I'm still kickin!

I have been serving in the Peace Corps for almost 15 months now. I have been in Guyana for 17 months (2 months of training.) It has been 8 months since I have written in my blog! It is hard to believe I have been here long enough to not have updated this thing for so long. It is now the end of July. Anyway, I have lots to update on and this will probably be one of my longer posts!

The weather in June and July was wonderful! It rained so much more compared to the very dry months of March-May. Most Guyanese I’ve encountered will tell you they don’t like the rain, “It make a messa tings!” Is what my friend Sabo always says to me. In Guyana, if the temperature drops down to 70 degrees, a lot of people catch cold, and sadly one of our neighbors died of pneumonia.

In the Hindu tradition, at least that of a Guyanese Hindu, when a family member dies, you have 13 days of mourning. The last day is the big day with lots of food and drink and usually doesn’t go into night, while all the other days of mourning are usually at night. During this time, usually within the first few days, the body is cremated. For 13 days/nights relatives, neighbors , friends and even random white people go to be with the family during their time of loss. The families usually set up a tent in front of their house or on the side, rent some tables and prepare some snacks for the guests. Mostly people will sit down play Dominos, cards and have a good gaff. No one is ever particularly sad at these or at least no one is showing any sadness. I really like it compared to the system I know. The system I know only has 1 day where you show up if you can and mourn the dead (assuming the funeral and burial are on the same day.) After that everyone goes on their way and can be left to grieve alone. In this system, those who are grieving the most are with family and friends for 13 nights. Also, it can be real hard for people to make “one day” especially if travelling is involved but 13 days gives a large window to make time.

Mash In February I celebrated Mashamani. Mashamani is the Guyanese National holiday celebrating hard work. Depending on how you look at it, it is kind of like our Labor Day back in the states and it kind of isn’t since they already have a National Labor Day! There are many parades through out the country and I was able to march in a parade with the organization Hope For All, an origanization that a fellow Peace Corps member works for. The starting time for the Mashamani parade this year was moved from 2PM to 12PM and the length was doubled. And I can almost guarantee you that the person or people that changed the time and distance did not march otherwise they would have never made the change. The entire march was on black top , directly underneath the sun on a very sunny day! It took me over 4 hours to run about 26 miles, during the Mashamani parade we walked, danced 3.5 miles in three and a half hours. The sun had kicked my butt and I was as close to exhausted as I had been when I ran the marathon. However, the parade was a success and quite fun. Everyone celebrates Mashamani and watches the parade go by. Hope For All, is a AIDS awareness organization that works with children who have HIV/AIDS, have parents that have HIV/AIDS or have been orphaned by the disease. They also offer free testing and it was my pleasure to walk with such an organization. I help out with Hope For All a lot and they always are very thankful for help received.

Phagwa

The next holiday was Phagwa. Phagwa was a blast last year and I celebrated it twice. I had only figured to celebrate Phagwa once this year but alas circumstances and fate figured differently. Phagwa is the Hindu holiday that celebrates, life, spring time, creation and colors. Depending on the year Phagwa can go for several days but for the most part where I live it is celebrated for 2 days. The first day many people go to Mandir (Hindu church for those of you less informed.) While at the Mandir, you sit around on mats and listen to music being played and song and some people dance and then POOPH! Colored baby powder all over your face.

The other day celebrated is the International day of Phagwa. Where I live everyone from the coast goes to the center grounds and Mega Pooph! Some kids mix the powder in a water gun and spray the crowd and some evil, evil kids use real paint, to me and my fair skins dismay. I had a pink face for 3 days after and died pink bangs for a couple weeks.

Rodeo

The next big thing was going to a Guyanese Rodeo in the Rupinunni or Region 9, located in the southern part of Guyana near Brazil. I have heard many times that Region 9, is the most “South American” Guyana (a country heavily influenced by the Caribbean) gets. My favorite thing about Lethem, the city which the rodeo is in, is meat on a stick combined with a Parbo beer. You can can chicken, beef or pork on a stick for $1 and somewhere between a 30-40 ounce Parbo for around $5. The rodeo was exciting and it was crazy to watch the Vaqueros ride barefoot. At one point on bull branded HIV (Guyanese humor, because the bull like the disease kills anything in its way and can’t be stopped), charged the re-barb fence that separated the rodeo from the spectators and actually bent the hell out of the fence. The rodeo paused to fix the fence but there wasn’t much they could do and the rest of the rodeo the fence remained bent.

Randoms

Nothing too exciting went on in the months of May-July. For me it was saying good bye to most of Guy20. I myself was surrounded by 5 Guy20 volunteers. I spent much of the time watching World Cup games with my friend Eyal meanwhile annoying his wife Beth (who in 2 years became an amazing cook!) Because I was surrounded by Guy20, most of my PC social gatherings were with many other Guy20 volunteers. I made some good friends and joked around at the end that I wasn’t so much Guy21 but Guy20.1 or Guy20+1. Guy20 was a great group of people and will be missed (w/the exception of those who extended of course.) Now I am surrounded by Guy22 volunteers and I have been slow to make an effort to bond but I can already tell I am still in good hands. This has also given me the opportunity to make new and even more Guyanese friends in my area and 2-3 weeks since my PC family left, which is good because integration is one of the major PC keys. Alright, well hopefully most people who decided to take time to read this could actually get to the end of this blog entry and I didn’t bore anyone too much! I will try to make sure I don’t go 8 months until my next post so that my constant blog subscribers (my mother and old buddy Don McCoy!) aren’t left wanting.

Happy New Year!

Wow! Is has been a few of months since I have last written on my blog and I feel kind of guilty but it was a busy past few months. The last time I wrote I was just returning from Alaska and since then I have celebrated Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years.

October was interesting enough with its own twist and turns but to keep this post from going on to long I will condense. Halloween in Guyana, at least the part that I live in, is not celebrated as it is back in the ole’USofA. I was okay I couldn’t trick or treat but I felt that I had to do something! I hung out with some fellow PCVs and played a game called Apples to Apples while wearing my cookie monster shirt.

Somewhere near the end of October I had decided to go to in Barbados and run in a marathon. I spent most November mornings waking up at 4-5 to run anywhere from 5-20 miles. Where I live in Guyana is a curious place an hour or so before the sun comes up. No lights, the place is only lit by the stars and moon. Where I run there are a lot of rice fields. November is a time when much of the rice fields are flooded and at night time they look like big ponds. Sometimes if the rice field goes on for many acres, they can look like giant lakes. I was able to catch a couple of pretty amazing shooting stars as well. I swear I saw two that had a inch tail of star dust!

I had no one to train with but myself but that does not mean I trained alone. People’s dogs played I great role in my training. I run with my IPOD in and when it is that dark, people’s little mutt guard dogs like to pop out of know where and remind you that you can probably pick up your pace. I know some people who say that they have been bitten but so far I have stayed off the menu.

I also run with a lot of cows…I always thought cows sleep mostly standing up and maybe they do in the US but here they have no problem cozying down on the ground. Most open their eyes and take a peak at me and go back to sleep. I can see them thinking, “What an ass!” And I can tell you with almost complete certainty they aren’t thinking about the group of sleeping donkeys I am about to run past. Sometimes I would give chase to the cows or their calves on my way back down the sandy dirty road. If the cow was smart it just had to scoot to the side of the road and I would keep going and they would be out of my way. Yet sometimes, if I got lucky, they just keep running straight and would let me give chase a ways down the sandy road. Road-Kill ranges from possums to cats, dogs, and If it rained that night or early in the morning you will see many toads, (or as the Guyanese call them Crappos) that you think something biblical might be happening. The strangest road kill I saw during a rainy morning was a Caiman Gator about a yard long head to tail with tread marks around his back and stomach. I am sorry to admit that why I was running by it I was searching for a stick because I really wanted to grab a stick and poke at it!

Thanksgiving was great. Around 10 PCVs came together and we had all the fixings! The only thing that was lacking was NFL football!

I started the first part of December in Barbados! I successfully ran and finished the marathon. I ran the marathon the 2^nd day I was there and had no problem recuperating on the beaches of Barbados! The white sands and blue water are a treat to the eye. It was a nice change of pace and I didn’t want to leave but you must carry on.

For Christmas a bunch of us PCVs got together in a place in Bartica. We had 3 great dinners and tons of free time to spend it on making each other laugh. Throw in some Scrabble, UNO, lots of IPOD music and yes, even some sumo wrestling then you have a good idea of our 3 days…almost.

One Hell of a Crazy Month

Before I get started on my usual light hearted sarcasms I would like to take a moment and discuss something serious. This past month I had a good college friend seriously hospitalized. Justin Gabriel has been in a coma for close to a month and is fighting serious odds to ever wakeup. If you know JJ, you know it would be just like him to be the type to overcome these heavy odds just so he can have a crazy story to laugh about years from now. I am not a religious person but my thoughts are with you Justin and I hope and have faith in whatever higher being that maybe out there that will allow you to wakeup. And after you wakeup, and I come back from Guyana, I can’t wait for the many more nights we will jam out in a car with the music and our voices blaring too loud. Whether you know Justin are not, you should say a prayer for him, please check out his site to that explains his situation and how he is recovering. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/justingabriel/guestbook/sign

I should have known September was going to be a crazy, crazy month when I sitting on my toilet and saw something that looked like snow coming in through my bathroom window. No, no, it was not snow but ashes from a huge brush fire that had broken out across the street. August was very hot and the dry season has been extra long but that didn’t stop one of my neighbors from burning their excess wedding trash in the thick, thick dry brush. The fire spread quickly and grew very tall and wasn’t too far from over taking some houses when the fire department showed up and put it out. With the fire out, I figured the craziness was done but what arose from the ashes was my very first Guyanese female admirer or in American culture what we would more commonly refer to as a phone stalker. This person, whom I barely knew, and didn’t give my phone number too, managed to call my cell phone over 50 times and send over 30 texts in the period of 2 days! I guess it is entertaining now that it is all said and done but at the time geeeeeeeeesssssssh!

Shortly after the fire and during the phone stalker fiasco, I was hanging out at a friends house out of site. During the visit, they’re site got something that my location had been very short of—rain! My friend’s place has a aluminum roof which, can be relaxing and therapeutic during a down pour. However, I learned a tin roof can also be electrically stimulating during a thunder storm. As we were watching a movie, we witnessed a bright flash of light simultaneously paired with a loud, gun shot like BANG! That’s right, their tin roof had just been struck by lightening!

With all that excitement underway I took off to Georgetown to sadly say goodbye to one of my closest friends in Guy21. Yes, Guy21 has lost another member. This makes it 6 total now that have left. Hopefully Krystal will be the last to leave, because as the days go on you get closer and closer with the PCV’s you are surrounded by as they become your crutches of sanity while living in a different culture.

While I was in Georgetown, saying my goodbyes to Krystal, I happened to check my blog to see if I had any new comments on my last blog post. I had a few, but the one that caught my eye the most was the one left by the Anchorage District Attorney requesting that I contact him.

2 years ago, I was working the door at the bar F Street Station when I witnessed an altercation in the alley. I have to give the condensed version, but I saw two males beating another male with a baseball bat, plastic broom stick and some other instrument, whose purpose is not to whack living things with. I quickly called the police while I was witnessing the attack. I stood frozen in my tracks with fear and indecision as people (the attackers and those chasing them away from the victim) started to stampede my way. I was able to tackle one of the attackers before he entered the bar. As interesting of a story as it might be, I would trade the ability to tell the story for the victim’s life in a heart beat. The victim would die a few days later from hemorrhaging and swelling of the brain. Shortly after this night I testified in front of a grand jury and helped make sure the attacker, I apprehended, would be indicted and tried in a court of law. The DA told me then that murder trials often take 2-3 years to go to trial and that I could be living as far away as Florida when this goes to trial and they will still have to fly me up to testify in this trial. Little did he know, I would be living in Guyana, South America.

As the DA and I discussed when I would fly up to testify, it was clear there might be a scheduling conflict. Since before I had joined the Peace Corps, my good friend from high school had asked me to be one of his groomsmen. Every time I passed another step, in the many that come with joining the Peace Corps, I always asked if I would be able to attend the wedding. Well now my trip home for Bret’s wedding was being cut short, but thankfully not missed. It was arranged for me to be flown up to Anchorage the Sunday after the wedding. What was going to be a quick, busy 8 day trip home , just got a lot busier!

In the mean time, I had about a two weeks to get ready to go home and Anchorage. During that time, several of my closest, “Crutches of Sanity,” had left for the States and wouldn’t be back till the day I left! About the only thing I had to keep me company in the mean time was the phone stalker! However, I stayed strong and pushed on until the day I got to return to hot showers, washing machines, fast food, TV and fast internet!

The wedding was a blast! The church, bride and bridesmaids all looked beautiful. Even us ugly groomsmen and the groom found a way to, “Church It Up,” and look respectable for a about 12 hours. I enjoyed all the festivities immensely! The church was impressively lavish and had tall ceilings, which were beautifully decorated and kept me entertained during the wedding rehearsal when I couldn’t figure out if I was supposed to be paying attention or not. After the vows were exchanged and the I do’s done and the kisses kissed we (the wedding party) took off in our limo to Comerica park (where the Detroit Tigers play) and got to go inside the stadium for pictures! After that we arrived at the reception which had great, great food, good fun and free drinks! When you make a grand $200 a month as a Peace Corps volunteer, you can’t really ask for a better night! Way to go Bret and Mandy!

Oh yea, although it isn’t really conventional, when Mandy threw the bouquet to all the single ladies, she severely overthrow them! The bouquet went flying over their heads and crashing on to the wedding party table. As it rolled and knocked over glasses and what not, I was the closest and grabbed it to keep it from knocking over anymore glasses. I walked up to Mandy, thinking she would re-throw the it, but the Boss DJ/Wedding host would have none of it. It’s a couple weeks later and I still don’t really know whether to be excited or really, really scared about the whole catching the bouquet thing.

The next morning, which was a very early morning after a very long night, I was off to the airport and to testify in the murder trial. Being back in Anchorage was great minus the circumstances, because I didn’t think I would make it back until I was done serving my 2 years. I made sure I ate at all of my favorite restaurants and visited as many friends as I possibly could without having a car or cell phone. People kept asking me if I was nervous for the trial and I never really was. While I was waiting outside the courtroom, I still wasn’t nervous, I was busy listening to music and playing solitaire on my IPOD. However, when I was called into the court room and sat waiting, while the jury came back from recess I made eye contact with the defendant. I hadn’t seen him for two years, two years to the day to be exact. And although I only sat a minute before I was called to the stand, I felt my nerves jump a little. Once on the stand I was fine. My only wish is that I could have remembered more details from the incident two years ago. It was almost like taking a test because once I left the stand, more details started to come to me and I really wanted a redo! Well hopefully this was a interesting enough blog.

Now that September is done I want to confess, I am really hoping for a very uneventful October! I have had enough fun and excitement for a year, let alone 1 month! Finishing this months update I want to thank all those who took the time to read. Keep leaving comments on my blog, I love to read them. And congrats to the people who have recently found out they will be coming to Guyana in February 2010. I hope my blog in some ways helps prepare you for your next two years! Can’t wait to meet you!

Pics and Pics

So everyone has been bitching that I don't have any pics but they take forever to load when I am in Guyana so I have tried to find time to load some while I am up in the states. The monkeys are the howler monkeys I wrote about.

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July and August updates

I have been in Guyana now for almost exactly 6 months, this is roughly ¼ of my total time served. For 6 months I have encountered many new things but more importantly I have been without one particular thing. This one thing, can be found almost anywhere in the States and somehow managed to sneak its way into this beautiful country and now poses it a sneaking danger. No, I am not talking about racism, prejudices, greed, or even those annoying pyramid schemes. No, the evil I speak of is far greater, so great that I usually choose not to mention it. But yes, to end the suspense, Country Music has managed to sneak its way down to Guyana. I was riding in a taxi on a Sunday and there was some kind of billboard top 20 on the radio and although the show had a British announcer and considering my circumstances had no reason to suspect what was coming next but it didn’t take long for that twang to grab my ears and twist. Now, I might be a harsh critic of country music but I have to say, since I heard that song, I have experienced my hottest month in Guyana. It has been soooo hot here since the end of July, and so far all of August. How hot is it? I don’t know because I have never see a thermometer here but I would guess with humidity included, 95* F everyday from about 10:00AM to about 4:00PM, give or take 5 degrees. It has been so hot this past 30 or so days that a few Guyanese have mentioned to myself that this is the hottest August that they have ever experienced or the hottest that they can remember in years. I am not saying that country music is to blame for global warming but I wonder if it is not a contributing factor seeing how modern country music (at least the past 20 years or so) has been produced and forged by music CEO’s high on the devils wine. Again, I am not saying that country music is directly related to global warming or this latest heat wave, but I am saying that President Obama should look into it.
A few sentences ago I mentioned taxis and I find them to be an interesting subject here in Guyana. If you catch a cab in Georgetown, you probably won’t find the experience to be all that different. Once you get used to the lack of stop signs and driving on the left side of the road, you realize that these drivers are as aggressive as taxi drivers in any major city. However, where I live there are some nuances that can throw you off. First of all, cabs where I live charge by the person because they drive up and down a main road picking up and dropping people off. Secondly, there really isn’t a standard cab fee. A short drop is generally $60 (Guyanese, roughly 30 cents American), but who decides what constitutes a short drop is up to each individual driver. Essentially, you could take a cab to the same place 5 days in a row and receive 5 different quotes from 5 different drivers. Sometimes they quote you really high because they think you are a tourist and don’t know better, sometimes it’s because (at least in my case) you are white and they think you have money, sometimes it’s because of both and sometimes it’s simply because they need money and will try to get the most out of you that they can no matter who you are. The idea is to have the correct change and without much argument they will always take what you offer. Also, the price of the taxis might seem like a waste of haggling but you must remember I only get paid $200 American a month and half of that goes to food and drink so that leaves you with pretty much $100 for 30 days of travel and most rides are not 30 cent (American) rides. Guyana is a former English colony, and like most former English colonies, drive on the left side of the road. Where I live, the drivers often drive on whatever side of the road they choose to. Often the yellow line in the middle of the road has no real purpose. Also, the most unique thing about the taxis where I live is that in most cars, pressing on the gas is the only way to activate the brakes. For example, usually you tell your driver where you want to be dropped off when you get within 20-40 ft of your destination. What I would be used to, is a driver who prepared himself to stop by letting off the gas and slowly applying the brakes. Here however, the driver will quickly accelerate to your POD even if this includes passing the next car, only to stop in front of that same driver within thirty seconds. Also, if a curve is coming up that would require the driver to slow down, I have frequently experienced a driver who will quickly accelerate to get around the next driver before the bend and of course quickly slam on his brakes so that he doesn’t go flying off the road. From almost daily experiences like this I have come to two conclusions. The first is that brake pads grow on trees here and the other deduction I made is the one I have previously mentioned, pressing on the accelerator is the only way activate the brakes.
In other news, the month of August is almost over and the past week or so has been very, very busy. About a week ago I had my birthday and had fajita night at my house and of course made the best Guacamole ever made by a white bai in Guyana. The next night I went to my neighbor’s Hindu wedding. Hindu weddings here often last many days and in most cases, that means many days of drinking and being a white person at these weddings means all of the men will at one point offer you a drink of Rum or Vodka. Someone told me their really isn’t supposed to be drinking at the weddings but I have yet to see or hear of one where anyone bothers to follow that rule.
The following day a lot of PCV’s from all over got together to go to Regatta at Lake Mainstay. Regatta is a boat race and an estimated 2 thousand people come out to watch it. The boat races are fun but in most cases it is just people walking around drinking or as they would say here, “Sporting.” Some people drink more than others and unfortunately some people who drink more then others decide to drive. Around 8PM, when we were getting ready to leave we noticed a car driving on the beach take a right turn and crash into a banob (it’s like a Gazebo with Palm trees.) To further prove one of my early points, right before the driver crashed into the banob, he hit the accelerator, causing him to run into it about 5-10 mph faster or so. Clearly having to accelerate in order to activate the brakes has its drawbacks! Thankfully no one was hurt. The driver quickly stumbled out of the totaled car after realizing that he couldn’t drive any further through the banob. Most surprisingly, although his car was totaled, the banob stood strong and only lost a little bit of paint. Two days later the paper had no mention of the car accident but it did have a picture of my pretty face in it as well as 3 other volunteers with a caption that read, “These tourists are having a rollicking good time at Regatta.”
A couple days later, myself and many of the PCV’s who came around for Regatta had a peer education conference at the same lake resort. The conference was as exciting as a conference/workshop can be but the 3 days in AC and visiting with friends made it very much worth it. During these few days we celebrated my friend Tyler’s birthday and played lots of trivial pursuit. So much so, that it was decided we would have a Trivial Pursuit challenge to help pass the time of conference. 10 people played and another PCV picked at random 12 questions, two from each TP subject. We also had everyone throw in $100 Guyanese. When it was all said and done, it never felt so good to be a dumb jock amongst soooo many smart people. That’s right, yours truly one the competition and the prize money!
One wedding and yet another PCV birthday party and my eventful yet tiring week had come to an end. Summer’s can be very slow in Guyana until they find reasons to put PCV’s together, then we stay pretty occupied. I would say that minus the birthdays, the same thing happened in July when Guy20 and my group, Guy21, had to meet up in Georgetown for a semi joint session. During that conference the coolest thing that happened was probably that we got to have a BBQ at the Ambassadors house. What made it so memorable was all the American food! I made my self a double cheeseburger and enjoyed a real salad and chicken wings!
Oh and before I forget, my mother wants me to mention how you buy chicken when you are on the coast. You go to any house that has a sign, fresh plucked chickens and you tell them you need a chicken and how much. The guy tells you to come back the next day or in a few hours and you have a freshly killed, plucked and gutted chicken. I was at a friend’s host parents the other day and they were clearing the hen house. They had a total of 63 chickens and were sending them all to market the following Monday. I sat and gaffed for about an hour or so and watched over 20 chickens without heads jump around, sometimes 3 feet off the ground. Is it bad that I was so entertained by headless chickens frolicking around? Maybe but more importantly it sure was fun to watch!