A song and a prayer

Dear…

God…

Dear God, I am thankful for life…

I wonder if the vagrants pray and stop before their prayers are verses. Do they stop when they realise that perhaps their prayers will not change how they are drenched by the rain and dried by the sun? Strangers would still hurry without paying them any mind though a few might drop a gray or a blue note or a morsel.

Two were murdered recently. Even those who possess nothing but the rags on their backs and their knowledge are at risk of facing consequences that stem from the memories and experiences of trauma that has not been holistically addressed and often manifests in violence. I wonder if they were grateful to go. I wonder if they truly believed that some paradise awaited them. But here, where many enjoy heaven though they cannot escape the symptoms of our hell, is there any hope to continue enjoying abundance after death? Is there any joy in the life of a vagrant? Is their existence hell or simply an escape from the demands of life the rest of us endure?

Along the pavement sometime last week, I heard a vagrant humming. What was he humming I thought as I slowed my footsteps just to hear it a little while longer. It was a sweet melody even in the depths of despair. Still, even with marks of violence about his body, hair matted, clothes dingy and tattered, he had a song in his heart.

I am always uneasy when I have close encounters with vagrants, not because I am annoyed by them but because the cardboard boxes for beds and covering, or just the cold pavement or dirt, or some temporary shelter, and morsels from the mercy of those who care all remind me of the worse of human misery.

I walk around Georgetown often, sometimes simply to observe the people and perchance to stumble on something interesting to write about. Amidst the usual bustle, the vagrants blend into the social order.

Sometimes I pass them sleeping in the heat. I admire their strength for choosing to endure the lot that life has dealt them. Sometimes they look at me with arms outstretched; a gaze that can madden you if you lock eyes with them long enough; a condition that you as an individual often cannot solve because a small amount of cash or a meal are just small bandages that will disappear into their wounds. Our leaders should often take strolls among the people to regularly come face to face with the harsh realities.

The humming vagrant made me think of those who were enslaved and forced to work on the plantations; they too hummed and sang through the worse of human suffering. Even when they were maimed and hung from trees, a song remained in many of their hearts; sad though it was. Old negro spirituals created to comfort grieving hearts and numb the pain of what it meant to be enslaved. He hummed under the burden of the dirt on his body and the conditions that led to his existence. A slave to destitution in a cooperative republic; beaten every day by the conditions he must endure. Many of us also hum or sing when the pressures of life weigh us down.

A while ago I wrote a piece on some vagrants I interviewed. Drugs, mental illness, loss of relatives and homes, and abandonment were some of the issues that led to their fates. One day a few months after I stopped to ask one if he remembered when I interviewed him. “Do you remember…?” seemed to float off in the air unheard, uncared for by the blank stare.

The vagrants are part of the forgotten and ignored even when we celebrate “progress” with increases in the minimum wage and such. At the same time, some are made to work for minimum who have a plethora of troubles because they are not educated enough apparently and the skills they possess cannot pay them more or enough, allegedly; they must be satisfied with the king’s crumbs because somehow we have created a world where all are equal but some are more equal. When we scoff at those who must work for minimum wage, and tell them that they must be content with their place in society because they failed to developed themselves, but their jobs are just as important to maintain the status quo even though they must often live ‘from hand to mouth,’ our song is corrupted. When everyone is a lawyer or a doctor, a minister or some other upper-class or upper middle class elite, who will clean and serve at the tables of the kings and queens?

Is the minimum wage in Guyana truly a living wage? He or she who collects the green notes—

Many times in one withdrawal—are they more often than not enjoying their lives with nothing to complain about? Not that it is expected that everyone would regularly take vacations, live in the largest homes or regularly dine at the fanciest places, but are their basics needs met without distress, without remittances, without faith and a song in their hearts?

In a population where a large section of the people would be considered the working class and underclass, the idea of a decent living wage for many is like a magician’s trick; an amazing act that wows one for a moment but is over before long and one is quickly brought back to the reality. Even some Guyanese who would be considered lower middle-class live on faith and a song too in their hearts.

Minimum wage in the public sector is now seventythousand dollars. Many have celebrated this move by the government who have gradually increased wages since 2015. It is less in the private sector.

The poor are often made to comfort themselves with phrases such as ‘blessed are the poor’. Many were raised into thinking that hardships are the tests that must be had; some faithfully wait to retire to live on their pension, waiting to sit in their rocking chairs and hum because they survived. But even then, is it enough?

Most Guyanese are not be vagrants, but when one examines the conditions of their lives, it is like a lifetime period of post-slavery apprenticeship; just enough earnings to bring some semblance of contentment and a little respect, even though it is often supplemented by remittances.

Last week after I heard the vagrant humming, I thought about my life. Everything that I was worrying about that day subsided. My struggles are nothing compared. I sang as I often do.

Blessed are the poor they say who are often on their knees, but ‘Dear God...’ often seems to go unanswered.