Henry in Guyana

Well, I've been back in the UK for a couple of weeks now and I feel it is time to wrap up the blog. The aim was always for it to serve as a record of my experiences, and I hope to consolidate these 46 posts into a form that I can keep, perhaps putting it into a small book. I know there have been readers from all over the world and it has been used by many as a source of information for those Guyanese abroad who might otherwise not hear so much about their country. Some stats: according to statcounter.com there have been a total of 5,516 visits over the lifetime of the blog and an average of 26 visitors a day. Not quite Google, but still nice to know people are reading.

Well, nothing more to say, thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it!

The end.

Things I won't miss from Guyana:

Sweating indoors
The sun being too hot to be outside
Mosquitoes
Mosquito bites
Mosquito sounds
No McDonald's
No Domino's Pizza
Slow Internet
Cockroaches
Smelly drains
$1000 notes being small enough to be not worth that much, but big enough to add up very quickly when you spend them in quick succession


Things I will miss from Guyana:

Warm evenings
El Dorado 5 year old
Banks Beer
The Pegasus Swimming pool
Always being within earshot of some Dancehall/Chutney any time, day or night
The Jungle
The Savannah
Taxi rides for £1 any time
Doing pretty much whatever you want
Not wearing a jumper most of the time
Roti and curry
Jerry's bar, open 24/7
All my Guyana friends


So what have I noticed since I've been home? Well...

Spiders

I'm not a fan of spiders; and despite being the home to the largest spider in the world I never came across any in the city (although a few in the jungle, but they belong there and I don't!) Within my first few nights of being at home I've had to get the cup/cd case combo out to remove one from a wall it definitely shouldn't have been on.

White people

Unlike Guyana, I don't generally know/recognise every white person I see on the street. Today I went for a stroll around Camberwell and still felt a "oh, a white person, who is it?" feeling for each person.

Daylight

As we move towards British summer, the days are getting longer. Being a near-equatorial country Guyana has close to 12 hours of daylight all year round. So getting very hungry when it appears to be mid afternoon is quite confusing, but in fact it could be 8pm.

Other bits

The taxi home from the train station when going home cost me the equivalent of $4500 Guyana dollars as opposed to the $300 it would have cost me in Georgetown

Transport is now a major part of planning an evening out as opposed to just calling a cab

The ambient temperature is MUCH COOLER although it does have the advantage that you don't permanently feel like snoozing in a hammock and drinking coconut water

I sleep under a duvet again

I'm having Country Crisp with fresh milk for breakfast

I won't be wearing flip-flops for a while

It's no longer too hot to exercise during the day although the "lie down until the feeling passes" mantra still works upon feeling like going for a jog

I write this from Barbados where I am a stranded tourist waiting for a flight home. In fact now UK airspace is open but the backlog of flights means I don't have a confirmed booking until 1st of May despite having a flight booked for 20th of April. Oh well, Virgin is covering my accommodation and food so I can't complain too much about a free holiday in Barbados, and in fact I have nothing pressing to get home to. The Virgin Atlantic office has been quite hectic here, with apparently one woman getting a bit too stressed and throwing things around. There is now a security guard in the office to keep everyone under control. With a bit of luck I might get a seat on an earlier flight but we will have to see. In the mean time I will just relax and catch up on a bit of admin (like this blog!) whilst occasionally fending off locals a number of whom seem to think that I want to buy drugs or girls. Everyone else seems to be families or older tourists so I suppose I look like a perfect buyer. This never happened to me in Guyana, perhaps a seedy side effect of being an obviously much more affluent country.

So it became time to say goodbye to Guyana and my little room in Hadfield Street. It was certainly a great experience, at times exciting, sometimes boring and everything in between. The reason I wanted to come for 6 months was to live in the country and experience the place, and I certainly did. From working in a new environment, dealing with not having a boss or a specific mission, finding new work and generally settling in I learnt a great deal. I also got to experience the country, from the rumshops and clubs of Georgetown to riding horses in the Savannah and fending for myself in the Jungle.

As has been said many times, if you drink creek water or eat Laba you will return to Guyana - I have done both a number of times, so I'm sure I will return some day. In fact some people have asked if I would stay on, and whilst the fun side of it is great, to want to stay I'd need a proper day job with a proper task, and preferably to get paid too! Nevertheless, for 6 months it was certainly a great experience, and I'd recommend anyone who doesn't know what to do next to do something like my project.

Until next time, Guyana.

Just before I visited Mercy Wings I was presented with an unexpectedly large farewell ceremony at Saints. It looked like the whole school was there, and there was a printed program which said on the front "In Appreciation of Mr. Henry Chin" complete with mugshot. I was sung to, read poems to and given two speeches of appreciation which was a little overwhelming. I was also presented with a very fancy plaque from the Toronto Alumni association and another small gift from the school itself. Naturally I responded by giving a short acceptance speech. It was a very nice end to my stint at Saints - if a little grander than I had expected! At the end one of the girls who had written a poem for me handed it to me and said she wanted me to keep it, and I was handed another poem from an English volunteer teacher at the school:

My time has Saints has certainly been very interesting - after being given rather low expectations from people I had spoken to about it, after a little while it appeared that things were not so. Of course the school has its problems mainly rooted in heavy underspending in the education system by the government, but at the same time it has probably the best IT facilities of any government school (if not any school) in the country, and is a lively place full of intelligent people. I hope that things continue to progress, particularly in the IT department.

The final week or so in Guyana has been quite busy, what with wrapping things up and saying goodbye to people. I taught my last two classes at Mercy Wings; sadly one was hampered by blackout but the final session was a practical assignment so both classes merged on the final day to finish everything off. The beginner's class had to type a letter in a certain font, properly formatted and with a bit of bold and italics thrown in. This took them quite a while but fortunately everyone just about finished and I managed to get one of the printers working so they all had a tangible outcome. The intermediate class had to produce a PowerPoint presentation including clip-art and a graph they had created in Excel which included a formula. Not everyone managed to use a formula but all the presentations were done and printed in handout form.

Later in the week I was invited back to Mercy Wings where a little ceremony was held for me and I was presented with a mug, pen and card and most importantly was given some food - pholouri and cake which was perfect given I was just getting hungry. A number of the staff said a few words thanking me and I presented certificates to those who completed the course. I only hope that they continue to use the IT facilities, and if I can I will try and get another volunteer sent to them to spend more time and really move on the IT work at Mercy Wings and Sophia in general.