That's one thing about this country - the pride Guyanese feel for it. Most any Guyanese will boast of the beautiful land, the products cultivated, the friendly people of their country; my cab driver was one of them, the above ^ is his statement of his country.
On the cab ride from Cheddi Jagan International Airport to the Windjammer Hotel in Kitty, Georgetown, I was greeted by the familiar sights, sounds and smells of Guyana - coconut trees, car horns and curry, for example.
I welcomed the familiar sensations as even just yesterday, I was sensing the streets of Kansas City, a fairly different overall experience. Now, sure, there was crazy driving, putrid sewage smells and I wonder if my cabbie gave me a 'special' foreign rate for the cab ride, but one of the things I was relaxing into on that cab ride this morning was:
Life (activity) is so much more open here, freer. So much easier to see life as you drive by a street. In Guyana, you see LIFE (someone sweeping the drive, someone waiting for a bus, someone sitting at a shop stand, someone just sitting, children playing, etc.) but it seems in KC, you see walls, you feel seclusion coming from every angle. Space is marked and maintained, there is a privacy, a front put up between buildings and people. Life in Guyana is more upfront. I appreciate that.
On the other hand, as I was flying out of Atlanta last night, I looked down on the paved, lit roads and knew that a different sense of freedom lay down below. That sensation of carefree oneness with the world that comes from driving down an Interstate or Highway with the windows down and music blaring, with few people on the road, but knowing that even those who do share the road with you won't make your exhilarating drive too dangerous, knowing that even if something did happen, the US would have your back.... that, too, is a freedom worth appreciating.
Guyana AND the US are nice, bad.
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