Henry in Guyana

Last week was really quite busy - my efforts in meeting as many people as possible and milking every contact have started paying off. I have been rehearsing with the Saints choir accompanying them on the piano which is fun although some parts are a bit tricky. We had a rehearsal in the Cathedral (Catholic) the other day but unfortunately we had to wait 90 minutes for another group to finish and then it turned out all the important notes on the piano didn't quite work so everything was a little messy. Practicing is a bit of a challenge as I have access to the piano in school but there are usually people wandering around chatting, and when I start practicing somehow small children emerge along with a conductor and it becomes a full blown rehearsal pretty quickly.

On Friday I went to a comedy show at the National Culture Centre, a nice building with air conditioning and a big auditorium with room for at least a few hundred people. The show was good, although I'm not sure if it's my ears but they overdo the treble on the speakers here which I found occasionally a bit painful. Anyway there were some satirical songs and sketches, some about quite current and controversial events. A significant number of jokes revolved around people stealing each other's wives/husbands and who is who's father/sister and so on. Anyway it was a good evening, even if some of the Creolese eluded me..

The following night I felt a bit like I had stepped into another world; I went to a party at a house in a gated community, and as you drive in you can feel the difference in atmosphere. Despite the guard seeming not to bother who was coming in the streets were clean, had proper pavements, the trenches didn't smell and all of the houses were in good condition - it was a bit like an idyllic American suburb. The party itself was good with excellent buffet food (which I always make the most of) and waiters serving drinks faster than you can drink them. I gather that there are compounds like this around Guyana, where businessmen and so on live, and it was a glimpse into a side of Guyanese living that I haven't seen much of so far. There was still plenty of Guyana about it though, with big speakers playing music late into the night which I imagine the stuffier communities further north would not enjoy quite so much.

Then came Sunday, when I went limeing (that's drinking) out of the back of a 4x4 with some Guyanese people I know which was fun, although not too late as most of us had work the next morning. What was quite amusing was that a couple of them had young children who spent most of the time jumping around in the 4x4 and seemed to be having a great time. Someone felt a drop of rain and immediately everyone ran for cover - in England when you feel a drizzle you might think about moving but things aren't likely to be too bad. Here if you feel a drizzle you'd better get under shelter quickly because the heavens are about to open.

Changing tack a little, a chap I met recently runs a small charity called Troopers of Charity, which from what I gather holds occasional events to help the poor, raising money for equipment for the disabled and distributing food. Anyway I have agreed to have a go at the website, and there is a plan to set up a small IT lab to help teach some children to use computers which could be quite empowering for them. My work at Saints is going well and I hope will help, but having spent some time in Guyana St. Stanislaus is relatively speaking a very privileged environment. I have time to give, so perhaps there is an opportunity to get involved in a project to make a far-reaching difference. I imagine I will write more about this in the future...