Henry in Guyana

I am pleased to say that this blog has gathered a much larger readership than I originally thought, with peaks of 240 unique visits a day and an average of 47 unique visits a day over the last month - over 4,000 pages served to date.

I gather that there is a range of readers from friends and family, people I have met here and a number of people I have never met who are interested in what am getting up to for various reasons. As a result, I have to be careful about what I say. I would like to briefly make the point that this shouldn't be taken for more than what it is - the musings of a 23-year old from the UK who is on an adventure. This blog exists as a diary for my own benefit and for friends who are interested to read. As a result, like the inside of my brain, it may be biased, wrong, stupid and more. I do try to be sensitive about what I write, but if I start censoring my own work this moves from a diary into a press release, which it is not.

With that in mind, please continue to read and enjoy...

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...

I've been here for five weeks now and continue to get a better feel for the country, so here's a few things I've noticed. In terms of vehicles, a favourite seems to be the Nissan Titan which is a (probably unnecessarily) huge car. I have yet to see any Hum-vees but I am told there are a few. There isn't a huge amount of space on some roads so I imagine having an oversized vehicle might be a bit of a challenge.

There's a reasonable amount of wildlife in Georgetown; most roads have trenches running along either side - deep gutters (maybe 2 feet) which once I imagine provided drainage but are now stagnant and have quite a bit of rubbish in them. There are little things swimming around in there, I'm not sure if they are fish or lizard things but there is life. Some parts are covered, with boards or concrete, and sometimes there are just big holes in the pavement, and I don't imagine it would be very nice to fall in. The other night I was walking home from volunteer frisbee and felt my foot come against something followed by a splash in the trench. It turned out I had inadvertently booted a rat into the water - it quickly scrambled out and ran into some bushes. Rats are not generally visible so this was a bit of a surprise, although there are plenty of dogs roaming around looking for food. Fortunately, there's enough around as there are used polystyrene food cartons all around. Many areas are quite messy, and in most areas there aren't any bins. Main Street is an exception - there is a central walkway where local craftsmen sell quite impressive wooden carvings, and there are bins all along and it makes for a nice place to walk in my opinion.

I haven't seen as many insects as I expected, just the occasional tiny lizard thing in the shower and they keep themselves to themselves. Cockroaches are rarely in sight but I'm sure they're here having a good time on bits of food and so on. Fears of a tarantula wandering over the back of the sofa were misplaced however, and at least in Georgetown there isn't any more insect life than anywhere else I have been. I have plans to venture into the bush in the new year where things will be a bit different I imagine, but more on that some other time. The flying insects like to bite, and they haven't given up, I've taken to staying in my work clothes to cover up my skin in the evening as it is a bit of a pain and you can feel them having a meal. In the morning I usually wake up to see four or five mosquitoes sitting above my head on the mosquito net licking their lips, just waiting for the chance...

On Saturday I was taken on a trip to work on some bee hives, something I know very little about but sounded interesting. Anyway, six of us piled into a 4x4 and headed out of town past the airport, then off road through some thick vegetation until we arrived at what seemed like a secluded spot with five bee hives. I was given a head net and wore long clothes, and some had bee suits although one chap who was an old hand at bee-keeping didn't wear any particular protection. I thought this might been the bees knew him and left him alone but actually he just got stung a lot.

Anyway the process consisted of taking wooden frames out of the hives, scraping off the outer layer of honeycomb and then putting them in a hand-crank centrifuge to extract the honey. I helped a little but the main effort was left to the proper beekeeper. Despite mixing the honey at the truck, maybe 100m and through some bush away from the hives, they caught on pretty quickly and weren't too happy with the fact that we'd stolen their hard-earned food. Pretty soon there were hundreds if not thousands of bees all over, and we did our best to use smoke to keep them away but everyone (apart from me!) got stung a few times, even through clothes. I think I escaped because I wasn't really doing anything or getting in their way.


Later that evening I headed out for a meal with some VSOs, followed by a party at a sports club next to a bank. The music was incredibly loud - there was no chance of talking. The night warmed up as we worked through a few bottles of white rum and by the end it was very jolly. Most of the music was what I understand as Caribbean dance-hall which doesn't make much of an appearance back home in my experience. Also the DJ's role is to growl things into the microphone, stop songs 30 seconds in and restart them, then play for about a minute before moving to another song. It wasn't an accident - that's just how they do it. Rather suprisingly there was a Klute -esque (that's a cheesy nightclub in Durham if you didn't know) 10 minutes or so with Billie Jean, Barbie Girl, Summer of 69 and some Britney Spears if I remember correctly, and naturally this sparked a response from the overseas element on the dance floor. Following this we headed to another ba which seemed to continue the energy as I didn't get home until 4:30 (fortunately it was the weekend).

As I was writing this I noticed a mouse had been caught on the roach/rat paper we had down in the kitchen. It must be a horrible way to die so I folded it over and jumped on it outside. I think I felt a bit of mouse skull crunch, but hopefully it has found peace.

Until next time...

It's been a busy few days again, I have just returned from playing the piano at a rehearsal for the St. Stanislaus College choir, made up of 11-13 year olds mainly. I am not really an experienced accompanist so it will take a little work, but tomorrow we are rehearsing in the Cathedral which should be fun. I have yet to come across any pianos in really good condition, most are fairly tired uprights that don't quite hold their tuning and it goes down from there. Both the Catholic and Anglican Cathedrals have magnificent-looking organs, but I haven't heard either of them; I hope they are in good condition but I think organs cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to refurbish so they may also be a little tired.

On Friday I attended sports day which was quite a jolly affair. It is run by the school governors and as a result was quite a slick operation. There was a varying level of support from the teachers, but there was a good number who really threw themselves into it which was appreciated by the students.

The atmosphere was very strong - much more than the sports days I have attended. It was held at the former national cricket ground, where in its prime a number of cricket stars played. The event began with a very impressive march past, where each of the four houses had a team of dressed-up marchers who had to march in time and parade in front of some judges (complete with drummers who may have been from the army). Have a look at this video which captures a bit of the atmosphere. I'd actually seen some rehearsing at school but not really understood why a small girl was bossing a load of others around in the assembly forum.

Once this was over the main competition began which contained all the usual events. There were some hotly contested teachers races too (which got the crowd roaring), as well as some more fun ones including tug-of-war, sack races and my favourite - late for school. This race involved perhaps some of the less athletic students starting in just their shorts and a vest. At the starting pistol they had to get dressed from a pile of clothes with shirts, ties, shoelaces etc all sorted and make it to the finish line.

All in all it was really a good day out and most importantly the students seemed to enjoy themselves and have a great competitive spirit. Hopefully in the future it can be as successful as an entirely staff-run event.

After a slow and boring start this week got busy very quickly. On Wednesday I went to volunteer frisbee and later in the evening went to a Chinese restaurant, which was quite tasty, and I got the chance to meet a load more VSOs and the like which was good. I met a couple of girls on Project Trust, post A-level gap year students who are here for a year teaching in a distant town that you can only get to by boat overnight up a river. The whole town has two phones and no mobile reception, apparently the best way to get in touch is by post. Sounds like quite an adventure.

The following day was the beginning of a two-day sports event for Saints, although most were out I actually went into work as it was a chance to have a go at the network with no-one trying to use it. We made some good steps - one of the problems is the limited speed of the internet connection so we are routing everything through one server which can help monitor and ration use as well as speeding things up by storing frequently accessed content. We will need to tweak it and have some redundancy as at the moment if that server goes down (or I break it through tinkering) everything has to be put back the way it was. A task for next week I think...

That evening I went to the Pegasus hotel, a famous hotel by the sea wall in Georgetown for a Scotiabank/UNICEF fundraiser. It was good fun, with a fashion show and some reasonable buffet food which was what you might expect in a British hotel - for the first time in my life perhaps it was nice to have some veg as they're not too big on that here otherwise. There was a good band who did everything from Unchained Melody to calypso, and one of the singers invited me to go with the band around on a trip out of town some time, which could be fun. At home I sometimes have some hermit-like tendencies, but here I'm just following up every lead I can to see where it takes me.

A few entertaining thoughts: I found a chocolate bar the other day called "Oh Henry!"; it's Nestle so I don't know why they don't have them in the UK. It was like a twix-snickers type thing. The other thing I find amusing but which is the norm here is to refer to a shower as a bath, someone will announce they are going for a bath and then go and stand under a standpipe...