Henry in Guyana

Early on Saturday morning I headed off to the airport to leave Barbados and head for Guyana. The plane was a small 50-seater Dash-8 turboprop aircraft. It was my first time on such a small aircraft - it felt more like a bus than a plane. The engines were pretty noisy and at points it was a little like having your head inside a tractor engine. After an hour or so of flight I caught a glimpse of the South American coastline. The Caribbean blue sea abruptly stopped and was replaced by muddy brown, caused I think by the huge rivers that flow into the sea there. We flew past the Essequibo river which is very wide and has some huge islands in it.

The feature that struck me the most however was the jungle. Guyana has huge amounts of jungle, and as we flew in apart from a few roads and rivers there was green as far as the eye could see. Once the plane landed landed I collected my bag and was picked up by a British ex-pat who drove me into Georgetown. The feel was very different to Barbados - it was very exciting to have finally made it to Guyana.

On the way in we stopped off, changed some money and I purchased a Guyanese sim card for my phone. There are about 330 dollars to the pound here, and they tend to circulate in 1000 dollar notes. Given that this is about £3, to carry any amount of money involves quite a big wad. Georgetown is very different to Barbados in a number of ways. Firstly, Barbados is a primarily black population, and someone of my complexion immediately stands out as a tourist. Guyana is far more mixed, and whilst most are Indian or African in descent, there are a number of Portuguese, Chinese and any number of combinations. As a result, I don't really stand out. Secondly, the atmosphere is very different - this is not a tourist place, and so there aren't many people out spying for tourists to get their attention. This all makes for a quite friendly feel. I dropped my stuff off at the place I am staying - with a retired teacher who has worked at my link school, St. Stanislaus. Almost immediately we went to a small cafe place where I was laughed at for having chicken curry and noodles but it was quite tasty. Another chap had what they call souse - this can be made with a number of things but one of the favourites is cow face. That's right, cow face. It's a slow cooked stewy broth kind of with bits of meat in - I'll have to try it.

We spent the afternoon going to bars, drinking vodka with water and lime which is not bad at all. We met up with a few more people including a chap who owned a club where we went later on and had some food. The atmostphere is quite unique here - some of the bars are houses on normal residential streets with most people sitting outside. We had a driver who took us from place to place which is a bit different to doing a bar crawl in Durham. Having said that, it gets dark early and you probably want a driver just to be safe.

The accent is strong here and will take a bit of getting used to. I don't stand out until I open my mouth - there have been a few jokes at my expense; I imagine I am a very stereotypical English boy. Since I have only been here a few hours so I haven't really got my bearings at all. I am quite central though as it's just two minutes down the road to St. Georges Cathedral, until recently the tallest wooden structure in the world. This afternoon we are driving off to a place along the coast for some duck curry. On Monday I hope to visit St. Stanislaus College where I will be based. The reaction of some people to my project has been interesting, apparently I'm in for a shock. Watch this space....

A short tour of the apartment, introduced by the landlady's dog...