Stumbling on unexpected Freedom in Guyana

Nov 20, 2016

By PAUL DOMINIC

Stumbling on unexpected Freedom in Guyana

One of my boyhood memories is occasional stepping out of our house to grocery store at Muthalagupatti (Village of Beautiful Pearl) in South India. I was ever ready to rush and fetch at the bidding of mom something for emergency cooking when the regular stock was over. This memory of off-and-on experience awakens in me the enjoyment of maternal love and boyish freedom from care. And something more too—because near the shop was the church; and every time I passed by it I would gladly advert to the rumor of angels (years before Peter L. Berger’s A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural).

As years went by I heard people connected to me calling me and leading me to enjoy the freedom of crisscrossing India. With the maturity of years I also heard voices inside and outside of me, not unlike those of Joan of Arc, that kept urging me to venture farther afield and journey purposefully, not simply for pleasure but promotion of freedom. And so some fifty-odd years later I found myself far away in small Guyana which people, even learned and widely traveled, mistakenly call British Guiana even now, fifty years after its independence—a sign that people somehow unconsciously cannot recognize, let alone appreciate, freedom even where it exists.

I spent my year at Miss Phoebe a small town along the Berbice river, living and working along with another Indian at the Guyana Human Development Center. My long journey in Guyana started with my first steps towards a Church, some 20 minutes’ walk from our Center. I traveled there daily around 6 am against the wish of my companion. After crossing the Atlantic, I was not ready to be cooped up in the Center all day. I enjoyed the morning walk even on rainy days especially as I pursued a mission: I was exploring not only the area but human hearts to make them listen to the voices of Heaven, channeled hopefully even through mine in the Church and outside. The visitors were about six; but with their morning trip they made their rendezvous holy and happy. The zeal and freedom of their daily commitment made up for the absent many. Patricia for example traveled from Bush Lot double the distance as I, spending Guyanese $ 200 daily. Mark Kum, an eighth-class boy, living nearby came regularly. He did the readings for the dozen ears and pleased everyone. He lifted everybody’s hope as Patricia wished him to become a bishop!

Enthusiastic about that daily constitutional I never missed it even in rainy weather. But I was loath to do a weekly trip, with my companion, to the Saturday market near the Church. It was a necessary task for our daily living but I hated that chore. For one thing, I had never done work of that kind before, as an adult and that an intellectual. Anyway, that weekly travel with my companion posed to be a bugbear for weeks. Without knowing my thoughts and feelings, one day Patricia complimented me on my weekly marketing. Her remark jolted my intellectual curiosity; it shook my heart to sense the good perceived by her feminine mind. Without knowing she made me realize this: traveling is not simply traveling places but traveling around hearts. Going marketing even with someone annoying to me charted a path for weaving human geography: seeking and encountering people and knowing ourselves as known by them. Traveling all the way from India I was not doomed to keep myself aloof at the Center or cocooned in the Church but to mingle with the populace buzzing with life. That was no small discovery of travel as “human discovery.”

From then on I found myself enjoying our market visit, discovering interesting people. I was surprised to notice some vendors’ interest in me as a recent arrival from India from where their grandparents had come as indentured labor. They even seemed to wait for me as I sensed from their greeting. Once as I was getting ready to pay for my weekly buy another buyer was ready with her payment; the vendor signed to her to wait till I paid first! I felt embarrassed by her preferential treatment of me but it was done with a smile to the other. Outdoing her was a poor woman from whom I bought some gooseberry for $ 60, more for her sake than for mine. I paid her $ 100 and she returned $ 50. When I pointed out she gave me more than my due she pathetically lisped she had no change. I returned gently the whole amount overwhelmed by her generosity. She took it without fuss humbly. If only the greedy MNCs shared the freedom of her tribe!

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About the Author

PAUL DOMINIC

AFTER A STINT OF TEACHING MATHEMATICS, HE HAS DEVOTED HIS TIME AND ENERGY FROM 1980 MOSTLY IN COUNSELING AND ALSO WRITING. HIS LAST BOOK WAS ON NIGHT-TIME DREAMS; ITS TITLE, THE BEGINNING OF REALITY. HIS RECENT BOOK IN THE PRESS IS GOD OF THE EXERCISES. HE HAS PUBLISHED IN JOURNALS IN INDIA AND ABROAD, INCLUDING USA.

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