Joyful, all ye nations rise
Join the triumph of the skies
With the angelic host proclaim:
‘Christ is born in Bethlehem‘
Hark! The herald angels sing
Glory to the newborn King!

Like so many things about Christmas in Guyana – obsessiveness, long lines, pepperpot, rum – it’s not really Christmas unless one has zealously combed through stores and made that trip to one of the markets to pick up chicken, beef, vegetables and things not budgeted for, but purchased anyway because they were on sale. One singular truth is that Christmas in Guyana means that everything is on sale. It is enough to drive a neurotic person slightly more insane.

Satyawantie ‘Anita’ Kasrinandan at her cookshop in the Stabroek Market

The ‘Big Market’ does that to you. It slowly comes to life. In the shifting light of dawn, a truck, a minibus, a van pulls up and in soft murmurs fruit, vegetables and assorted bits and ends are unloaded under the bright arc of the streetlights. Some persons sling hammocks. Others greet old friends. A drunk lurches around oblivious to the sleeping homeless men on the brightening streets. The calm before the storm.

Then it explodes as the city awakes. Stabroek Market is the nucleus of this great hive of activity – but it is just another day for the mass of workers arriving and departing from the bus terminus in front of it. At Christmas, it gets a little crazier.

See! Stop! Shop!

Esther Peters in her clothing stall at the Stabroek Market

Chicken, beef, shoes, earrings, curry, jersey, farine, ochro, mango, crabs….

Everything and everyone gets a lot louder, the streets teem with humanity and their wares, and goodwill to all shoppers.

It was less noisy before elections. Outside Anita’s cookshop, Satyawantie ‘Anita’ Kasrinandan cajoled passersby to come in. “Yuh eating? Come nah friend.” She has been selling food in the Stabroek Market for over 25 years, having inherited the cookshop from her mother. Anita offers cook-up and curried fish, chicken, duck, mutton, labba and ‘gillbacka’ curry – the most popular dish and also the most expensive. Christmas is usually the busiest time, she said. But overall, business has slowed she added, blaming the Chinese restaurants “at every corner.”

A vendor chops up some spices in the Stabroek Market recently

It seems that many persons at ‘Big Market’ have been there for decades. Esther Peters inherited her clothing stall from her mother, Alice Griffith. She said that business goes according to the season and is expected to pick up as Christmas draws closer. “Yuh know how much people does traverse the market when the day come,” she asked. I did not. It seemed to be thousands.

A view of Water Street from the top of the Stabroek Market clock

It is sometimes a life of struggle in the ‘Big Market’ but the vendors are nothing if not optimistic. Clive Sears practically grew up there. “Well, me mammy use to be around and I use to come and help her and that’s how I end up being a salesman,” he said. More precisely a salesman of casareep and coconut water – the perennial thirst quencher of Guyanese. Unlike many others and at the same time, like many others, Sears is laid back. “I don’t fight it. I know it rough on and off, on and off. Some days you come, things would be in your favour, some days you come you watch out the day.” For the New Year, Sears plans to try something new “cah it real hard.”

A crab vendor at Stabroek Market

Stabroek Market has changed lives. Like Sears, Keith Otto grew up around the market but he was one of the little children that these days still run around selling plastic bags. At 29 years, Otto has now moved up to operating his own fish stand. “Wam boss man, Catfish?” he enquires in the loud voice that seems to be a requirement for all vendors. “I like the hustle man, I like business,” he explains. “From black bag start, I grow in the fish hustle. Big man ask me if I wukkin and I start with fish,” he said. “I could do me own thing now.”

As the big day approaches, the crowds get larger, the voices get louder and the days get shorter. Numerous stalls offering apples, grapes, walnuts and other ‘traditional‘ goodies appear. But local goodies like sorrel, peas are present in large quantities too.

Keith Otto selling fish in the Stabroek Market

During the Christmas season, it seems that everyone does their own thing and does it at the top of their voice. From the music-cart come such classics as ‘A rich man me wan foh me Christmas’ and ‘Drink a rum (on a Christmas marnin).’ The vendors are no less bawdy. “Boy is wah you get in yuh pocket deh, it look thick” a buxom woman says, her eyes alive with implications. Others are less restrained.