Tag Archives: Tropical rainforest

On the Road to Santa Cruz

26 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by in Guyana, The Writer's Life

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Road through jungle - Barima-Waini Region - GuyanaRoad through the jungle – Barima-Waini Region – Guyana
Photo Credit: It’s Always Sunny in Guyana Blogspot

 

I have started work on my second novel. It’s a journey back to my final year as a high school teacher at the Mabaruma Secondary School in Guyana’s northwest region. Whenever I think of that year, I relive the days I walked alone with God along the red dirt road through the jungle to and from school. At the time, I lived in Santa Cruz (fictitious name for the indigenous Amerindian settlement) located on a hilltop some five miles distant from Mabaruma, the administrative center of what is now called the Barima-Waini Region.

On the Road to Santa Cruz, my working title, is a story about jealousy and betrayal. Attractive, twenty-six-year-old Sister Barbara Lovell, the only child of an Afro-Guyanese father and Indo-Guyanese mother, is a teacher of the religious community, Sisters of Christ the Redeemer. When conflict erupts with Sister Frances Stang, a German-American missionary who also teaches at the Mabaruma high school, Sister Barbara’s life is turned inside-out. Her adversary is a powerful force. The surrounding forest offers no refuge.

The story is set during the period 1979 to 1980, covering events leading up to the assassination of Walter Rodney on 13 June 1980. Betrayed by a man in whom he trusted. Wrenched from us at 38 years old. The Guyana-born scholar and historian, a frontline leader of the political group, the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), had become a threat to the dictatorship government.

Following his return to Guyana in 1974, Walter Rodney succeeded in bringing together racially divided blacks and Indians at his public meetings.

“For the first time they were listening and looking at each other as brothers, comrades, that there was some common bond,” writes Abbyssinian Carto, a WPA activist in the struggle and civil rebellion during 1979 to 1980. “We come from different religious and different races and stuff like that, but we really are not different.” (Walter A. Rodney: A Promise of Revolution, edited by Clairmont Chung, 2012.)

The research process in novel writing is vital not only for historical accuracy, but also for developing complex, authentic characters that readers will love and hate. Influenced by Dr. Rodney’s teachings about self-emancipation, Sister Barbara’s conflict with Sister Frances takes on other undertones.

Betrayal can be a devastating experience, as it was for Sister Barbara that year in Santa Cruz. Sometimes, we may never recover from its effect on our lives. But, I believe it’s a valuable learning experience. People we think we know well are not always what they appear to be. To make matters worse, the people with power over our lives do not always have our interests at heart, though they claim to be.

Walter Rodney was prepared to risk his life to free his people from ignorance and fear. Did he die in vain?

Moths: Beauty Concealed in Darkness

08 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Guyana, Nature and the Environment

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , ,

Four Moths – Northwest Region – Guyana (Drawings by Rosaliene Bacchus)

 

Growing up in Georgetown, the capital of Guyana, I developed a dislike for moths. They were tiny, hairy, grayish-brown insects that destroyed our clothes and feasted on our rice grains and beans. They did their work in secret, in the dark. To keep them away, we placed foul-scented naphthalene mothballs in our chest of drawers, wardrobes, and cupboards.

Imagine my surprise when I learned in school that moths and butterflies belong to the same family called Lepidoptera. Next to the beautiful and brightly colored butterfly, the moth is the ugly cousin. And, as life would have it, the species of ugly cousins outnumber their attractive relatives by almost ten to one.

When I moved to the tropical rainforest region of Northwest Guyana, to teach at the secondary school in Mabaruma, I discovered a whole new world of moths I never knew existed. Up to that time, I had harbored prejudice towards thousands of species of moths based on the noxious behavior of a few.

The building where I lived was located in a clearing near a river at the foot of a hill. We had no electricity. At nights from six to ten o’clock, the presbytery at the top of the hill provided electricity generated by a gasoline generator. In the dark night, as I did my school work, my desk lamp attracted every form of winged night creature, especially the moth.

After overcoming my initial annoyance at the intrusion, I developed a fascination for the moths. My nightly visitors ranged in size from 0.3 inch to 4.5 inches in wing span. While the majority of them had varied brown tones and black markings, there were also moths of pink, orange, yellow, and green hues. Many of them were triangular in overall shape, but other shapes abound. One of my visitors that stayed until the early morning was particularly deceptive in appearance. When I bent down to pick up what appeared to be a dried brown leaf lying on the floor, the moth flew away.

Without a camera with a flash (common in those days) and poor photographic skills, I began drawing the moths and coloring them with crayons. My plan at the time (never realized) was to create a painting of moths based on their shapes and colors. The moth depicted in the drawing below was the largest and most beautiful of the species that visited my room. My now faded crayon drawing has failed to capture its beauty and rich colors.

Moth – Northwest Region – Guyana (Drawing by Rosaliene Bacchus)

The year I lived in Mabaruma turned out to be a dark period in my life. That July, when I relinquished my post as Acting Headmistress to return to Georgetown, I inadvertently ended my teaching career.

Life in not only filled with sunshine and butterflies. There are also dark nights. Yet, in the darkest night, if we let our inner light shine through, there is beauty to behold and lessons to learn.