White Christmas

Jan 06, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – Miracle of miracles.  Guyanese celebrated a White Christmas.  It was so bitterly cold that the whites of Guyanese eyes could be seen.  Bulging from behind their eyelids.  Glazed and driven crazy by the artic freeze that dumped tons upon tons of the white stuff on the heads of Guyanese.  There was so much snow on the streets of Guyana that everything snarled to a halt.  Not from traffic, but from the numbness in the mind, and weakness of feet to get to the markets and supermarkets.

Fingers bent like claws, seeking to clutch at some whiff of the long-promised warm front that was expected, but not coming.  Not a sighting, leading to more sighing.  Icicles formed on the nose, the breath became labored, carbon dioxide exhalations turning into ice blocks in midair.  Trust me when I say that it was a White Christmas in Guyana, where the only places safe from the onslaught of the tropical blizzard were those oil rigs of Exxon 120 miles from shore.  And the cabals having a great time at State Houses.

White Christmas for Guyanese started with that blizzard of words from Excellency Ali.  A wonderful weatherman he is.  Expect a blanket of snow, a thick, suffocating one; what leads to holiday blues, and layers of sulkiness.  For all those dejected Guyanese thinking about Ebenezer Scrooge and making presidential comparison and connection, I have one word.  FUHGEDDABOUTIT!  A regular frosty the snowman, the skinflint skipper has become these days.  Instead of let it shine, let it shine, there was the deep darkness, compliments of the Super Snowman, Dr. Irfaan Ali: no Xmas cash grant.  Christmas will be in a January, which is another component of Guyanese being on the receiving end of yet another snow job from Dr. Snowman.  I haven’t encountered a budget process that’s finalized by the end of January.  Has any Guyanese?  Mr. Santa Claus (the second), Dr. Ashni K. Singh usually needs all of January, and that is only to read his prescriptions and milligrams that leave Guyanese cold.  Whoever is not stoned cold, is driven into a comatose state, just from having the pleasure of listening to him.  Before he is halfway through his mind-bending array of figures, Guyanese can already feel the chill fingers of financial death (again) putting a vise around their necks.  One snow job after another, with probably new billions set aside to build snow roads to accommodate the tastes of expatriates and give them a sense of home.  If anyone said Exxon, remember that I wasn’t the one who did.

When there was silence in September, obfuscation in October, I said to myself: wait for it and watch for it: a cold front is approaching, with draglines of snow in the forecast.  November brought nothing, no news at all, other than the Big People prioritizing free and fair, and trying all kinds of tricks to register the button marked ‘credible.’  The private sector and the PPP are so close that the former bit the bullet, said that September was credible.  The private sector can’t move the minimum wage from where it has been stuck for three donkey years, but it is now an expert (a mover and shaker) about what is credible.  What is that, if not part of the whitewashing of what went on, another snow job?  If the white of snow was cocaine, Guyana would be like Atlantis, buried deeper than the Pacific Ocean, with Guyanese deader than the Dead Sea.

I am someone who prefers the cold to blistering heat.  So, I am with Pres. Ali.  Not necessarily for him, but with him, and his ice-cold presentation.  Neither Bram Stoker (Dracula) nor Freddy Krueger (Nightmare on Elm Street) frightens me as much as the local guy.  Guyanese trusted the PPP, put the fate of their children in the hands of the party that said it would take care of them for the next five, then twenty-five years.  Take care of the children it did, through entombing them in an avalanche of the snowy stuff.  The adults that had some sort of difficulty were not spared.

For those Guyanese who have always been dreaming of a White Christmas, they just had one.  Now they are trapped, struggling to extricate themselves from the deep snowdrifts produced and directed by Drs. Ali, Ashni, and Barry.  It’s going to be a long 2026.   From Streets of Laredo to streets of rock-hard ice.  Try navigating that skating rink.  Barefoot and penniless.

(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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• cash grant, Exxon, GHK Lall, Irfaan Ali, miracles, White Christmas

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