chapter_07

- Between Order and Chaos -

Trip from Saarbrücken to Lethem. How many people know about Castle City.


Dadanawa Ranch is the name of this place we sit and wait for Pete to come back. He's bringing a truck back for someone.

The cattle are walking around the range. That lot there is about 30 head. It's a small group. One of them might even be the fellow with his testicles newly removed before the camera. Cattle didn't figure out how to rule the planet and we did. Maybe we aren't doing it quite the best way but we definitely are doing it. And not because some god gave us the right, more because we have it on the backs of our heads to be gods. At least anyone with any element of perception and consciousness.

Nice looking cattle. Long horn. No chemicals. They could sell it on the world market as ecco meat or how ever meat without chemicals is called these days.

"Hello, I'd like a pound of beef."

"Will that be with or without chemicals, hormones, antibiotics and gene manipulation."

"What's the price difference."

"If you have to ask, take the chemicals."

"Forget it, I take beans."

"With or without chemicals, pesticides, fertilisers, gene manipulation and ..."

"Forget it, I'll grow my own."

"Sorry, that's not permitted. Food growing is restricted to licensed corporations who pay the proper taxes."

So in a way, they still have a bit of a paradise down here. Why anyone would live here if they had the choice. But why not. Malaria can be treated and any other dangers are no greater than being hit by a car in the first world. And here you don't drive more than 30 miles an hour and hours usually pass more often than a Land Rover.

Or cows.

I have a feeling Sharla ate testicles last night. She said it seemed like brain and for a bull, or xbull, there is little difference.

Although we have another week, 3 and 1/2 are gone and we won't be doing much more. This ranch, like Dianne McTurk's, offers adventure tours. We won't get on one. Maybe next time. People seem to think I'll be back. Ernst is already talking about it.

"First come the missionaries.
Then come the schools.

Then come the lawyers.
Then come the rules."

Georgetown has had all four, though I don't think it's quite fully established. The Hinterland has been accosted by the first and as for the second, as long as it is open education and not disinformation, maybe things will develop.

Development always has its price though. And for now the people are free to do as they please because development hasn't much to go on here.

Skip the missionaries, lawyers and rules and the place will stay poor but relatively free.

The tourist will come. People like me, Ernst and his documentary, will make people aware that the land isn't a hell-hole of malaria despair. And if Venezuela doesn't march in, Guyana will be supported by those wanting to see some of the last bits of the out back left on our planet.

_bunnie stop_

Shell is big here in the Rupununi. They sponsor the Rodeo as far as I see. Make the Amerindians think oil companies are nice. No need for anyone to know how many people have been slaughtered who were simply in the way.

I don't mean to point out Shell. They are likely no better or worse than any other large money machine that is above the law.

But maybe we could mention that the oil companies are just simply raping resources, finite resources from the land, as do the pulp and paper, when really, it isn't necessary and would actually improve our standard of living if it was stopped.

I don't want to advocate hemp but hemp is illegal because it can make oil companies and pulp and paper and other related tree industries, obsolete.

And it will. Not because we have woken up and made a few wise choices, more because there won't be any oil and trees left.

But hey, this ain't a place for preaching, this is just a few notes so I remember something to say when I make a little report on the (remains to be seen, likely here) site. If they let me. Seems I'm getting less and less say in my own company. (maybe because there are more and more people but hey, I ain't complaining, that's how we decided to do it.)

_bunnie stop_

We are still waiting for Captain Chaos. We left the truck on the other side of the river on account it only runs on a couple cylinders. And is otherwise in pretty rough shape. But nothing a little welding, a few parts and a lot of work wouldn't remedy.

I'm not sure what it will cost us in the end but it has saved us an awful lot. Maybe Mr. Chaos would have had his truck fixed but somehow I doubt it. This country runs on a different rhythm.

They keep things pretty clean here at the Ranch. Every day the lines are filled with different cloths and sheets and hammocks.

When Sandy isn't here, the Dadanawa Ranch Store doesn't even open. But the kitchen stays open and the women like us. So we could sit here and stay feed. But I ain't hungry.

I might be forced to write a little story.

Once upon a time there was a tribe of people that prospered and advanced in the arts and sciences, technologies, medicines and what all not. And they got to a point where the place didn't appeal so much to them and they wanted more space.

So they went farther east until the land ran out. And they built boats out of wood, reeds, animal skins, oils and what all not.

So then here they are suddenly on a land where it looked like was no one there before them and if there was they were either all dead or gone or dead and gone because everywhere they went from the far north to the far south there was open space to take from the land and grow and forget. Forget after thousands of years, except for stories which evolved into fables. And fables into beliefs and superstitions.

They developed in various places in various ways. Some building with rock, many with wood and skins and grass. And there was then only enough once more to have a little trouble with resources. So they killed each other when things were tight. Like it always was and like it might always continue to be but wait.

Then came a new variable, as is often the case. Something to even things out.

Biological warfare swept the land killing numbers which no one will ever know. Then in the north the survivors of the biological warfare watched as the Buffalo was wasted. Not just for fun. No, these new men knew where no buffalo roam, no natives eat.

After that, there were the guns and the invaders put a price on the natives scalps like a fox fur. And cut the women and children down. After the many slaughters, the prisoners were turned into slaves or put in large camps. Land reserves that appeared useless for the invaders.

And still a few of these earlier settlers have survived. To keep them from causing trouble, they have been force feed the Vatican's one truth, in god we trust. God is good to those who follow the Roman way.

And the Roman way has tamed the last savages. All the good Christians shall now ban together to wipe out all dangers to the white way of life.

And the mighty one mind shall ignorantly swallow all it is feed and devour all in its path. And obediently we shall follow our destiny into space and find new worlds to settle.

And some will forget, for they have always forgotten and they will start new, and knowledge will turn into belief and belief into creeds and superstition and they will kill each other until they are slaughtered from a stronger force from outside.

And there is no way to know what will turn out to be the best way to survive, but whoever figures it out and keeps strong and dominant, they shall inherit the earth and the stars.

The meek will not.

_bunnie stop_

Okay, that was not so original, but what the fuck is original.

If I had a ranch in the middle of Guyana, I'm sure I would not have this music playing in the kitchen. I can understand their desire for something though. They have lots of nothing and don't see it as a luxury. In Europe there is much of everything so that nothing becomes the luxury.

If I walked to the river there would be very few man made sounds. Or to the end of the landing strip. I don't know how often anyone lands on it but my guess is seldom to hardly ever. Or maybe no more. Maybe in an emergency.

Buzzards are waiting for the next kill.

The tannery has 4 tubs. Water, bark and skins. In tub 3 was, still is, the jaguar skin.

They export macaws out of this country as well. Chop down trees to get the young ones. They sit in quarantine in Georgetown to see which ones don't die. They get shipped to sexually frustrated Europeans, what, am I forgetting my objectiveness. Well, I don't know why anyone wants a macaw in their house or any other bird, but they do and that's why they are smoked out or chopped out of the trees here and then the 1st world points their fingers and says, why you chop down the trees for to make slaves of birds.

Because we are the rulers of the planet and shall do as we please, even if it pleases us to rape it till it can't get raped no more.

But we were going to do a nice little story.

Twice upon a time there was a little, oh, once, girl. And she lived somewhere.

"Well, where the fuck did she live?"

"In a little hut with a dirt floor, a wooden frame and mud brick walls and a trash roof. Like those leave things from one of them there trees what grow in the jungle or places like it."

"And what was her name?"

"Albastrada."

"No."

"Sure."

Anyhow, so she gets up one day to find her house in flames and her parents crucified on the trees in the front yard.

"You can't start a story like that."

"It gets better."

She gets her nun-chucks out, however they are called and beats the piss out of the bad guys. So as their bodies are dead and what all not.

"She killed 'em."

"Ya, why not."

"Awful brutal way to start a story."

"But that is where it starts but I think we did that story, or that start, so let's scrap it and take a little break?

_bunnie stop_




by john rah, editorial lack of assistance from barbaralba, thanks anyway

go to number eight



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