Politics is absent from ones life only if one is ignorant, acquiescent, or servile.  If one were black they would not dare venture in the area after dark. That is a fact I was rudely awaken to when I suggested to some of my friends I stayed with in Portuguese quarter that we take in the late show at Roopmahal.

The horizontal racial segmentation was mirrored with vertical segmentation by religion. Hindus and Muslims  had tacit understanding of that social boundaries even as kids. Christians existed in the mediating space

Quit the bullshit idealized reality of our youth. It was a morass of ignorance, bigotry, misogyny  and naked brutality. There was no profound sense of caring for each other and little in caring for animals. That kind of respect would have to exist for us first  if we were to care for our own fellow humans. Guyanese are appallingly cruel to their dogs and cats.  Rural guyanese lived  no ideal pastoral existence. Theirs was a grinding impoverished setting with little space for true communitarian ideals to flourish.

Yes, I remember my few years of growing up in Guyana  very well. I love my friends, my family and neighbors and still do to a large extent. I also have many fond memories of my interaction with all of of them.

However, on reflection  I truly abhor some of the bastards. On meeting them as adults my conception of them was far off. They turn out to be crude, brutish. of mundane interests and some of them are appallingly ignorant  racist bastards as you are. 

You had to be truly oblivious to the grinding  brutish reality or deliberately shut out the social destitution to be doe eyed about growing up in Guyana.