Henry in Guyana

On Monday I went to NCERD, a branch of the Ministry of Education responsible for educational resources. Whilst there I bumped into a collection of British 5 VSOs, they were very friendly and have put me in touch with some of the volunteer community in Guyana. The following evening I went to a cafe where Brits tend to hang out and met some more. It was nice after being here for a bit to have a chat to some people from home; most of these are on a 2 year placement which is quite a commitment. I have yet to make Ultimate Frisbee in the park on Wednesday afternoons which sounds great fun.

NCERD has a stock of 600 computers to roll out providing IT labs for 150 computer labs across the country, which I hope to be able to help out with and should give me a great opportunity to travel around. In fact I had my first opportunity on Wednesday with a trip to Region 5 to re-install the software on a load of computers. If you have been to the cinema this summer you would be forgiven for thinking that this is where the Guyanese keep their prawns, but in fact Guyana is divided into a number of regions, this one to the East of Georgetown.

The NCERD technician and I got in a car to Region 5 - this was like a bus but in car form, in that the car drivers are quite aggressive in getting passengers. Anyway, we managed to fill the car and he drove quite safely for about 90 minutes all the way to the Berbice. It was pretty hot, but fortunately I was by the window and got a chance to take a few pictures. In fact the journey was quite spectacular, we passed some very fancy houses, some run down ones and at some points just thick palm trees on both sides. There seem to be animals wandering around a lot of the time - I assume they have owners but even in Georgetown there seems to be the odd horse just wandering; on this road it was cows.

Continuing with the Region 5 theme, the school we visited was in the charismatically named No. 8 village, and as such was No. 8 school. It was a small primary school with a similar design to St. Stanislaus although smaller and quite well kept. The IT room was actually very impressive - all of the computers had backup power supplies so when we had blackouts (and we had a few short ones) they didn't turn off. This is very handy when installing Windows.

Once the job was done we were driven to the bus stop - and were stopped by the police. However after a brief look in the car and the boot we were waved on - I think this was to do with recent events in Guyana. After this we caught a bus, and had another spectacular drive, this time in the sunset, through the palm trees along the road back to Georgetown. I look forward to further adventures out of town...

Having been in Georgetown for nearly two weeks now, I have a few more observations to make. Firstly, transport around the city is quite good. Taxis are cheap at less than £1 for most journeys, and there are buses at around 30p. Tourists are generally advised against buses as they are dangerous - and I agree. I assume that by going faster they pick up more passengers and get more fares, but they are very aggressive, zoom around and are always overtaking. Buses are small minivan things (resembling a VW camper) and have the usual sliding door at the back. Every bus has a conductor, who has the role of hanging out of the window shouting at passers by, shuffling passengers and collecting money. It seems that like any half-decent single sculler, conductors have to have a definite style (dreadlocks, big sunglasses, jewelery etc.) presumably to attract attention.

Junctions in Georgetown are mainly hectic - there appears to be some unwritten rule about when to wait and when to go, but it requires care all round. There are some, apparently recently introduced, quite fancy traffic lights which count down until the next change which are interesting. A lot of private cars have big sound systems, and as such they tend to set of nearby car alarms. It also seems that all car alarms use the same sound chip as those toy laser gun things that change sound every 5 seconds.

There are food sellers everywhere - today I had another shark puri which cost me 90p and was more than enough. Apparently the way to make money here is to work for yourself, and the food carts stop by outside all the schools. It is likely that they make far more than the teachers do.

On a more sombre note, Georgetown has been going through a little trouble recently with a lot in the news - Brickdam police station just one block down from me was fired upon by a number of men with AK-47s as well as another police outpost. Don't worry mum - I'll try not to go for a stroll through any crossfire at 3am. There have also been other incidents including arson at a school, a kidnapping and one other which I won't link to here and involves a torture case. For a closer look at the current news see Kaiteur and Stabroek News.