Saturday, April 18, 2009

New Updates

Hello world! On my last post I wrote how although the posts were written on different dates that they were posted on the same day and well the same goes here! But I found out where I am getting placed and the good news is that was one of my top sites! “So Dave, where are they placing you?” You might be asking and to answer the question is that I can’t tell. Despite the many people who might have no care in the world where I might be, I still can’t advertise to the world wide web where I will am! I will tell you this though, it is somewhere in Guyana…. That’s all.

You might wondering what I will be doing, and I will tell you that I will be helping out teaching literacy to 16-25 year olds and hopefully working for a couple of NGO’s. That is Non-Government-Organization for those of you out of the loop, which is most. On another note, I haven’t had a cell phone for 2 months and it was a great feeling but that is shortly to come to an end and I will be getting a Guyanese Cell Phone. This means that it is free for me, you all who want to call me, and of course it will cost whoever calls me. Also, I can send text messages but I think you can only text me back if you have AT&T but not sure. So I don’t think that this has been too entertaining of a post because I am happy with my selection and have no real venting to do or at least any that I want to do in front of the entire world but have no fear I came up with an alternate plan.

Here in Guyana, water heaters are rare. Hell to be honest, showers are rare too but having a water heater is almost unheard of. Many people here take what they call bucket showers and have a shower type place where they do so. Now the point I am getting to here is that unless your water tank is directly under the sun, and you take a shower during the hot afternoon, the water temp is always somewhere between cold and lukewarm/not-so-cold. Well I want to make some lemonade Damn it! So here it is:

Advantages for taking cold showers

  1. You spend much less time in the shower when the water is cold so it takes less time to get ready.
  2. When you get out of the shower and have to get ready, you never have to wait for the steam to dry off the mirror!
  3. You know how it sucks when someone flushes the toilet, runs the dishwasher/washing machine while you are taking the shower and all goes to really hot/cold hell water…No water heater, no problem!
  4. If I had more cold showers in Middle/High School, I probably could had done a lot more productive things with my time…
  5. Currently as a PCV long out of high school, the cold shower is letting me be much more productive with my time!
  6. The cold shower gives you a much better appreciation for things you have at home.
  7. Because your showers are shorter, you are saving water and therefore doing your part to help save the world by taking cold showers.
  8. It really helps you work on controlling your breathing because sometimes when the water is cold you kind of hyperventilate but if you can get it under control you kind of have a mental transformation, some Buddha like stuff so yea, cold showers can be enlightening.
  9. The cold water wakes you up therefore you don’t really need that cup of coffee in the morning.
  10. If you are drinking less coffee in the morning, that means you are saving coffee, which means you will need to buy less which means you are saving money! Cold Showers make you thrifty. (Although not really for me because I don’t drink coffee.)

Read Me

I have been pretty busy as of late so that is why this post is a double update! The last entry, although put in the same day, was written about 2-3 weeks previous to what you are currently reading. Of course this will only be confusing if you are reading this update freshly after it has been posted. Furthermore, I know a lot of smart people, and they can probably figure it out themselves so I guess I am explaining this to all you dummies out there. The reason for the double post is because the past 2 weeks we have been trying to figure out what sites would best suite us. It is a great privilege to be able to pick our sites but every pro has a con and this is no difference. There are 32 sites available and 32 PCT’s or at least that is what they originally told us! On paper some sound like great sites and perfect matches and of course some don’t seem like they are in anyway combatable. One of the biggest problems is that there are a handful of sites that seem like gems to many. This means that many people will be disappointed. Will Dave be disappointed? I don’t know yet, but it should make a pretty entertaining next post either way. This past weekend was Easter weekend and after 11 days straight of training in a row it was a much needed 4 day weekend. On Friday the group of us went to a lake and completely unwound. Some people unwounded so much I think they wounded themselves up the other way plenty twisted but it was all in good fun and we had a blast! The next 3 days painting. About a month ago I raised money among my fellow Guy21 trainees for my host mother’s gym. Carrying on, I successfully raised the money for the paint and supplies and what I thought would be a 1-maybe 2-day project turned out to take 4 days! And the number of PCT’s that we had the first day obviously dwindled day by day but all the help was definitely appreciated and we got the job done! I can’t put any pics of the gym as of yet but maybe soon, it all depends on where I end up for my permanent site. Oh and I should mention that Easter Sunday isn’t really celebrated here. Here in Guyana they celebrate on Monday and they do so but flying kites. Kids of all ages and even some adults spend the previous 1-2 weeks making all sorts of kites and they tend to be quite impressive! Well I think that is about it, everybody is kind of nervous and trying not to hate everyone else who has the possibility of getting their top site over them. Of course I am not worried at all, if I don’t get one of my top preferred sites my solution will be as such: Hate, hate, hate, hate! My last roommate was a professional hater and taught me well so I am ready but haven’t started yet to hate, hate, hate, hate. Just kidding you guys, but no, seriously, hate, hate, hate, hate! I have been gossip queen the past 2 months just so I can destroy dreams! Again just kidding, and I have no worries about where I will end up getting placed, it is nice to be have input on where I will get placed but I didn’t come here to quit so wherever they choose to put me I will just have to make the best out of. I do feel some of the others worry or nervousness is shaking my ground but just a little so please stay tuned and I will tell you if I got one of my top sites! I can’t tell you where the site is but I can tell you whether or not a like that site that is somewhere in Guyana! Adios and see you here soon on my next post!

Alright people, I got my first taste how PCV lives when they are not in training anyway. Training is 8 weeks long, and all done on the Coast (can’t say where on the coast for safety reasons) except the 4th week when all trainees are sent out all over the country to experience Guyana. I was sent all the way to Lethem which is on the southern border of Guyana in Region 9 (Guyana is separated into regions). I was very excited about being able to go to Lethem at first because I had talked to a few PCV’s (that’s Peace Corps Volunteers for those of you who don’t know) and they seemed very friendly and spoke well about Lethem. Well, I was very excited until I heard that we would be taking a 16 hour bus ride from to Georgetown to Lethem. This didn’t include the boat rides and other bus travel we had to take just to get from where we were doing our training sites to Georgetown.

The Saturday before I left, I decided to layout on my balcony to balance out my tan. My chest was very white chest and my arms a nice bronze (okay well a redish brown because I don’t really get brown but more crimson) I decide to layout for about 15 minutes or apx 3 songs on my IPod, but the 4 song that came on I really like and surprisingly I liked the 5th song too. All in all, I probably laid out for about a half an hour and burned the hell out of my chest! If it didn’t take an hour to load one picture I would be glad to show the world. The only thing worse than having a bad sunburn, is having one around people that don’t get them, my good friend Lilly thought it was hilarious to tell all the Indo and Afro-Guyanese around me about my stomach and ordered me to lift my shirt up. For many Guyanese, I think it was the first time they had ever seen a white man with a pinkish-purplish stomach. I then had to explain how it felt which I replied, “Do you know what a belly flop is? Well it feels like that….ALL THE TIME!!”

When Monday morning came we left the coast for Georgetown. Guyana means land of many waters, so it is only natural that you have to cross some here and there when travelling. Travelling over the boat with my burn, wasn’t that bad except it tends to be a real bumpy ride and ever bump felt like someone was jabbing me in the stomach. Once we got to Georgetown things were a lot better and we pleasantly wasted time walking around shopping and enjoying a few tasty/refreshing beverages here and there. Now when you look at the map, and see Guyana, you might be wondering why is the bus ride from Georgetown to Lethem 16 hours? I mean the country is about the same size as Idaho! Well after the first hour leaving Georgetown, the road is not paved. The road is a red dirt/sand that when gets wet quickly forms massive potholes. Our bus rarely got out of second gear and was constantly swerving. Sleep didn’t come around easily, especially because I was the cool kid in the very, very back of the bus, where the bumps are the worse, oh and unlike this greyhound/charter buses in the states, this one had no bathroom on it! Also, somewhere between the 1st and 16 hour my skin on my chest decided to regenerate and itch like hell! Our bus only got stuck in the giant potholes once which the Lethem PCV’s told us was considered a really good trip because usually the bus will get stuck multiple times. However, when our bus did get stuck it was 2:00 AM in the morning and in the middle of the jungle. Everyone was ordered off the bus so that it could more easily get out of or with the help of the men, push the bus out of the 2-3 foot deep ditch/pothole we found our rear tire stuck in. Well thankfully, no one had to enter the pothole because a truck was driving down the road stopped and helped tow us out. In Guyana it is very popular to name your vehicle, especially commercial vehicles as one would name a boat. The name of the truck that stopped to pull us out was named, “Terror Squad.” Needless to say, I never thought I would be excited to see the Terror Squad at 2 AM in the middle of the jungle but you know what they say about assuming! Recapping and summing up the trip, we left Georgetown around 9ish and we finally arrived in Lethem around 12ish the next afternoon.

Once in Lethem, I got to meet many PCV’s and VSO’s (A kind of British although not just England Peace Corps) and of course more Guyanese. The Guyanese in Lethem tend to be more Amerindian and mostly mix but almost no East Indian with Afro-Guyanese sprinkled around here and there. Lethem, like I mentioned earlier is on the boarder of Brazil and there are many Brazilians moving to Lethem as we speak. Some Brazilians aren’t moving in but many are still setting up restaurants and shops and many more come over every day to shop in Guyana so to cut it short, you see a heavy Brazilian influence in the ever developing Lethem.

One of the best things about the week in training when you get to go to different site is that you get freedom! See while in training, you are kind of caged up, you have training 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, you have a sundown curfew, you can’t drive a car (that part doesn’t change while you are PCV,) it is kind of like being in 7th grade all over again! Now the amount of freedom you get to experience of course depends on the PCV they place you with for the week and where you are placed but regardless, you get a whole week off of training and less rules. My PCV was a great person, very easy to get along with and pretty care free and same goes with the few other PCV’s that are in Lethem so it made for a great week. During the visit we got to see a handful of the areas schools, met the Regional Education Director of Operations or REDO, (I might be wrong on the operations word but close enough.) We also got to check out the river that separates Lethem from Brazil and a cool place called Moca Moca falls where I got to go cliff diving! Well not really cliff diving but big boulder diving. Hopefully, one day I will be able to put up pictures. The week was great and greatly needed, hopefully I am fully refreshed and ready to sit through another 4 weeks of training! Oh, what I forgot to write was that I was lucky enough to not take the bus back to Georgetown! I was able to fly and the flight was apx 1 hour and 35 minutes. I emphasize the word “LUCKY” because we found out we would be flying back and then halfway during the week we were informed the 14 seater plane was overbooked and that three of us would have to take the bus back. Well 2 people volunteered to take the bus, and for the third we drew a name out of a hat! Yayyyyy, I didn’t get picked! And slept much better and maybe even more on the plane then I on the bus! Anyway, hope people enjoyed the lesson and hopefully one day I will have pics to upload to go with all this writing because I know I have no hope for some of my friends to read this stuff without pictures!