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Taxi driver, MovieTowne road, anti-freeze coolant and ice-cream cake

Jun 24, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – While walking with my dog, I lost the keys to my car on the Eve Leary beach one evening in last week. The police outfit next to the DPP office called a taxi to take me home. The urgency was for me to get home to Turkeyen quickly to get my spare and search the beach before the homeless guys spot the keys and pick it up.
Lady Luck was not on my side. The driver took the seawall road to the East Coast instead of Carifesta Avenue. I told him that was unwise since he won’t be able to penetrate the jungle of vehicles that block the seawall road after 5PM each day. It happened and I was agitated.
To see what happens on the seawall road east of the Eve Leary CID office each afternoon is really a sad reflection of a country that is so large comparatively, so rich but so philosophically disheveled. My daughter decided to accompany me back to the beach to look for the keys. Time was of the essence.
The driver decided to take the Railway Embankment. He said he will turn into the East Coast highway from Conversation Tree. I told him not to. The traffic signals take an awful long time and I need to get to the beach as soon as possible. I suggested to him to turn into MovieTowne Road onto the East Coast highway. The man said: “Mr. Kissoon I am not going on that road, it is stink.”
The stinkness of the MovieTowne Road and Guyana’s acceptance of it is a sad indictment of the nationality named Guyanese. Please see my columns of Friday, January 14, 2022, “Permanent nonsense of MovieTowne, temporary nonsense of the army” and Sunday, February 6, 2022, “Gem Madhoo Nascimento and Dr. Bassoodeo’s brother-in-law.”
Those two columns are about the stinkness of the MovieTowne Road. What has happened is that the sewage chamber system that lies under the sprawling car park has a huge defect. The chambers lie on the extreme end of the western car park which is parallel to the road.
Dr. Bassoodeo’s brother-in-law wrote the City Council because the house he is building faces Massey Supermarket and the man has to endure the stench daily. I believe the MovieTowne ownership told the City Council and the central government that the repair work will be monumental and expensive and both arms of government have shown sympathy. The result is permanent stinkness.
What happens then is that from now until the next 50 years, Guyanese from all walks of life will mention the stench on MovieTowne road as a fact of life just as they mention the wildness of minibus drivers. In other words, the nastiness of that road becomes part of life in Guyana.
So what happens is that most drivers will tell you it will not affect them because they drive with their AC on and their windows up which brings us to the nature of Guyanese. Do you know not one person in authority in this country has possessed the commonsense to ban the importation of anti-freeze coolant for vehicles?
The use of anti-freeze coolant in a tropical country has no parallel in asininity in the modern world. Commonsense should tell any vehicle owner that coolant in a tropical country does not need anti-freeze chemical in it. Anti-freeze coolant is to keep your radiator warm or hot when winter comes.
We don’t have winter in Guyana so our vehicles in Guyana should not use anti-freeze coolant. Even on the coldest day in Guyana when it rains the entire day, the country still has a temperature that keeps your vehicle’s radiator warm. But drivers buy it all the time. Anti-freeze coolant is what most drivers buy in this country.
This is just a tragic nation despite its immense wealth. In tropical Guyana, people buy ice-cream cake. Supermarkets actually sell ice-cream cake in tropical Guyana. If you buy an ice-cream cake and put your AC on and drive for one mile, that cake will begin to melt.
I end on a personal note. When I was courting my future wife, we listened to Neil Diamond all the time. One of our favourite Diamond tunes is perhaps his most philosophical composition that no recent song can match in the layout of the lyrics. It is titled, “I’ve been this way before.”
Here are some lines from the song; Listen to it and try to be released and be regained.
“Some people, they never see the light
Until the day they die
But I’ve been released
And I’ve been regained”
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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