I had never really been interested in visiting Guyana. Growing up in the Caribbean myself, I had come across several people who were from Guyana or had some family from there. As an adult, meeting Guyanese people, I always felt like they were part of our kin, even though their country was completely different from ours, not to mention on a different continent, surrounded by Latin-speaking people.

Every day on my way to work, I would wait for the bus outside of my building. Directly in front of my bus stop would be a lady sitting in a small 500 sq ft room facing the store window rigorously peeling something from the break of dawn until dusk.