Hell no we are not in control of our own destiny, the IMF and the World Bank and them are, the ones who tell us we have a blasted 'debt' to pay off after we worked for them for free for 400+ years. And because the few elite people who run the gov'ts may share the skin color of the masses of the people, doesn't mean they necessarily have anything else in common with them.
You want a crime rate, come visit Georgetown. Poverty can lead to some wicked things I tell you. Headless bodies found in trenches and things like that.
People may not be complaining much, cos complaining don't get you nowhere and roots people learned long ago how to still keep a smiling face in the face of adversity. How to multiply 0 with 0 and get 1 as Peter Tosh said.
You're going to visit the Caribbean, good for you, I hope I can get to visit Guyana again soon now I'm back in that general part of the world, financial considerations have kept me from doing so for the past 10 years that I haven't set foot in my country. And I'm from a relatively privileged strata of the Guyanese population, still broke though... anyway seems like it's easier for you to go visit the Caribbean than it is for a lot of us who are from the Caribbean... think about that...