Car Pool Adventures

OFF THE BEATEN PATH...

My travels for the latter part of this week have taken me off the beaten path of my usual commute and as far as Mon Repos on the East Coast of Demerara to visit the Guyana School of Agriculture.  I should be back there during next week and so I will reserve writing on the two trips there for a later date.

However, I was indeed fortunate to visit the Guyana Shop on Robb Street near Bourda Market, Georgetown Guyana, where I learnt a surprising fact:  there are over 700 locally made products on the shelves of stores across Guyana and in the Guyana Shop which are being promoted and marketed by the Guyana Marketing Corporation!

Just think about it, condiments of all types, seasonings and the usual products we may know of from Sari, Continental, Banks DIH and DDL jostle for position with ‘Strokus’ wine, chocolate sticks for teas, cleaning products and myriad other brands that are all proudly produced by Guyanese.  Many of these products are also produced and packaged right at the Guyana School of Agriculture!

IF YOU COULD ONLY SEE THE WAY...

Bad traffic and poor road conditions required me to focus on my driving the day that I shared my commute with her and I literally eschewed the opportunity of engaging her in conversation...

Realizing my error just before she got off I hurried snapped this pic, surreptitiously of course, in the hope that I might be able to put a name to the face and strike up the conversation at a later date.

Looks like an opportunity presented should truly never be left for another occasion though; the pic does not do ANY justice to her beauty, nor does it help me figure out who she is and I have never encountered her again.

ARE WE THERE YET?

My regular commute takes me between Linden and Georgetown six days per week most weeks, and over that course of time I have come to learn a few things that may be important to share with persons new to this route or who simply travel this route infrequently.

While these are not absolute facts, I present these points for your consideration and use, and urge others to add to them if they travel this road frequently and could assist to make this journey safer and more enjoyable for all.

1.   I have driven this road on leisurely recreational trips at 80 kph (which I hope to do this weekend), I have driven at the posted speed limit of 100 kph on a regular basis and I admit to doing greater than this but never more than 120 to catch a flight etc.  The takeaway from all of this is that I have rarely taken longer than 90 minutes to complete this journey, even driving at 80 kph, unless very bad traffic conditions are experienced.  Leave early and slow down...

2.   At night, when you are approaching oncoming traffic, PLEASE click your lights between low beam and high beam once or twice  and leave it in the low beam position so the other driver can get to see properly..

3.   DO NOT blink your lights between high and low beam continuously as you pass the other driver as this act SEVERELY impacts on the driver’s ability to see objects on the road and impairs depth/distance perception.

4.   DO NOT leave on your high beam lights when passing another vehicle or when stopped at the side of the road, park lights are sufficient for the latter.

5.   DO NOT put on those additional high powered floodlights and light bars... the oncoming driver may be forced by your very action to swerve into your path because they could not see an obstacle in the corner because of your use of these powerful lights.

6.   Container and log haulers are urged, PLEASE turn off those white cargo lights to the rear of your vehicles.  They blind vehicles overtaking because they are often oriented to shine across the truck bed and they mislead drivers as to whether these vehicles are oncoming traffic or traffic proceeding in the same lane as they are.

7.   If you leave Linden by 7 in the morning you will most likely clear the highway before the trucks are allowed to merge with the regular traffic and so avoid competing with them all along the East Bank Road.  leaving between 6 a.m. and 6:30 a.m.is even better if you want to arrive in Georgetown just as the business district gets open for business as the traffic is generally much more manageable around the time you will encounter it on the East Bank.

8.   Desirous of missing the afternoon rush hour traffic on the East Bank road?  Aim to leave Georgetown before 4:30 p.m.

9.   Georgetown traffic begins to gridlock just around 3 p.m. when schools close off for the day...

10.  If the road is foggy in the morning as you drive between Linden and Georgetown, please put on your headlamps to aid oncoming drivers to discern your presence on the road a little easier.

11.  When it rains on the Linden Soesdyke Highway, whatever is the speed that you normally drive this route at, PLEASE decrease it (your usual speed) by AT LEAST 20 kph.

ON MY OWN...

That’s the face you make when you have no friends to chat with on your way to work during that 60+ mile journey to work...

I did however get to indulge my eclectic taste in music fully! I don’t think they would have put up with my travel music this morning which ranged from Stacey Kent to Mary J Blige, to Savage Garden and a little George McDonald and Spyro Gyra thrown in for good measure. 

FIND THE BEAUTY IN YOUR ROUTINE... 

When you arrive at work more than an hour ahead of all of your colleagues, its time to find a space or place that allows you to simply be...

The blooms along the drive from the Pegasus to the Seawall spoke to me on Monday morning, calling me to commune with nature, to be at peace with myself.

The rolling Atlantic tide by turns brought hope and a promise of renewal to my spirit and the shoreline, and took away, piece by piece, my fears and concerns for the day on its ebb.

With over 600 km covered and much more than 1, 000 minutes spent in a car with 6 friends it is safe to say that the past 4 days were a test of endurance with only the thought of spending the next 48 plus hours with our families sustaining us through it all.

Along the way we have managed to drag 67 of you along with us on this epic journey, with the hope of adding at least 100 more of you in the new week to share our ups and downs (literally and figuratively).

However, we can definitely stand to improve on the zero comments we have had on our posts.  To encourage this, on Monday I will launch the Car Pool Adventures Group, where I hope that other persons who live in Linden and work in Georgetown will share some of their stories as well.  I have even learn’t of one person who lives in Georgetown and commutes TO Linden everyday for work!

For my final statistics, I must share that not feeling well today has allowed me to add 24 hrs to my weekend, reduce my commute by 140+ km and added more than 8 hrs of rest to my day, with the result that I feel motivated to maybe add 1 glass of wine to my diet tonight ;).  Most of my friends who share this journey with me were either not working today or had a few hours off so we all shared in this infrequent largesse of time available to ourselves today :)

(In my Bob Marley voice...) “Guiltiness!  Rest on their conscience! Oh Yeah!

So when you’re carpooling with a group of people, scheduling invariably gets trampled on given the demands of one’s family, car trouble, bosses who can’t relate to your need to escape, a late night binge the night before etc...

What’s interesting though, are the ploys employed to soothe the others when someone is in default :)

Some deflect, some just stay quiet, and others bake...  The key though is that when you have really considerate adults who are trying to adult, they invariably try to make amends in unique ways.  This morning I had a really delicious apology, which I promptly proceeded to dispose of before we got to the stop to pick up the next person.  

As intrepid travelers along the route between Linden and Georgetown, we often-times reflect on the reasons why we choose each others’ company in lieu of the convenient inconvenience of public transportation.  Today’s ride bore evidence of the reasons for this choice in ways that I would much prefer to put into questions, rhetorical or not (feel free to add your own questions):

1)   When a minibus conductor puts half of his body outside of the window of his vehicle, or worse still, sticks that imperious finger outside signalling that he WILL pass your vehicle and come to an abruptly slowed pace in a space that cannot accommodate a baby’s carriage much less a bus, what does he really expect you to do?

2.   When a hire-car driver proceeds to overtake the entire line of five or six vehicles behind you without considering that there are still six others ahead of you and no way to pass them before the container hauler bearing down on him in the next lane hits him head on, would it be bad manners to NOT hit your brakes so rashly that the entire line of traffic behind you gets thrown into confusion just so that the overtaking car could squeeze in just inches from your front bumper?

3.   When you approach the Demerara Harbour Bridge where the government has recently constructed a beautiful pedestrian overpass and where at the times we pass there are always about four traffic police standing in the intersection waving you on, do you really need to come to a complete halt to allow young men and women to run across said intersection?

4.  Has ANYONE in Guyana ever been charged and/or convicted for jay-walking? 

5.   When travelling at night, is it really that difficult to lower the intensity of your headlights as you approach oncoming traffic? 

6.   Do drivers really need to flip their lights nonstop between high and low every two seconds for three minutes as they proceed to pass oncoming traffic?

7.   IMPORTANTLY:  Why won’t the Guyana Police Force charge the drivers of haul trucks who travel along the Linden Soesdyke Highway with the WHITE cargo lights at the rear on all the way, ensuring that others drivers can hardly tell if they are coming or going and blinding you completely as you overtake them since most of these lights shine directly into your eyes at the rear or across the adjacent lane of traffic?

8.   Again, why are drivers who add those blinding LED spotlights not addressed in some manner that would remove that hazard from our roadways?

9.   If you are a driver of public transportation, on your last working trip for the evening heading home, do you really need to travel at 160 kph or more?  Are you late for dinner?

NOSTALGIA...

When was the last time you actively decided to play in the rain?  Well apparently the four year old decided to do so yesterday, or at least splash through the puddles (I didn’t do the commute yesterday so this part is related from hearsay).

Fast forward to today, and I’m waiting for him to get into the car, only for his parents to discover what is truly inevitable in this situation... his school shoes were too soaked to be worn today!  

WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS!!!

I’m sitting here on my coffee break writing this post and trying to think of a way to get across my angst and still draw you in enough that you would read it through... :)

Our travel/travail commenced around 06:15 hrs this morning as we tried to get an early start to the day as evidenced in the WhatsApp screen grab. After a bout of nostalgia that presented itself differently to the adults and the four-year old (tell you about that in a next post), we made good time down the Linden Soesdyke Highway, getting to the sweet spot where we get to hear the radio broadcasts properly with time to spare before the 8:00 a.m. news broadcast (another tale to be told), only to find that traffic had ground to a standstill in front of Caribbean Containers Inc. at Farm on the East Bank.  We spent one hour in that general vicinity, in the process observing several tidbits of Guyanese life to break the monotony...

a) A minibus exited the lane we were in (northbound) and entered the southbound lane... wait for it, wait for it...  only to proceed towards Georgetown in reverse gear since that lane was clear.  I was able to follow his progress in reverse for maybe 200 metres or so until he rounded the turn near to the Parc Rayne establishment, still in reverse.

b) A 32-seater bus filled with school children who travel from Linden to Georgetown for school each day (another tale to be told at a later date) edged up to us, surprisingly all but one child were awake but looked to be very frustrated at the turn of events with this unexpected delay. 

c) What do you do when nature calls during a traffic jam like this one... I’m not gonna relate the plight of my passengers, nope, not going to :)

d) We heard the news of the unfortunate incident with the two persons who were electrocuted yesterday at the Guyana National Stadium on the 08:00 hrs newscast on 94.1 FM at Farm, and at 09:00 hrs we were able to have a really good look (first time for me) at the ‘Dutch tomb’ in the parking lot at the Stadium as we edged past and even came to a complete halt in the best spot to see it from the East Bank Public Road.

When was the last time you were able to have a robust, stimulating, intellectual, topical, interesting conversation that lasted for nearly two hours and focused on problem-solving and achieving a better vision for all?  

A conversation where four adults waited patiently for each other to make their points and contributions without talking across each other, disagreed on several issues without the conversation degenerating, offering solutions to issues raised by others respectfully, seeking input where they know others may be a bit more knowledgeable and just generally being responsible adults who are secure in both their knowledge AND ignorance enough to deal with both without egoistic protestations...

As we share our days into the future you will learn that my titles are usually obscurely related to the subject matter of my posts, deliberately so, because I want you to visit us here with a free mind ready for any twist or turn, in the same manner that I have to be very liberal in my outlook to deal with our drivers here in Guyana...

The hunt for Bigfoot commenced immediately on picking up the four-year old and his Mom from her workplace, since he was insistent that we do so pronto!  After much negotiation, we finally arrived at a compromise that wherever I was able to safely stop the car we would disembark and diligently hunt down this necessity.  We arrived at Hadfield Street in the vicinity of the Linden to Georgetown Bus Park (Parliament Buildings) and another round of negotiations ensued wherein it was necessary to explain that the police would not look too kindly on me stopping anywhere there to go on a Bigfoot hunt.  Cogent explanations and a resort to reasoned bullying on his part allowed the four year old to finally acquiesce to the plea that we defer this search until I stopped for fuel on the East Bank, after which he promptly fell asleep!

The adult version when you’re actively protesting being forced to adult when you’re not in the mood to be adulting...

Today as I was driving my friend and her four year old, another friend who actually works in Georgetown as a driver and my sister, I couldn’t help glancing in the rearview mirror ever so often and feeling oh so jealous when I realised that they all, at one time or another, dozed off on me, as the Monday morning blues hit home.

Somewhere in traffic between Houston and Eccles:

The four-year-old: "Mom! My baby sister is the cutest baby sister in the world, isn't she?" - complete with the tugs and up in her face seeking validation of his conclusion.

His Mom: "Of course she is the cutest baby sister in the world, you know that..."

Him again, with the tugs on her arm: "But Mom, but Mom..."

Her, distractedly: "Yes hun..."

Him again, in a troubled voice: "But Mom, whenever I tell my friend at school (who also has a baby sister apparently) that MY baby sister is the cutest baby sister in the whole world, he stops talking to me..." - ending in a totally dejected tone of voice.

His Mom: "Well, to him, his baby sister is the cutest baby sister in the whole world, but you KNOW that YOUR baby sister is really the cutest baby sister in the whole world. "

Nina Simone & Lauryn Hill The Miseducation of Eunice Waymon (Full Albu...