This is Springlands (Guyana), a lively, sleepless place, with two new minarets, and lots of prayer flags in the sea. Everyone here seemed either to cut cane, fish, or sell stationery or teeth. In the market, there was one man to pull the old teeth out, and another to replace them.
Most people got around in ‘Tapirs’, which were tiny homemade buses, with more paintwork than engine (you can just see a green one in the photo). Many of the beggars, I noticed, had parrots, and you could buy any god you wanted, made out of plaster. It all felt like some sort of unspecific festival, a celebration of nothing in particular. Was this the same Berbice that had almost imploded during the 1763 revolt?
Since the arrival of the Indians, it had become a hotbed of something else; cricket, perhaps, or ‘Grand Sari Pageants’ (‘That’s all we ever do in Guyana,’ an Indian once told me, ‘hold pageants’). I've never had 'bush chicken' (or iguana) curry before, or seen Bengalis in stetsons. This was India alright but with a South American swagger.