You must write it down

Bartica, Guyana                                                                                                                                         Photo by Katie Watkins

by Katie Watkins,

Guyana, 2006-2008

     A few months after graduating, I left Southern Indiana, my only home, to do what many of my friends thought was insane but secretly wished they could do. At 23, I got hitched, sold my car and ran off to South America.

     Before leaving, I called up my friend’s parents, who had met in Ethiopia while serving in one of the country’s first batches of Peace Corps volunteers. They had been inspired by Kennedy’s momentous speech in 1960 and have been together for over 45 years. 

     “I have only one bit of advice for you, my sweet Katie dear,” Dave had told me over the phone. “Write. You must write it down. You will see things that you will want to remember later, even if not while they are happening. Things that you will slowly lose if you don’t record them. Please write.” 

     Dave’s words stuck with me, maybe for a month. I wrote of strange smells of slimy fish sold in the back of an old station wagon, kids climbing mango trees in their underwear, the donkey casually strolling through the waiting room of the village hospital. And then I stopped. The weight of my new world became too much for me to grip. When I looked around me, I saw things I no longer wanted to make sense of, pain I decided was better left undocumented.

     Almost two years later, quite comfortable in my steady nine-to-five, two bedroom, two and a half bathroom life in St. Louis, I have changed my mind. Despite my attempts to forget it, what happened was real. The people affected were real people. Their stories are worthy of more than the four poorly-written, inaccurately-recorded newspaper articles that serve as the only account of their occurrence. In my mind, I hold a story that is looking for the words to tell it.

     Now I am finally beginning to listen.

Coming next week: Part 1 of Katie's story: ...A Guyanese newspaper stopped the door of the hotel room as it swung open. Looking down the hallway of our temporary refuge, I saw a copy at the foot of each door, complimentary gifts for our patronage.

     “12 Killed in Bartica Massacre.” “Security officials clueless after Bartica Mayhem.” “Murderous Rampage Stuns Bartica.” The oversized boldfaced headlines looked small when paired with the photographs vying for front page space. The bodies of our neighbors had been transferred from the police vehicle to a wooden speed boat for transport to the capital. The picture showed a team of men in plainclothes and latex gloves passing the bodies into the boat...