Henry in Guyana

Today I went with a friend of mine to a Catholic church on the outskirts of Georgetown to collect some food to take to feed the homeless. I am not a religious person myself but I thought I'd go along and help out.

Anyway, today we packaged the food (rice, pasta and fish mainly) into polystyrene boxes and put them all in the back of a taxi to take into Georgetown. There are a reasonable number of homeless in Georgetown. Not everywhere, but around the place. Some are just plain homeless, but there are plenty with serious health problems, disabilities and so on who have nowhere to go. Guyana does not appear to have much of a welfare system - having said that I have yet to notice any children on the streets which I believe is common in other developing countries. Various churches and organisations seem to make an effort to at least provide a meal when they can.

Anyway, we drove around and made a few stops dropping off food. Usually once we started serving more would appear; it was strictly one per person but plenty tried the "I'm taking one for my friend" approach which I suppose is understandable. They were all shabbily dressed as you can imagine and many were missing teeth - the chap in the photo below only had one leg and hopped around. Apparently crutches were provided but he sold them - here you can see him offering some of his food to a dog. There are a lot of stray dogs in Georgetown who are all very skinny and spend their time scavenging.

In a way what we did was a drop in the ocean, but the hope is to build momentum and demonstrate that there can be a charitable society in a country with a great disparity in wealth. It was an enlightening experience, and on reflection, one that I didn't need to be in Guyana to take part in.

 A couple of odd things I've been holding on to: In Guyana I've noticed that whenever anyone answers the phone they say "Hello good morning" or "Hello good afternoon" which is perfectly polite. In the evening however they say "Hello goodnight" which makes me expect them to just hang up the phone and go to bed (as I know goodnight as a parting comment). This always makes me chuckle a little, but actually they're just beginning a phone conversation so I have to jump back into reality.

On another unrelated note: I've been having Lucky Charms for the past few mornings, remember those? I used to have them but they disappeared from the UK, I think because it's basically having sweets for breakfast.

Until next time...

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.

My first weekend in Guyana has gone reasonably well, it's been cooler as it rained a bit but still warm enough at night to wear just a t-shirt. Power has been good until I started writing this - it's been on and off twice in the last 20 minutes. Fortunately my laptop battery can handle it but the network drops out which is a little annoying.

Yesterday I went out to do a bit of shopping along Regent street, one of the main shopping areas in Georgetown. Shops are a little different to England; most items in non-food shops are behind a counter, and when you want to buy something you are given a piece of paper with a price on it. You take this to the cashier, who is in an armoured cubicle and through a tiny hole you pass your money. Then you return to the desk and the person hands over the item to you.

VAT was recently introduced in Guyana at 16% but it is never made clear whether quoted prices include VAT or not which has caught me out a couple of times. Also you are always shown that something works before you buy it - I bought a light bulb and they had a socket on the wall just for that purpose. Anyway in my travels I picked up some bits and bobs including a radio and a pair of jeans. There are endless phone shops and electrical stores it seems.

 There are also wandering vendors with carts of cds for around £1 each so I picked up a few. I am told there are no copyright laws in Guyana, and I'm not convinced that the music my on copy of Daggerin' Time 2 was copied with the permission of the owner...



A little later in the day I went with a few people to Agrifest, a massive outdoor agricultural expo. It was quite good with lots of stands about sustainable farming and so on. It doubled as a big party - during the afternoon there was a Spongebob Squarepants live pantomime thing for the kids (the first time I've heard Spongebob speaking Guyanenglish), and later some other entertainment on a big stage including the Soca star Rupee' who had flown in from Barbados although we went home before he came on. There was a wide variety of food - I tried some cane juice, and there was a woman making it by putting these big canes into a mashing machine with juice coming out of the bottom. It was quite tasty although it had a hint of marshland about it.

John - the chap I'm staying with - got talked into buying a bottle of El Dorado 5 year old rum for 1800 dollars (around £6) and somehow by the end of the evening John and I had finished it. After a stop at a nightclub and a Chinese take-away to pick up an "Imperial Chow Mein" we got home, much to the amusement of Ronnie, the other chap in the house. Today will be a day of rest.

Well, I've been here for one week and a lot has happened. Blackouts have been frequent; Saints is on a different grid to the apartment, and at one point I came home because there was a blackout at school and a few hours later got a blackout at home. One night in particular everything went off just as I was going to sleep - it was very sweaty. When the fan came on (I'd arranged it so it was ready to go) in the middle of the night it was a sudden release from stale heat to refreshing breeze..

A couple of days ago I took a trip to NCERD, the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (they spell centre correctly here!) Because of Guyana's vast interior, teaching resources are limited so there is a plan in place to equip 50 schools with computer labs and have some kind of content distribution to help teachers. I haven't really worked out what is going on there so far but they are willing for me to get involved so I will go and spend a day next week. It was a stark contrast to Saints - most rooms were air conditioned and there was a lot of flashy equipment (big flat screens) around. Government departments (although perhaps not their staff) seem comparatively well funded.

Last night after work I ended up drinking on a street corner. Another chap I work with who is my age has some friends who live nearby and a couple of them own food and drink stands. A bit later on some old boys turned up and started playing Dominos. Now in the UK, drinking on a street corner is seen as the lowest of the low, but here it's more like having a little party outdoors. It was good fun and everyone was very friendly, and quite amused at the prospect of me being here for 6 months. One of the chaps ran a stall selling puri - a kind of flatbread which I had some of. A bit later I got the munchies so I had another, this time with shark in. It tastes like a mix between chicken and fish, and in my opinion champions the best bits of both! Most chicken and fish in this country comes fried (think KFC). The other chap had a stall selling ice drinks so he had plenty of ice for us (which you need).

I have also had curry roti (another kind of flatbread) a couple of times - these are sold anywhere from street stands to McDonald's style restaurants. They're pretty tasty and quite cheap. I also ordered a "cake slice" but I would describe it as more of a cake - it was huge and less than 50p. A bit of a contrast to £2.99 for a slice of something in Starbuck's.

Tomorrow sees my first weekend in Georgetown...