Want to find out what’s going on locally? Just read the newspaper. Seems simple enough and my mother has been doing it for years as she travels but, for some reason, I never really took to the habit. Still, sitting in a cafe having brunch on Saturday afternoon I spotted a copy of the Stabroek News, one of the local papers here, on a table. I grabbed it and started flipping through. Mostly typical stories that reminded me why I don’t read newspapers – crime, corruption & scandal aren’t really my thing – but there was also a story in the sports section about a local basketball league. The story was not particularly exciting – just the results from the game a couple days prior – but it also included a note about another match being played that night. All of a sudden I had plans for the evening.
Shortly before game time, just as the sun was setting, I made my way over to the partially renovated Burnham Basketball Courts. Named for the first Prime Minister of the independent Guyana, the courts approximated what we had in the parks near my house growing up. Not particularly great facilities, but that doesn’t stop this league from playing ball. They’ve had some lights installed and there is a set of bleachers that can seat a couple hundred if they were willing to be close enough together that they’d all be stuck to each other because of the humidity. This night there were roughly 100 folks in the bleachers and another couple dozen surrounding the court on all sides. Many of the spectators fancied themselves coaches or referees and then cheers, jeers and other comments from the crowd were equally entertaining to the quality of ball being played.
Apparently I missed the better of the two games; the late matchup was somewhat higher quality according to what I could figure from the conversations around me. Still, getting to see a bit of the local scene in that was was rather enjoyable. I even managed to grab a couple photos, though the incredibly dark court made it rather difficult to catch anything resembling motion cleanly.
Overall, quite the enjoyable way to pass a few hours on a Saturday night in Georgetown, Guyana.
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Why don’t they put a thin cap on Burhnam court’s floor? It eats away at your shoe and ball pretty quickly, which forces your to replace them. That is a bit costy