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Guyana does not need anti-freeze coolant

Nov 04, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – I was at the pet section of Giftland Supermarket to buy a harness for a stray dog that emerged in the compound where I live. We adopted him and gave him the name Sammy.  Sammy is amazingly sweet.

Right next to the pet section, I saw motor vehicle items. Radiator anti-freeze coolant was selling at $8000 for a large bottle. Can you imagine a Guyanese going into the store in Saudia Arabia and asking for a winter jacket? If you can’t imagine it, then I suggest you start doing so. Guyanese are a sad nationality.

They do not sell winter jackets in countries that never get cold temperatures. In hot temperatures like in Guyana, vehicles do not carry anti-freeze coolant. All humans in Guyana know that you do not buy a cup of ice-cream and leave it out of the fridge. All humans know that when a little fire in the yard brews, you do not douse the flame with gasoline but water.

If all humans in Guyana know about the ice-cream and gasoline stupidities, why aren’t all vehicle owners in Guyana know we are a hot country so vehicles do not need anti-freeze coolant in their radiators?

They should know they don’t need anti-freeze coolant because of the word itself, “anti-freeze.” Our radiators in Guyana do not need anti-freeze coolant because Guyana never goes even near to freezing temperature.

Climate changes are creating confusion in the world. In Guyana, you cannot plan construction based on the two rainy seasons – May/June – November/December. But even in rainy seasons where the country is flooded and everybody got to wade through the waters, Guyana does not experience cold weather.

Go any afternoon on the seawall between the bandstand and the pump station,   after it rained the entire day, you will see Guyanese with their normal wear including short-pants. The scientific fact is Guyana does not become cold even in the rainy seasons.

So why do people buy anti-freeze coolant? That is a type of product that is needed in countries where the temperature drops way below zero and you and everything around you freeze. What the anti-freeze chemical does is prevent the water in the vehicle from freezing. I have seen anti-freeze coolant selling in stores for decades now yet I do not understand why Dr. Marlon Cole never banned it. Marlon is a personal friend of mine and over the years, we would meet in the National Park often and chat. He is gone and I still do not know why I never raised the absurdity of Guyana importing anti-freeze coolant.

In all honesty, do you know what coolant I put in my car and done with the advice given to me decades ago by my mechanic, “Smallie” of Bel Air village? I buy a red coolant from my friend Lalta Gainda from his hardware store near to where I live on UG Road. It cost about $700 years ago, then it went up and now I think it is about $800 or $900 for a large bottle.

I mix the red coolant with water. I have used that formula for years. In strict engineering terms, your radiator just needs water. There are types of coolants that carry antirust chemicals and maybe you can buy that one. But in a hot climate like Guyana, you should not use anti-freeze stuff in your car. It is absolutely unnecessary.

What a crazy people we are in Guyana. The government allows the importation of anti-freeze coolant and Guyanese drivers actually put it in their vehicles. Do you know this country sells ice-cream birthday cake?

Buying an ice-cream cake is like using gasoline to out a fire. You have to live right next door to the supermarket like me (I live a three-minute-walk to Massy Supermarket and five-minute-drive from Giftland Supermarket) if you are going to buy an ice-cream cake.

No matter how high you put your AC on in the car, once you are driving in a hot climate with an iced-cream cake, it will melt. But I guess the most brilliant psychologist will never understand Guyana.

I devoured every book Sigmund Freud wrote (my favourite is, “Civilization and Its Discontents,”) and read a large percentage of books on his work and still do. I always wonder if he were alive what he would have made of the psychology of the Guyanese nationality.

Would Freud have understood the psyche of this nation? I am asking the question so it is only right I give my answer. It is no. He would have found the Guyanese psychology impossible to comprehend. Keep buying your melting birthday cake. Keep overheating your radiator. Maybe one day, commonsense will visit you.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not this newspaper.)

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