The Sly Company of People Who Care by Rahul Bhattacharya

Guyana is in mainland South America, bordered by Venezuela, Brazil and Surinam.   Guyana is beautiful and poor, it has a history of colonialism (Dutch, British), slavery (African) and indentured labour (Indian) which has led to racial-political tensions today, and a very interesting nation of people.  These are things I have learned since reading this book, and I am enriched. 

It's a novel, but it is a travel book too.  It is filled with gorgeous scenery, cricket talk and reggae music which made me think at first Guyana was in the Carribbean.  Rahul Bhattacharya has made a playlist of the ska, reggae, chutney, calypso, soca, steelpan, junkanoo, rake-n-scrape, dub, dancehall  which give atmosphere throughout this book.

The narrator of Sly Company of People Who Care is from India, and has decided to "To be a slow ramblin' stranger" for a year - in Guyana.  Because he went there briefly once before and liked it.  He loves cricket, reggae, drinking rum, women, and having adventures.  He is good at hanging out and doing not much, and at speaking patois.  (Much of the conversation is in patois, which is at times hard to understand).  The narrator embraces life in Guyana and I thought he was almost becoming local himself yet his year is at times aimless, and he retains the security of a return ticket home.  This ultimately, shows he was a traveller all along.