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Guyana – South America meets Caribbean

There are some wonderfully random, yet woefully pointless profiles on Facebook. I am sure that I came across a group with 2 members quite recently … I could not help thinking that it would be easier to email each other!

One of the most fascinating profiles that I discovered recently was Guyanese Genealogy. As a quick explanation, Guyanese are natives of Guyana, a country on the Northern Coast of South America, bordered to the East by Suriname and to the West by Venezuela, with Brazil neigbouring to the South. Genealogy is the study of trees … Family Trees and heritage to be precise.

Subsequently, this site is of great interest to someone like myself who has much pride in his heritage and the land of his parents and,

whilst born in England, naturally refers to himself as a proud Guyanese and West Indian …

not ‘Guyanan’ or ‘Ghanan’ or even ‘Ghanaian’ as many would have you believe, not that I have anything but love for our West African brothers.

Now why would a South American Guyanese call himself a West Indian?? Without a full geography or history lesson, Guyana (then British Guiana) was a British colony from the early 19th Century. As a result, its populace would later consist predominantly of the descendants of African Slaves, and Indentured Labourers, primarily from India but also from European Colonies and China.

These were the same people that would also inhabit most of the other Caribbean Islands, also under British Rule. These islands plus Guyana ,collectively, are of course what we also know as the West Indies.

Guyana is not the tourist destination of the islands, much to do with the fact that most of the country is uninhabited rainforests – this was featured in the 2008 BBC Series, Lost Land of the Jaguar. Even the coastal areas are below sea level, giving the water a soiled brown disposition.

Guyana is, however, rich in history and natural resource. It was one of the largest exporters of rice, sugar, bauxite and gold. Demerara Sugar is the most highly used ‘Brown Sugar’ in the world, and few would know that the famous Jonestown Massacre also took place in Guyana.

The country has produced several of the West Indies’ greatest cricketers, names that include Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Alvin Kallicharran, and Carl Hooper. Guyana is also home to Eddy Grant, and has given wives to both Michael Caine and Michael Atherton.

Be in no doubt that Guyana has been a victim of political strife and violence, and it remains a very poor third world nation, unable to command revenue from tourism as in other parts of the Caribbean.

However it is a land steeped in history, and beauty. It remains a source of great pride to all of its sons and daughters, many of whom have grown up in North America or the United Kingdom, as their parents sought a new life. I would, myself, be representative of that group.

It is not easily accessible, and in some areas not always safe, but I would thoroughly recommend that anyone visit this quite unique country given the opportunity.

As a footnote, I was posted an article from the Guyanese Genealogy page by a good friend, Colwin Cort. The article was about the Guyanese and West Indian batsman, Alvin Kallicharran, mentioned above. It can be found here. The article was written by Shan Razack, who you can contact here. You will need to be a Facebook member to access.

Alvin Kallicharran is, of course, my father, so it did fill me with pride. I have also added this You Tube video of Kalli at his best in the 1975 Cricket World Cup.