chapter_09

- Between Order and Chaos -

Trip from Saarbrücken to Lethem.


Okay, I tell ya what up man. Da sun up and it doin’ a big warm up on dis already what warm is city.

And it is almost 6:30 and we will leave this pleasant guesthouse and go see my old friend at the Prairie Hotel. Where we started this journey. At 85 U.S. the night and wondered what was up in this developing country.

Now we know. They don’t wanna do it in steps. From zero to 100 right off.

Had a nice chat with Arnie, a fellow from Holland. I had had coffee at the Pegasus and couldn’t sleep and thought someone wanted me on the phone but was another Steve. And so now then. I finish up my finishing up ideas on the plane. Now I do a quick shower. Maybe a quick shave. No. Shave in Saarbrücken.

Okay Man.

_bunnie stop_

Here’s what up now. We had breakfast at the Prairie so’s they knew we liked ‘em still and to the airport.

400 dollars to move our luggage from the car to the check in. One has to remember to always ask ahead of time in Guyana as in many developing or 3rd world countries. They’ll get you if the can. It’s the old barter system what we forget in Europe.

And then the young man, Kalvin, at the check in, had his ears full with why we didn’t want to pay for extra weight.

So what he do, he put priority on it and acted like he was the manager who wanted to save the name of BWIA. He even told us it wasn’t so common as the stories we heard all over Guyana how Trinidad eats luggage. What was good was his friendliness. And without his hand in our pockets. (thanks Kalvin)

Any whore, when we landed in Trinidad, Horsh figured we’d go to the beach. So he hired a cab and we drove through Port of Spain. He swam. I slept in the car with our cabbie. That was after someone gave us a shot of Scotch whisky.

And we got back. Got through customs, grabbed our hand luggage from someone who had been kind enough to lock it up for us, went through the metal detector, got on the plane and it is now on its way to St. Lucia. Not one second of sitting in the waiting lounge. Not bad for a 7 hour stop over.

This plane is bloody loud. Now we are going down again. I gotta pack in.

_bunnie stop_

The trip is over. I’m in my kitchen at home in Saarbrücken, Germany listening to a mixed CD Mauro and I made on his computer one night. Right now the song is a live recording of Light My Fire by the Doors. A brilliant piece of music. One of the songs before it was: Hurricane, the Bob Dylan attempt to make the public aware of its crimes against a black star boxer Rubin Carter who was destine to be world champ but he was black at a time when prejudice in the states was worse than it hopefully is now.

On the flight over the Atlantic, they showed the film about Rubin Carter. Denzel Washington made a brilliant performance. Such a performance that I was almost always thinking I was watching the real Hurricane.

The Hurricane isn’t the story though. My story is our trip to Guyana. Ernst wants to make a documentary on the Weaver Society. Our trip showed us there is a lot more to the story than some Amerindians making hammocks to sell over the Internet.

The story of Guyana found its way into the documentary. The tourism business also caught our curious camera. The Amerindian Heritage Month and the people involved. The people still living in Amerindian villages trying to avoid the western world ways yet at the same time very interested in development.

The have already accepted the new truths presented to them by the missionaries of the western world. This is already the end of their ways, weather they or we believe it. Good or bad, it’s the first stop in the development. Development being a western world term.

Money is already playing a more important role than whatever part of their culture they think they are holding on to. Everywhere we visited, we were expected to give money in exchange for being permitted to film.

In the western world, a documentary also means money. It isn’t big money; it’s a way of earning money for work done. And there is no question that a documentary can be good for the image of those involved. This won’t necessarily equate directly to money, but it is good business. Image in the media world is a big part of marketing. On the Internet, image plays a big role in public acceptance. Its openness almost demands that a company gives back something. A service is rewarded with popularity that can be turned into money. It’s a different process than the frontier world of the cowboys where there are different ideas of what money is and what it’s worth.

Which is all a little complicated, this explaining about. To get to the point, if a developing country or the companies in it want to expand their frontier to the world market, it has to be, or they have to be prepared to learn how it is done now. Of course there is corruption, blackmail and crime as much as ever but some things have to – fuck it. Later.

Truth is, I’m pissed off a little at the attitudes of some to the people I’ve dealt with on my trip. I get the feeling they think I can’t smell bullshit when I’m stepping in it. Perhaps they think the cheap con job makes them more fit for survival. Maybe it does in a frontier world but it’s hard to tell someone blue is green when it’s laid out on a public communication system. Someone will see through the con and expose it. The quick buck might have been made before the public say no they don’t want it but it’s an old and tired way to make money.

I have no second thoughts about telling people about the Balata Art work from Napi, I can see it is an up front effort. I have no trouble telling anyone about the growing, picking and hand weaving of cotton and the buying of the cotton to be made into hand woven hammocks. It’s a beautiful product and it’s hard honest work. It’s something the participants can be proud of. It’s an attempt at an honest living.

If such a thing is to be marketed and sold to the western world, yes the world with all the money, the not so new development that all countries and companies are very interested in, well they have to get what they are paying for and no matter how hard the Amerindians are working at making the product, is has to get to the consumer. The consumer might want to know that the Amerindians are getting fairly treated and paid their money, that sort of thing is part of marketing now in the western world, image again, public opinion, but what is still very important is that the whole process functions and they get their product they paid for and sooner rather than later.

If it isn’t done right, it won’t work because one unsatisfied customer can tell thousands of potential customers just as fast as a satisfied customer.

Take me for naive and try and get a quick buck of the fools who want to be able to trust but if you want to develop out of the back stabbing frontier world attitude, well this isn’t always the case so I’ll stop making my point. I’ll help, we’ll help make people aware that the Amerindians are interested in becoming part of the world market. We are very public and depend on the opinion of our users. Their opinion is important enough that we will try to be open and honest with them in the hope that they will be with us five years from now. Weather or not anyone we care to sponsor is with us in five years all lies on what our users want.

I hope this makes my point clear. If it doesn’t, well, sorry, we do what we must.

_bunnie stop_

And the leaves are turning colour now in Germany. It’s cold and the sky is grey, well it was several hours ago before the sun went down and made the sky black. Black with an orange-white light pollution haze. Something one doesn’t get at Karanambo or many of the other beautiful places in Guyana.

Guyana is a beautiful country. They say there are seven women to every man. I don’t believe it but I’m basing my belief on statistics I’m used to here.

And Guyana has a good people. They may have a few more desperate people than Europeans would be used to but there are many homeless and impoverished here as well. Life for them follows different rules; rules that we, the developed world can’t force them to change. We can ask for security against people who may want to take from us what we don’t want to give but it means building walls and caring guns.

If we want to visit their country and enjoy what really is another world, we might rather see what we can do to be welcome rather than invade their land and protect ourselves from the desperate and angry.

And now a quote form Dr. Zuess.

One fish
Two fish
Red fish
Blue fish.

Ah yes, the fish. The rivers are still full of them. It’s quite a thing to sit in a boat and watch Cliff hall in a piranha. It’s an amazing thing to sit at the top of the highest waterfalls in the world and see no sign of civilisation. It’s an awe-inspiring thing to sit at the top of a jungle mountain and watch the sun go down and the stars and moon come out. It’s a thrill to climb up the rocks of a warm river. It’s an experience to sit on a rock cliff and watch a harpy eagle floating on a warm up draft. It’s a thrill to hike to a river and sit in it while your guides hunt fish under water.

Guyana is full of wonders Europe has lost hundreds of years ago and some they never had. The month I spent there was one of the most learning, adventurous and rewarding I’ve had in a long time. An adventure of a life time for many. Guyana will stick to me, or something like that. Some sort of nice analogy to show that it ain’t all a Sunday picnic there and they got the odd mosquito and when it’s the rainy season, they got a whack of water, but if you are up for an adventure or need to witness the beauty of some of the last virgin jungle and rainforest, they have much to offer in Guyana and if someone tells you don’t go there, it’s just swamp and malaria and what all the say, remember they likely haven’t been there.

_bunnie stop_

A few pages left in this book and I could leave a page of two to see what becomes of it but maybe not. Get it finished. I almost feel the same about the hole thing, just pack it in. I think it’s just because I feel insulted and I’ll get over that.

Prejudges, but understandable, that the white man had the money and that was the game, see how much we can get.

And I have no comment on it. That is the way it is there because that is how it is. Here it’s a little different; we all get to get a little so we only have to fight to get more. The little con jobs become services, a new product to make you live longer, better, healthier: something to wash all your sins away and give you a happy marriage. Comes in a 4 box set and can be ordered by phone or over the Internet. Buy now while supplies last. Summer burn our sale. All stock must go.

Or something like that.

I think we are all destined for the same thing. Slavery to the system. What the system or who the system is or if it is something other than something that is and is rather just the way it goes, that I don’t know, but they or it will have us all on the same system.

Buy oxyfloridencent tooth paste.

Oh wait, we already are.

Oh, that was history. Shit. I think I missed the whole point.

Weren’t we going to touch on, between Order and Chaos.

That was it. To close the book we were going to put forth the question: can a bridge be built between Order and Chaos so that – and that’s the question. So that what. Shit, only thing that comes to mind is I want to stay in a hotel on the moon and watch the Earth.

I don’t think there would be a more mind blowing experience. To see that there is the ewig darkness is a planet full of life and I’m one of its inhabitants. I’ve visited a few lands and lived in two and thought I was starting to understand a little about human nature.

But I don’t know. Humans still make me wonder and I’d wonder even more if I were watching from the moon and not taking part in it.

But that would be a holiday up there. A holiday where you come back from. That’s the thing with holidays.

Which isn’t the point.

Point is there are two pages to go and I’m going to finish them tonight. I don’t know if I get this on the alba, maybe have to have the unedited version somewhere else.

On the other hand, maybe I find a way. Maybe subnet.

Well then, I leave the last page free to see what happens with the people we met in Guyana. We’ll see if the number of them who think of us as good guys goes up or down.

And really, that’s what we want.

_bunnie stop_

Most of a year, no it is the end of April, is gone and we are going online with this story. It’s sad to dedicate things to the dead.

For Vagai Persaud and those who he called his friends.

_bunnie stop_





by john rah, editorial lack of assistance from barbaralba, thanks anyway

go see the pictures, if you want.

If you ever get to Guyana, say hello from John Rah and der Ernst, the German film team.



© 2001 | the jose wombat project