outside on to the verandah with Nigel Mackenzie, and Eze Rockcliff came up. He heaped praise on my political activism and to avoid my embarrassment, I turned the conversation to the age of the Yoruba Singers. Ezzie said on May 25, this year, the band will be 45 years old. My God! What an achievement! As Eze began to tell us about the contours of the band over the long years, blackout descended on the wedding reception of Abena Rockcliffe.
I don’t know where Ezzie and Nigel went but all I could hear was a guy in the dark next to me saying that he knew me from the days of the Catholic Standard with Father Morrison. In a month’s time, there is another Kaieteur News wedding; Maya, one of the company’s favourite staff members is getting married in Tuschen. I sat next to her when we ate at the wedding and she told me she is looking forward to me being at both Hindu ceremonies – her home and her husband’s. Shall I go? What about the signs?

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Anger and angst on the way to Abena Rockcliffe’s wedding

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