I prefer to leave Toronto in January when short, cold days, and overexposure to fluorescent light crashes down on my mood. But this summer trip is a much needed escape before I return to in-person teaching for the fall semester of 2021. Covid travel restrictions were recently modified allowing some international travel and I took the opportunity to visit Guyana, my country of origin. The journey was by no means long; Cheddi Jagan International airport is only a five-hour flight from Toronto. But it is a tedious trip, all the ‘new normal’ of travelling is very complicated and costly. As I observe fellow travellers, many with small children and oversized luggage, my hope for a comfortable flight diminished rapidly.

The full Caribbean Airlines flight, with a stopover in Trinidad, and mask requirements are the perfect combination to make passengers more grumpy. I focus my thoughts on the journey ahead and contemplate my three destinations: my primary school, my secondary school, and the house where I grew up in. I must have drifted off to sleep as I was jolted awake by the shriek of an infant. By the time the plane landed, I was tired, but eager to get through the slow immigration/customs rituals and out of the stifling building. The hummer was waiting outside and the drive from Cheddi Jagan Airport to Zeeburg is less than an hour; anticipation shrunk time and excitement overcame fatigue.

I recall the drive to get to those familiar streets on crowded buses from the distant memories of my teenage years. A community of travellers that you recognise and come to appreciate - or, in some cases, dislike - would be on the bus. You knew who would hold your backpack if you didn’t get a seat and who would not. It is always difficult to hang on to possessions as sudden incessant, yet unexpected jerks result in dropping things in the scramble for a handhold. The best thing about being on the bus is that the public road runs almost parallel to the seawall – the barrier between the Atlantic Ocean and the below sea level coast. On one side, a window seat provides an unobstructed view of the ocean stretching into the horizon allowing the imagination to wander as far as the ships and boats out on the water. On the other side, the unending rice fields meet the sky at some distant point. Window seats are coveted and provide ample nothingness to stare off into with an excuse to ignore the person next to you. You would jump off at your stop and there is sure to be people: friends standing at the street corner, women in their brightly-coloured dresses – some wearing romals or head-kerchiefs – chatting, street-sellers trying to entice with their fruits and home-made treats, children playing, drunk men staggering around. There was life and energy in the hustle and bustle of the main street corner. But the windows of the hummer are tinted, and the air-conditioning is on. This is a quiet ride with a hazy view, carrying only myself and the driver, my cousin once removed. The scenery is familiar yet engulfed in the mystery of the eerie silence and hazy scenery.

At my first stop, the driver pulls onto a side road that is the main intersection of Ocean View, a small village on the ocean side of the main road. The big potholes on the street made the ride feel similar to the ‘Sledgehammer’, the one ride at Canada’s Wonderland that I could not tolerate. However, this is an important stop: around the corner would be the primary school I attended from 1966 to 1972. Like other schools, children were provided with a morning snack; a cup of milk made from powdered milk and two sweet biscuits. Ms. Singh allowed me to bring a bottle to school and fill it with the extra milk to take home along with broken sweet biscuits. She knew I had younger siblings at home. I arrived at the corner but could not see the schoolhouse. My heart sank! I was hoping to see familiar faces, retrieve old report cards, visit the library that fuelled my imagination, and find something that would direct me to the one connection I had with Canada before moving there: a pen-pal, through a school-to-school project.

Her name was Carol Brown and she lived in Canada, a land of snowfall, Halloween and houses with white picket fences. Carol Brown was my age and like me, she was a good letter writer. My teacher hardly had to make corrections on my letters to her. Anyway, Ocean View Public school no longer existed; the tent-like structures that housed the two kindergarten classes, the main building, and the library were all gone. The only thing left is the Mandir that was connected to a section of the school. I stood on the now overgrown field where we used to have our assembly every Monday. Assembly consisted of saying the pledge. I still remember it…‘I pledge myself to honour always, the flag of Guyana’, after which we will sing a few verses of the national anthem. And naturally, we concluded the assembly with the Lord’s prayer standing right next to that Mandir. No one spoke of tolerance or religious diversity. It was as natural as the sunrise and the heat it brought with it in July, or as expected as the tropical rains that flooded the villages in December. As I stand where my school used to be, I remember.

I remember going to Sunday school, singing Hymns and learning Bible verses. What was that about? Both my parents were Muslims, albeit with different levels of religious commitments or practice. I recall a story of my paternal grandfather coming on the last ship, the SS Ganges, bringing indentured servants, “bound collies” to what was then British Guiana (1917). The trans-Atlantic trip was similar to the slave trade it replaced as a more “humane” option to slavery. The approximately 9500 miles took over three months. And we now know of the untold horrors: the mortality rate, bodies being thrown into the sea, the beatings and starvation on board, but my grandfather was tight-lipped about all of that. According to the narrative, the only one he told was that, if caught praying on the ship, Muslims were beaten and as the story goes, groups of Hindus would surround the Muslims to hide and protect them. This tolerance stayed with people of religion and it is what I recall. No policies, no state rhetoric. But I must stop this useless retrospection and move on to my second destination, my high school.

Photo credit: Abbas Mohammed.

A photograph of a high school.

My high school, my second stop, is a short distance from Oceanview, over a high bridge build so that the sugar plantation can use the waterways to transport sugar cane in large pontoons. This was a frightening bridge with no pavement for pedestrians who competed with the two-way traffic. Off the main road and past the back street is the familiar building. I could hardly contain myself; it is still there! This was the centre of the village. Now, here I am in Zeeburg, a small fishing village on West Coast Demerara in Guyana. Beyond the back street is a bridge that crosses over a trench to a narrow strip of land bordered by the seawall stands Zeeburg Secondary School, the pride of the village that drew students from the entire West Demerara and the Island of Leguan.

Leguan, situated at the mouth of the Essequibo river, is my maternal ancestral village. My grandmother’s house is still there. It used to be a bustling place with ferry services four times a day to get passengers to and from the island and, like the bus ride on the West Coast, this ferry had a community on board. What is significant about Leguan is that it had good schools. My mother was a brilliant student and was awarded a scholarship for a nurses’ training program. However, there were two conditions. She had to become Christian and change her name. Colonization? Guyana was a British colony up until 1966. And what better way to suppress people than to deny them education?

I had many friends and some great teachers at Zeeburg school. And again, our school day started with the Lord’s prayer even though Christians were an almost insignificant minority in the school. Being the seventh of nine children, I wore my older sisters’ outgrown uniforms. I hated that word uniform then and I hate it now. Uniform, confirm, accept, agree! Looking at my old high school, it appeared maintained. I could see the classroom I sat in on the second floor where both the view and the sound of the ocean were clear and would often be my fixation when I should have been paying attention to my physics and biology classes. I did not want to be in the science classes but wanted to be reading Shakespeare and the novels that were part of the art classes. However, I had to be in science because like my clothes, my textbooks were my older siblings’ hand-me-downs. I was channelled into the sciences for the practical reason of we already have the textbooks.

I recall the notion that reading stories and novels was a waste of time. After finishing homework, there was housework and yard work. Animals to be fed, plants to water, younger children to care for. But in school and during any science class, I could look out at sea and forget about physics and chemistry, I could forget my existence. I read and I imagined. I got a glimpse of Moby Dick under the surface of the rough brown Atlantic water. As boats and ships passed by, I would pick out the Pequod and see right through to Captain Ahab on his one leg. I could even see the sailor Ishmael watching Ahab as he schemed to get Moby Dick. I got lost in their names. There is something familiar sounding about Ishmael and Ahab. Where would an American writer in the 1851 know about such names? Maybe the world was smaller than I thought. I remember my mother reading stories about a Prophet named Ishmael, but surely, he could not be on the Pequod. He was an Arabian Prophet in the desert far away from the ocean.

The green wire fence surrounding the school kept the cows and the goats grazing in the area off the school property. One could smell the salty air and hear the sounds of the waves. At the entrance to the school, a huge gate locked with a chain barred the entrance. Disappointed with the blocked entry, I made my way back to the vehicle across the bridge. Seeing my disappointment, my guide made a call that got the security guard to come over, which he did grumbling because school was already out for the day. He was either talked to, or bribed, into coming, it didn’t matter which. I got into the grounds and eventually into the school building. Walking the halls of the building brought back memories of carefree days running in the corridor with friends whose names I could hardly remember at this point. Nonetheless, the feeling of close bonds and camaraderie, coupled with a sense of belonging, overcame me. I went into the classroom, it looked different, the furniture seemed old, and the wall prompts were different. I took a seat next to the window overlooking the ocean. This time there was hardly anything on the water which was pounding and crashing against the battered seawall with waves high enough to cause any ship at sea to worry; it was spring tide. That meant dark nights and high seas.

I fell into the old habit of looking out at the ocean and fantasising. This time the fantasies were mingled with historic realities. I imagine the Pinta, Nina, and Santa Maria sailing across the Atlantic in 1492 bringing Columbus to discover America. How can he discover America? It is not like electricity or penicillin. It does not help the Arawaks, Wai Wai, and Caribs. Instead, they are stripped off of their land, demonized and driven into the interior. I wonder whom Columbus brought on those ships to discover America. And why did they come? As the story goes, supported by Spanish rulers Isabella and Ferdinand, Columbus’s discovery was motivated by the expansionists seeking power, control and opportunities to spread Catholicism across the globe.

This trip down memory lane is raising more questions than answering. Why were we never able to say a Muslim or Hindu prayer at school? Why did my mother not qualify for higher education because of her name and religion? There was nothing wrong with my sense of belonging, I was happy with my family and friends, but it seemed like I was missing something. There was a gradual erasure of the precious cargo of religion that came with my grandfather on that ship. Uniforms for school that depicted a particular style of dressing incongruent with Muslims’ dress. Saying the Lord’s prayer, and having to speak “proper” English were some of the strategies that eroded the knowledge of religion. Even the religious leaders had to make concessions to survive. Their daughters and sons had to wear the same uniforms that show what good British subjects they were. Why is this memory returning to me as I sit in my form 5 classroom?

During my high school years, there was a time of economic hardship and political instability, but Guyana was still the land of “One People, One Nation, One Destiny.” Maybe not so politically, even now I recall the colonial strategy of divide and conquer that created racial fissures, but religion was not a barrier. Despite religious differences, people cared about each other: we had national holidays for Yaumun-Nabi, Eid ul-Adha, Phagwa, Diwali, Easter, and Christmas. On Eid, most people from the village would come to our house for a meal or treat; likewise, for Easter, all the children were happily making and flying kites; and again, for Phagwa, Hindu friends will show up with powder and abeer to include everyone in the festivities.

I started learning about Islam in a more systematic and life-changing way after high school. I began to wear hijab, much to the disappointment of some members of my family but I stuck with it, and by 1980, I had fully integrated into my Islamic identity; in my worldview, this was progress. I had reclaimed some of what went overboard on SS Ganges, some of what my mother had lost through education. I will always remember the Lord’s prayer but now I also know the Fatiha. And like the legacy lived out on the ship, I continued to have friends from all faiths.

On my way out, an orange-covered book sitting on the corner of a dusty shelf by the door of the classroom caught my eye. Oh, the days I spent with that book! It was the all-in-one fountain of knowledge that contained figurative expressions, similes, abbreviations, geographical and historic facts, and proverbs. The proverbs were often quoted by my mother in her admonitions, particularly when reminding us about the importance of education. I could hear her voice now, “As you make your bed, so shall you lie on it”, she would say to us. I wrack my brain to recall if I used such encouragement with my children while they were attending school in Canada and what comes to mind is my daughter being tested for ESL in her grade 1 year. What an irony that after I had lost my ancestral language through colonisation and had become a good English subject, my daughter who spoke only English was tested for English skills.

Walking back to the waiting vehicle in the semi-darkness of the late afternoon, I can hear the frogs croaking. I gingerly make my way avoiding the cow dung that is sure to be littered on the path. The walk requires attention and I cannot become absorbed in memories until I arrive at my third stop, 4B Zeeburg North, my childhood home.

Photo credit: Abbas Mohammed.

A photograph of a hood home.

My home, full of memories of a large and bustling family with friends and neighbours all enjoying the shade of the mango trees. No one is here now. The little house can barely be seen through the overgrown mango trees and lush vegetation that replaced the once well-kept yard. This scene, quiet and empty, signals a loss of home.

If one listens intently, the sea can be heard from here and the setting sun is casting long shadows. My mind drifts off to the place I currently call home: Canada.

Canada is my home; it has been my home for close to 40 years but still I feel like a stranger there. This thought sparks an overwhelming sadness that settles in with the night. As I look at the place I grew up in, I think of my children in Canada and recall a question from my youngest. On June 21, 2021, after the horrific Islamophobic attack that killed three generations of one family, my daughter had asked, “Mom, do you regret leaving Guyana now?” I was unable to answer her question then and as I stand here enjoying the warm breeze, I still don’t have an answer. With initiatives such as Bill 94, Bill 62, and resistance to Motion −103 – how would the new generation of Canadian Muslims experience home?

Maybe we all have that primordial home within us, beyond the temporal and spatial. Maybe home is in the consciousness, something we have before we start movement and migration, something we carry wherever we go. It may be difficult to detach one’s heart from the subtle bonds that we form to attach us to each place we visit, each city we stay in for a while, every country where we create a home. Or maybe home is inside each other, the dialogical spaces that are created as we hold up mirrors to each other and reveal our true selves. Maybe acceptance, compassion, love, and belonging can create a home wherever we are.