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Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

A Fisherman’s Tale T he morning was biting cold, dawn still some hours away, as the northeastern wind blew in from the seas. The fishermen on the jetty, sleep long gone from their eyes, prepared to head out to sea, shouting, swearing, mumbling, moods mingling, drifting, the air smelled of tobacco

smoke and above the din, was the mellow voice of a radio broadcaster on someone’s little radio as the day began.

Rajiv, a young boy, with his father and small crew, cast off to sea, his heart pounding with excitement, for today was his initiation.Today he had become of age to join a long line of ancestors as fishermen, a family legacy.

The boat cut through the waves and as the cold wind stung his face, it gave to his life, a new experience, for over the years, he had heard so many intriguing tales about pirates, killer sharks and mysterious ghostly ships, but the tale that mesmerised him, fable some claimed, real said others, was of the silver flying fish, with scales that glittered like diamonds in

the night.

It was said that whoever caught the silver fish would have his wishes come true but for so many decades, no one ever did. Rajiv had one wish in his heart, neither for riches nor fine things, even though his family was poor, but for something with so much greater worth.

That first morning at sea, was good with their haul of fishes and he saw two sharks, but no ghostly ship or the silver flying fish. His father told him, there would be many more mornings and nights when he heads out at sea and every outing always brings something new, be it bad or good.

It was, for, the young boy, a life of adventure to look forward to and with a smile on his face and a spring in his step, he ran home to tell his mother and sister about his first day at sea. His mother had cooked for him, a special meal, but he could eat nothing until he saw his sister. She was sitting in the garden, under the shade of a mango tree, reading stories to two little children, looking so pretty and younger, her long hair in two plaits. A pang of regret touched his heart knowing as a boy, his

hugging him, wanting to know everything about his first fishing trip.

He could not understand how she could still smile, knowing her dream to be a

wailed rocking the boat like a toy, the silver flying fish broke through the water, like a vision in the dark night, riding the high waves, and disappearing in the raging

ambition to continue a family legacy had been fulfilled but a cruel twist of fate had snatched her dream. It had been two years now, since that horrible accident that paralysed her legs, an accident that had cut the family purse strings, poor people they were but all their money spent could not help her walk again.

He touched her shoulder and she turned and smiled,

dancer and to travel the world had been shattered, leaving her in a wheelchair. He had vowed in his heart to help his sister walk again, no matter what. It was the reason he wanted to believe in the silver flying fish, so he could make a wish for her.

Days rolled into weeks, weeks into months, until one late night, when the tempest sea was wild and the wind

sea. Rajiv, the water streaming over his face, almost obscuring his vision caught a glimpse of the fabled fish and gasped in wonder.

It was such an extraordinary sight.

It stayed in his mind.Everyday he went out to sea, wondering how he could catch such a fish, for he was

maureen.rampertab@gmail.com

Continued on page VIII

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

III

By Petamber Persaud

Reparation and Empowerment (Extract of an interview with David Hinds, Georgetown, Guyana, 2013. Professor Hinds lectures at Arizona State University and is a rights activist.)

PP: A few years ago, the whole year of 2011 was dedicated to the peoples of African descent, then a whole decade 2014-2024 was named in acknowledgment of the contribution of the people of African descent, why? Is it because we are now waking up to the realities – the effects of slavery? Is it because only now we are waking up to the humanity of enslaved peoples?

DH: Petamber, I think you have hit the nail on the head because since slavery ended in the 19th century, I think the world has been in denial about the tremendous negative impact slavery have had on African people, in particular, and a spinoff of that to rest of the world.

I think that … years later, we are coming to realize that something that penetrated the psyche of the world as slavery did could not be thrown off, swept under the carpet, that as a world we have to deal with it, that the impact was not only on the former slaves but also on the former slave masters and those who inherited and have to participate in a world that was shaped by it.

PP: Who is carrying ‘the fight’ now? We know from documented materials and fictionalized accounts of those who remonstrated and rebelled, some succeeding while others served as inspiration to go on we are celebrating 250th anniversary of the 1763 Berbice Slave Rebellion, we’re poised to mark the 1823 Demerara Uprising and other related issues.

Those rebellions showed that the people knew they were being wronged and more importantly those displays of dissent showed the people’s humanity. They were fight- David Hinds ing for themselves. Who is carrying the fight now?

DH: I think there is a new generation of Africans all over the world who after a lull of the last two or three decades are discovering some of the works done: Walter Rodney’s ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ – those who have the opportunity to go to university and others are reading that; Ivan Van Sertima’s ‘They Came Before Columbus’; they are reading ‘The Souls of Black Folk’ by W.E. B. Du Bois; they are reading Eric Williams’ ‘Capitalism and Slavery’; they are reading C. L. R. James’ ‘Black Jacobins’ – they are reading these classics that speak to the experience of Africans people but speaking particularly to the issue of resistance and gaining new perspectives on the world and on their own Africanness.

So there is that but I also think that the practical day to day experiences of African peoples all over the world whether it is in relationship to economics, whether it is in relationship to lack of education, whether it is in relationship against all forms of violence, they are beginning to make the connection between those and a larger post-slavery society that has inherited a whole bunch of these things from slavery itself. Slavery

was about violence and the violence we experience today all over the world is really a spinoff of that.

PP: Interestingly, four of the five books you mentioned were written by West Indians - two by Guyanese, two by Trinidadians. And let’s not diminish the import of Norman Cameron’s ‘Evolution of the Negro’ which I have credited as a contributing factor leading to the first black man to be elected to the Presidency of America….

DH: Yes, yes, good point that!

PP: So the books you mentioned, the type of books we are reading can be labeled the heavyweights of this fight. The question remains – who is carrying the fight now? Answering this question we must be mindful of the movements such as Black Power, Rastafarian, Pan-African-ism and of leaders thereof like Marcus Garvey and others…

DH: Yes, the point is once people are subjugated, they throw up their own movements and their own leaders. Walter Rodney called it self-activity for self-emancipation. So all these mass movements arose out of the bowels of peoples’ resistance; as people resist, they created organizations, they creation civilization and so forth. And it was that that was responsible for the wave of movements in the 20th century.

Now as we turn into the 21th century, there was somewhat a lull in terms of African mass movements, part of it had to do with the success of the civil rights movements all over the world.

African people have begun to move into echelons of the society from which they were formerly debarred….

PP: Let’s take a closer look at what you describe as ‘a lull’. Why the lull if we are now better placed in society to influence change?

DH: Because this was exactly what Du Bois meant when he talked about ‘the talented tenth’ when this talented tenth are well placed in society, they would be in a better position to serve the community. But what we are seeing is that the contemporary talented tenth, that once they began to do well, once they get onto Wall Street, once they get into the halls of power, they then become alienated, if you will, from the rest of the black community, they go into exile so they no longer respond and give back to that society. So there has been a disconnect between the black elite and the black masses…

PP: Rodney mentioned in ‘The groundings with my brothers’ that some of this talented tenth have sold their souls….

DH: Yes. But I think part of what we are seeing in this new movement, which I call a human rights movement, is that the black movements are grounded in the notion of human rights, part of it is sparked by frustration that some of us who have come out of exile …and walk the streets and pavements among the people and we see the tears of African people, we see the frustration of African people, we are then moved from a humanist standpoint to say wait that is where I came from and I have to do something to correct this condition. So you will see a small movement - the 1823 Movement, you will see the 1763 Movement – these are small steps being taken. So the answer to your question who is carrying the fight, I would say a kind of collation between what Clive Thomas called the poor and the powerless and those of us who take the time ever

so often to look out of our windows and see what’s happening down there and say let’s go down there….

PP: … like what you do…

DH: Well, yes, in some ways I try to do that.

PP: And we must not forget Brother Eusi.

DH: He has been a tremendous example to persons like myself. And I would like to say in a direct answer to what you’re saying is what you are seeing now Kwayanite/Rodney movement taking roots again – Kwayana is about concreteness, something is happening here people are crying out, what do you do about it. Rodney is saying don’t wait for us to come and do something for you, do for yourself. That type of philosophy is what you see pushing the small steps.

PP: Is this philosophy of helping yourself being peddled?

Continued on page VIII

IV

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

THE ANIMISM AND FOLKLORE OF THE GUIANA INDIANS

By WALTER E. ROTH Introduction by Janette Bulkan Senior Urban Anthropology Manager, The Field Museum,Chicago and Associate Researcher, Institute of Development Studies, University of Guyana

T

he centenary of Dr. Walter E. Roth’s compendium, An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore of the Guiana Indians can be commemorated from 2013 (the date of Walter Roth’s Preface) to 2015, a century after its first publication. An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore was reprinted by Johnson Reprint Corporation in 1970. The reissue of this annotated compendium in time for the centenary, under the Guyana Classics Series, honours a landmark compilation of the cosmology and beliefs of three of Guyana’s indigenous peoples – Arawak, Carib and Warau. It was not the first such published collection—preceded by, for example, the publications of Anglican missionary, William Henry Brett, also based in the Pomeroon River District (1880) and Sir Everard Im Thurn (1882) — and others would follow. Among the merits of An Inquiry into the Animism and Folkloreis the scrupulous care which Roth characteristically brought to the task of recording the words of his interlocutors. A century later, there are radically different analytical exegeses of indigenous cosmology elaborated by linguists and ethnographers, Amerindian and non-Amerindian (Viveiros de Castro 1996, 2000).

Fortunately, contemporary indigenous peoples, scholars and the reading public all benefit from Roth’s separation of his comments from the text, which permits each reader to experience a story directly.

Walter Roth arrived in British Guiana in 1907 to take up a combined appointment as the government stipendiary magistrate, medical officer, and Protector of Indians in the Pomeroon District. He was 45 years old at the time, and the new post was to all intents and purposes a lateral transfer from one British colony to another. By then, Roth had amassed a distinguished record of publications on Australian Aboriginal ethnography and languages dating from 1897. He had certainly not exhausted the possibilities for research in Queensland or in Australia. However, Roth served in an unrelentingly hostile atmosphere, in the end hounded out of office and vilified by white settlers and the Queensland government alike, united in their dislike of Roth’s anthropological and public policy work. Australia’s loss was Guyana’s great gain. Walter Roth’s pioneering and voluminous researches over a quarter of a century would be hard to replicate in any generation. His written records, skillful illustrations and ethnographic collections are a bequest to our nation.

Walter Roth’s early life Walter Edmund Roth (1861-1933) was one of nine children (seven sons and two daughters) of Dr. Mathias Roth, a Hungarian-born physician and his English wife, Anna Maria Collins. Mathias Roth had sought and secured asylum in England in 1849 after the failed Hungarian revolution of 1848. He was 31 years old then and would build a flourishing medical practice as a homoeopathic doctor, specializing in orthopaedics. Four of his sons, including Walter, followed in his footsteps and also trained as medical doctors. Walter was the fifth son. Mathias Roth was reputedly a stern disciplinarian, who also harboured some eccentric ideas, including that his children should run around bare footed even in winter. Incidentally, the naturalist Charles Waterton (1782 – 1865) who made four long journeys of exploration through the Guiana

interior from 1812 to 1824, famously travelled everywhere in bare feet. Waterton’s best-selling account of those trips – Wanderings in South America (first published in 1825)–is credited with inspiring young British schoolboys like Charles Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace whose pioneering insights in the natural sciences and evolutionary history were likewise catalysed by their travels in the pan-tropics. Mathias Roth was Jewish by birth but “a non-believer [who] did make concessions for his wife’s sake and occasionally sent his brood to church: whatever church happened to be in the neighbourhood” (Brody 2008: 36). The Roth boys attended University College School in London, their education supplemented by private foreign tutors in mathematics and the physical and natural sciences. They also attended boarding schools in Germany and France, and Walter was literate in French, Dutch and German. He would later put his linguistic skills to use in translating seminal historical and ethnographic works on British Guiana and the Guiana area more generally, including Koch-Grunberg (1917), Netscher (1929), Schomburgk, M. R. (1922-23), Schomburgk, R.H. (1931), and Van Berkel (1948). It was perhaps due to his influence and persistence that some of his translations were published in British Guiana. His proficiency in Latin is displayed by his switching from English to Latin Walter Roth in those parts of the stories in An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore that describe sexual relations.

The remarkable and distinguished contributions of Walter and his siblings in medicine, anthropology and public service in the far-flung British Empire are the subjects of a recent volume (McDougall and Davidson 2008). The Roth family could not fit easily into the conventional English class structure. Both their foreignness and broad education would likely have contributed to a sense of marginality: “In an atmosphere of pluralistic religious pragmatism, and a household that provided the focus of a cosmopolitan society of liberal-minded people from all over Europe, the Roth family ‘made otherness a norm’” (ibid.: 13).

Walter Roth’s corpus (Collins 1971, Plew and Forte 1998, list his Guiana-based publications, translations and reports) may partly be credited to that sense of being an outsider, coupled with broad and rigorous academic training, discipline and application and a lifelong interest in the marginalised conquered indigenous peoples. Overlapping interests with Henry Ling Roth Walter Roth studied biology at Oxford University from 1881 to 1884, and upon graduation began medical training at St Thomas Hospital in London. In 1886 he enrolled as a law student also, but a year later, in 1887, suspended his studies in both law and medicine, and moved to Australia.

Walter and his older brother Henry (1855-1925) had at least three overlapping interests – ethnology, Australia and British Guiana. In 1878, Henry left England for Queensland, Australia where he had been commissioned by English businessmen to investigate the sugar industry. Three brothers, Felix, Reuter and Walter, would follow him there, although Henry himself returned to Europe in 1888. Henry’s influential ethnological publications, including on the indigenous peoples of Tasmania (1890), Sarawak (1896) and Benin (1903), were based on other people’s fieldwork.

In contrast, Walter was a lifelong enthusiastic and indefatigable fieldworker, first in Australia and, from 1907 until his death, in British Guiana. Interestingly, Henry had also

preceded Walter in British Guiana when in 1875 he accepted an offer to help manage a sugar plantation there. However, Henry left after six months as his employer failed to honour their agreement. Walter would serve for 26 years in British Guiana, finally dying here in 1933.

Teacher and medical doctor in southern Australia In Australia, Walter held a number of posts, including teaching at grammar schools in Brisbane and Sydney, before returning to London in 1891-2 to complete his medical training. Thereafter he worked in a medical partnership in Young, a small town in New South Wales, and embarked upon his life-long dedication to writing scholarly articles on a variety of subjects for publication.

To the killing fields of Queensland Walter soon grew bored with a routine job and after a stint as a ship’s doctor in 1893-4 he accepted an appointment as government surgeon attached to hospitals in far western Queensland in 1894. Four years later, in 1898 Walter became the state’s first Northern Protector of Aborigines. He served in that position until 1904 when he was made Chief Protector. In 1904 he was seconded to head Australia’s first Royal Commission into the condition of Aborigines in northwest Western Australia. After twelve years of service in Queensland, Walter Roth resigned on 10 June 1906 from the post of Chief Protector, and headed for the “mosquito-cursed district of the Pomeroon” in British Guiana. Over the preceding century, the vast Queensland territory had been turned into killing fields as its Aboriginal owners were brutally pacified by white settlers, covertly sanctioned by state and national governments (Evans et al. 1988).

Queensland became a separate colony in 1859. The slaughter of Queensland’s Aboriginal peoples replicated the tried and tested pattern of extermination of their hosts played out over the entire continent that followed the British claim of sovereignty in the newly discovered ‘New South Wales’ in 1788.

The northern Queensland frontier was only distinguished by the fact that this unequal war against at best spear-wielding Aboriginal people continued into the 20th century, and under Walter Roth’s watch.

The British invaders used sovereignty as the basis of possession, asserting that the Aborigines ‘ranged over the land’ like animals, rather than resided on it, so could not claim ownership. Although the British position contradicted the doctrine of possession in international law developed in the 17th century, a full two hundred years would elapse before the preexisting rights to their homelands of the original aboriginal owners would be seriously considered by the Australian judiciary in the Mabo case (Reynolds 1987, 1996). Resistance

by Queensland Aboriginal peoples to the enclosures of their ancestral lands, forced labour, and rape of their girl children and women was systematically met with ‘musketry and terror’, massacres and raids, the poisoning of entire ‘camps’ by distribution of poisoned flour, strychnine-laced milk and countless other unspeakable atrocities. Walter Roth once noted in passing: “As for arsenic only experience the poor devils had of it was when mixed purposely with station flour” (Letter of 6 August 1915, Queensland Museum Inward Correspondence Archive 15/1043, cited in Robins 2008: 174). As the historians Robert Evans et al. explained, the Queensland and national authorities stuck to “a complex pattern of evasion and denial. Declaring war would mean recognizing Aborigines as an invaded people rather than, as they were legally defined, ‘British subjects’, whose resistance against the British system of law became logically a ‘Criminal Act’ and the resisters, automatically, ‘outlaws.’ On the other hand, undeclared war, if pursued cautiously, was largely unpublicized war, and conflict could be effected without regard to war’s conventions: the treatment of prisoners, the signing of treaties, the making of territorial settlements, indemnities and the like. Native Police sorties, therefore, proceeded without witnesses – for Aboriginal ‘subjects’ were not regarded as enContinued on page V

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014 From page IV

tirely competent until after 1884 – without body counts – the dead being incinerated rather than enumerated – and without the taking of prisoners or any complications over land rights. And without open declarations, there could, of course, be no recognised truces and no official armistice, only a repetitive pattern of ‘a little wholesome correction’ and ‘well-merited chastisement’ until the blacks were ‘pretty well shot down and got rid of’ and the district was ‘quiet’” (1988: 62).

The holocaust perpetrated on the defenceless Aboriginal peoples of Queensland was especially remarkable as it extended throughout the 19th century, and over 300 years after similar exterminations of their hosts by Europeans during the post-1492 contact in the Americas, and long after the abolition of slavery in 1834 in the British Empire. Walter Roth, Protector of Aborigines By 1898, the year Walter Roth was appointed the state’s first Northern Protector of Aborigines, the remnant Aborigines of Queensland had been reduced to a traumatised, stunned, terrorized and broken rump, rounded-up and herded into in- hospitable reservations far from their customary homelands.

Diseases, including syphilis, were widespread, countered by little in the way of humanitarian or social services. According to Evans et al., “When one studies the early development of reserves... evidence of effective medical treatment, hygienic care, balanced diet, education and training is notable by its absence. In providing inadequate food, primitive shelter and occasionally, some medicine for Aboriginal inmates, the Government seems to have been more concerned about effecting ‘strict economy’ than anything else” (1988:119).

Walter Roth subscribed to the prevailing view that Aborigines were on their way to extinction, and his compendia (e.g. Roth, W.E. 1897, 1901) were in the tradition of salvage anthropology. As the Worker, a local newspaper, noted on 26 March 1904:

“Nothing can save the aboriginal race, and the Government is killing them quicker, and acting cruelly by taking them away from their own country, for they are like animals, and would sooner go home and starve than live on the best in a strange country” (cited in Evans et al. 1988: 118).

Protector Roth set out his own guiding principles thus: “I look upon [mission] stations rather as workhouses, no work no food!– And am always impressing upon the superintendents the danger of over-educating the blacks under their charge. I am basing and organising all my work up here on the belief that (a) In the struggle for existence, the black cannot compete with the white (b) It is not desirable that he should mix with the white (c) With advancing civilisation, the black will die out (d) While he lives, the black should be protected from the abuses to which he is subjected by the white” (Roth to Spencer, 6 October 1902, cited in Mulvaney 2008: 117-8).

Protector Roth trained a kindly but clinical eye on the abject and forlorn survivors entrusted to his care. He travelled extensively in Queensland, cataloguing Aboriginal material culture, collecting specimens for museums and recording as much of the languages, belief systems and former ways of life of the diverse peoples as possible. His enforcement of the 1897 Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act, which included prohibitions on common law unions between White or Chinese males and Aboriginal females (‘gins’), and the removal of mixed race children from their families (the later ‘Lost generation’) aroused great animosity on all sides. Evans et al. wrote: “For decades a marked feature of the bechede-mer and pearling trade, which recruited around the entire coastline and adjacent islands of Cape York peninsula, was the enslavement of groups of natives, for both forced labour and sexual services. This recruitment, commonly referred to as ‘shanghai-ing’ or ‘press-gang system’ was execrated by Protector Roth in 1898 as ‘one long record of brutal cruelty, bestiality and debauchery’” (1988:105).

Protector Roth had few supporters in or out of government. He was so vilified in the national Press that he sent his son, Vincent, accompanied by his wife, Vincent’s stepmother, to continue his schooling on the island of Tasmania. Faithful recording of indigenous languages Walter Roth’s prodigious output includes the only remaining record of some of the now extinct aboriginal languages of Queensland. Contemporary linguists like Gavan Breen credit Roth with a good ear and faithful transcription.

According to Breen : “A Revised Linguistic Survey of Australia (Oates & Oates 1970) gives the name ‘Roth’ in connection with 37 languages/dialects (and misses a few more). In some cases Walter Roth simply mentioned the language name, but he collected word lists (mostly of 150 to 200 words) for about 20 different languages (and for two or more dialects of some of these)...”(2008: 133). Breen also commended Roth’s brilliance in recording sign languages, “whose work has not been and will not be superseded,” given the extinction of so many of the Aboriginal peoples and their cultures (p. 146).

It is this facility with languages and his disciplined approach to fieldwork which can inspire confidence in the fidelity of Roth’s transcriptions in An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore in British Guiana. The historian Bernard Cohn, writing on India, has noted the unforeseen

V

consequences of colonial compendia, whose purpose was to provide a roadmap through local mores to aid the governing authorities. In later centuries, these texts are often key sources for use by erstwhile colonial subjects in refashioning identity and culture: “The argument of this essay is that the production of these texts and others that followed them began the establishment of discursive formation, defined an epistemological space, created a discourse(Orientalism), and had the effect of converting Indian forms of knowledge into European objects.

The subjects of these texts were first and foremost the Indian languages themselves, re-presented in European terms as grammars, dictionaries, and teaching aids in a project to make the acquisition of a working knowledge of the languages available to those British who were to be part of the ruling groups of India.

The vast social world that was India had to be classified, categorised, and bounded before it could be ordered. As with many discursive formations and their discourses, many of its major effects were unintended, as those who were to be the objects produced by the formation often turned it to their own ends...” (Cohn 1996: 21-22).

Protector of Indians in British Guiana Roth’s new posting as Protector of Indians in British Guiana in 1907 was in an entirely different social context. British rule was already over a century old, following on two centuries of Dutch rule (from the 1600s to 1803). Over those centuries, Europeans had gradually asserted sovereignty over Amerindian subjects and their lands, skirting the issue of preexisting Amerindian land rights.

The reservations that were created in 1902 in British Guiana were at least located in indigenous homelands, in contrast to the displacements experienced by Australian Aborigines. As Arif Bulkan and I have written elsewhere: “The impulses behind the pan-colonial move to protectionism (including spatial and racial segregation of indigenous peoples),ranged from concern over demographic decline and the often catastrophic impact of cultural contact to blatant appropriation of indigenous homelands by interest groups backed by the power of the State. Local experiences tended to reflect the desirability of indigenous lands to powerful interests. The mainstay of the British Guiana economy was plantation production of agricultural commodities located on the coastal plain. Over time, resource-extractive industries – minerals, principally bauxite, gold and diamonds; and timber and non-timber forest products – led to penetration of indigenous homelands by elements of the dominant society. However, resource extractive enterprises occurred in waves, were seldom associated with permanent settlement by outsiders and were framed by colonial rules and regulations relating to mining, forestry, balata latex extraction and so on. In contrast, indigenous people fared worse in the more aggressive context of settler societies like the US and Australia, characterised by capitalist penetration and more permanent settlement in indigenous homelands” (Bulkan and Bulkan 2008: 258).

The Pomeroon District to which Protector Roth was assigned had been one of the early centres of Amerindian-European contacts. The first trading posts established along that river by the Dutch, in 1658 and 1686, did not survive hostile attacks from the French and indigenous war parties. However the Dutch persisted, and over time distinct indigenous peoples would move temporarily, some permanently, to the Pomeroon River area to take advantage of employment or trading opportunities. From the 1840s, the Anglican missionary William Henry Brett set up a mission at the confluence of the Pomeroon and Arapiaco Rivers, actively proselytizing, researching and writing. Walter Roth’s published output from 1908 carried on that tradition.

The Arawak, Carib and Warau languages belong to distinct language families, each governed by different linguistic rules (Bulkan 2009). What these first citizens of Guyana share, however, is membership of what the anthropologist Julian Steward (1948) would later classify as the Amazonian tropical forest culture area in which largely similar social organization, material culture, and systems of kinship and beliefs were encoded in mutually incomprehensible languages. Steward’s classificatory system followed on the organizing framework developed by Walter Roth.

Animism and Folklore The title of his compendium makes clear that Roth ranked indigenous belief systems as inferior to those of the Indo-European world, and his prejudices are evident in the text. Animism – the belief that non-humans, including animals and even natural phenomena possess souls – was viewed as primitive, lesser, by Roth. Indigenous spirituality is contrasted unfavourably with the monotheism of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The view that indigenous spirituality was rudimentary and unsophisticated – ‘folklore’paralleled the evolutionContinued on page VIII ist beliefs that ranked

VI

Everyone Likes White Teeth

Everyone likes white teeth. I had my own whitened in Miami, Florida, six weeks ago.

Of the three major options for whitening, in-office whitening is probably the quickest.

Benefits appear in a short period of time. In-office whitening involves a very careful use of high-concentration peroxide gel, which the dentist applies to the patient’s teeth after protecting the gums with a painted-on layer referred to as “paint-on rubber dam.” The dentist has to protect patients’ gums completely in order to make sure that the high-concentration gel does not touch any soft tissue.

The gel has to be placed every fifteen minutes and a light cure light applied with special equipment. Every fifteen minutes makes the teeth a shade lighter.

The patient generally pays for how many shades whiter they want their teeth to end up. I do not recommend more than four shades at a single session. After that, the dentist provides follow-up instructions and a bleaching kit for the patient to use at home, so that the patient can continue bleaching safely at home for the next seven days, if he or she wishes, following the in-office whitening.

The visual effect of the process is very rapid and dramatic. It is possible to change the shade of the teeth from almost two to nine shades in the office.

Patients who have sensitive teeth should undergo a treatment plan of desensitising their teeth before receiving whitening. If not, there may be discomfort such as intermittent shocking pain afterwards. It is very common for a patient who comes with worn-down or cracked teeth to have issues with hot and cold sensitivity, since he or she will likely have more exposed nerve endings in the dentin. In such cases, I would give the patient a desensitising gel to use for ten days before whitening, thereby offsetting that sensitivity both during and after whitening. If not, while it is temporary, the sensitivity which manifests as flashes of spontaneous hot, shooting pain on the teeth, can be quite uncomfortable.

Patients who have just had bleaching done in-office should be told to refrain from consuming certain kinds of foods and drink because the process has just opened up all the teeth’s enamel rods, cleaned them up, and bleached them, so they are very easy to fill up again. For example, the worst thing a person can do after whitening his or her teeth is to drink a glass of red wine. An individual who has just whitened his or her teeth has to be very careful to stay away from any food or drink that is coloured for at least a couple of weeks so that the enamel rods do not absorb that stain.

Over a period of time, the individual’s saliva and fluoride in the toothpaste he or she uses will remineralise the enamel and seal the teeth off so those rods are no longer open and ready to accept all stains that quickly. Ten to fourteen days after the bleaching the person can go back to eating normally. However, he or she has to understand that diet was the root cause of the staining. Therefore, the more he or she continues to consume coloured foods such as black coffee, coca-cola, etc., the quicker he or she will need maintenance and touchups.

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

This Swinger's Marriage Is Hanging By a Thread

One Of Many

My wife and I joined a swingers club in our area and have been going there regularly.

I find it difficult because I wouldn't consider having sex with anyone there. My wife says, "Sex is just sex." She says she loves me and to remember I am the one she goes home with.

We originally started swinging where we had our own rules, but after researching swingers it became obvious that most swingers have no rules.

At this club there is one man who goes after all the women. He and his wife have been swingers for many years. My wife shows interest in him and wants to be alone with him. I do not want that.

I don't understand "sex is just sex." I don't want to stop my wife from having fun, yet I do not want her to be alone with any other man. I want to be there. Not to watch but to be a part of it. My stomach turns into knots every time I think of her being alone with some guy.

What would hurt most would be if she told me he was the best ever. Even if she told me she loved me it would still hurt. I am confused about my feelings. Can you provide any insight?

Howard Howard, if you don't accept that sex is just sex, you are not a swinger. Happily married people are just like you. They don't get swinging. Not only do they have the idea this is my person to the exclusion of all others, they have the reciprocal of that. Someone cares about me above all others.

Your wife is the swinger. She's dragged you down this path and put your marriage at risk. You feel jealousy, self-loathing and disgust, and your feelings about her and the marriage are changing. There's no compromise between she wants to have sex with others and you would rather she didn't.

That's the usual case with swingers. One party wants it while the other clearly does not.

You are stuck between "if I don't go along she will leave me" and "if I do go along she could meet someone she would rather be with." Usually the good person is destroyed by swinging, their self-esteem and sense of self ripped apart.

People are meant to be monogamous. Two is the perfect number. Add a third and the two will gang up against the one. If we weren't made to be monogamous, when she goes off with another man you would feel great.

Without love and commitment to one person, sex never gets to love. Like drugs, it is a mindless pursuit of something which doesn't get to the ultimate. Swingers are a micro-section of unusual, uncommon sexual practices. Whatever problem, aberration or personality defect motivates your wife, you don't share it.

You are trying to give meaning to what is happening, and she is saying there is no meaning. We know you love her, because you want to give her what she wants. But what she wants destroys your relationship. If you ever wished for this, you realize now you didn't understand what it means.

Sex is not something to be taken lightly. It is not like anything else. Misapplied it is rape, incest, child molestation, prostitution and human trafficking.

Sometimes you have to take a thing out of one context and apply it to another before you understand it. Would you be happy if your daughter did this? Do you admire basketball player Wilt Chamberlain, who is supposed to have had sex with over 20,000 women, or do you wonder what was so lacking in him that he would do this?

At the end of your life do you want to be with a woman you love and who loves you, or do you want to be with a woman like your wife?

Wayne & Tamara

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

Appellate Court dismisses rape conviction of lad

Y

O U THFUL appell a n t Kowshal Persaud was convicted by a jury of stripping a 15-year old girl naked on a Essequibo beach and then raping her on Christmas Day 1973.

But on appeal, the Guyana Court of Appeal allowed the appeal after finding that the independent evidence before the jury was not so strong, cogent, convincing or overwhelming as to satisfy one that, if an impeccable direction had been given, a reasonable jury would inevitably have reached the same conclusion.

The Appellate Court in its judgment, supporting that the appeal be allowed, had referred to 28 cases.

The prosecution’s case was that the 15-year-old girl complained that on Christmas Day 1973, she was violently sexually assaulted by the appellant on a beach on the Essequibo Coast, and that in the course of the ensuing struggle she bit his lips and scratched his neck as he stripped her naked and threatened to murder her should she shout.

Intercourse was however disturbed by the voices of men approaching and the victim thus managed her escape. She was later assisted by a man who gave her a shirt to cover her nakedness and by a woman who gave her a half-slip to wear.

On December 30 the appellant was contacted at home where the police questioned him and took him to a doctor who issued a medical certificate after examining him and showing there were partially healed abrasions to the neck and on both upper and lower lips. The certificate

ran off. At the assizes, the appellant was charged with and convicted of the offence of having carnal knowledge of the girl without her consent, and the jury was directed that in this case corroboration of the complainant’s story did not matter because the appellant had supplied the

However, the trial judge did not warn them, as he ought to have done, of the danger of accepting the uncorroborated testimony of the complainant as to consent, but left the matter simply for them to determine whether they believed her that she did not consent or the accused that she did consent.

On appeal Chancellor E. V. Luckhoo, President of the Court held:

said the abrasions were consistent with finger-nail scratches and human bites.

The appellant explained that he and the complainant were friendly before Christmas Day and that she had agreed to have sexual intercourse with him on the beach where they both stripped and were in the act, when voices were heard. He became afraid, picked up his clothing and

necessary corroborative evidence by admitting sexual intercourse with the complainant, and that the only question for them to consider was whether there was consent to the intercourse.

If however, the girl had originally agreed to intercourse but changed her mind and told him so and he persisted with the act, then that was rape.

(1) “In the circumstances of this case where the jury was being invited specifically to consider whether the virtual complainant (VC) might have consented originally and then changed her mind, the further question should have been specifically put, viz. whether the accused might not have honestly considered that the original consent still subsisted. An omission to do so would be a very serious misdirection.”

Justices of Appeal Guya Persaud and J. O. F. Haynes held: (2) “The trial judge fell into very grave error.

The question of corroboration still mattered importantly. The jury should have been warned that in the eye of the common law it was considered dangerous to convict on the uncorroborated evidence of a VC that she did not consent, that they ought not to accept and act upon such evidence, but that if after paying full attention to the warning that they were satisfied of the truth of her evidence of the absence of consent, then they may legally convict.”

(3) J. O. F Haynes: “From the directions as worded, the jury was left, or might have been left, with the understanding that, as the appellant had admitted intercourse, there was no danger or risk in convicting on her evidence alone that she did not consent; that they could approach that aspect merely as a question of the VC’s belief of or the accused without observing the necessary rule of prudence or without approaching the evidence with the special caution the common law demanded, and that there was no real need to look for corroboration of the material facts bearing on the

VII

By George Barclay

absence of consent before accepting the evidence of the V C.” (4) “The judge did not invite the jury to consider whether the injuries to the appellant‘s lips and neck which, according to the medical report, could have been caused by a woman’s bite or scratch, could indeed have amounted to corroboration when such evidence was so capable.

Also to find whether the appellant’s false explanation of his injuries to the police was capable of amounting to corroboration of the complainant’s testimony.

(5) “The appeal must be allowed because the independent evidence to the jury was not so strong or so cogent or so convincing or so overwhelming as to satisfy one that if an impeccable direction had been given, a reasonable jury would inevitably have reached the same conclusion.”

The judgment of the court was that the appeal be allowed and the conviction and sentence set aside.

VIII

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

A Fisherman’s Tale

From page II

just a boy and it had eluded grown men over the decades.

To try to catch that fish, his father had warned was flirting with danger, but Rajiv had a vow in his heart he had to fulfill and he hoped and prayed that something, somewhere, somehow would help him.

Months rolled into a new year and his body had grown a little taller, a little stronger. The night before his sister’s nineteenth birthday, he had kissed her ‘goodnight’ hoping that in the morn he could give to her a gift of something very special.

That night, the sea was once again wild and restless and the fishermen struggled to pull in their catches. A storm was brewing and as the waves, lashed against the boat, the silver fish flew out from the water, flying over Rajiv’s boat and disappearing in the sea.

Rajiv so excited at seeing that amazing spectacle did not heed his father’s warning as a huge wave bore down on them and he was knocked into the raging sea. He went down, then surfaced, but was pulled down again and that was when he saw the silver fish, trapped in the net of another boat.

Rajiv struggled with all the strength in his young body to get back to his boat and grabbing his knife, he dived back into the water, much to his father’s dismay. He swam, towards the boat that was already pulling up their net and Rajiv knew if he couldn’t get there in time, to cut free the fish his chances of a wish for his sister to walk again would be gone.

The sea would not let him, the strength draining from his arms and as he started to sink, his sister’s beautiful face and a smile that was always on her lips flashed before his eyes, putting new strength in his arms and kicking to the surface, he breathed in deeply before diving again.

The boat’s net was just a few inches from being pulled up, when Rajiv with every little ounce of strength left in him reached and grabbing the net, cut the fish loose. He made his wish with the little air that was left in his body before slowly sinking to the bottom.

There was the sound of music coming from somewhere far as his eyes opened. He laid still for a moment, not sure

where he was, not knowing if he was alive. The music was now closer and he stood up, a little unsteady, wondering what was happening. No one was around and he walked slowly down the steps to an open door where from within came the soft sound of music.

What he saw hit him like a storm on the high seas but it was a storm that filled his heart with happiness, bringing tears to his eyes. His sister was standing in the middle of the room in a baby pink dress, her hair tied by a ribbon as she practiced little dance steps.

“Priyanka!” He called her name.

She turned and ran to him, hugging him as their mother and father entered and they all embraced, a family whose hearts were now filled with joy. A brother had risked his life to make a dream come through for his sister for he had allowed his heart to believe in the magic of the silver flying fish.

In the darkest of the nights when the seas is at its wildest, the silver flying fish can still be seen – a vision to behold.

Reparation and Empowerment

From page III

THE ANIMISM AND FOLKLORE

From page V

DH: Yes. Self-sufficiency and self-reliance has always been the bedrock of the ideology pushing Black Nationalism and Black Liberation. Like I said, we have moved away slightly from that but somehow we are beginning to gain some traction here and in the Caribbean and in the rest of the African Diaspora in saying to African people that governments are important, the larger institutions of society are important but it is only you in your collective effort can draw attention to your situation and thereby can begin to do something to repair it, once you begin to do something to repair it, then you begin to put pressure on those who in authority. They will say these people are not only

peoples and cultures – with Europeans at the apex, and non-Europeans in descending order. The system of ranking, in turn, provided justification for European conquest of the non-Chris-

tian, primitive peoples of the rest of the world whose bodies and social organization stood in the way of possession. The belief in those reigning orthodoxies in the fin-de-siecle imperial world

crying out but they are also making steps, taking steps on their own like their ancestors who did not wait on the white abolitionist movements (they were black abolitionist movements too at the time of slavery, they did not wait for the abolitionists to come, in fact, the black abolitionist movements were joined by the while abolitionist movements.)

However, there is this notion that you cannot solve all the problems because a lot of your problems are structural and they need structure and policy approaches.

But you can begin to make small contributions – you can begin to talk about discipline, you can begin to talk about education, you can do something about education, you

was broadly shared by the ruling classes and schools of intellectual thought.

As noted earlier, Protector Roth also chronicled folklore in the Pomeroon, as in Queensland, Australia, as

artifacts of a dying people, lately assigned to reservations.

In recent decades, these so-called myths and folklore are being reinterpreted as sophisticated metaphysical systems of belief that take their place in stature alongside those of Western philosophy. As the Brazilian anthropologist, Viveiros de Castro, explains: “Now, everything has changed. The savages are no longer ethnocentric but rather cosmocentric; instead of having to prove that they are humans because they distinguish themselves from animals, we now have to recognise how inhuman we are for opposing humans to animals in a way they never did: for them nature and culture are part of the same socio-cosmic field. Not only would Amerindians put a wide berth between themselves and the Great Cartesian Divide which separated humanity from animality, but their views anticipate the fundamental lessons of

can begin to talk how you should not spend more than you earn, you can begin to talk how to can make what you earn work for you and your family and your wider community. Those are some of the things you can begin to do, you don’t have to wait on somebody to come and tell you these things.

PP: Let’s go back to this lull you mentioned – can you pinpoint where and when this disconnect started? (to be continued) Responses to this author telephone (592) 226-0065 or email: oraltradition2002@y

ecology which we are only now in a position to assimilate. Neo-animism reveals itself as the recognition of the universal admixture of subjects and objects, humans and non-humans against modern hubris” (2000:475).

We can read the narratives that Protector Roth so carefully compiled on different levels- firstly, as a window into the fascinating neo-tropical world with its endemic profusion of plant and animal life forms. We, too, like the European explorers and naturalists, can immerse ourselves into this biodiversity through the medium of these stories. Secondly, we can also marvel at this glimpse into the sophisticated cosmology and complex world views of Guyana’s first peoples, even while recognizing that the narratives, stripped from their social context and translated into English, have lost much of their meaning. We can reflect on

the ways in which knowledge and instruction about what it is to be human are passed down through the tales – precepts and wisdom and information all encoded in a vast linguistic tapestry. Sadly, only a fraction of indigenous peoples today continue to speak their languages, while the landscapes and the ways of living have changed.

But Walter Roth’s labours of love endure in his many publications, which in turn can aid us all in our creation of the imagined community of Guyana. The complex cosmology recorded in An Inquiry into the Animism and Folklore is the patrimony of Guyana’s indigenous peoples. But every reader can share in the imaginative exploration of Amerindian spirituality and symbolism set down in these accounts.

For this and for his many other original works and translations into English, we owe thanks to Protector Roth.

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

IX

Moving up the ladder M

By Neil Primus

organ was eager to get promotion in the Bauxite Company. He had seen a number of his colleagues get promotion before him. This caused him to become jealous and angry. He intended to get promotion to foreman one way or the other.

At age 47, he had worked for the company for 24 years.

During this time men who had been employed after him were given promotion. Somehow they seemed to always overlook him. He intended to do something about it.

Only last week his friend Brent had been promoted.

Morgan invited him out for a drink and asked him about his recent elevation.

“Brent is how you get promoted so fast boy. Like you and management real alright.”

“Na Morgan, I had fo do me own thing to get through.”

“Own thing?”

“Yeah boy I had fo get some outside help.”

“How you mean Brent?”

Brent hesitated and looked furtively around to ensure that they were not being overheard. He dropped his voice and continued.

“I had fo invoke a sprint to get promoted.”

Morgan was dumbfounded.

“Yo mean yo get jumbie fo help?”

“Yes, but it expensive.”

Morgan left for home cold sober even though he had consumed a large quantity of alcohol. He had a restless night and by the next morning he was certain of his next move.

Morgan called Brent on the phone and enquired about the invoking of a spirit.

“You have to contact Mr. Austin. He does do it.”

“Thanks Brent.”

Morgan called Mr. Austin and told him what he wanted.

The man told him to buy a large bottle of Russian Bear Rum, two glasses and walk with ten thousand dollars. The next morning Morgan, Mr. Austin and an old lady went into the cemetery to choose and mark a tomb. Later that night they would return and invoke the spirit. They chose a grave and placed the rum and glasses on the grave. The party went away. All Morgan had to do was walk with two friends that night.

Later that day the cleaner in the cemetery came upon the rum and glasses. Smiling with glee he attacked the liquor with gusto. He proceeded to drink and work. As he moved from grave to grave he got drunker and drunker.

When he was totally wasted he put the rum-half bottle-and the glasses on the nearest grave and stagger out of the graveyard.

Morgan decided to ask his best friend Patrick and his girlfriend Wendy. Both were frightened at the request but curiosity got the best of them. They met Mr. Austin and his assistant at the entrance to the cemetery. They entered the burial ground

at 12 midnight sharp.

To their surprise it took quite a while to find the rum and glasses. Mr. Austin felt that it was a different grave but Morgan was adamant it was the same. Nothing was going to keep him from moving up. Morgan reasoned that the missing rum could mean that the spirit was pleased and had taken a drink.

They decided to get down to business.

Mr. Austin had chosen the grave of a man who had been successfully promoted until reaching the rank of senior manager. Unfortunately the grave they were assembled at belonged to a thief, bandit and a real bad man. The ceremony began.

A deep circle was carved out in the ground around the tomb. Everyone was instructed to remain in the circle until the spirit came out and returned to the grave. They all agreed.

They held hands while Mr. Austin did his strange chants.

Suddenly the breeze picked up and it got colder. Then from deep within the grave there was a low rumble.

“Aaaaaahhh!”

apparent that all was not okay. With a roar of anger the Jumbie decided to punish them for their transgression.

“Pow!” “Ply!” “Bam!” “Wax!” Slap, cuff, butt and kick start sharing out in full measure.

Morgan’s girlfriend feinted on the tomb. His friend curled up in a foetal position and took his blows. De old lady helping Mr. Austin sit down on the ground and cry each time she got hit. Mr. Austin started to apologise. He realised that it was the wrong jumbie; not only that, he knew they were in big trouble if he couldn’t get the spirit back into the grave quickly.

Morgan forgot about ambition and promotion. He let go of the two hands holding him and ran for his life, jumping from grave to grave. Whenever he jumped on a grave he received a blow.

“AH!”

Morgan almost fainted in fright. He clung to the hands of his girlfriend on his right and his best friend on his lift. He was so confused that he did not realise they were as scared as he was.

“Who de hell disturbing my sleep!”

The hands holding each other around the grave were getting slippery with perspiration from fear.

“We need your help friend.”

Mr. Austin was communicating with the spirit. It was soon

“Ow!” “Oh Gawd!”

He disappeared in the darkness moving in the wrong direction; away from the entrance.

Mr. Austin used all his knowledge and experience to persuade the jumbie to go back to sleep then the party departed the cemetery sore from a good licking.

As for Morgan, they found his body in the back of the cemetery. He had been beaten to death.

X

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

(A look at some of the stories that made the news ‘back-in-the-day’ with CLIFFORD STANLEY)

GUYANA ‘S POPULATION GOES UP BY 2.9 PER CENT (Guyana Graphic November 9, 1968)

Guyana’s population increase is now estimated at 2.9 per cent per annum and the life expectancy for males is 59 and for females 63 years.

A progressive increase in the birth rate ( estimated to be 37.9 per 1000) as of July 1968 has been noted the Ministry of Health reported Thursday.

As a result of this there has been a marked rise in the natural increase in the population .

The marked rise in the population was occasioned by the progressive rise in the birth rate and paralleled by a decline in the crude death rate (7.7 as of July 1968) as well as the infant mortality rate the figures for which `stood at 41.3 per 1000 in 1968.

PONY CLUB MOUNTED SHOW (Advertisement) (Guyana Graphic November 8, 1968)

All roads lead to the barbecue and mounted show today from 8.00P.M. at the Pony Club Grounds off the Sea Wall.

Music by the Young Ones, Price $3.50 barbecue served from 8.00 to 11 p.m.

7-UP first against thirst; you like it… it likes you.

SON WHO PELTED HIS BLIND FATHER (Guyana Graphic November 9, 1968)

A young who stoned his blind father was severely reprimanded by Magistrate Roopan Singh and told not to do such an unkind act again or he would be dealt with severely by the court.

Winston Barclay appeared before the magistrate charged with assaulting his father Richard Curtis.

He was dismissed after the father asked the Magistrate to be lenient with his son.

WHAT THE LAW SAYS ABOUT RECEIPTS (Guyana Graphic November 14, 1968)

The law says that he who does not have a receipt must pay twice- Magistrate Hugh Hanoman told a West Canje farmer on Tuesday.

The farmer Theodore Alexander who claimed that he had paid his land rent but had not got receipts from his landlady Doris St Clair of Sandvoort Village was ordered to pay $92.40 representing rent for the year 1965 to 1967.

HIS 26TH PINT OF BLOOD (Guyana Graphic November 16, 1968)

A Central Blood Bank Official, commenting on the wonderful effort of a radio station official who has made a contribution of 26 pints of blood in Guyana and other countries declared: ”The Guyanese public must become aware of the necessity to save lives by donating their pints of blood to the Central Blood Bank at least once a year.”

Dr. Singh emphasized this yesterday while expressing gratitude to Mr. Eric Saul 59, Manager of the Guyana Broadcasting Company shortly after he had completed donating his 26th pint of blood.

Pointing out that Mr. Saul had donated 16 pints of blood in other countries and 10 pints in Guyana Dr. Singh said: ”I regard the donation of 26 pints of blood over a period of years as a wonderful effort.”

“This is an example which should be emulated,” he added.

The Senior Government Bacteriologist and Pathologist who made the comments in the presence of the Technologist staff , said that Mr. Saul’s interest in the activities of the Central Blood Bank, was further demonstrated by his cooperation in making available the studios of the broadcasting station for blood collection from members of his staff and the public.

Dr. Singh said that the demand for blood at the Georgetown Hospital had been increasing daily but contributions by donors had not been keeping pace with the demands.

THE POLICE BAND GOES “ROCK STEADY” (Guyana Graphic November 16, 1968)

Three “Rock Steady” songs: “Nice Time”, “Hai-te-tai-te” and “Ride you donkey” will be played by the Guyana Police Force Band at this afternoon’s Sea Wall concert.

The Band will also play the Hungarian March “Rakoczy” excerpts from “Half a Sixpence”, the selection “Fiddler on the Roof” by Bock and “Waltzes of Richard Rogers” arranged

by Sharpe.

Supt. P.G. Small Bandmaster will be in charge of the concert program.

MACKENZIE HIGHWAY TO BE OPENED ON SATURDAY (Guyana Graphic December 2, 1968)

Work on the $17 million dollar Atkinson-Mackenzie highway was begun on August 6, 1966 under contract with B B McCormick and Sons,.

It was the largest single contract ever signed by a Government of Guyana.

The opening of the highway on Saturday December 7, 1968 will bring the mining town of Mackenzie within two hours drive of the capital of Georgetown.

The highway passes through some 20,000 acres of agricultural land and will help hasten further social and economic advance in the area and the country as a whole.

Financed primarily by a $15 million “soft” loan from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) the highway is planned to link eventually with other roads leading to Lethem, Ituni Kwakwani and Rockstone.

Feasibility studies of roads from Mackenzie to Rockstone, Ituni and Kwakwani have been financed by the USAID.

THREE GROOMS IN A HORSE BOX (Guyana Graphic November 23, 1968)

Three grooms: Pertab, Polly Dipnarine and Harold Dipnarine travelled in the horse box from Rosignol to Georgetown on October 23.

When the train reached the Georgetown Railway Station and the guard approached them for their tickets they were found to have none.

The Police were therefore called in and they were charged.

Yesterday they were reprimanded and discharged and warned to travel with humans in the future

ATKINSONMACKENZIE FLIGHTS DISCONTINUED (Guyana Graphic December 11, 1968)

The Guyana Airways Corporation scheduled sir service between Atkinson field and Mackenzie will be discontinued from today, it has been announced.

A spokesman for the corporation said that with the 45 mile Atkinson-Mackenzie highway now being opened to the public, it was felt desirable to withdraw scheduled flights between the two points.

However charter flights are not affected by the decision it was stated.

Regular air flights to Mackenzie began shortly after the second World War when Mackenzie was then the only civil airport and air flights to Guyana landed there and passengers were ferried to the city by Grumman planes which used both Mackenzie airport and the Demerara River off the Ruimveld Ramp.

Later the Grumman plane operated from Atkinson Field to Mackenzie .

Of more recent times the DC-3 and the Twin Otter did the run. ( END).

Clifford Stanley can be reached to discuss any of the foregoing articles at cliffantony@gmail.com or cell phone # 657 2043.

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

XI

Guyanese Women in History: Join the Bombshell Revolution with Guyanese Girl Abiola Abrams!

Lifestyle Journalist and DARE author, Abiola Abrams, has released her second book; an enlightening advice guide that helps women to create positive breakthroughs. The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love is your passport to become the woman you were born to be. If you’ve been looking for a sign, this is it. In this new book, the Love-Body-Spirit™ coach, advice columnist, and motivational speaker reveals 11 self-worth secrets with assignments to awaken your feminine energy, reclaiming the word “bombshell” to mean a woman who deliciously embodies her mind, body, spirit – and joy.

Abiola’s transformational coaching is buoyed by her Guyanese family lessons and overcoming personal challenges from disordered eating to a “failed”

marriage. If you have everything going for you, except what you really want, this journey is for you. Self-love is sacred. Being empowered is your “femergetic” birthright.

Consider this your playbook to activate your Big, Brave, Brazen, Bombshell Breakthrough Life! Sacred Bombshell readers will learn: Why nothing matters more than you feeling good; When to activate your sacred “blisspower” and “blissipline;” How to use your super powers to overcome any challenge; The Bombshell Breakthrough Blueprint; When activating intuition makes you powerful beyond measure; How to make beauty a spiritual practice; Why being “full of yourself” conquers your Inner Bully, and so much more… Sacred Bombshell “Secrets”: The 11 Sacred Bombshell

Principles of Self-Love 1. The Sacred Secret of Creativity. 2. The Secret of “Self-Being.” 3. The Sacred Secret of Receptivity. 4. The Sacred Secret of Emotions. 5. The Sacred Secret of Self-Adoration. 6. The Sacred Secret of Fullness. 7. The Sacred Secret of Authenticity. 8. The Sacred Secret of Nizhoni, Beauty as a Spiritual Practice.

9. The Sacred Bombshell Secret of Releasing. 10. The Sacred Bombshell Secret of Abundance. 11. The Sacred Bombshell Secret of Ubuntu, Abundance.

The Kindle Edition and Paperback of The Sacred Bombshell Handbook of Self-Love is currently available at Amazon.com. You can also subscribe to www.abiolatv. com and join Abiola in this self-love journey.

XII

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

When Ranveer Singh embarrassed Deepika Padukone in front of Ranbir Kapoor…

Ranveer visited the sets of her ladylove’s upcoming film, Tamasha opposite Ranbir Kapoor, but this visit didn’t go down too well, we hear As is well known, Ranveer Singh had recently flown to Corsica to spend some quality time with ladylove Deepika Padukone who was there, shooting Imtiaz Ali’s Tamasha with her ex-beau Ranbir Kapoor. From what we hear, Ranveer had even dropped in on the sets to side with Deepika but the visit did not go down too well, it seems.

According to a report in a tabloid, Ranveer sat at the monitor whenever Deepika faced the camera.

As soon as Imtiaz would call ‘Cut’, he would offer his suggestions to the director. That’s not all. He cheered for Deepika after every shot and then went on to give his inputs on how to improve it.

Naturally, Imtiaz was completely baffled by Ranveer’s behaviour, while Dippy seemed embarrassed. As for Ranbir, we don’t know what was his reaction. But it sure would be amusing to know, what they say?

Heli Daruwala: I am tired of playing negative roles The actor talks about her co-stars, her closest friends on the sets, the shift from negative to positive roles, working with Varun Badola and more We caught up with Heli Daruwala for an exclusive chat to know more about her and her new show Nisha Aur Uske Cousins. Heli is intelligent and has a degree to prove it. It came as a surprise to us when the actor said that she is a certified dentist before being an actor. Guess the passion for acting drew her to the screen. Read excerpts from the interview…

Salman Khan goes shirtless for Prem Ratan Dhan Payo!

The Dabangg Khan is ready to show off his body yet again in Sooraj Barjatya’s upcoming film Salman Khan’s legion of fans went crazy after watching Kick. However, some of the true blue fans of the Dabangg Khan were disappointed because not a single scene in the Sajid Nadiadwala directorial had him bare chested as is customary for the actor. However, it looks like Salman has decided not to disappoint his fans again for he will be seen in his shirtless avatar in Sooraj Barjatya’s upcoming film, Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.

Yes, in an exclusive interview with BollywoodLife, the Wanted Khan revealed that he will be bare chested in PRDP, which stars Sonam Kapoor as the female lead. The actor said, “I was training very hard for Kick. The advantage of Kick was that as soon as I finished the climax of Jai Ho, I dived straight into this film and it got over in three and a half to four months.

As soon as I left the training, I realised Prem Ratan Dhan Payo has the same kind of fitness level, it has me bare chested, I am doing some sword fencing, so I just got a two week break and now am back on to that training again.”

Be it Maine Pyaar Kiya or Hum Saath Saath Hai, Salman has showed off his body in most of Sooraj Barjatya films. And it looks like he wants to keep this trend alive.

Plus we will also get to see Salman doing sword fencing in the film, which will indeed be like a double treat for all his fans, hai!

From Humse Hai Life to Nisha Aur Uske Cousins – How has your journey been?

Actually, I started working with the show Love U Zindagi on star Plus. Post which, I did Humse Hai Life and then Suvreen Guggal on Channel V. Now I’m back on Star Plus with Nisha Aur Uske Cousins. I wanted to switch from a negative to a positive role – so I was looking for something specific; luckily I found that in this show.

What is wrong with playing a negative lead? After all, you did a brilliant job in Suvreen Guggal.

I have been playing negative characters for three years.

Besides Suvreen Guggal, I was playing the antagonist even in Humse Hai Life. I was tired of it, so I tried something else.

So how did you bag a role in Nisha Aur Uske Cousins?

I was called for an audition, by the creative head. She took my audition and I was selected.

Why did you choose to be an actor after studying medicine for so long?

Actually, since childhood I’ve wanted to be both. I wanted to be a doctor and an actor. Of course, being a dentist was not on the agenda, but I couldn’t clear my MBBS and instead, I got through BDS. So I thought I’ll first finish my studies and then give acting a try.

After studying for so many years, you completely left the medical field. Don’t you think it was a waste of time, energy and money?

Knowledge never goes waste; it is always there with me.

I am sure it will help me in the future also. I still keep in touch with my medical field.

How different or similar is Heli to Kirti?

When it comes to fashion, yes I follow it. But I do not have any hard and fast rules that I will wear only branded clothes. Yes, I love dressing up and shopping; so that way I am very similar to Kirti. However, I am too particular about trends; I will wear something that I am comfortable in.

So among the six cousins, who are you closest to off screen?

I think off screen I am closer to Aneri Vajani (Nisha) and Meherzaan (Umesh).

So tell us how is Aneri Vajani off screen?

Aneri has a lot of energy in her. Even after pack-up she is buzzed about going out, or partying, shopping or just hanging out. She has way too much of energy in her.

The show is called Nisha Aur Uske Cousins.

Do you feel sidelined considering Aneri is getting all the attention?

No, not at all. The show is about all seven of us and Nisha is like the peacemaker. There has to be somebody who will bring them all together, no?

So who are not close to you among the six?

I think Bunty; he was not shooting much with us in the beginning, but now we are all together. He is a very cute kid and has a lot of masti in him.

So who’s the prankster in the group?

I think Bunty is the one.

What’s your take on Varun Badola – the part time director of the show?

Varun is extremely sweet, supportive and very patient with all of us. In every shot, we all make two to three mistakes, but he is so calm and composed. He is such a great actor – I have seen his Koshish as a kid. I feel nervous sometimes at time ‘coz he is so fabulous.

How is your equation with Vivek Mushraan?

He is extremely sweet and talented. He teaches us if we go wrong.

So what do you do when you are not shooting?

Nowadays, we don’t get the time to do anything, but whenever we are not shooting we are out. Aneri loves pasta, so she drags all of us. We’ve tried almost all the pasta joints in Mumbai. So either we are eating or partying or I’m shopping

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THE RICHEST ACTRESS IN NOLLY WOOD When the industry started years back many folks did not take it serious. But what was seen as a joke has now turned out to be the jewel that is driving Nigeria and the entire Africa to find their footage in the world. Within the past twenty years the make believe industry called nollywood has helped to define and sell Nigeria afresh to the world.

Nollywood has provided thousands of jobs for citizens and non-citizens alike and have made many rich. Nollywood is indeed a testimony that Nigeria and Africa should not be written off.

The industry has given the entire nation a face, a real identity and now the rest of the world has no choice but to take Nigeria a little bit serious. As the industry continues to gain momentum and worldwide recognition, there are some actresses who have paid the price and at the same time have become famous, powerful and forces to reckon with in the society.

We can conclude that they are shining, rising, reigning and recognized. Even in the mist of the African dilemma ''failure'' their lifestyle have revealed glamour and glitz. Although they are far from being perfect, they have indeed persevered. From the beginning the actresses had shown passion for what they had set out their hearts to do and become. Today they have become inspiration to the new generation in Nigeria and Africa.

They are elegant, sizzling, bold and beautiful. They are the sum total of the African woman. What has separated the best from the rest and the leaders from the less is nothing but business inventory and diversity, creativity and learning about surrounding opportunities. I am hereby delighted to present to you the richest and most powerful actresses in nollywood at the moment. Compared to their counterparts in Bollywood and Hollywood, the actresses may be nowhere, but the truth of the matter is that they are heading somewhere greater.

2ND RICHEST ACTRESS UCHE JOMBO N127 million Everyone knows her friends, desmondelliot, iniedo, monalisachinda, emenisong. Uchejombo is an actress, a producer and a business woman. Her determination and desire to bring quality picture to nollywood movies cannot be over emphasized. By the end of 2010 uchejombo pocketed about N50 million from endorsement and earnings from movies alone.

Her investments revolve around real estate, movie production and marketing, import and export. Uche took the bold step few years ago when she became the first full time actress cum producer in nollywood. That move has paid off and has completely put her at the top. Many of her colleagues have since followed her steps.

From the face of Nokia to Globacom and now Arik Air, ritadominique has re-invented herself to become one of the most powerful actresses of all times in nollywood. She is at the moment producing her own movie that would be released in the cinema by 2012.

GENEVIEVE NNAJI N96 million More than a decade long, genevieve is even better and bigger. Her ability to maintain communication with her diehard fans keeps the brand ''Genevieve'' stronger, competitive, and almost unbeatable even in this new era of revolving nollywood. Over the years, genny has remained the most powerful and respected actress in nollywood. Less than a month ago she received a national honor from the president.

Having started her fashion company ''St Genevieve'' some few years back, she is now testing the business world for different opportunities. Genevieve is also the highest earning nollywood actress in a single movie.

MONALISA CHINDA N92 million from Globacom to Carnirive and now Vita500 the south Korean energy drink. Like ini, genevieve, rita Dominique, monalisachinda's endorsement profile has continued to soar higher each and every passing year. She has never had it better in the industry than now. Her debut movie as a producer ''Kiss and Tell'' has been raking in millions for her. Monalisa has become investor wise and is investing her millions properly.

FUNKE AKINDELE N90 million She is probably in her best at the moment. The multi talented actress has become really successful in recent times.

Her cross over from Yoruba movies to English movies has also given her an edge. A business woman and real estate investor, funkeakindele has proved many critics wrong. Her latest movie ''The Return of Jenifa'' is expected to hit almost

N40 million by 2012.

KATE HENSHAW N80 million Her failed marriage has not changed her status as one of the biggest chicks in the industry. By 2008 kate was the richest actress in nollywood and has since remained strong in the industry. Her ability to invest variously in different projects has been working for her.

OMOTOLA JALADE EKEINDE N75 million

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Google helps build 'Faster' cable under Pacific Ocean Google and five other large companies are teaming up to build a cable under the Pacific Ocean that will deliver incredibly fast internet speeds.

The cable, dubbed Faster, will connect the US with Japan and cost about US$300m. The trans-Pacific fibre cable would deliver speeds of 60 terabytes per second - enough to send

to a malicious website that asks them to watch a tutorial video about how to change the colour of their profile page. By agreeing to watch the video, the users give hackers access to their profiles, letting the app spam their friends.

If the user doesn't watch the video, the app will lead PC users to download a pornography video player and smartphone users to download an antivirus app. Both are infected with malware.

The good news is the bad app is pretty easy to get rid ofjust remove the colour changer app from the Facebook app settings page. I would also advise affected users to change their passwords.

Intel unveils new Broadwell chips for lighter, cooler laptops

more than 2,000 uncompressed HD films in a second. The cable will be operational by 2016.

Faster is one of a few hundred submarine telecommunications cables connecting various parts of the world. These cables collectively form an important infrastructure that helps run global internet and communications.

The Faster cable system has the largest design capacity ever built on the trans-Pacific route, which is one of the longest routes in the world.

Don’t change the colour of Facebook - it's a virus

An app claiming to change Facebook's colour palette is actually loading malware onto your smartphone or PC. A scam app claiming that it can change the colour of your Facebook profile page actually loads malware onto your smartphone or computer.More than 10,000 people around the world have been duped into downloading the malware so far.

Don’t do it!

When Facebook users click on the fake app, it sends them

Intel has unveiled a new line of microprocessors aimed at powering thinner and cooler personal computers and other devices.

The chip code-named Broadwell "will be used to manufacture a wide range of high-performance to low-power products including servers, personal computing devices and Internet of Things."

One of the advantages of the chip is its small form factor, allowing for PCs that may not need cooling fans which take up space and create noise.

It uses a 14-nanometer fabrication process that allows more circuits to be placed on the chip than its predecessors.

The combination of the new microarchitecture and manufacturing process will usher in a wave of innovation in new form factors, experiences and systems that are thinner and run silent and cool.

Intel remains the world's biggest producer of chips for personal computers but has been lagging in the surging mobile marketplace of tablets and smartphones.

It has been working to get a bigger slice of the mobile market, and its new chip offers a promise of lighter PCs that can better compete with.

Saying Goodbye to Windows 8

We’re starting to understand what’s next for Windows.

Considering the most recent leaks involving the Charms Bar, desktop improvements, and the like, it’s becoming plain that

some of what Windows 8 emphasized and introduced will be scaled back in Microsoft’s next Windows build.

Windows 9, often referred to as Threshold, isn’t too far away. There is talk of a beta late this year and of course a release in the first half of 2015, though those estimates I would hold as at least mildly optimistic.

If Windows 8 was a dramatic lurch towards mobile computing, especially on tablets, Windows 9 appears to be heading for a more equitable balance between desktop muscle, and mobile capability. That fits into the larger picture of the computing environment, where PCs are stabilizing after a dramatically difficult period, and tablet growth is cooling.

Windows 7 managed to get past Vista’s reputation. Perhaps Windows 9 can repeat the feat.

Samsung reveals Galaxy Alpha metal-framed smartphone

Samsung says a metal frame and curved corners give the Galaxy Alpha a "sophisticated" look Samsung has announced a new smartphone with a metal

frame that is smaller and thinner than its flagship model.

The South Korean company describes the Galaxy Alpha as representing a "new design approach".

The firm has previously been criticised for the plastic feel of its handsets at a time when other firms have opted to use materials marketed as having a "premium" feel.

Samsung Electronics saw a 20% year-on-year drop in its last quarter's profit.It blamed "slow global sales of smartphones".The company recently lost its status as China's bestselling smartphone-maker to Xiaomi, a local rival.

The company is expected to unveil the Galaxy Note 4, its latest large "phablet" handset, in Berlin on 3 September ahead of the start of the IFA tech show.

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An individual blood cell takes about 60 seconds to make a complete circuit of the body.

On the day that Alexander Graham Bell was buried the entire US telephone system was shut down for 1 minute in tribute.

The low frequency call of the humpback whale is the loudest noise made by a living creature.

A quarter of the world’s plants are threatened with extinction by the year 2010.

Each person sheds 40lbs of skin in his or her lifetime.

At 15 inches the eyes of giant squids are the largest on the planet.

The Universe contains over 100 billion galaxies.

Wounds infested with maggots heal quickly and without spread of gangrene or other infection.

More germs are transferred shaking hands than kissing.

The fastest speed a falling raindrop can hit you is 18mph.

It would take over an hour for a heavy object to sink 6.7 miles down to the deepest part of the ocean.

Around a million, billion neutrinos from the Sun will pass through your body while you read this sentence.

The deepest part of any ocean in the world is the Mariana trench in the Pacific with a depth of 35,797 feet.

Every hour the Universe expands by a billion miles in all directions.

Somewhere in the flicker of a badly tuned TV set is the background radiation from the Big Bang.

Even traveling at the speed of light it would take 2 million years to reach the nearest large galaxy, Andromeda.

A thimbleful of a neutron star would weigh over 100 million tons.

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SEAN CONNERY

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-Made James Bond a household name Thomas Sean Connery one of his more intelligent was born on August 25, moves.

No Road Back (1957) 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. His mother, was Sean's first major movEuphamia C. Maclean, ie role, and it followed by was a cleaning lady, and several Tv-movies such his father, Joseph Con- as Anna Christie (1957), nery, was a factory worker Macbeth (1961) and Anna and truck driver. He also Karenina (1961) and guest has a brother named Neil appearances on TV-series, Connery, who works as a plasterer in EdSean inburgh. Before going Connery into acting, Sean had many different jobs, such as a Milkman, lorry driver, a labourer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher and bodybuilder. He also joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged because of medical problems. At the age of 23, he had a choice between becoming a professional footballer or an actor, and even though he showed much promise in the sport, he chose acting and said it was

and also films such as Hell Drivers (1957), Another Time, Another Place (1958), Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959), The Frightened City (1961). In 1962 he appeared in The Longest Day (1962) with a host of other stars, His big breakthrough came in 1962 when he starred as secret agent James Bond in Dr No (1962). He played James Bond in six more films: From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Never Say Never Again (1983).

After and during the success of the Bond-films he maintained a successful career as an actor and has appeared in

films, including Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1987) (which earned him an Oscar for best actor in

a supporting role), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Rising Sun (1993), The Rock (1996), Finding Forrester (2000), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).

Sean married actress Diane Cilento in 1962 and they had a son, Jason Connery, born on January 11,

1963, he followed in his father's footsteps and also became an actor. The marriage ended in divorce in 1973. In 1975 he married Micheline Roquebrune and they have stayed married, they have no children together. He is also a grandfather. His son, Jason and his ex-wife, actress Mia Sara had a son, Dashiell Quinn Connery, in 1997.

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Auditions for local movie

“Upriver” to begin soon

The upcoming Guyanese movie, “Upriver” was officially launched at the opening of the inaugural Guyana Festival on Friday August 8, 2014. The movie which is currently in its pre-production will be released in 2015.

The Dramatic Arts Academy (DAA), the banner under which the movie will be produced, is extremely grateful to acting Minister of Tourism, Industry and Commerce, Irfaan Ali, for the opportunity afforded for the launch. Also, the DAA would like to thank Impressions for realising the booth.

Hundreds of patrons, both local and overseas, flocked the ‘Upriver’ tent and from

the feedback they were enthralled by the promotional video. They also lauded the noticeable different approach to local film making and commended the effort.

They clearly could not hide their excitement for the release of the movie.

President Donald Ramotar graced the tent and interacted with the staff. He also commended the effort and extended best wishes for its production.

Some 300 persons, local and foreign, from all ages and background took the opportunity to register for auditions which will be held soon in various parts of the country. Over 120 persons, including three foreign ac-

tors, will comprise the cast with ninety per cent of the film to be shot in the interior.

Online auditions would be facilitated shortly at www. uprivergy.com.

Written by Neaz Subhan, winner of the Best Playwright title for “When Chocolate Melts” in the 2013 National Drama festival, ‘Upriver’ with its captivating story-line, is set deep in the heart of Guyana’s forests and would present a thrilling and chilling rollercoaster ride through this vastness.

In addition to the entertaining adventure it will capture, ‘Upriver’ will present Guyana’s eco-tourism in a format that is captivating to an international audience.

Guyana’s natural beauty through its pristine forests, breathtaking and iconic waterfalls, rolling savannahs, majestic mountains and flora and fauna, has always been magnetic to those with cameras.

The numerous images captured have been mind-blowing and over the

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014 years have propelled unprecedented interest.

Film makers, especially, cannot resist this enticing attraction to enthusiastically present the astounding cuts to viewers around the world.

Documentaries produced by international film entities have proven this.

The marketing influence of films needs no convincing. It can propel Guyana to become a major international filming location with redounding economic opportunities. Guyana has the potential, both in its beauty and the talent of its people.

The DAA believes that the time is ripe for a major local film production worthy of international audiences and film festivals. ‘Upriver’ presents an opportunity for a few steps towards this. In this regard, the DAA is hopeful

that corporate Guyana can join in making this journey a reality while benefiting from strategic product and service placement.

Placement of products and services in movies is one of the most effective means of advertising. Many companies, big and small, fast food outlets, restaurants, beverage producers, banks, phone establishments, car dealers etc. have and continue to benefit tremendously from this.

‘Upriver’ provides an opportunity for local companies to explore and benefit from product and service placement. The world is now a global village waiting to learn about other products and support would not only assist in realising the movie, but would also enhance the awareness of products and services of companies.

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Soesdyke -An appealing haven characterised by lush, appealing greenery and contented residents

L

By Alex Wayne ush, appealing greenery floated by in a speedy blur as the seemingly maddened minibus driver darted in and out of traffic. My heart lurched in my stomach as he sped around sharp turns with a deafening screech of tyres, grinding on his breaks as he guffawed and poked at a female in the front seat beside him who kept plastering Maybelline on her face at every possible interval.

Folks, I was headed for the village of Soesdyke which I was foretold is an appealing location where residents lived by humble means, and did every possible positive thing to make their existence comfortable, if not luxurious.

Soesdyke located on the East Bank Demerara has an average elevation of two metres above sea level. The area is not very densely populated with about 30 people per square km.

This village is populated by a large percentage of Africans, but there is also a striking fusion of East Indians and other mixed races that make up the population which is about 3,000,

Natural Hazards Soesdyke, as history would dictate can have low impact earthquakes (on average one every 50 years). When an earthquake occurs, it may be felt indoors by many people, outdoors by a few people during the day. At night, some people may be awakened. There is a low occurrence of periods with extreme drought.

Nature Soesdyke has a humid (> 0.65 p/pet) climate. The land area is still not much cultivated today, and most of the natural vegetation is still intact. Its landscape is mostly covered with mosaic crop lands/vegetation. The climate is classified as a tropical wet (no dry season), with a tropical moist forest biozone. The soil in the area is said to be high in acrisols, alisols, plinthosols (ac), acid soil with clay-enriched lower horizon and low saturation of bases.

Welcome to the very impressive Soesdyke Village

according to some villagers. It is bordered by the much larger Timehri on the west and Coverden on the east.

Soesdyke is situated just about 18 miles (or 29 km) south of the capital city of Georgetown with readings that suggest Latitude- 6.5333° and Longitude-58.2333.

Touching Down I touched down in the village at about 12:15 hours when the sun was at its best and in minutes I was ‘wringing wet’ with perspiration as the sun bore down on me with cruel intensity.

However, I must admit that the warm welcome I received from the villagers took away greatly from the discomfort brought on by the sweltering sun. Also another factor that had me focusing less on the humid heat was the arresting ambience of this village.

In spite of the blistering heat a few young children hopped about here and there, apparently running chores for their parents and guardians. Young men were seen liming in groups by the roadside, while young girls giggling gleefully were rushing off to ‘God knows where,’ swishing their hips suggestively and rolling their eyes heavenward when the boys gave them ‘goo goo eyes’ or the cat calls that signalled they were the objects of their attention.

The boys who were too bold in their advances or were just too ghetto with their salutations were met with a fiery ‘cuss out’ by some young ladies who ‘minced no matters’ in expressing their disdain.

And then as I walked alongside the public road I had the scare of my life as speeding sand trucks almost ran me over as they attempted to overtake each other, desperately trying to be the first to sell a load of white sand in the city. Keeping a safe distance on the curb of the road after, I continued my treks around the village.

Soesdyke in times gone by I was very much impressed by the modern look that this village sported and equally surprised at the large amount of posh looking houses and businesses there.

But I wondered about the likes of the village before its modern turn around and there was the elderly Miriam Semple to shed light on this aspect. Mrs. Semple has lived in Soesdyke all her life and explained that as a kid the village was mostly a dense overgrowth of bush and foliage, and a few scattered houses here and there. She said there was no electricity in most areas and many sections of the village were pitch-black after dusk falls.

She related that during that time the area was plagued by a serious drainage problem in many areas, and the very few farmers who cultivated cash crops in the back lands suffered immensely as a result of flooding from time to time.

As she related, during the early 1970s the village began to show signs of development and it started with persons who began to erect a few small shops and stalls. Access roads were created to gain access to the village from various angles, and things began to look a little ‘bright around the gills’ so to speak.

As the years rolled by, a few well established businesses sprung up lending a certain impressive ambience to the village and today this fuses quite nicely with the colourful array of houses, dense, lush green foliage in some areas, bubbling waterways and colourful fruit trees in almost every yard.

Today villagers can almost satisfy all their necessities in the village since there is water and electricity supply everywhere.

The village also houses Continued on page a very vibrant looking St. XXII

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Soesdyke From page XXI

Mary’s Primary School, a Neighbouring Democratic Council (NDC) office, the always busy Patsy Beepat Food Court emitting aromas that causes the stomach to growl in anticipation, and the Shawnie Service Station. There is also the Hand in Hand Mutual Fire & Life Insurance branch office, Rubis Gas Station, Pacesetters Barber Shop, an internet cafe and more.

And for a little fun time folks can trek down to colourful Cozy Nook Hangout Bar on weekends to have a ‘lil drink’ and talk off their stress and worries over some good bottles of El Dorado Five Year Old Rum and other beverages.

Contented people despite challenges The most endearing pleasantry about this village is that despite the fact that it is still transcending into ultimate evolvement but has minor challenges like any other village.

Everyone there is so pleasant and contented, that it left me awed and amazed.

Sharon Forde a vendor spoke of the beauty of the village, and vows that she would not give it up for anywhere else.

“Soesdyke is really a very quiet and nice village, and it’s my only home I have known for 48 years now. I have been happy here all these years and have been living in quiet and peace and will not trade it for anywhere else.”

Addressing the issue of proper drainage Pamela Lynch explained that the workers assigned by the NDC body there would often do ‘wishy washy jobs’ that infuriate residents.

“This is a very nice village sir, and we have just a few problems here and among them is the issue of our drainage.

While the NDC is trying to clean up the village they are doing a bad job because the workers they are using are not responsible enough. All they do is clean the front drains and do nothing to the drains in the back of the village. And persons that live in these locations are flooded out as soon as the rains come.”

Peter Ramlall opined that there is need for a proper bus shed in the village since the one there was almost falling down.

“Bass we need a bus shed he tuh.... Look at dis wan heh.

The whole thing mek out ah zinc and does drive suh much heat yuh does roast up inside when de hat sun come out. It nah get no seat fuh sid down and them iron raikls does mek mattash wuss fuh we.”

Beverly Pilgrim spoke about their water supply and called on the GWI to intervene and rectify the quality of water they were receiving.

“Our water pressure here is good most times, but the scent of it is ‘fishy’ and soon as they water settles in the containers, a thick, shiny substance appears on top. My father said the water has too much iron in it and GWI needs to fix this problem, if they are sending us monthly hefty water bills” Some villagers reflected on the flooding of the community during 2008, especially at Kallicharran Sand Road where some 20 homes were flooded leaving behind dead poultry, damaged household items and water-filled outhouses.

They were of course refereeing to the flash floods which had resulted because of clogged drains and waterways.

Villagers came together during this period to clear a main irrigation trench to help the situation.

Today villagers are resorting to the same self-help indulgences to clean their drains to prevent flooding in some sections of the village. But a small group of women related that some residents are just ‘plain lazy’ and would allow vegetation to clog the drains in front of their homes and would not even bother to clean them during the spring tide or when torrential downpours may arrive.

Livelihood Well it appears as if almost everyone is employed in Soesdyke and the majority seem to be attached to Sharma’s General Store, Shawnie’s Service Station and a few other entities But that aside, many housewives are making a fast dollar from their fast food stalls and fruit stands, located in front of their homes. And of course there a few farmers who remain contented with their farming in the back land regions, and at least three of them related that f bad drainage in areas like

Adams Road caused their crops to suffer during spring tides that raise the nearby Demerara River.

However a few youths mentioned that they have unemployment problems since a major lumber yard there that offered job opportunities for all is now out of operation.

There seems to be no garbage problem in the village and many are contented with burning or having the garbage trucks dispose of their refuse.

Picturesque beauty One striking factor about this village, that leaves a lasting impression, is the arresting tropical beauty of the location.

The cluster of very colourful houses and building fuses almost majestically with the abundance of flower plants, fruit trees and other greenery. This is further accentuated with youngsters liming about the village or happy children darting about, their merry laughter filling the midday skies.

Fruit stands sporting juicy looking pine apples, mangoes, cashews, genips and soursops, mingle impressively with neatly stacked vegetables and ground provision. Then there are the water coconut vendors bellowing their bargains for thirsty commuters, and young girls swing in hammocks as they wait for seasoned customers to purchase DVD discs that allows enjoyment of the more rated movies.

At the busy Soesdyke Junction there is a pretty array of flowers as the road swerves sharply to allow access to the majestic Soesdyke/Linden Highway.

This quite stirring feature allows for a mind boggling journey up beckoning sandy hills, marvellous tropical valleys with sandy dunes and alleys made naturally by the elements of wind, rain and sunlight. Vast valleys with sometimes scanty vegetation sprawl wide on both side of the road, allowing one to see the mongoose, lizards and other reptilian species as they frolic and dart about in the scorching sun.

Pond flies and other insects flutter about, their translucent and colourful wings beating a heady rhythm as they soak up the refreshing breeze available in the environs of Soesdyke.

This place is surely a ‘Tropical Wonderland.’

The breath taking valleys and highways at Soesdyke Shawnie Gas Station offers employment to villagers

Enticing harmony Since the olden days according to aged residents, Soesdyke has always been a village where harmony flows naturally amongst dwellers. As we traversed sandy streets and passed animals grazing lazily in the hot sun, housewives could be seen chatting from their bedroom windows, peals of feminine laughter renting the air as they exploded mirthfully at their very suggestive jokes and girlish gossips.

With their chiselled bodies shining as the sun struck them, men bellowed at each other in ‘mock wrath and anger,’ as they argued and chided each other over disagreement on politics and social issues.

Youngsters hopped about gleefully in open yards, tumbling over each other as they engaged in games that are associated with adolescents Conversations at the few grocery and vegetable stalls were merry as mothers stocked up on their kitchen supplies and goodies for the kids. And the indulgence of the races was certainly refreshing.

Young girls going on errands were in pleasant conversation, pausing every now and then to showcase their ‘gesticulating sauciness’ as they discussed ‘boyfriend topics’ and hot sensual gossips quite loudly without a care in the world.

Husbands at Soesdyke do not mind assisting their wives in getting the groceries for the kitchen

Sporting Potential Soesdyke is indeed the home to very talented upcoming sports personalities and villagers feel that more focus should be placed on developing sports and the theatrical arts in the village.

In July 2014 Soesdyke was among the victorious teams when the inaugural Schools Circle Tennis programme began.

Soesdyke overcame Timehri in their encounter. However they were later dethroned by Supply.

Conclusion Come visit a village that will appease your every exploring

Tired farmers come home to hearty lunches and travelling fantasies. Come folic in the sun and enjoys the fruitful gifts of Mother Nature. Come taste of the tropics in abundant fruits, jovial festivity, and refreshing camaraderie of villagers.

While you are at it, make sure to stop sample some delicious ‘bush fish’ as you enjoy the pleasant gifts and offerings of Soesdyke.

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The picturesque Soesdyke Junction

The very impressive ambience at Soesdyke

The village now showcases some very impressive houses One of the few churches in the village

Palm trees provide ready shelter from the blistering sun

Some earn a living by selling snack items to villagers

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Soesdyke Speeding sand trucks pose a threat to road users at Soesdyke

Practically anyone is free to enjoy these bananas when they ripen by the roadside

Villagers are always on the go

The St. Mary’s Primary School

Drivers of lumber trucks often stop for quick snacks and refreshment in Soesdyke

The sale of water coconuts is a thriving trade at Soesdyke

Through Government initiatives, repairs are being done on the Soesdyke Public Road

There are fruit stands in front of many homes as villagers try to make an honest dollar

A kitchen garden in the home helps out with sourcing fresh vegetables and seasoning

The Soesdyke NDC Office

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ALBERT EINSTEIN

- Considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century Albert Einstein was a German-born physicist who developed the theory of relativity. He is considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century.

Born in Ulm, Württemberg, Germany in 1879, Albert Einstein developed the special and general theories of relativity. In 1921, he won the Nobel Prize for physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Einstein is generally considered the most influential physicist of the 20th century. He died on April 18, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey.

Early Life Albert Einstein grew up in a secular, middle-class Jewish family. His father, Hermann Einstein, was a salesman and engineer who, with his brother, founded Elektrotechnische Fabrik J. Einstein & Cie, a company that manufactured electrical equipment in Munich, Germany. His mother, the former Pauline Koch, ran the family

household. Einstein had one sister, Maja, born two years after him.

Einstein attended elementary school at the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich, where he excelled in his studies. He enjoyed classical music and played the violin.

ceived there. He also experienced a speech difficulty, a slow cadence in his speaking where he’d pause to consider what to say next. In later years, Einstein would write about two events that had a marked effect on his childhood. One was an encounter

Albert Einstein However, he felt alienated and struggled with the rigid Prussian education he re-

with a compass at age five, where he marvelled at the invisible forces that turned the needle. The other was at age 12, when he discovered a book of geometry which he read over and over.

In 1889, the Einstein family invited a poor medical Polish medical student, Max Talmud to come to their house for Thursday evening meals.

Ta l m u d b e c a m e a n informal tutor to young Albert, introducing him to higher mathematics and philosophy. One of the books Talmud shared with Albert was a children’s science book in which the author imagined riding alongside electricity that was travelling inside a telegraph wire. Einstein began to wonder what a light beam would look like if you could run alongside it at the same speed. If light were a wave, then the light beam should appear Continued on page XXVII

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014 From page XXVI stationary, like a frozen wave. Yet, in reality, the light beam is moving. This paradox led him to write his first "scientific paper" at age 16, "The Investigation of the State of Aether in Magnetic Fields." This question of the relative speed to the stationary observer and the observer moving with the light was a question that would dominate his thinking for the next 10 years.

In 1894, Hermann Einstein’s company failed to get an important contract to electrify the city of Munich and he was forced to move his family to Milan, Italy.

Albert was left at a boarding house in Munich to finish his education at the Luitpold Gymnasium. Alone, miserable, and repelled by the looming prospect of military duty when he turned of age, Albert withdrew from school using a doctor’s note to excuse him and made his way to

Milan to join his parents. His parents sympathised with his feelings, but were concerned about the enormous problems that he would face as a school dropout and draft dodger with no employable skills.

Fortunately, Einstein was able to apply directly to the Eidgenössische Polytechnische Schule (Swiss Federal Polytechnic School) in Zürich, Switzerland. Lacking the equivalent of a high school diploma, he failed much of the entrance exam but got exceptional marks in mathematics and physics.

Because of this, he was admitted to the school provided he completed his formal schooling first. He went to a special high school run

by Jost Winteler in Aarau, Switzerland, and graduated in 1896 at age 17. He became lifelong friends with the Winteler family, with whom he had been boarding, and fell in love with Wintelers' daughter, Marie. At this time, Einstein renounced his German cit-

izenship to avoid military service and enrolled at the Zurich school.

Marriage and Family Einstein would recall that his years in Zurich were some of the happiest of his life.

He met many students who would become loyal friends, such as Marcel Grossmann, a mathematician, and Michele Besso, with whom he enjoyed lengthy conversations about space and time. He also met his future wife, Mileva Maric, a fellow physics student from Serbia.

After graduating from the Polytechnic Institute, Albert Einstein faced a series of life crises over the next few years.

Because he liked to study on his own, he cut classes and earned the animosity of some of his professors. One in particular, Heinrich Weber, wrote a letter of recommendation at Einstein’s request that led to him being turned down for every academic

position that he applied to after graduation. Meanwhile, Einstein's relationship with Maric deepened, but his parents vehemently opposed the relationship citing her Serbian background and Eastern Orthodox Christian religion.

Einstein defied his parents and continued to see Maric.

In January, 1902, the couple had a daughter, Lieserl, who either died of sickness or was given up for adoption—the facts are unknown.

At this point, Albert Einstein probably reached the lowest point in his life. He could not marry Maric and support a family without a

job, and his father's business had gone bankrupt. Desperate and unemployed, Einstein took lowly jobs tutoring children, but he was unable to hold on to any of them. A turning point came later in 1902, when the father of his lifelong friend, Marcel Grossman, recommended him for a position as a clerk in the Swiss patent office in Bern, Switzerland. About this time, Einstein’s father became seriously ill and just before he died, gave his blessing for him to marry.

With a small but steady income, Einstein married Maric on Jan. 6, 1903. In May, 1904

XXVII they had their first son, Hans Albert. Their second son, Eduard, were born in 1910.

Miracle Year At the patent office, Albert Einstein evaluated patent applications for electromagnetic devices.

He quickly mastered the job, leaving him time to ponder on the transmission of electrical signals and electrical-mechanical synchronisation, an interest he had been cultivating for several years. While Continued on page XXVIII

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ALBERT EINSTEIN

From page XXVII

at the polytechnic school he had studied Scottish physicist James Maxwell's electromagnetic theories which describe the nature of light, and discovered a fact unknown to Maxwell himself, that the speed of

light remained constant.

However, this violated Isaac Newton's laws of motion because there is no absolute velocity in Newton's theory.

This insight led Einstein to formulate the principle of relativity.

In 1905—often called

Einstein's "miracle year"— he submitted a paper for his doctorate and had four papers published in the Annalen der Physik, one of the best known physics journals. The four papers—the photoelectric effect, Brownian motion, special relativity, and the

equivalence of matter and energy—would alter the course of modern physics and bring him to the attention of the academic world. In his paper on matter and energy, Einstein deduced the well-known equation E=mc2, suggesting that tiny particles of matter could be converted into huge amounts of energy, foreshadowing the development of nuclear power. There have been claims that Einstein and his wife, Maric, collaborated on his celebrated 1905 papers, but historians of physics who have studied the issue find no evidence that she made any substantive contributions. In fact, in the papers, Einstein only credits his conversations with Michele Besso in developing relativity.

At first Einstein's 1905 papers were ignored by the

physics community. This began to change when he received the attention of Max Planck, perhaps the most influential physicist of his generation and founder of quantum theory. With Planck’s complimentary comments and his experiments that confirmed his theories, Einstein was invited to lecture at international meetings and he rose rapidly in the academic world. He was offered a series of positions at increasingly prestigious institutions, including the University of Zürich, the University of Prague, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and finally the University of Berlin, where he served as director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics from 1913 to 1933.

As his fame spread, Einstein's marriage fell apart. His

constant travel and intense study of his work, the arguments about their children and the family’s meagre finances led Einstein to the conclusion that his marriage was over. Einstein began an affair with a cousin, Elsa Löwenthal, whom he later married. He finally divorced Mileva in 1919 and as a settlement agreed to give her the money he might receive if he ever won a Nobel Prize.

Theory of Relativity In November, 1915, Einstein completed the general theory of relativity, which he considered his masterpiece. He was convinced that general relativity was correct because of its mathematical beauty and beContinued on page XXIX

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014 From page XXVIII cause it accurately predicted the perihelion of Mercury's orbit around the sun, which fell short in Newton’s theory. General relativity theory also predicted a measurable deflection of light around the sun when a planet or another sun orbited near the sun. That prediction was confirmed in observations by British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington during the solar eclipse of 1919. In 1921, Albert Einstein received word that he had received the Nobel Prize for Physics.

Because relativity was still considered controversial, Einstein received the award for his explanation of the photoelectric effect.

In the 1920s, Einstein launched the new science of cosmology. His equations predicted that the universe is dynamic, ever expanding or contracting. This contradicted the prevailing view that the universe was static, a view that Einstein held earlier and was a guiding factor in his development of the general theory of relativity. But his later calculations in the general theory indicated that the universe could be expanding or contracting. In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble found that the universe was indeed expanding, thereby confirming

Einstein's work. In 1930, during a visit to the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles, Einstein met with Hubble and declared the cosmological constant, his original theory of the static size and shape of the universe, to be his "greatest blunder."

While Einstein was touring much of the world speaking on his theories in the 1920s, the Nazis were rising to power under the leadership of Adolph Hitler.

Einstein’s theories on relativity became a convenient target for Nazi propaganda.

In 1931, the Nazi’s enlisted other physicists to denounce Einstein and his theories as "Jewish physics." At this time, Einstein learned that the new German government, now in full control by the Nazi party, had passed a law barring Jews from holding any official position, including teaching at universities. Einstein also learned that his name was on a list of assassination targets, and a Nazi organisation published a magazine with Einstein's picture and the caption "Not Yet Hanged" on the cover.

Move to the United States In December 1932, Einstein decided to leave Germany forever. He took a position a the newly formed

Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, New Jersey, which soon became a Mecca for physicists from around the world. It was here that he would spend the rest of his career trying to develop a unified field theory—an all-embracing theory that would unify the forces of the universe, and thereby the laws of physics, into one framework—and refute the accepted interpretation of quantum physics. Other European scientists also fled various countries threatened

by Nazi takeover and came to the United States. Some of these scientists knew of Nazi plans to develop an atomic weapon. For a time, their warnings to Washington, D.C. went unheeded.

In the summer of 1939, Einstein, along with another scientist, Leo Szilard, was persuaded to write a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt to alert him of the possibility of a Nazi bomb.

President Roosevelt could not risk the possibility that Germany might develop an atomic bomb first. The letter is believed to be the key factor that motivated the United States to investigate the development of nuclear weapons. Roosevelt invited Einstein to meet with him and soon after the United States initiated the Manhattan Project.

Not long after he began

his career at the Institute in New Jersey, Albert Einstein expressed an appreciation for the "meritocracy" of the United States and the right people had to think what they pleased—something he didn’t enjoy as a young man in Europe. In 1935, Albert Einstein was granted permanent residency in the United States and became an American citizen in 1940. As the Manhattan Project moved from drawing board to testing and development at Los Alamos, New Mexico, many of his colleagues were asked to develop the first atomic bomb, but Eisenstein was

not one of them. According to several researchers who examined FBI files over the years, the reason was the U.S. government didn't trust Einstein's lifelong association with peace and socialist organisations. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover went so far as to recommend that Einstein be kept out of America by the Alien Exclusion Act, but he was overruled by the U.S. State Department.

Instead, during the war, Einstein helped the U.S. Navy evaluate designs for future weapons systems and contributed to the war effort by auctioning off priceless

XXIX personal manuscripts. One example was a handwritten copy of his 1905 paper on special relativity which sold for $6.5 million, and is now located in the Library of Congress.

On August 6, 1945, while on vacation, Einstein heard the news that an atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. He soon became involved in an international effort to try to bring the atomic bomb under control, and in 1946, he formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists with physContinued on page XXX

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From page XXIX icist Leo Szilard. In 1947, in an article that he wrote for The Atlantic Monthly, Einstein argued that the United States should not try to monopolise the atomic bomb, but instead should supply the United Nations with nuclear

weapons for the sole purpose of maintaining a deterrent.

At this time, Einstein also became a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People. He corresponded with civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois and actively

campaigned for the rights of African Americans.

After the war, Einstein continued to work on many key aspects of the theory of general relativity, such as wormholes, the possibility of time travel, the existence of black holes, and the creation

of the universe. However, he became increasingly isolated from the rest of the physics community. With the huge developments in unravelling the secrets of atoms and molecules, spurred on by the development to the atomic bomb, the majority of scientists were working on the quantum theory, not relativity. Another reason for Einstein's detachment from his colleagues was his obsession with discovering his unified field theory. In the 1930s, Einstein engaged in a series of historic private debates with Niels Bohr, the originator of the Bohr atomic model. In a series of "thought experiments," Einstein tried to find logical inconsistencies in the quantum theory, but was unsuccessful. However, in his later years, he stopped opposing quantum theory and

tried to incorporate it, along with light and gravity, into the larger unified field theory he was developing.

In the last decade of his life, Einstein withdrew from public life, rarely travelling far and confining himself to long walks around Princeton with close associates, whom he engaged in deep conversations about politics, religion, physics and his unified field theory.

Final Years On April 17, 1955, while working on a speech he was preparing to commemorate Israel's 17th anniversary, Einstein suffered an abdominal aortic aneurysm and experienced internal bleeding. He was taken to the University Medical Centre at Princeton for treatment, but refused

surgery, believing that he had lived his life and was content to accept his fate. "I want to go when I want," he stated at the time. "It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly."

Einstein died at the university medical centre early the next morning—April 18, 1955— at the age of 76.

During the autopsy, Thomas Stoltz Harvey removed Einstein's brain, seemingly without the permission of his family, for preservation and future study by doctors of neuroscience. His remains were cremated and his ashes were scattered in an undisclosed location. After decades of study, Einstein's brain is now located at the Princeton University Medical Centre. (Source:Bio.)

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

Dorday, Maa enjoying life in Leguan after enduring a rough life

By Telesha Ramnarine LIFE for Maniram and his wife Parbattie, on the beautiful island of Leguan in the Essequibo River, is nothing but an enjoyable throwback for each passing day.

Compared to their years of laborious work, when both of them had to do several jobs to maintain their family of seven, life is now full of ease and relaxation for the couple.

Maniram is also known as Sunny and ‘Dorday’ and his wife as Powtie and ‘Maa.’ We will refer to them as ‘Maa and Dorday’ as they are mostly called these names on a daily basis.

Dorday has no last name and so when they married, Maa took his name and became Parbattie Maniram.

Dorday, 79, was born and raised in Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo and Maa in Leguan. The couple, now married for 55 years, was living at Vergenoegen with three children in 1964.

But a riot broke out under the then government and Maa and Dorday’s home was set afire, as were many others, due to political upheaval and racial disturbances that were rampant at the time.

They were constantly in fear for their lives and so they decided to move to Leguan where they could be more at peace. It was here that a rewarding and fulfilling life, though requiring much hard work, awaited them.

Things were rough when they arrived and before they

Maniram and his wife Parbattie could have been properly settled, they took up lodging with Maa’s mother. Before long, though, they were able to put up a “lil thing” (small house) on a piece of land that her mother gave them which they moved into.

All types of work Life was certainly not a bed of roses for Maa and Dorday when they arrived in Leguan with their children.

“Abi really pass through some things. But meh wuk. When meh tell yo wuk, wuk,” she recalled.

Her husband did all types of jobs to support the family, and at times, even more than one at a time. He worked in a bakery, in the cane fields, rice factory, as a security guard with the Ministry of Public Service, and as a fisherman, just to name a few of the jobs he did.

Maa also worked hard in the rice fields, planting and cut-

ting rice, sometimes more than once in a day. She would go home for lunch with the children and then make her way back to the fields in the afternoon to continue her work.

The couple worked together and saved their money while living at Maa’s mother in the meantime. Eventually, they managed to use their savings and build a small house. Further, Dorday had enough to buy the family a Continued on page XXXII

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A section of the flower garden belonging to the couple

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

One of Dorday’s favourite spots: relaxing in his hammock.

Dorday, Maa enjoying life in Leguan ...

From page XXXI pair of bulls.

Maa said they had to work hard for everything they needed as they didn’t really have anyone to give them anything.

At times, she said she had to leave the children with others, including neighbours, just so that she could go and help her husband with the work.

But she explained that the neighbours were very helpful at that time and could be trusted.

She finished her tasks quickly so she could go back home to the children.

“I had to do it like this because you need the money. You want to get up in life. You want to buy rice field or a pair of bulls or something to get up because you have your children.

We also gave our children an education. All of them had an opportunity. By the grace of God, all deh good and they still have their education,” Maa related.

Even during their rough times, Dorday and Maa managed to endure their personal problems. He gave her whatever money he earned and she was able to manage it wisely for the benefit of the family.

“It was a little but it bought plenty things. We had to bud-

Admiring the results of her hard work get ourselves but it used to work. He used to work for $35 and that took us through the entire month. We worked and built everything. I worked morning and afternoon cutting rice with the grass knife,” Maa recalled.

The couple ended up with several acres of rice fields which they eventually decided to hand over to their sons.

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Maa still works hard to keep the garden blooming.

From page XXXII Reaping the benefits “Now we reaping the benefits,” Maa said, referring to all of their hard work and struggles in life. The pensions that both of them enjoy today are enough to carry them throughout the month without them having to work or depend on anyone.

“Life now is too much nice. Too much nice. That we get old, we get sick but that’s the only thing.”

Dorday, despite only seeing in one of his eyes, still rides his bicycle to the post office and around the island. But Maa, doesn’t suffer with any ailments. The couple enjoys each and every day that passes.

Their five children are Robert, Dhansham, Dato, Babo and Shanti. They also have 15 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.

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Nearly every gardener has grown a vegetable or two, but what about fruits?

By Clifford Stanley Homegrown cherries, sour sops, papaw, gooseberry, carambola, bananas, cherry custards, sugar apples, guavas, psydiums and more can be yours for the tasting.

And it's easier than you might think.

An obvious benefit to fruit gardening is that it results in fresh things to eat.

Fresh fruits direct from your garden are most nutritious since fruits sold in the market are transported over long distances and can lose some of their vitamins and minerals along the way.

Cultivating fruit trees and vegetables in limited yard space is as easy as one two three.

Evergreen Nature Study Club is a local gardening club that is promoting the cultivation of fruit trees, particularly the shorter and smaller fruit trees.

Fitz Ogle of the Evergreen Nature Study Club explains: “We know that some fruit trees grow very large: trees like mango trees, plum trees etc! We are promoting the smaller trees , trees which are suitable for people with limited yard space.”

He mentioned some of these.

The are such like cherry trees, sour sop trees, papaw trees, gooseberry trees, carambola, bananas, cherry custards, sugar apples, guava etc!. Trees of which you can probably grow three or four in a yard.”

He added:”. You plant the trees. Water them. And they are growing when you leave for work and while you are at work they are growing; and before you know it you can begin to harvest fresh fruits for daily use and even as gifts for visitors.”

An added benefit is that these fruits can be processed into delicious products eg: gooseberry jam etc!

The Evergreen Nature Study Club has developed a nursery from which plants for these fruit trees can be acquired.

Persons interested in cultivating fruit trees that occupy little yard space, can contact Mr. Ogle on telephone # 664-5947 or via the Club’s website: www.evergreenstudy.org. to obtain plants and seedlings or to get any other information which they need in order to get some fruit trees going.

They can also offer technical advice on how to grow these smaller fruit trees in limited yard space or even in pots, effectively..(END).

Chronicle Pepperpot August 17, 2014

BOOK REVIEW

By Shivanie Sugrim

“Out of the Silent Planet” is a “delightful fantasy” science fiction novel written

by C.S Lewis who is widely known for the popular book series, “The Chronicles of Narnia” which as most of us should know, has been adapted into a modern day motion picture which has also received multiple awards. The book was published by John Lane, the Body head in 1938 and was later published by the MacMillan company in the US on 1943.

I am lucky enough to be reading yhe 1970s publication of this book, which back then was priced at 95 cents, today you can order a Paperback version of this book from Amazon for US$10 or can download a softcopy of this book on your mobile device for US$7. But trust me this book is one your money will be well spent on, if you are a Science Fiction and Fantasy enthusiast, with just 160 pages and 22 chapters.

Clive Staples Lewis, popularly known as C.S. Lewis was born on November 9, 1898. One of the interesting things about Lewis, and it was something that I greatly admire about him, was that he was born a Christian up until the age of 15 then he became an atheist but in later years converted back to Christianity. But it is clear in many of Lewis’s works,

that his stories are greatly influenced by Christian doctrines and Christian themes.

In fact, authors like Lewis and Tolkien and referred to as “Christian Fantasists.”

“Out of Silent Planet” is clearly seen containing Christian themes and the author successfully uses these themes to even address many social issues such as religion, racism and even colonialism.

The book is written in the third person and follows the events of the main character

C.S Lewis Dr. Elwin Ransom, a philologist or as he is known throughout the story as just Ransom, is traversing the English midlands on a “Walking Tour.” He then meets an old colleague known as Weston who is a physicist and his collaborator by the name of Devine, as he is seeking accommodation for the night.

The men then proceed to

drug Ransom and kidnap him. They take him aboard a spacecraft then travel to the planet known as “Malacandra” or rather what is known to us as Mars. There they come into contact with two races that inhabit the planet one known as the Sorn and the other known as Hrossa.

Ransom then learns the reason for the men bringing him to the planet was that they could offer him as a sacrifice to the Sorn, then they would be permitted to continue their activities, for Devine it is collecting gold or what the natives call “Sun’s Blood,” but for Weston his motives are more intricate. His goal is to expand Humanity throughout the Universe.

Ransom upon arriving on the planet escapes his captors and wanders off into the Malacandrian landscape.

There he comes into contact with a member of the Hrossa race, a tall creature known as Hyoi. Ransom then spends some months among the Hrossa people, learning their culture and some of their language. Later Ransom is summoned by the leader of the planet. After a long a journey Ransom arrives in Meldilorn, the home of Oyarsa. There he finally meets Oyarsa who explains to him the religion of the people and how they view the Universe, Solar System and even Earth which they call “Thulcandra” which mean “Silent Planet”, (The name of the book). Oyarsa

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Out of the Silent Planet- C.S. Lewis

also tells him that each planet has an Oyarsa, looking over the inhabitants. And that there was an evil one referred to as the “Bent” one who was banished to Earth and cut off

from the rest of the planets and Oyaeresu, that why it is called “Silent Planet.”

When you understand the kind of author C.S. Lewis is, you can clearly see the

parallels with his story and the Christian religion. Lewis also tries to present to his Continued on page XXXVI

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Out of the Silent ...

From page XXXV

audience an idea of God existing in many different places and forms other than Earth in the form of a fantasy novel. Upon doing some research on the book and author, I came to the conclusion that the era in which this book was written where religion was a more dominant force than the science of that time, authors would try to express their theories of God, who he was and the probability of life existing elsewhere in the Universe through the writing science fiction novels. While religion may be the main inspiration of this novel, the fact still remains that it is an action filled sci-fi adventure and it is very entertaining to read. From the first page you are immersed in the story as the main character you feel his emotions, you can see the world that the author describes vividly.

Another theme other than religion you see the author touching on is that of colonialism and the selfish desire of man. When the character Weston’s main goal was to expand the human race his aim was also to eradicate the current life forms inhabiting the planet. When Lewis wrote this it was in a time where wars had broken out between territories and he wanted to make a parallel between the real world and that in his book and to show the true nature of humans and how they would stop at nothing to get what they want even if it means war.

One thing I noticed about this book is while it was a science fiction, it did not get too much into detail about the make-up of things, for example the author didn’t pay much attention to the design of the spaceship, and instead he described it in a more poetic way. Even the Martian landscape isn’t described in a purely scientific way. The aim of the author wasn’t to make just a science fiction novel. It was mostly to express his thoughts on the various issues of, religion, war and racism and social and political issues.

In short C.S. Lewis did an excellent job in writing using science fiction to address the issues he thought were important. The story itself was quite imaginative and unlike any science fiction story that I’ve ever read. But if I had one problem with the book it was that at some parts it seemed a little drawn out in terms of the various events that occurred and while it wasn’t the author’s main purpose to dwell mostly on “science,” in science fiction it was an element that I greatly missed. Other than that it was an amazing book and I would recommend it to any science fiction reader and even if you’re not interested in science fiction you should still give it a read. All we have to do now is wait for the folks in Hollywood to adapt this into a movie. (Big thank you to my best friend Norman Gobin for the splendid insights provided!)

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XLI

Aries - You’re about to begin mingling with all kinds of interesting and unusual people, and you’ll love every minute of it. There’s at least one new acquaintance en route who’ll be around for a while, too, thanks to an astrological setup that will keep that parade of people you’d otherwise never have met going strong. Whether they turn out to be friends or partners is up for grabs, but who cares? Think of this as a social buffet.

Treat yourself to just a little taste of everything.

Taurus - That new -- and quite authoritative -- person you’ve met is probably quite well outfitted at this point, from head to toe. They’ll enjoy spending money, but if you want to keep up, better check the balance on your credit cards -- and balance your cheque book. If you can’t quite keep up, don’t try. There are better ways to impress them, but even if you end up doing some serious damage to your plastic, think of it as a lesson.

Gemini - Whether it feels comfortable to you or not -- and initially, at least, it probably won’t -- you’re going to be at centre stage for a couple of days, and maybe longer. Better accept it, and try to get your sweetheart used to the idea, too, because if they’re in the vicinity, they may also find the spotlight trained on them. Of course, there are definitely worse things than being worshipped by a crowd of admirers. Looks like you’ll both just have to buck up and smile pretty.

Cancer - Your way with words is famous. It’s so famous, in fact, that you can keep company with just about anyone you want to, whenever you want to. That fact will go double right now, so do yourself a favour. Don’t waste this energy. Gabbing with just about everyone is what you’re famous for, but save the best for that certain someone who actually responds to your wit with some pretty keen comments of their own.

Leo - If anyone is usually quite sure of what, how and when they want to do what they want to do, it’s you. At the moment, however, you’re torn between being good (preparing yourself for tomorrow and going to bed early) and being bad -- which would basically entail staying up as late as you like and forgetting about anything but tonight. The final decision, of course, rests with your conscience, but with the right two-legged companion, the right movie and a big bowl of popcorn, there won’t be a contest.

Virgo - It’s indisputable that you have a way with words -- a gift for presenting logical, practical arguments that are awfully hard to disagree with. That talent will come through for you beautifully now, as always, especially at work, and especially if you add just a touch of charm to the mix when you’re chatting with coworkers. After all, you know what they say about bees and honey. Buzz...

Libra - If you’re still thinking about travel, today’s astrological line up will make it just about impossible for you to resist any longer. Make the decision. You don’t even have to decide exactly where you’re going -- not just yet. All you really have to do, at this point, is to inform the powers that be that you’ll need some time off. Once that’s done, it will make the situation real and put you in the mood to choose your destination. Oh, go ahead.

Scorpio - You’ve been thinking about letting a certain person know just how much you care -- in fact, you’ve been thinking about doing that for some time now. You’re right on the verge of having a ‘state of the relationship’ meeting to tell them how you feel. Well, what’s the holdup?

You know they feel the same and you know they’ll be delighted to hear it. You’ve even got the perfect heavenly envoy on duty, right now: The lovely lady Venus is on your side. What could be better?

Sagittarius - It’s over -- temporarily, at least. That work binge you were on has finally come to an end. That’s not to say that you won’t be putting in your time and continuing to do what’s necessary to keep your head above water and your reputation on the job intact -- but you may also suddenly find that you need to make time for your siblings and neighbours. Reintroduce yourself to them, and rest assured that you’ll receive an extremely warm reception.

Capricorn - You’re busy, as usual -- that, of course, is nothing new; it’s something you’ve become used to. Just for the moment, though, why not devote some time to pure, unadulterated fun? That’s after you’re done with your work for the day, and this includes not just your usual chores, but also something your darling has managed to either forget to do or put off until later.

Aquarius - You’ve always been the objective type, far more prone toward facts and figures than anything that even remotely resembles nostalgia. At the moment, however, you’re feeling like a regular tissue commercial -- and not at all shy about spouting phrases you would have made fun of not too long ago. It all comes down to just one thing: That love is, indeed, grand, and that you’re not afraid to express it.

Pisces - The universe has officially granted you ‘off duty’ status. Your compassion knows no bounds, but you’ve done absolutely everything you can for the ones you love. It’s time now for them to take care of themselves -- and for you to stop feeling guilty about not being able to do more. Besides, there’s someone out there who could do with a bit more of your time and attention -- not to mention your company, in private.

How about it?

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XLIII

Lauren Bacall Dead At 89

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o sad. Lauren Bacall, legendary actress of the Golden Age of Hollywood and beloved wife of leading man Humphrey Bogart, passed away on Aug. 12 after suffering a massive stroke at her home.

The world lost another star on Aug. 12, when Academy Award-winning actress Lauren Bacall passed away at 89.

The estate of Humphrey Bogart – Lauren’s first husband and the great love of her life — confirmed the sad news on Facebook on Aug. 12.

Lauren Bacall Dead — Actress Dies At 89 The heartbreaking Facebook post from the Humphrey Bogart Estate reads, “With deep sorrow for the magnitude of our loss, yet with great gratitude for her amazing life, we confirm the passing of Lauren Bacall.”

Lauren, born Betty Joan Perske on Sept. 16, 1924, began her career as a fashion model, famously gracing the cover of Harper’s Bazaar magazine. She went on to become one of the sexiest and most successful leading ladies of her time, who was known for her sultry looks and beautiful, husky voice. She made her acting debut at 17 and starred in a slew of hit films, including How to Marry a Millionaire, Sex and the Single Girl and Designing Woman.

Many of her most popular and acclaimed performances were alongside real-life loveHumphrey Bogart. The duo met on the set of 1944’s To Have and Have Not, which was Lauren’s first leading lady role, and quickly began a torrid and infamous romance. She was just 19 at the time,

a Jewish girl from the Bronx, and he was 44 and married to his third wife, Mayo Methot. After a heartrending decision, Humphrey left Mayo and eventually married Lauren in 1945.

The pair went on to heat up the silver screen with their off-the-charts chemistry, co-starring in The Big Sleep, Dark Passage and Key Largo.

Lauren and Humphrey remained together until his death from lung cancer in 1957 at the age of 57.

Lauren later became engaged to one of Humphrey’s best friends, legendary singer/actor Frank Sinatra, but he dumped her without giving her a reason, shortly before they were to be married. Lauren later married another legendary, accomplished actor, Jason Robards, in 1961, but they divorced in 1969. Lauren had two children with Humphrey, Leslie Howard Bogart and Stephen Humphrey Bogart, and one son with Jason, Sam Robards.

L a u re n w e n t o n t o e n j o y a unique and full career that spanned more than 70 years, earning a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award nomi-

nation for her performance in 1996’s The Mirror Has Two Faces, as well as an honorary Academy Award “in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures” in 2009. Lauren also starred on Broadway, winning Tony Awards for her performances in Applause in 1970 and Woman of the Year in 1981.

Robin Williams’ Sad Suicide Deta

So sad. During a press conference on Aug. 12, Lt. Keith Boyd revealed that Robin Williams’ lifeless body was found in a slightly suspended, seated position with a belt around his neck on Aug. 11. Shockingly, the late actor also had acute, superficial wounds on the inside of his left wrist at the time of his death. Read on for all the heartbreaking details.

Following Robin Williams‘ tragic death on Aug. 11, law enforcement officials held a press conference on Aug. 12 to discuss details of the actor’s suicide. The revelations were almost too horrific to take in.

Robin Williams Suicide Details Marin County Sheriff’s Lt. Keith Boyd stood before a sea of reporters, when he revealed that the 63-year-old actor’s lifeless body was found in a slightly suspended, seated position with a belt around his neck in a bedroom of his California home on Aug. 11. The other end of the belt was between a closed door and the door frame.

Robin Williams’ Kids: Take Comfort In The Outpouring Of Love For Your Dad And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, Keith announced that Robin was also found with acute, superficial wounds on the inside of his left wrist. A pocketknife was found near his body, and a red material consistent with dried blood was found on the knife. Tests will be conducted to determine whether the substance is blood.

Boyd went on to say that Robin was last seen alive by his wife, Susan Schneider, at 10:30 PM on Aug. 10. She retired to a room in the home, while Robin went to a separate room, which is where he was found the following morning.

Robin’s wife left the home on the morning of Aug. 11, be-

lieving her husband was still asleep. It was around 11:45 AM that Robin’s assistant became alarmed when knocks on his bedroom door went unanswered. Upon entering Robin’s bedroom, his assistant found the actor’s body and immediately called 911.

Robin’s body was reportedly cool to the touch and according to Boyd, rigor mortis had already set in. Shortly after paramedics arrived at 12:00 PM, Robin was pronounced dead at 12:02 PM on Aug. 11.

The Mrs. Doubtfire actor was then transported from the scene to the Napa County Sheriff’s Office Morgue by the

Coroner Division, pending a forensic examination which was conducted prior to this press conference.

The forensic examination, conducted by Dr. Joseph Cohen, who is the Sheriff’s Office Chief Forensic Pathologist, did not reveal any injuries indicating Robin had been in a struggle or physical altercation.

The preliminary results of the forensic examination revealed supporting physical signs that Robin’s life ended from asphyxia due to hanging. Toxicology testing will be conducted to determine if Robin had any chemical substances in his system at his time of death. But those results will not be available for approximately 2 – 6 weeks.

Boyd also noted that this is an active investigation. The final cause and manner of death will not be certified until the conclusion of the investigation, which is several weeks away.

When that happens, a press conference will then be scheduled.

Robin Williams: Special Tribute At The Primetime Emmys The late actor will be celebrated during the Primetime Emmys on Aug. 25. During the live telecast, there will be a special tribute, a source close to the situation has revealed to HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY. “Robin Williams will be honored on the show and we will all hear from people for the first time about his death during the telecast,” our HollywoodLife.com source reveals. “It is going to be a very big tribute.”

Our thoughts go out to Robin’s family and friends during this difficult time.

If you, or someone you know, is experiencing suicidal ideation, please call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-8255; operators are available 24/7.