I am still alive and kicking!

Imagine if you will, it is roughly 5 AM and you open your eyes after being asleep.  Laying in the hammock your first reaction is to find the sheet.  You are cold, but not cold because it is necessarily cold out.  It’s just one of those early morning shivers that make you want to cocoon yourself.  Through the window you can see the sun has started to rise, but it is still isn’t light out.  It takes a couple of seconds for you to figure out where you are but you come to and know you are in the jungle of Guyana at a fellow PCV’s house.  It was one of those mornings when it seems as if all your senses have to reboot before you fully reenter reality.  Sense of touch….Check.  Sight…Check.  Smell…check.  Sound…check again later.  Taste…Morning breath, check. Sound…Error.  Error.  Error.   You’re thinking, “Oh what the hell is going on, what is that sound? Am I dreaming?  Did someone punch me in my ear?  Is someone still punching me in my ear?  Am I dreaming that someone is punching me in ear?”  But you are awake and there is no one punching you in the ear, but something is definitely attacking my brain’s ability to comprehend. The sound you are hearing is not that screaming-chirp-like beetle you heard the other day that sounds like someone playing two notes on an electric synthesizer whose keys get stuck down sometimes. It’s not crickets, it’s not a bird, you don’t think it’s a plane and you are pretty damn sure it is not Superman.  It sounds as if a upset generator is trying to drown a man not in liquid but in the vibratious of its own humming, (no vibratious is not a word, I just made it up).  The very loud humming noise peppered with grunts goes on for about 20 minutes before the hum noise decrescendos and the chaotic noise finally ends with a few last grunts.  After that you are back to the noises you have come to expect from Guyana at five in the morning.

This is the story of how I was introduced to the Howling Monkey.  What I heard from my fellow PCV’s later that morning after I had re-awoken naturally, is that they are very territorial and the noises they made, the loud humming with grunts was them claiming their territory.  These howling monkeys are like nothing I have ever heard.  I saw a few of them high in the trees about a hundred yards away the next day.  Howling monkeys really aren’t that big—not tiny either, I guess they are an average monkey size?  Either way, their body size doesn’t match the volume of the loud noise they produce.  Goggle these things, see if you can hear the racket they make…At 5 AM. 

So this was just one of many great and interesting things that happened to me when I spent a few nights in the jungle, in a Amerindian village.  The village is about two hours away from where I am and you have to travel their by speed boat.  I went to the village to do a two day workshop on sexual education.  Some of the subjects we covered were: STI’s, sexual anatomy, domestic abuse, condom/birth control, gender assumptions and sexual assault.  The workshop went well, we had about 7-10 people, all girls, ages ranging from 15-22.

Originally I had only intended on staying in the village until Saturday morning but changed my mind because the village is pretty, you see a lot of cool stuff and there and the PCV’s who hosted me are great hosts!  While I was their we had pizza, a really savory tasting soup one nigh, and a type of Alfredo pasta another.  When I was invited to stay an extra day, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.  Saturday morning, I had eggs Benedict.  Okay so we didn’t have ham but we did have a can of Spam and it was the first time trying it so the whole meal was exciting and delicious.  However exciting having eggs Benedict, Spam style is, it was just one the highlights out of many that happened Saturday. 

The next occurred when one of the PCV’s I was staying with asked if I was, “Crafty” and if I could fix her dresser drawer.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am not exactly the worlds greatest handyman—I’m not even the worlds most average handyman.  Yet, where there is a will there is a way and more importantly, where there is a roll of duct tape there is most certainly a way and we fixed the drawer!   

The grand finale takes a little setup to tell.  There are a handful of British and Canadian volunteers in this village and it was one of their birthdays.  For their birthday they decided to have a “Bush Cook” in the back of where I was staying.  We had to have a fire because the sun sets at about 6:30 and there aren’t any porch lights around.  So, consequently, pyro Dave got his first introduction to Guyana.  First I had to dig a fire pit, but we didn’t have a shovel so I borrowed a garden hoe and hoed a pit.  After that, I proceeded to collect all the firewood with the help from 2 of the neighbors, Timmo and Johnny.  Timmo is about 5 and I am guessing Johnny is about 3.  After the firewood was collected and we were filthy (some of the wood we picked up was from an old burn pile down the road).  I got the fire going and after a while the fire was good and ready to barbeque some chicken.  I proceeded to grill the chicken over the open fire and I don’t want to toot my horn but toot toot, boop-boop-bedo, the chicken was delicious!  Kudos to the marinade the Brits used as well.  After that it was just a good time gaffin on a full stomach, sipping on a few bottles of Banks and what not.

Overall, everything so far is going fine.  For the past 2 months I have been going to 6 secondary schools in my area doing junior youth groups.  Basically for an hour to an and a half I am working with different classes on ways they can “Express” themselves.  The ages of the classes I work with, is about 12-15 (depending on the class.)  What I do with the class depends on the skill level of the class I am working with.  With a few of the classes, new vocabulary words, 5 minute free-writes, I also give them basic and abstracts shapes that I make them turn into things through drawing.  We also talk about virtues/morals and what they mean to society as well as what they mean to us. 

Some of the classes we are strictly working on basic literacy skills because some of the kids are 12, 13 , 14 and reading a 5 or 6 year old reading level.  My personal goals when I do these is to get the kids to think for themselves.  You see a lot of what they call, “Chalk and Talk” in Guyana.  The students here are more trained to take down and copy, or listen and copy.  There aren’t, at least from what I have seen, too many coactive sessions.  My other goal is to try to make the English language an exciting topic so that maybe my enthusiasm can rub off on a couple of them and get them writing, reading or speaking more.

Through another organization I help with, we do an afterschool tutoring session two days a week for about an hour, hour and a half.  There are about 10-15 kids who come to this and the ages range from about 6-12.  I work with the older kids and mostly we do math.  For the past week we have been working on rounding 1-4 digit numbers, long division and multiplying bigger numbers.  I have to tell you, when one of the kids gets three answers right after just not “Getting it” the previous two weeks, fireworks go off, howling monkeys cease to howl, Crappos (Creolese for Toads) appear out of nowhere with top hats, tuxedos, canes and do their best impersonation of the Warner Brother’s Frog.  It is a great feeling, even if they come back the next week and get them all wrong.  That just means you get to see dancing crappos all over again.  The spreading of knowledge can be a very addictive feeling, if you have never tried it you should. 

On another note I want to give a shout out to some people.  During the first month of training, we had 4 volunteers go home.  They all went home for different reasons non of which I will mention but it tears at you a little. People I spent 8 sometimes miserable hours a day, 5 times a week for 3 months in a hot Pink Church during training with.  People who I grabbed a drink with on the sea wall.  All of whom were my closest link to family, friends, or anything that can be closely related to home or American.  You hope the best for them but are still a little sad about them leaving, no matter what the reason and I wish them all the best of luck.

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 4^th 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 7^th 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!

Okay so on my last post I had promised some sex slang words and I am here to deliver.  There are some sex slang, and some other slang and phrases as well.  Hopefully this can change the pace of my Blog and really throw some humor into it.  Feel free to practice these or throw them into your daily life back in the states.

 

Slang for Vagina:  Punnanie, Puss, Pokey, Patacaka, Pum-pum and Sugar Bowl

 

Penis:  Anaconda (big), Tickla (small), Gristle, Sword, Babies Foot (also kind of small), Donkey and my favorite, Rod of Correction

 

Testicles:  Balls, Seeds, Goady and hydrocele

 

Buttocks: Beetee, Bamsie, batty.  Also if you are gay you are a batty-boy meaning butt boy

 

Breasts:  Bubby

 

Sex:  Fling Up, wuk up/out, rammin, jamming, jukin, juk, Fuck, whinings, sweetness, bump and grind, ridin, climbin de wells

 

Oral Sex Men:  Blow Job, Singing over da Mike

Oral Sex Women: Tak’n meals under the table, Polishing de door knob, Eat’n under da 2 ft table

 

Premature Ejaculation:  You break to quick

 

Pooping: Kunksie, Mess, Pass Motion

 

Diarrhea: Shittings, Operations, Loose Motions, Runnings

 

If you smell some one might say you have HBO, High Body Order or a kid may ask you, “Sir, your Perfume Done?”

 

Saying hello generally goes at follows, “Marning, Good Afternoon, Good Night (not good evening, which was confusing the first night because I wasn’t sure if people were leaving or coming but it is meant for both hello and goodbye) also, “How Ya Do?”  In which the common response is Alright, Okay of Fine, Fine.  Oh and my favorite, “Atcha!”  But it is much cooler when I get yelled at, “White Buy Atcha!”  And yes Boy is pronounced Buy or Biay here so that isn’t a typo.

 

Well I hope everybody had a good laugh, learning a different language  can be difficult be thankfully each culture has the slang/bad words that make it fun to learn!

Living/Training in Guyana

It has been one month since I abandoned all the comforts and cold weather of Alaska.  If you don’t think it is possible to miss the cold crisp nights then you are mistaken!  I am having a blast so far here in Guyana but there are definitely things I miss!  I am a very warm sleeper which for most of my life has worked to my favor.  However, here in Guyana where the temperature doesn’t drop below 70 and you have to sleep with a mosquito net at night I could really trade in my warm ability.  Here I sleep with a sheet, most of the time bundled at my toes because it is wayyyyy to warm.  Because it is so hot, I am pretty much sleeping in my underwear and thus leaving my body exposed buffet style.  The mosquitoes might be bigger in Alaska and even Michigan but I don’t remember ever waking up from ever getting bit.  Here they don’t care where on your body to feast, boney, meaty, fatty…white meat tastes plenty good to them no matter where.  I have woken up from bites on my arm, back, toes, side of my foot, fingers, wrist, legs and of course, my ass!  And yes I sleep with a mosquito net but there always seems to be at least one or two that manage to creep in or stay in the net from the night before!  On another note, I can’t say exactly where I am on my blog here in Guyana but let me tell you that where we are doing our 2 month training is amazing!  You hear horror stories from current volunteers about there host family and even some of my fellow trainees about there current host family yet I have to say that I get along with my host family like salt with pepper.  I do yoga at 6 AM, (while the sunrises) 3 days a week with my Host Uncle.  In America, my host uncle would be a rare breed.  He is a well built older man, around 6 ft, 230 and can do the splits, put his head between his legs, and many other amazing poses and balances that you would only see a scrawny 104 pound man do in the States.  The other 3 days are left I am left to devise the workout and I most say that he holds his own, keeps up and does all the exercises while never complaining.  There are many people my age who couldn’t keep up, at least not without occasionally laying in the middle of the floor in front of the locker room at the Alaska Club! 

So far since I have been here I have been able to be in the schools 3 times and I have taught once.  In the school where I am helping out during training, I haven’t seen one obese child.  I am not saying their diet is that much better, but almost all of these kids stay active.  The school is very limited on supplies.  For instance, they just got their first copy machine a month or two ago.  Now I know it is common for American’s at the work place to swear at, or want to physically destroy the copier because of its ability to screw up, but teachers imagine how different your teaching style would be if you couldn’t print off 30 copies of the practice problems in your teacher’s edition book.  Where I teach, there are only a couple of classrooms that are have four walls.  Otherwise, like in the class I help out in, there is one long, long classroom with 4 different classes/grades in it and the classes are divided by chalk boards.  I do however firmly believe that the lack of resources gives the ability to make a good teacher great because they have to be that much more creative and resourceful.  Of course I think it can also make an otherwise average teacher terrible but so far I have only seen (and my time is limited) hard working teachers who often face (student wise) many of the same problems American teacher’s face.  Literacy being the key issue, and I would say although the problems might be similar, they are in higher number’s per capita here in Guyana then it would be in the states.

This month I got to experience a great holiday and one I hope to bring back to the states in 2 years.  The holiday is Phagwah and is the Hindu celebration of Spring/New Year/Colors/the triumph of good over evil.  Mainly of a day although traditionally the celebration is supposed to take up to a week.  During this holiday, you wakeup, but on clothes you don’t care about getting ruined and grab you colored powder.   People go around and throw buckets of water (in the morning only) and then respectively put the color powder on your face, hug and wish each other a happy Phagwah.   In Guyana they call it playing Phagwah when you go around and do so.   Also, even though this is a Hindu holiday, almost everyone, no matter religion, participates.  In that sense it is similar to Halloween or I might even say Christmas.

Hopefully soon I will have time to put down all the cool and interesting phrases that the Guyanese you here.  We had one day of training that consisted of naming slang words for sex parts and acts.  Out of all the days I should be taking notes, this is definitely a day I did!  Hopefully I will have those up soon cuz those are funny, I don’t care who you are!

Goodbye Alaska

When I moved to Alaska I made the decision one day in the summer of '05 coming home from work, it wasn't something I gave much thought to.  I made up my mind and that was that!  The next day at work I put in my 2 weeks and shortly after my last day, hit the road.  I proceeded to enjoy the next 4 years of my intensely living in Anchorage, Alaska.  During my time there I got to see many beautiful things and learned the difference between cold and, "My God Its Cold." Most importantly, any chump can endure the cold, but the only when a chump is surrounded by great people and welcoming friends can he survive the, "My God its Cold!" and all the darkness in the winter.  Rarely did I ever find myself homesick in Alaska because there was always a welcoming family willing to take me in for the holidays or sometimes just because.  I am still in disbelief that I have left, maybe that is a good sign that I will return because when I said goodbye to people it felt as if I would be seeing them the next week instead of what I was telling people, "ummmm, maybe in 2 years?"  I have never befriended so many great people as the time I spent in Alaska.  If anyone reading this has ever wanted to go, I encourage you greatly, but don't just go and do the tourist thing where you get shuffled around like cattle from site to site.  Let yourself get to know the people, try going for a month, but be careful, if you stay there to long you might find yourself not wanting to leave!