Reflections on an oil rich Xmas

Jan 04, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

(Kaieteur News) – Christmas Eve saw an intensifying of the crushed streets and shops.  It’s that time and space that is not just a day, didn’t begin on December 24^th.  Expectations vested in a promise.  Only for the promise to turn-out to be a put-on and pretense at best; a pathetic gimmick in the end.  On that usually bustling, a thousand-things-to-do, day, the intrusive thought was of the inside of a home, and what went on in the hearts of many Guyanese there.

Those are not the kind of residences that make a statement, or speak of more than the ordinary.  Merely, a humble home, with weighty mortgage, not infrequently a monthly car payment, and more.  The occupants would prioritize some extra cleaning, the sighing thought of a helping hand.  Where is the money to be had to make either the extra cleaning stuff and the human help to put just that special touch and sheen to this place called home, this castle.  The public servant may be able to harbor those forlorn ideas.  But of the $60,000 per month minimum wage worker, and single-mother, what can they think?  How does that home feel, exist?  Or that of a pensioner whose offspring have moved on, rarely look back?  It has to be especially hard for these Guyanese at a special time, the forerunner to Guyana’s most cherished, most celebrated, holiday.  A holiday that is more than a day for both believers and nonbelievers.

Up to now, the sketch drawn has flitted over walls and windows, floors and blinds and carpets.  All of which are out of reach, because there is little to nothing in the hand as spare change.  Spare change is where many Guyanese are, and where their country is spoken of in the most awed terms all over the map.  Nowhere is that lil spare change to be found, for there was never any extra left back to squirrel away for a rainy day.  Things are truly bad, when every day is a rain-drenched day in oil-swamped Guyana.  And worse still, when there isn’t the comfort of a familial cushion, no matter how thin.  Nada for a financial cushion.  It is why that promise came to mean so much, was so closely watched, was thought to be as good as done and delivered.  Look who said it was going to happen!  Not some junior.  Not some incompetent or drunk.  Because of who gave that promise, a world of trust was placed, a lot of hope inspired.  Now that faith has crumbled, smashed with hopes dashed.  Bad enough that the promise collapsed for the simple reason that it was less of a promise and more of a ploy.  All of that is now so, with the grandest of times now degraded to lines of anxiety, lines of fear and sorrow, imprinted on the faces of Guyanese who only count for their vote, and that time only.

The biggest worry, the toughest challenge, is still unsaid.  Food.  What to do about that trial?  When supermarket carts are loaded to overflowing, and market baskets are weighed down, spare a thought for those who think of inviting supermarket aisles and shelves, and lush market stalls.  A thought for those forced to come to a dead stop right there.  Been there.  Where is the money?  Been there, too.  Where the extra money to tide over, provide a ‘nice’ holiday?  Yes, that promised money, sum unstated, but on which so much was planted?  Like hopeful, trusting farmers, Guyanese know what it is to be shattered.  I like farmers, for what is seen is neither combine nor conglomerate, but a man or woman with a shovel, a handful of seeds, and a can of water.  And an unsung prayer, too.

Food.  Even before Christmas prices kicked in, adding to the already excruciating human bondage, poor and poorer Guyanese were fighting a losing battle.  Daily, weekly.  Possibly hourly.  On Xmas Eve day, there was the savaging irony of big trucks rushing by, bigger speeches being readied to be made by the greatest pretenders and deceivers ever found, and half of Guyana hungry.  Beaten to different states of that wretched condition.  The bloated callous may see and say: politics!  Take some damn shame off faces and farces.  See pain.  See that mot enough food is pain.  See also how a little something could have inspired the different on a season that is timeless, but what decisions and policies have made into intolerable, unpardonable pain.  The unacceptable that should not be.  Celebrate that, my fellow Guyanese.

(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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• GHK Lall, oil, reflections, rich, XMAS

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