Real People - The Bird Racers (full video)

"This bird is worth $320,000 Guyanese dollars!" Before there was Pokemon in Guyana, there was bird racing. Where boys and grown men alike sought to capture the most powerful towa towa bird that could defeat all comers. Have you ever heard about the time Cash Money and Deportee squared off on a pole in a title match? If that
sentence made no sense to you then you probably know as little as I
did when I rolled up on the bird racers of Spaarendam on the East
Coast of Guyana.

I will be honest with you in saying Real Guyana hasn't published a piece on bird racing before because I am an animal lover and it pains me to see animals trapped in cages, forever looking for a path to freedom for this was the story of our ancestors. On a philosophical level however, I decided to approach this with an open mind as the aim of this page is to document the Guyanese experience and this is surely a part of it.

Having approached the (sport?) of bird racing with some amount of
apprehension and much ignorance as to what it was all about, I left
with a greater sense of understanding and a perspective that is
more balanced. Yes, I still hate to see a bird in a cage AND I
acknowledge fully that these men loved their birds, were protective
of them, gave them names, valued them, go into bushes to find the
right seed to feed them or buy them from the trunk of other bird
owners who went into the bushes to find the right seeds.

Strangely enough, looking at the race, speaking to the men and reviewing the footage gave me a sense of hope. Here at the side of the road where in Guyana, an ethnically diverse group of humans aren't thinking about which political party the other supports.

In a land where ethnic insecurity is regularly used as a political tool I saw this as another candle in the dark, albeit one flickering through the bars of a metal cage. Fortunes made and fortunes lost, a sense of brotherhood and kinship born out of a shared passion which politicians talk about but don't always have the will to implement. For a moment I saw a multicultural Guyana uniting around a common interest in a common space, something other than Mashramani and Christmas and it was beautiful.

Expect more videos on bird racing in the future and for balance I must also bring to light the dark side of the wildlife trade. Hit subscribe to stay in the loop and get notifications of new videos as they are published. Over to you...

Видео Real People - The Bird Racers (full video) канала Real Guyana