Sometimes it is good to go out on the town and feel the pulse of the nation. The Peeper did just that on New Year’s Eve.The lessons of that experience, rather than the experience itself, are shared in this the first column for 2016.
These experiences forewarn the dangers of relaxing the curfew that was established by the Ministry of Public Security and the need for parents, whatever the age of their children, to occasionally frequent the joints where their children go to party.
This is the age of the young people. This is the PPP-generation; there is a large middle class and upper lower class that have the money to allow their children to have a good time. These kids have money to ‘burn’ and they are spending it.
This is a multiracial crowd which contradicts the pedaled notion that only one set of persons benefited under the previous administration. From what was seen last Thursday night and early Friday morning, there are a lot of young people who did well under the PPP and are continuing to do well.
I looked at the outfits. Some of them were pretty exquisite and expensive. These were no ‘knock-offs’ from some of the cheap stores in Georgetown. The outfits cost a fortune. Some of the dresses would have cost from $50,000 upwards. The young men were dressed elegantly, some bedecked in designer-line suits and shirts. The older folks have to take a back seat to these young people in how they dress.
The middle class has grown and there are young men and women who are part of this middle class. That is an important sociological development in this country. I was chatting with some of them – the sober ones – and some of them actually have their own homes and businesses.
This undersurface of things will be dealt with in a subsequent column, because sometimes people in Guyana complain too much, and do not realize the tremendous material progress that has been achieved in this country. No young generation of any era has been this well-off as the present young generation, none.
The young people are doing well and they are having a great time partying. The New Year’s Eve parties are no longer middle-aged affairs that involve the Who’s Who in Guyana. The overwhelming majority of party-goers are the young people and the parties are, rightly, being tailored for them.
But all is not well at these parties. The relaxation of the curfew for the holiday season may not have been a good idea. The young people do not seem to know their limits. They seem to feel that the music and revelry must not stop until they drop or until the sun shines. These young people are night owls and they are trying to utilize every second of the night, because daybreak will bring an end to their orgies of pleasure at the clubs and pubs.
It was a bad idea to relax the closing hours, because these young people know no limits and need limits to be imposed on them. I felt sorry for some of the workers of these clubs, because you could see the physical tiredness oozing out of their faces, and yet the young people would not stop the fÊting to go home, long after daybreak.
Controls went out of the window on New Year’s Eve. Some of the young people appeared to be under 18, and no one was asking for ID. Some of the drinking was excessive and there are no laws that prohibited this. The smell of marijuana was strong outside of some of the clubs and the police were nowhere around.
Parents need to go out and see what their children are doing at some of these clubs, especially the girl children. But only go if your heart is strong, because what you will see will shock you. Young women were seen drinking shots upon shots of tequila as if they were drinking water. Young women were staggering all over, pissing drunk, and all the while claiming to have a good time. There were drunken young ladies running barefoot down the road screaming at those young men who brought them to the party but were leaving without them. Young girls were openly necking inside and outside of the clubs. It was all too excessive. Young girls were opening their legs and inviting men to stand in between those sprawled legs.
Some clubs were taking advantage of the situation. They were only selling bottled liquor, not only forcing the young people to drink the hard stuff but also forcing them to spend an enormous amount of money. The starting cost of some of the bottled liquor was as high as $20,000 per bottle.
But who cares? The young people obviously are loaded with money, and mummy and daddy are not around to see what they are doing.
