Live, from the patch of Mandela Avenue between the gas station and the place where the gas station used to be before the gas station become a different gas station.
Brother and sister, this is DJ Roadblock, comin’ to you from the driver seat of a 2014 Allion that the AC stop workin’ since 2022 but the engine still strong. And I tellin’ you — Mandela this morning is NOT.
Not what? Not movin'.
Not that.
Not the way we all hoped.
We sittin’ here. We been sittin’. The man in front of me has eaten what I believe to be an entire breakfast. From the back. Of his own car. He is now on dessert. Dessert is plantain chips. I watching him in his rearview because there is nothing else to look at. He is takin’ his time. The plantain chips do not care that we are not movin’. The plantain chips are at peace.
THE SITUATION, AS DJ ROADBLOCK CAN BEST RECONSTRUCT IT:
15,000+ pupils sittin’ NGSA exams this week. The Ministry of Education confirm. The Caribbean Examinations Council CEO already gone on record with the words “You’ve got this” — which is encouragin’ if you are the child, and operationally meaningless if you are the parent who just remembered, at 7:09 AM, that NGSA week mean every school doin’ practice timetables, which mean every parent on the East Coast simultaneously decided to leave the house at 7:11 AM, which mean Mandela, Sheriff, and the Vlissengen turnoff are now functioning as three separate but related parking lots.
I personally watched a man in a Probox attempt to do a U-turn, abandon the U-turn, attempt a different U-turn, and end up facin’ a direction that does not correspond to any of the four cardinal points. He is now sideways. He is at peace with this. He has rolled down his window. He is takin’ a phone call. The phone call is louder than the engine.
SOESDYKE-LINDEN HIGHWAY UPDATE:
The good news: the road is open.
The other news: it is the same road.
Last week, the Stabroek-area press cycle and Inews carried the latest motorcycle-and-lorry collision report. I will not detail it because it is not funny and people died. But the highway behavior has not updated in response. This morning my second cousin who drive a hire car between Linden and Georgetown report that he counted three overtakes on the double yellow line in twelve minutes. Three. On a road where overtakin’ on the double yellow line is what made the news. The road is the same road. The drivers are the same drivers. The line is the same yellow.
DJ Roadblock’s PSA, free of charge to the nation: The double yellow line is not a suggestion. It is not a vibe. It is not “depending on how you feel.” It is the line where, if you cross it and somethin’ come the other way, you will not finish the conversation you were havin’ on the phone.
THE CHINESE ENGINEER UPDATE:
The Kaieteur News reportin’ this morning that the Chinese engineer arrested in connection with the GPL hours-long blackout case will face court. I am not goin’ to comment on the case. I will say this: the blackout affected traffic. Traffic lights at Camp and Lamaha go off Sunday night. The lights at Vlissengen and Sheriff went off. The lights at Mandela and Sheriff also went off — but those lights been off since like March anyway, so that one didn’t really register.
When the lights off in Georgetown, traffic become a kind of group meditation. Everybody arrive at the intersection. Everybody slow down. Everybody make eye contact. Everybody decide together, with no signal and no authority, who going first. It is one of the few things this country does better than the developed world. The Singapore traffic engineer would have a nervous breakdown. We just edge forward and nod.
INTERCARIBBEAN AIRWAYS UPDATE:
InterCaribbean Airways inaugural Barbados-Guyana flight touched down at Eugene F. Correia. Air Transat winter Canada service launchin’. The French embassy visa applications have doubled since they opened the embassy here, the ambassador went on record with that one — Newsroom carried it.
Translation: more people leavin’. More people comin’. The roads still the same roads.
This is what economists call infrastructure debt, but DJ Roadblock call the reason you cyaa get from Diamond to town in less than 47 minutes between 7 and 9 AM.
THE BREAKFAST UPDATE:
The man in front of me has finished the plantain chips.
He has now started on what appears to be a sweet bread.
We have moved approximately 14 feet.
This is DJ Roadblock. I love this country. The country does not love my schedule. Stay safe out there.
Til tomorrow.
DJ Roadblock reports from inside Georgetown traffic. Caribbean + Africa, for the diaspora. The man in front of him is fictional. The plantain chips are a regional truth.
Sources: Kaieteur News (April 28, 2026 — NGSA exams; Chinese engineer arrest; Cabinet markets release); Newsroom Guyana (French Embassy visa volume; interCaribbean inaugural; Air Transat Canada service).