I HAVE only been driving for about four months, and every time I get behind the wheel of the family car my mother nearly gets a heart attack because, for her, the roadways are too treacherous, in terms of irresponsible drivers, for me to navigate

However, my dad always encourage me to spread my wings and he was the person who patiently taught me to drive, so last week Thursday, late afternoon, after dad had

‘FLASHBACK’:  The terror unleashed in Agricola last Thursday.

picked me up first from my place of employment, he relinquished the wheel to me, after which we picked up my little brother, whom we will call ‘Ram’, then we went to my mother’s place of business that she had recently opened, where we waited for her to secure the premises, with dad’s help (actually she was doing the supervising while dad was doing the actual work), before we set off for home on the East Bank corridor.
However, in the vicinity of McDoom we were forced to stop because of a traffic congestion, which we thought was due to an accident, or a vehicle catching afire, because we had seen smoke at a distance, seemingly on the highway and that was the only conclusion we could come to. The other – and what we subsequently discovered, real reason was too unthinkable for anyone to conjecture, because of all the implications and consequences of such ruthless, heartless and irresponsible actions.
However, because of the commotion caused by the unruly behaviour of so-called protesters, who were really criminals intent on using a situation to rob as many persons of one ethnic persuasion as they could manage, as instructed by their political leaders, word soon reached us that the fire was really tyres set alight in the middle of the roadway, which had been rendered virtually impassable by a human (or, more apt – inhuman) blockade on both carriageways of the four-lane East Bank highway with debris and a fire adding to the chaos.  Police themselves were under assault, so commuters were left to the mercies of the hooligans.
After hours of waiting in a line that was not moving it had gotten dark and Ram was extremely hungry, we all were, but he was just a little boy; also we were hours late for picking up my baby sister from play-school, while we were also worried about my older brother who was at evening classes at UG. Dad decided to go for the more vulnerable of his two children, my baby sister. My brother’s phone was turned off in class, so he was unreachable when we tried to warn him of the situation.
Dad decided that we would walk through the cordon and try to get transportation from the other side; so we gathered our possessions and exited the car, preparing for a long and fatiguing trek.
We walked right into a nightmare out of Dantes’ “Inferno”.
People of Indo-Guyanese extraction were being beaten and robbed by marauding gangs armed with sticks, cutlasses and other things like stones. A roving gang of men and women surrounded my family and lashed my dad on his head when he tried to push away one man who was manhandling my mom. Dad fell unconscious, with blood running from the wound on his head. Ram started trembling and screaming, whereupon a woman in the gang backhanded him in his face and said “shut yuh li’l coolie sk..t.”  They then proceeded to rob us of everything, including Ram’s entire school bag with all his books, his Ipad and cellphone that he had only gotten one week before as a birthday gift; my mom’s purse, which contained important documents, house and business keys, cellphones, and all the takings from the day’s business, Dad’s cellphone, his keys, which included the car keys, his wallet with important documents and cash, all of our watches and other jewellery, including my parents’ wedding ring.  But what was worse, these stinking, filthy men rubbed their hands all over me and my mom’s bodies, in full view of my little brother and spectators, who were too terrified and helpless to assist, because every Indo-Guyanese in proximity was either being attacked in such a manner, or under threat of attack, so no-one wanted to call attention to themselves.
Because we had lost our phones we could not communicate with my brother and there was no way we could reach him in the milling crowd of thousands.
We turned around and walked toward town to Stabroek Market, eventually hitching a ride with a kind motorist, who lent us enough for fares. The situation on the stelling was almost as chaotic as at Agricola, with people being attacked and robbed there also.
Eventually we got into a speedboat and made our way home through the circuitous route of the Demerara Harbour Bridge and a taxi from the Princess Hotel.  We went through agony because, when we tried to get through to my older brother from our landline phone a strange male voice answered and cursed us. Calling 911 proved a waste of time.
He reached home during the early hours of the morning. His backpack with all of his belongings, including hard-to-acquire books, his PSP, laptop, cellphone, watch, and a substantial amount of money that he had been supposed to put into the bank for my mom, but had not gotten around to (he is sort of lazy and irresponsible sometimes) had been stolen and he was bruised and had a swollen face and cut lips from having been beaten’.
My always happy, mischievous little brother has gotten very quiet – not even smiles from him anymore. He is excruciatingly polite, and we both get nightmares almost every night.
The irony of it is that my dad, who was friends of both Nagamootoo and Ramjattan, had switched political loyalty to the AFC because of his friendship with these two men.