Hopeful Steps

By Nicolette Uma Smith

Have you ever considered moving to an impoverished country to do volunteer work with the locals? Author Nicolette Uma Smith and her husband did just that, joining a charitable organization in Guyana, South America. We learn about the country and the living experience. We are also introduced to many beautiful souls and begin to understand their lifestyles.

Part travelogue, part guide to the difficulties and rewards of volunteering overseas, Hopeful Steps presents a collection of vignettes such as “The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Riding a Bike in Georgetown” and “Being a Yogi in Guyana”. Step inside these pages to gain insights about living and working in a different culture. Written with an occasional humorous touch, these thirty-six essays include biographies of four remarkable Guyanese women, as well as some historical background. The many pictures enhance the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shusia Publishing
• Release date: Jul 12, 2020
• ISBN: 9781999250249

Nicolette Uma Smith

Nicolette Uma Smith loves living on a hillside with the lake in front and trees all around, and is lucky enough to be able to do that both at her home in Ontario and during the time she is able to spend at Yasodhara Ashram in BC. Both places inspire her love of writing and her joy in exploring the great outdoors by bike, boat and boot.Married with three children, Uma also loves to travel. Even more when it involves her other love, volunteering. The two years she and her husband spent doing that in Guyana South America, was the inspiration for her first book, Hopeful Steps.

Book preview

Map of Guyana

1. Leavings of the Past

I have an early memory from living in Georgetown. I am cycling up Vlissingen with the warm sun on my back enjoying the vast expanse of the road with its wide grass covered areas on both sides and the sparkling water in the canal. As I look ahead, I have a panoramic view that ends in the stunningly bright clear blue sky beyond the sea wall. The flowering trees are still in bloom and the orange of the Flamboyant tree is so intense, zinging with colour in the bright sun, it takes my breath away. The wind brushes my face and makes me forget the steaming heat that will force me to collapse in my hammock when I get back to my home in Kitty.

It is late August so school is still out and the traffic is calm and quiet. Soon there will be such a honking of horns and jostling for position that I shall need all my wits about me to wind my way across four lanes of cars. I will have to direct my gaze to the near view where the garbage and detritus that infest the roads and ditches, despite twice weekly cleaning, will disgust me. This day however everything is perfect and I think two years is not nearly enough time to spend in this city that was once heralded as the jewel of the Caribbean.

Riding my bike around this small city of just under a quarter of a million souls I found there were parts where it still felt like I was in the 19th Century. Sadly, the stark new concrete buildings were spreading out from the commercial district and the beautiful old wooden houses, so characteristic of the heritage of the town, becoming lost. I had the chance to visit one of these houses where the owner cultivated fabulous orchids in the yard that surrounded the house. The proportions were lovely and the rooms spacious but the upkeep falling behind. I was glad I did not have the job of re-applying all that white paint, or paying for it either.

The house was not as old as the street on which it was built. Called Brickdam, it was the first paved street in the country, and should really have had a French name as it was built when the town was briefly named La Nouvelle Ville. Georgetown was captured from the British in 1782, but little remains of the presence of the French except in the words like Bonadventure for a few of the surrounding towns, reminders of the old plantations.

Between 1781 and 1814 three countries, Holland, England and France, switched ownership of Guyana back and forth between themselves a total of six times, as the various European power blocs mixed and matched in different ways. In 1814 the British took control for the last time and retained the colony until the 1950’s when they magnanimously granted the people independence; sort of.

Starbroek market still retains one of the names for the city used when the Dutch were in control. It is a busy place where stalls filled with sweet fig bananas, piles of cheap shoes from China or rows and rows of badly made pirated movies are squashed together, interspersed with long lines of buses waiting for passengers. Of course, not a single sign to tell you where to line up to get a bus that goes to your destination.

This is not a place for anyone with a nervous disposition. The noise is horrendous; the smells are rank with rotting food, and the press of humanity leaves little space to walk. And yet it is exuberantly alive, and when you know where you need to go and are happy smiling and shaking your head, no, to all who want to put you on their bus, sell you their wares or save your soul, it is exhilarating.

An unusual feature of Georgetown is that it is below sea level and only survives due to the engineering skills of the dull Dutch (as one local writer called them) who returned to their former colony in 1884. They found the new settlement of Longchamps, which the French had established on the Demerara River. Promptly renaming it Starbroek, they set about building a sea wall, canals and kokers (sluices) to control the water since flooding was causing havoc with trade; the raison d’être for the town.

The system is not foolproof. When there is very heavy rain, as often happens, some flooding seems inevitable. It makes life miserable for all those who live in low-lying areas. Long boots and half submerged planks of wood allow the people to get out to the road. I remember watching a woman plod out of her waterlogged front yard, which she might have said was all duck. Replacing her long boots with high heeled shoes, she threw the boots back over the fence to await her return. Many of the houses were initially built on stilts but over the years this valuable space has often been walled and converted to living areas or business use. In the country most of the houses still retain their intriguing stilted appearance.

The Dutch laid out the city with its graceful wide roads but the British peopled it. A planter class developed, the driving force behind expansion and change, pushing the real owners of the land, the Amerindians, further and further back into the hinterland. Then Great Britain ended up ruling a disparate collection of humanity that was shipped into Guyana. The workforce came first from Africa, in the horrendous stain on human history that was slavery, even though it was never lawful in the United Kingdom. Due to the work of William Wilberforce, and the abolition movement (spearheaded by the Quakers) a law was enacted by the British Parliament which prohibited the use of slaves throughout the whole British Empire.

Although this law was passed in 1833 the slaves in Guyana had to wait another few years before they were officially emancipated. At which point the ex-slaves left the plantations, and the brutally hard work of sugar cane harvesting, to find work in the town.

Needing new workers. the plantation owners looked to other poor communities where poverty might mean that any job was a good job. In this way Chinese and Portuguese workers arrived but they too searched out something better, off the land. It was from amongst the very poor of Southern India that the last big wave of migrants appeared. Young, dark skinned Indian men were duped into thinking Guyana would be their Eldorado and accepted the unfair conditions of indenture. They were eventually to form the largest ethnic group in Guyana.

After the Second World War the Guyanese began to awaken politically and begin the process of gaining independence. It was quite a rocky road the country travelled. A multi ethnic party was elected, led by Cheddi Jagan who was Indo-Guyanese. The party had hardly begun to govern before the CIA and British governments, scared by Jagan’s supposed Marxist leanings, dissolved this government. By the time there was another chance to form a government there was a split between the two main leaders along ethnic lines and Forbes Burnham left the IndoGuyanese to Cheddi and formed an Afro-Guyanese party. These two parties remain to this day.

During the next elections held in 1964, despite various shenanigans by the British involving imprisoning both Cheddi Jagan and his wife, his Indo-Guyanese party had enough votes for a minority government. Nevertheless, the British invited his AfroGuyanese rival, Forbes Burnham, to form a coalition government with the third party. The British found themselves betrayed when Burnham cozied-up to the Russians. The Guyanese ended up with economic stagnation and huge outbound migration. And no railway. One of Burnham’s early acts was to destroy the railway that ran along the coast. It was a great goods and people carrier, but, being a symbol of the hated colonial power, it had to go. So also did democracy as Burnham manipulated the elections in order to maintain power from 1964 until he died in 1985.

Cheddi Jagan left his mark on Georgetown in many ways. My favourite one was that, when he was briefly Chief Minister, after the 1961 election, Jagan rehabilitated the lovely stretch of land beside the sea wall by filling in the 18 small holes and changing the name from Golf Club (restricted to the rich) to National Park.

I cycled through the National Park most days, beside the empty railway corridor enjoying a peaceful ride within a bustling, busy, noisy city. The most exciting time was when the flooding turned it into one huge lake, sparkling mischievously in the morning sun. I was sorry to see it had disappeared again two days later. It was a couple of Sundays before it was dry enough for the numerous pick-up games of cricket, where anything goes for a wicket, to resume. In season there were lots of soccer games too. Watching huge families, or other assorted groups, gathering for picnics each Sunday was quite heartwarming.

The best time to view the National Park and the adjacent sea wall is on Easter Monday. Everyone is out enjoying a kite flying extravaganza par excellence which takes place every year. Hundreds of fine lines attached to kites of every imaginable shape and hue cross over and back. Everyone has a kite, from little tots who can hardly hold the line, to skinny grandfathers reliving their youthful memories. From a distance the sky is filled with small black dots. As you get closer the multitude of shapes gradually appear along with a kaleidoscope of bright colours. Closer still and you can hear these airborne creations of paper and plastic riding the almost continuous onshore winds, rasping and buzzing like a huge storm of angry wasps.

Another favourite place for the Guyanese to go on the weekend is the Botanical Gardens. Mostly I biked through it after finishing a morning’s work at the Red Cross Convalescent Home, finding the park almost empty. Just a few cars parked under the trees, with the doors open, while their owners had a midday snooze or something rather more energetic with a girlfriend.

The best time to be at these gardens is at 7 a.m. just as the sun comes up. The trees are completely filled with white birds. On the lower branches the hundreds of cattle egrets have their perches but it is the Snowy Egret in the upper branches that amaze. They perform a ballet with their long lacy recurved aigrettes and elongated breast plumes. Exquisite. If you know where to look you can see all the five different species of parrot flying above. Then there are Toucans, owls and maybe even the tiny Wattled Jacana teaching his newly hatched babies how to walk with delicate careful steps across the water lily pads. Yes, it is the male who incubates the eggs in this species. The larger polyandrous females may have as many as four males taking care of eggs.

The amazing Victoria Regina Lily also grows here. Its huge leaves can grow three meters in diameter and can support a great weight. It only flowers at night; the flower is white the first night and turns pink the second, and then is gone. I was very lucky to see one. It was named when a specimen of the lily was sent to England from Guyana in 1837 by the explorer Robert Shomburgk, and named in honour of the new Queen.

Georgetown is not an easy town to live in. It is marked by busy traffic, loud noises, oppressive heat, and garbage everywhere. Yet the genteel old wooden buildings that still survive, the spacious boulevards and the natural tropical vegetation maintain a pleasing ambiance. The people too are survivors. They are still getting through and in the main living lives of old-fashioned dignity, bolstered by the support of their communities. Communities which also supported Martin and me, as we found many things that brought us pleasure in the time we lived in Georgetown.

2. The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Riding a Bike in Georgetown

Growing up as one of six children in a rather impoverished clergyman’s family in England meant that there were some things that we wanted but did without. However, we were also blessed with a fairy godmother who went by the name of Aunt Marjorie. She was my Father’s aunt and filled in for her deceased sister, as the relative who joined us for celebrations like Easter, took us on holiday and made up for some of the things we missed due to our relative poverty. Most notably she gifted each one of us kids with, on our ninth birthday, a bicycle. I loved the freedom of biking from the start.

It could have been tragedy too as I managed to get hit by a car one day and had to walk the bike home with a twisted front wheel. I was meant to be at Brownies and I had sneaked out to go riding with my friend, leaving my uniform in the cupboard. I was mortified on two fronts; being so stupid as to try and cross the road when I really knew there wasn’t time, and being caught out in a lie. I do not recall much of a punishment. Perhaps my parents, in their relief that only the bike suffered any damage, were not too hard on me.

A few Christmases before our volunteer application Martin and I had given each other Mountain Bikes and I had rediscovered how much I enjoyed bike riding. I was delighted when I read in the pre-arrival information for Guyana that VSO would give us a sum of money for a bike.

Being a woman on a bike in a country where women do not seem to ride, their dress code is far too formal for one thing, reminded me of how far we have come in Canada on the road to emancipation. It is so easy to take women’s rights for granted and forget those many women, and a few men who had to struggle to get them for us.

The slow pace and time it took to accomplish anything was another difference here. With just now meaning all in good time and normal for events to start as much as two hours late, it seemed that there need not be any reason to rush. It was good for me to practice patience and discover that the fast pace of life in Canada was not necessarily better. Not that I was much good at that practice, which was why I really appreciated the freedom to jump on my bike and get things done.

The bikes, imported from China, like so many things in Guyana, were cheaply made. The first time out I misjudged a turn, braked hard and the brake shoe pulled off the rim. Despite their poor quality, keeping them safe from thieves was difficult. I suspect many of the decent bikes on the roads were probably stolen from, or left behind by volunteers, as buying a new bike was too expensive for many Guyanese. Stories of lost bikes multiplied. One volunteer rather rashly lent hers to a kid who joined a pickup game of cricket. She let him ride her bike just down there to his home in order to get a ball. Neither ball, bike nor boy returned.

My friend Mira’s bike was lifted out of her compound under the not very watchful eyes of the 80-year-old security guard, who was very deaf. Here the enterprising thieves snuck in next door, borrowed a washing line and winched the bike up out of Mira’s fenced front yard. This was not a great loss to Mira, as at 72, she had found taxi’s rather more convenient to use to get around Georgetown.

We were meticulous about locking up our bikes, and for safety we carried them upstairs into our living room every night. Eventually the thieves caught up. Martin’s volunteer work, making supported seating for disabled children, required carrying many things home, such as large rolls of foam for padding. He also had to spend a lot of time searching hardware stores in Georgetown. Coming out of one shop, when tracking down a particularly elusive screw, disaster had struck and only the sawn-off steel bike lock cable remained. There were so many things Martin did with his bike, including carrying unwieldy objects around the streets of Georgetown, that he had to replace the bike quickly. Thankfully his shiny new bike lasted till the end of our trip when he gave it away to a Guyanese friend.

A fellow volunteer Angela was an optometrist. She needed an optical bench to teach her Guyanese students a particular technique. Martin built one for her out of wood and plastic pipes, lenses and lights. He took this across town to the hospital on his bike. Quite a feat considering the traffic on those busy streets, and the fact it was eight feet long. He did plan ahead and waited to leave until after rush hour was over.

My volunteer office was at The Community Based Rehabilitation Centre (CBR). The staff were very good at trying to make sure I could get where I needed to be, but the vehicle was not always available. Another concern was that on every trip the driver, Neville, would have an assortment of tasks to do for others in the office. Consequently. we would thread our way across Georgetown, stopping at random spots as my appointment time passed and I got more anxious.

It is unlikely that the Guyanese minded, it was after all normal here, but punctuality was apparently ingrained in me. I might know it was OK intellectually but my emotions did not. I did try lying about when I needed to arrive but that did not sit well with me either. When I was able to get to places in Georgetown by bike, I was much happier. The first time that I told Mrs. Eastman, the office manager, that I would go by myself on a 20-minute trip to an appointment with my boss Geraldine she said well you are a big girl aren’t you. Since big does not necessarily mean large, it also means old, I am not quite sure exactly what was implied by this phrase. I decided to take it as complimentary!

I still needed a vehicle for a few places in Georgetown that we had been told were no go areas. About half way through my stay, we were in the middle of an area called Albouystown visiting one of the Health Centres. Neville cautioned me to hide my bag in the floor rather than carry it on my lap. This part of Georgetown was so dangerous that a thief might reach in and take it from there. I had become quite blase about daytime travel around town on my bike. This remark reminded me that there were dangers, and I needed to be careful where I went.

I just loved the flexibility of two wheels. I would load up the basket and my backpack with a week’s worth of fruit and vegetables at the Bourda Market. One day, with a particularly full basket, the sweet fig bananas on the top bounced off and under the back wheel. I had failed to slow for the speed bump at the end of Station Street where we lived. After that I got better at packing the basket, or bought less. We could not afford to waste food. The VSO allowance was meant to cover my expenses but it did not. It did feel good not using up precious gas resources just to bring home my groceries, without the strain of carrying bags that the locals experienced.

All the bikes, whether new or well used workhorses, carrying a variety of things from racing songbirds in cages to as many as three passengers unsafely perched on different parts, were prone to frequent puncture. To keep them going there were vulcanisers repairing the tires in their little tiny shops. Usually when I got a puncture, I would save myself a long walk to the nearest one with a disabled bike, by contacting my very own superhero. Provided I had not left my cell phone on my desk, I could leave the bike safely locked and catch a bus to my destination. Martin would bike to my rescue and, by replacing the inner tube, make immediate repairs. When I returned there would be the bike, good to go.

Guyana’s unique weather also brought a major challenge; the rain. Tropical rainstorms are something else. It’s not cats and dogs; instead it is mammoths and elephants. My bright pink bike cape kept me somewhat protected, but underneath it felt like I was in a sauna, sweating in the ever-present heat. The reduced visibility was also a problem. Negotiating traffic was dangerous enough at the best of times but with my hood done up I was blinkered.

I was a slow learner about the rain. One time I was due to talk to some medical students. Despite the downpour, I got kitted out in all my rain gear ready to set off. By the time I had got the padlock off the gate the seat of the bike was wet enough to soak my pants. Pushing off, I was ankle deep, in a puddle on the bridge over the drainage ditch, which was filling rapidly. Like my shoe. Undaunted I pedaled up Station Street, completely forgetting the speed bump. My cape slid off the basket to empty a great dollop of water onto my lap. Not even at the end of the road and I was soaked from head to toe! Enough. Back home I called the office driver, who said he would be there just now. Neville was quick, only an hour later we completed the 10-minute drive and I arrived at work. No medical students. They had some cock and bull excuse about a problem with the rain!

Once, riding home in an unexpected downpour, I snuck around the traffic on the grass verge beside the drainage ditch. Then the grass narrowed, I was too near the edge and a piece of turf suddenly broke off. Disaster. I was thrown off the bike and underwater. Struggling out, still gripping the handle bars, I glanced up into the window of a passing bus. A young boy cried out in amazement it’s a woman. Red faced, I scrambled back on the bike and pedaled fast and furiously home, trying to avoid being seen by others; wanting to wash as quickly as possible. I scrubbed for a long time in the cold shower fearful of contamination. Finally, I learned to respect the rain and adopt the Guyanese habit of waiting for it to stop before travel.

Even in the rainy season, some days would be sunny. The flowering trees would sparkle in the sunlight and the bike was back to being a pleasure. Catching sight of the tiny Wattled Jacana picking its delicate way across the lily pads in a drainage ditch I could pause, in hopes that it would open its large, rust coloured wings and lazily flap up into the sky. I have already mentioned my daily ride through the National Park and the rainy season flooding which could transform it into a shallow lake glimmering with diamonds. Riding to work along Woolford, the school road, amongst the children in their neat uniforms or through the park in the early mornings, before the heat began to build, there was no place I would rather be.

My bike gave me access and freedom to be right there with the people and with nature. It was one of my greatest pleasures so who cared about an occasional soaking?

3. How Come?

When I was young, living in England, and in training to become a physiotherapist, I heard about an organization called Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) which was sending therapists and other professional people to what was then called the Third World. I was really intrigued by this and planned to go off to Darkest Africa and do Good Works as a physio as soon as I had completed my commitment to the National Health Service.

In those halcyon days we did not pay for our training so being asked to do two years of work in the UK seemed a very reasonable request. I am not sure, 40 years later, that I did much investigation of VSO back then but I do remember the strong pull to join up with them as a volunteer. I am not sure where that desire came from, although it was also reflected in my choice of a career in a caring profession.

Teaching had also been an option as a career for me and three of my five siblings did chose that, albeit only for a short time for two of them. They were all following my Mother’s example. What stopped me from going that route was a presentation I gave about water plants to my sixth form botany class when I was seventeen. I could hardly deliver one sentence without mixing something up. The topic lent itself to spoonerisms such as "long fin thronds or mispronouncing the Latin names. The class was in stitches, my face bright red. I decided then and there I would not be able to stand in front of a class and teach. I ended up in a job that involved lots of teaching both of individual patients and in groups. I also became comfortable in front of a larger audience when I