Friends in unexpected places

And that’s just as well, because it’s a long life if you’re lucky, but nothing can be taken for granted. That is particularly true if you leave the comfort and safety of your homeland and go to visit somewhere else. Immediately you’re among people you didn’t grow up with.

You don’t know their traditions and their standard practices. You don’t even know where the shops and restaurants are. You are therefore at the mercy of the population wherever you find yourself.

On a recent trip to Guyana, I am looking for a foreign government department office. I knock on the big wooden gate and a woman sticks her cornrowed head over the wall to look at me through the bars.

They don’t open till two. According to my watch that was 20 minutes ago, but there’s a time difference here and I’ve forgotten to adjust my watch and phone.

The security girl lets me in and escorts me to the appropriate door.

While we wait for the clerk to return from lunch, the girl and I make polite conversation and the parting of her lips exposes a gold front tooth with some sort of design on it. Maybe a letter – it’s rude to stare and she tries to keep her mouth closed when she smiles, so it’s probably not her favourite feature.

Her name is Celine.

With 20 minutes to wait, I expect her to disappear, but she doesn’t.

It’s a nice, shady courtyard and I ask her about the other buildings.

She tells me the complex is owned by Eddy Grant, the Guyanese musician who moved to the UK and had hits like Baby Come Back (with The Equals), Electric Avenue and Give Me Hope, Jo’anna.

Celine is interested in who I am and what I’m doing there, because as usual I am clearly not from around these parts. She is not married, and I can’t help asking why. Not that getting married is the holy grail for women, but she is 40-years-old, good-looking, pleasant, kind and helpful: how can she have avoided it? She seems to realize I’m not passing judgment or even being nosy. I’m interested because she is instantly my friend.

With business eventually concluded I make my way to a small airport just outside Georgetown.

It’s called Ogle, this airport, and it’s also called International, because you can fly to other countries from it. The very word “international” makes it sound sophisticated, but only if you’ve forgotten what other “international” airports can be like.

The money in Guyana is practically worthless. The previous night I milked the ATM at the hotel for $6,000 Guyanese and it’s all gone –the taxi was $1500 and the bill for dinner in the hotel’s restaurant (Japanese food) was mind-boggling.

Predictably there is no ATM at this airport. (Actually, there might be one by now, because they told me it had been delivered but not yet set up.) I’m so tired from the previous day’s travel that I walk out of the ticket office without my passport and the girls are highly amused when I return to claim it.

I find a caf? that looks as though it has nothing, but in fact sells everything.

I am served by a very friendly, mumsy, 40-something woman in a navy and white hooped jersey dress that makes the long, mountainous journey all the way down to her ankles.

The ethnic mix in Guyana is largely African and Indian, and being white is not a comfortable thing here. This morning’s taxi driver has already explained that he was hampered on our trip by other drivers who may have noticed I was in the car.

However, he, the hotel staff, the security girl and this substantial woman couldn’t be nicer. She roots through a chaotic medicine cabinet and finds me some Ibuprofen.

Having knocked these back with some water and a cheese sandwich, I would like to stay and take on still more fluids, because check-in is not for another two hours, but all I’ve got left is $100.

I slope across to the departure shed - I mean lounge – and tell my tale of woe to a girl from another airline. She smiles and wordlessly goes into the back office. Returning with a fistful of Guyanese banknotes, she GIVES me $500, and even though it’s not as much as it automatically seems, it’s a kind gesture to a tired traveller.

People notice how we behave.

You might think you’ll never see somebody again, but they’ll remember you if you treat t h e m well, possibly even m o r e than if you treat t h e m badly.