Henry in Guyana

Posted once the blackout was over...

This morning, my first day at St. Stanislaus, began with a power blackout and so for the first half of the day we couldn't use the computers. This evening I was just enjoying my dinner when another blackout hit. Some fresh mangoes had fallen off a tree overlooking the yard so the landlady gave them to us - in the picture you can see me chopping them up (rather badly) as me and the other two chaps in the apartment sit in the candlelight. The others have gone to bed now and I am sitting here at 9pm (it's pitch back outside) running off my laptop battery with one candle having burnt out and only the stub of another left. I'm feeding bits of wax to it to keep it going. Need to not drop my torch in when I go to the bathroom...

Earlier I took a walk down Regent Street which is the major shopping street in Georgetown. I popped into a little supermarket style shop and picked up a few Western delights - milk, cereal, squash and a pack of sweets. In particular I picked up this "Tropical Punch" which isn't quite squash but you wouldn't have it neat either. It's very red, and really sells itself with the slogan (which you can see if you click to enlarge) "Irresistible" followed by the slogan "Less than 1% Juice". Hmmm. Anyway I also picked up these cubic jelly sweets called Jubes which are quite tasty. It was perhaps not as authentic as venturing to the market but it was a little taste of home to walk around a shop with aisles and fridge compartments.

The food so far in general has been very good - the landlady is a caterer and provides us with plenty of food for a good price money. In fact food in Georgetown is very cheap compared to London - you can get a big meal in a cafe for around 650GYD which is just under £2. Travel around town is ok too - walking in daylight in crowded areas is fine (although muggings do occur) but everyone I've met takes cabs once it gets really dark (about 7pm). Cabs are everywhere and inexpensive - a short drop is 300GYD, just under £1.

The heat is a slightly different story; I'm still enjoying it but long walks are not really on and our apartment is very sheltered and thus doesn't have a breeze. Fans and cool drinks make it perfectly ok, although you need a fan right on you to sleep. I hope the power comes on at some point tonight as without fans it can be quite stifling and bed time will probably harken back again to the days of the lightweight dream. I'm not a bad sleeper however the landlady owns a couple of dogs which seem to be permanently chained up in the yard (they're not big on animal welfare here) and they like to bark aggressively at each other every couple of hours during the night. One is outside my window so it can be a bit of a shock sometimes but all of these things only add to the adventure - whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

The last candle just went out.