This is the best (and perhaps only) eatery in Port Kaituma, the gold mining community in NW Guyana. It's called ‘BIG D’S FOOD MALL’, and is painted toothpaste green, and – instead of the usual techno – it emitted gentle chirrups of gospel choir.
This is the best (and perhaps only) eatery in Port Kaituma, the gold mining community in NW Guyana. It's called ‘BIG D’S FOOD MALL’, and is painted toothpaste green, and – instead of the usual techno – it emitted gentle chirrups of gospel choir.
Make no mistake, it is a tough life for all. The owner, ‘Big D’ herself – or Denise – was clearly not the woman she once had been. Life was constantly diminishing her. Now she just sat, looking small and surprised.
First, she said, she’d lost her school friends in the Jonestown massacre, then her husband, and then she’d had radical surgery to remove a tumour. Even now she wondered when the missionary doctors would return, and take other bits away.
Meanwhile, all she had left was her mall and her skinny girls, who hung around like a pack of hungry whippets. I think she liked the idea of a new customer, as if I was somehow reversing the trend. Every mealtime, she’d roar when I appeared, and the girls would scatter backwards into the kitchen, and return with something new.
