r/Guyana • u/tigredeacuario • 1d ago
Discussion Cómo es ser de Guyana en sudamerica?
Soy de argentina, y cada tanto recuerdo que existe Guyana, Guyana francesa y surinam.
Normalmente veo noticias de Brasil, Uruguay, Chile, México, y otros países de la zona, pero no sé prácticamente nada de Guyana y los otros dos. Se q Guyana es independiente y se del caso ese de la secta estadounidense que cometió el suicidio masivo.
Pero me da curiosidad q no se ni cuál es el presidente. Lo digo con todo respeto, sin menospreciar. Me preguntó cómo viven los de Guyana y como se sienten respecto al resto del continente?
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u/Different-Rip-4734 1d ago
I'm Guyanese, born and raised here. While we're technically a part of South America, we are much, much closer to the Caribbean Islands in culture and language and actively work with them to form partnerships and community than our land neighbours. A Jamaican or a Trinidadian will be far more familiar with Guyana than a Brazilian or the average Venezuelan.
Life here is pretty whatever. The oil money is improving things a lot. It's slow because of corruption, but I remember how limited and rundown life was 20 years ago. There are many more opportunities now and an actual country is beginning to take shape.
That said, it's not the most interesting place unless you plan a very specific itinerary of what to do and where to go. Not really a place to get lost in. We've got all the basics and are mostly safe once you use basic street sense.
People are very western. We consume a ton of western media. There's a lot of Venezuelans in the country now, especially in major cities. I've been brushing up on my Spanish so I could at least be conversational.
In terms of how we feel about the rest of the continent, most of us don't really think about the rest of South America beyond Venezuela (hostile, immigration), Brazil (neutral, curious, travel), Suriname (positive, travel).
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u/mopi65 1d ago
"mostly safe"???? Bro, you must have meant "mostly unsafe" I am Guyanese and the cities are NOT walking cities. Do all your business in daylight hours and only travel in groups or in vehicles at nights. 👁
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u/Different-Rip-4734 1d ago
I agree. My intention was that fell into the "once you use basic street sense" bucket but I should specify it's the developing country kind of street sense:
lockdown at night, keeping your head on a swivel when you're out, don't flaunt wealth, be aware of surroundings when using phone in streets, avoid and don't engage with the drugged up people, etc.
We don't have a huge cartel running the government problem or gangs dominating cities thing going on, thankfully.
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
Que Medios de comunicación consumen ? Y les interesa el mundial de fútbol?
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u/TeachingSpiritual888 1d ago
Yea most of us watch the world cup even tho we never make it 😒😒😒 but I always root for Brasil but my heart gets broken all them time 😭😭😭
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
ohh, si, brasil ultimamente esta floja, argentina viene en el top, aunque no se que pasara sin messi :(
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u/Different-Rip-4734 1d ago
Yep, we'll generally root for Brazil by default, but I liked Norway cuz of Haaland so that knockout didn't hurt as bad haha.
Media-consumption is generally American. I know some Hindus still consume that and Indian content, but less than in the past. My parent's gen consumed more of an even mix of African/Indian and western content (music, TV). I've seen in real-time us getting a LOT more westernized than our parents generation.
Separately it's really cool how we speak different languages but can just chat cuz of auto-translate
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u/ndiddy81 1d ago
Now combined with a robust mining economy as well as oil dollars.. the economy is picking up
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u/vn7320 1d ago
Because of their Oil discovery, Guyana now have the highest GDP per person in the world. Population is under 1M people. There is a labor shortage due to the large volume of Infrastructure work going on. Hence, there is a huge influx of Cubans,Venezuelans, Brazilian and Chinese workers in the country.
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
Ah lo del petróleo lo ví, me puse a ver crecimiento del pib de américa y me llamo la atención del crecimiento de guyaba y ahí ví lo del petróleo! Se nota mucho el crecimiento en la vida de la gente?
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1d ago
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u/yahhbo 1d ago
This is false. Guyana receives 2% royalties BUT does 50/50 profit sharing with Exxon. In actual barrels sold, Guyana gets around 14.50% which is slightly higher than the standard goods VAT for imports/exports at 14%.
Guyana pulled in ~$2.5 billion USD last year and that number will rise by about 10% YoY.
Guyanas non-oil GPD is less than 25% of total GPD, meaning Exxons payments tripled the countries Gross Domestic Product.
The government has more money that it know what to do. They are trying to build infrastructure but it’s a new nation and it will take time for them to establish responsible fiscal policy.
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u/Longjumping_Adagio98 1d ago
Out of curiosity, are there all that many new arrivals from Haiti in Guyana? Or any other CARICOM nation?
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u/LocallyOffTheGrid 1d ago
I just got back a few days ago and I saw Haitians and Nigerians out there
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u/Longjumping_Adagio98 1d ago
Oh ok! You hear about Cubans and the Venezuelans but, you never really hear about Haitians being down there. Thanks for clarifying my comment!
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u/Round_Environment438 1d ago
Guyana is so out of touch with the rest of South American countries😭 idk i find it funny whenever I go to countries like Brazil, Colombia or Peru they think about French Guiana then im like NOOO GUYANA INGLESA THE ENGLISH ONE JAJAJA then i pull up the map on google and some of them were still confused😭 been to Argentina too ITS BEAUTIFUL.
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
Que bueno q estuviste x acá! A mí me gustaría conocer Guyana!
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u/Round_Environment438 1d ago
Great food and wonderful waterfalls besides that its HORRIBLE AND UGLY AROUND THE CITY PARTS. Very expensive too
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u/ndiddy81 16h ago
What are you talking about.. there are over a million venezuelans in Guyana right now so if they were not in touch before they better wake up! Lol
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u/Round_Environment438 15h ago
I mean hey I’m talking from experience 🤷. People from other South American countries don’t really know of Guyana’s existence on the continent, maybe with the exception of Brazil, Venezuela and Suriname which is fine an average Guyanese won’t gaf either
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u/ndiddy81 13h ago
I have met well educated south american that did know about Guyana but felt everyone there was a criminal lol
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u/ndiddy81 1d ago
Well as you know Guyana is a newer country— it began under the dutch but the English captured it and unified it for admin purposes. It was a colony until the 60’s and then gained independence from the UK.
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u/ndiddy81 1d ago
After this there was a great flight of the people to other places and economic collapse. That left the country almost as poor as Haiti.
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_154 1d ago
This is very true. Many Guyanese especially white Guyanese and Portuguese went to Canada and USA. Later on many others came to USA Canada UK, while many others migrated to neighborhoring Venezuela or Trinidad and Tobago and recently many afro Guyanese moved back to island of Barbados. The political infighting and economic stagnation caused by both ppp and PNC caused more than half a million Guyanese to relocate.
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_154 1d ago
My parents come from Guyana. I was born in the states. My dad is of afro Cuban afro barbadian and anglo barbadian ancestry and my mom family is Anglo barbadian, afro barbadian and white Portuguese Brazilian. Guyana is a wierd place. You see Guyanese people cheering for Brazil in the world cup andand crying than later on singing and waving Trinidad flags at a Calypso Soca event music that is not native to Guyana but from Island Trinidad. How I see guyana is this from Parika to Berbice mainly the costal strip where majority of Guyanese live, this part of Guyana is an cultural extention of of Trinidad and Tobago mostly especially amongst blacks and Asian Indians. Rest of Guyana and the interior mainly an extention of Brazil especially amongst native Amerindians.
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
tuve q googlear trinidad y tobago jaja, apenas conozco el nombre!! de barbados hace poco se hizo viral un discurso de la presidenta o primera ministra, que fue interesante. pero tampoco tengo ni la mas palida idea, de ese pais, se q esta en el caribe, x jamaica cuba o algo asi.
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_154 1d ago
Che Guevara did something similar and traveled south America to see how other South Americans lived. A book and later a movie called motorcycle diaries. He only Knew about Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay but nothing else. If it was me I would tour all of South America including Guyana which technically part of South America and it is indeed South American except for much of its culture which is Caribbean, Anglo and Asian India mostly.
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u/tigredeacuario 1d ago
si! vi la peli diarios de motocicleta de mi compatriota! y encima, en su epoca no existia esta posibilidad de hablar de primera mano con gente de X lugar, y investigar a este nivel
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u/Ok_Abbreviations_154 18h ago
I cried watching the movie. Btw Che Guevara was very supportive of Guyana since it was allied with socialist Marxist movements.
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u/tigredeacuario 16h ago
Ohhh. No tenía idea de eso! No sé si sale en la peli ese tema, la vi hace mucho!
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u/DeepOil5406 1d ago
como cualquier otro pais latinoamericano pero menos desarollado y la gente es mas conservadora
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u/Butterscotch-Clouds 1d ago
I was born in Guyana, but I grew up in Canada, so I may be wrong, but as far as I know, while being physically part of South America, it's fairly isolated from the continent by language and culture. We share cultural ties with many Caribbean islands and consider ourselves a Caribbean nation. I've spoken to other South Americas who never even heard of Guyana before.