An Expat in my own country. Oxymoron? Not really. How could I, being born and raised in Guyana, be an Expat in my own country you ask? Well stranger things have happened I’ll wager. Let’s dive into how this conundrum came to be.
Almost thirty years ago I departed these hallowed shores, hotly accompanied by a not insignificant measure of trepidation, counter balanced with an earnestness to explore new places, new cultures and new peoples. The weird juxtaposition of these two competing emotions, a strange thing in my breast. Usually I am gung-ho for new adventures and new experiences, figuratively chomping at the proverbial bit to conquer new places. I usually relished camping and going into unfamiliar circumstances coupled with the unfamiliarity of alien surroundings. However this time, worry gnawed doggedly at the pit of my stomach, at my foraging proclivities which were tempered with a mildly unsettling feeling of, possibly biting of a bit more than I could comfortably fit into my oral cavity, so to speak. Yuh know wuh meh a seh?.
I lived in the USA for about 20 years before I returned to Guyana the first time. I got a culture shock that left me aghast and knocked me slightly off kilter. Once familiar places were not so familiar anymore. The people were the same. They spoke with the same tilting Caribbean-esque manner that was so familiar to me. The vocalizations still had the same syntax and sentence construction that I had learnt early as a child and miss sorely when I converse with non-Guyanese. Native Guyanese speakers, minimize ‘th’ words to the point of non-existence, replacing th’s with ‘d’s’. For example, that is pronounced ‘dat’, those is pronounced ‘dose’ and there is pronounced ‘dere’. They also refer to the first person as ‘me’ instead of ‘I’ as in, “Me ent tink suh” meaning, “I do not think so”. There was still that informal approach to the language, tinged with a uniquely Guyanese flavor, that seemed to roll smoothly of the tongues of the denizens of the lush green land of my birth. It felt like music to my ear and I experienced a sharp, poignant feeling of being somewhere, intimately familiar and surprisingly calming at the same time. The familiar accents notwithstanding, there was a strange dissonance of ‘new cars’ and fancy buildings and familiar accents that jarred with the youthful perception of my homeland. Dis ting nah mek sense.
After my plane touched down and that initial prayer of thanks for safe travels went up, I remembered how before I had left Guyana all those years ago, it was not an uncommon sight to see cows and or horses nonchalantly crossing any street they felt like crossing.
They paid scant attention to irate drivers who urged them out of the roadway with such vehement cursing delivered with such aplomb and expertise that would make a shy sailor blush. For their efforts, the cows would momentarily halt their saunter and glance dispassionately at the irate driver, then casually continue his saunter across the road. In addition to the casually sauntering cows, drivers and other road users were also faced with small flocks of goats and sheep also sharing the roadway and also precariously darting across the road in the case of goats and blindly dashing across the road in the case of the sheep. Dem seh sheep dem stupidee.
Driving the East Coast road was particularly notorious for cows and horses either crossing at the most inopportune time or more dangerously lying on the warm roadway chewing their cud. Nighttime cud chewing and lying on the warm roadway by cows often precipitated horrendous vehicular accidents and tragedies. I remembered donkey carts and horse drawn carts (dray carts)
sharing the road with frolicking school children, darting and being on the lookout for mixed breed dogs which Guyanese lovingly referred to as ‘Rice Eaters’. All of these potential road hazards came tumbling back to my memory in cascading waves provoking an involuntary smile which crept hesitantly across my lips. All of these things used to happen over twenty years ago before I migrated. Wait for it, wait for it… didn’t I tell you to wait for it? Well all these things still happen today in Guyana. Yuh tink it easy? Well um nah easy.
One of the first things that struck me about present day Guyana after I left the airport, was the preponderance of ‘new cars’ that I saw on the roadway. One thing that any self-respecting Guyanese take a lot of pride in, I mean like a whole lot of pride in, is their cars. In the USA for the most part a car is a thing that pretty much got you from point A to point B. Other than ‘chest thumpingly’ displaying the coiffured and pedigreed brand name and model of your automobile, read that as car, there was not a lot of decorative ‘frills’ that Americans deck out their cars with. Not so with my fellow Guyanese, not so at all. A car was a thing to be celebrated, a status symbol par excellence, a four wheeled trophy to be rolled out, decked out, decorated and spruced up. Any Guyanese car worth its salt, must be decked out with a thumping sound system, with a graphic equalizer and heavy pounding bass speakers and tweeters. It must have a fancy lighting scheme, either inside or outside or, yep you guessed it, both inside and outside of the vehicle, It must have a loud musical horn, and fancy number plate, please for heaven’s sake, do not forget the fancy number plate trimmings, to do such would be sacrilege of the highest order. This description of automobile splendor is most rigidly adhered to, almost to religious fanaticism and fervor, by mini-bus drivers, who then turn around and take it to the ‘nth’ degree. Yep, ah we people dis.
When I got to Georgetown 
and saw the splendor of the young skyscraper buildings and other lesser aspirants, I almost did not recognize it. If I had been instantly transplanted into the very heart of Georgetown without being made aware of where I was going to, I wager that I would have felt as if I had been transplanted into an unknown country in which the citizens of said country, spoke with a distinctly Guyanese accent and vernacular, complete with celebrated colorful Guyanese-esque expletives and other multi-hued, read that as colorful, accoutrements. There was a certain colorful life and a hustle and bustle which I experienced there that was unlike anything that I had experienced while living in Guyana before. Me did cyant believe um.
The women seemed prettier too and more saucily decked out than I remembered. They displayed a chic, self-possessed and well made up exterior. There was also a certain distinct awareness of themselves and their worth, which is typically emblematic of Guyanese women. The guys were all in close fitting jeans and slacks, designer tees and the ubiquitous ‘slippers’ (flip flops). Rubber slippers, leather slippers, designer slippers and handmade slippers. I scratched my head trying to remember if I had even seen so many men wearing slippers in other parts of the world that I had been. Seemed to me that there should have been a quota of some sort with regards Guyanese men and boys wearing these floppy accoutrements on their feet at one time. I am thinking that a ratio of 30/70 would have nicely sufficed, instead of the 80/20 that ruled the land. Well this is my Guyana, the ‘slipper’ capital of the world! Wuh we gun do eh?
I was not sure where to go to change my US dollars into Guyanese dollars. I racked my brain trying to remember which were the the popular cambios and money exchangers. Not coming up with anything worthwhile at that moment, I asked my driver and he took me to a cambio on Water Street, which was instantly familiar, and I got some money changed. I speak Creolese and Standard English. I nimbly put away my Standard English, eagerly dusted off my Creolese and prepared it for use like a bright shiny new object. I might well have spared myself the trouble. Unbeknownst to me, my appearance screamed AMERICAN and telescoped this message ahead of me like strong perfume wafting off of a proverbial ‘French lady of the night’. I valiantly tried to muster the idioms, vernacular, ruddy accent and cadence of a typical home grown Guyanese in speech. Honestly, to me I sounded perfect but I could see from the way heads were turned in my direction upon hearing my voice, that I was not as successful as I had initially thought. “Oh shoots! I thought, prices are going to jump up for this ‘American’. I am going to be given the ‘special’ rate that is reserved for Americans and other foreigners. See? Like I said, Expat in my own country! See wuh meh a tell yuh?
So then here are ten reasons that I felt like an Expat in my own country:
- Unfamiliar surroundings at the Airport such as baggage carousel, air condition and a bunch of other fancy stuff all over the place.
- A lot of fancy cars in Guyana and not nearly as much ‘ole cars’ chugging and smoking down the road and genuinely being a polluting nuisance.
- New buildings along the East Bank such as the Princess hotel and the National Stadium and a bunch of pedestrian over-walks across the East Bank highway.
- A totally transformed downtown Georgetown with large multi-storied modern looking buildings and facilities.
- Unfamiliar driving routes in and around Georgetown; lots of one-way streets and streets with unfamiliar names.
- Boys and girls decked out in American styles and fashion. (Notable exception – preponderance of men and boys wearing slippers)
- Budding international malls with escalators which reminds me of buildings I saw in Trinidad and Barbados and other Caribbean countries.
- Fancy movie theaters with an international presentation. Totally unlike the movie theaters of like Metropole, Globe and Liberty that I had been familiar with.
- Elegant formal dining restaurants like Aagman Restaurant, New Thriving and Maharaja Palace.
- International hotels popping up all over the place adding style and distinction and a type of first-world-like flair on the the Georgetown skyline.
All these new business places, new fine dining restaurants, unfamiliar vehicles in guyana, vendors treating me like I was a born American as evidenced by sudden price hikes on their merchandise, and the rubbernecking upon hearing my accent that I swear vehemently to you, I did not have, unfamiliarity with the pricing scheme for taxis, mini buses, ferry crossings and water taxi prices all combine to make me feel like an Expat in my own country. Well eh eh, me a wan Expat in me own country now!