Henry in Guyana

Just a couple of short bits:

I'm planning a final trip into the interior for Lethem Rodeo, which is Easter weekend. This is apparently great fun, and includes the greasy pig competition, where a pig is "greased up" and a load of children sent to catch it. Whoever catches it gets to keep it! I suppose to eat... I'm also planning another trip to Saddle Mountain Ranch during the week leading up to Rodeo which will be great fun - it was great last time and I definitely want to go again.

I had my first Sunday night on the sea wall this weekend - on a Sunday evening it gets very busy and is a recognised event. Earlier on it is quite family oriented with children running around and food on sale, and as it gets later it turns more into a load of people having a drink on the sea wall. Anyway I had a good time and met some new people - my accent is quite a novelty here, as is my translation of Guyanese English. On this occasion my flip-flop had a bit of material hanging off it. I was asked "Your slipper burst?" to which I had to think for a bit, and then replied "Oh, you mean is my flip flop broken?" to many chuckles from the Guyanese I was with.


Until next time...

As I come towards my last 5 weeks in Guyana I thought I'd record a few thoughts about my experience so far. There's no doubt that this was worth doing - for me at least. I've had a whole load of experiences and challenges that I would never have otherwise had, and had a lot of good times. As time goes on however I often feel like the work I do is a little unorganised and not as effective as it could be. I came here essentially without a boss or a remit - a mercenary volunteer if you like, which is actually quite challenging. If I want to do some work, I have to create it, and this leaves me open a little to the risk of doing work for the sake of doing it, rather than if there is a real need. One of my aims in coming out here is identifying a possible placement for a future volunteer, but as yet I am not sure how this will materialise. There is certainly plenty of need in Guyana, but there does need to be a good structure to justify sending someone thousands of miles to do something. My own case was not so bad as firstly I did encounter some help at the start, and secondly I have personal reasons for being here. I think if I'd just turned up without much to do and no particular link to the country it would have been a lot harder.

The fun side - traveling, going to parties, and so on has been great. I will definitely miss the Guyanese evenings out on someone's balcony (sadly I don't have one) and the fun times I've had with other volunteer/development types here. The reason I sometimes feel disillusioned is that the thing I came here to do - work in IT (too broad a remit really) is entirely contingent on what I do, and so can be quite unsatisfying if I don't get much done. Party time is great, but only if there's good work to justify it. A significant amount of this is my responsibility - I'm responsible for making sure I get things done during the day, and finding things to do in the first place, but that doesn't mean it's easy. Nevertheless, facing such challenges will have been a great experience and hopefully will serve me well in the future.

In these final weeks I have now set up three four-part IT courses which I will be delivering to teachers at Mercy Wings (Beginner's IT, Intermediate IT and Using IT for teaching - do I know anything about this? I'd better learn quickly!) and I will be making sure everything at Saints is robust and well documented so it can continue to run well in the future.

One of the thing about Guyana's multicultural society is that there are plenty of public holidays - last week we had Phagwah, which I think mainly involves running around and covering each other with colourful powder, unfortunately my cultural awareness hasn't grown enough to know what it's all about, although I'm sure Wikipedia will tell me. I went with a group to someone's house a little out of town, where we had a meal (eaten out of a big leaf, I've never done that before but it certainly saves on washing up) and then proceeded to get very messy indeed. Water, glitter and powder filled the air as everyone enjoyed themselves. After this we headed to a bigger place in Georgetown which had a stage and live music - and was full of people throwing/rubbing powder at each other. Photos taken with a flash came out with an interesting effect because of the amount of dust in the air, and everyone's face changed colour multiple times.

The following day at work was interesting as there were a number of (students mostly) who had green faces and hands - some of the colour doesn't come off too easily, I had a slightly red forehead and blue neck, and even now my fingernails are still a bit pink. Still the whole thing was good fun and unlike Mash alcohol was not a key factor.


Last Saturday I went to a cricket match - I've only ever been to one before at the London Oval and my memory is that it was a long way away and quite boring. This time we headed out to the National Stadium and had good seats under cover. The West Indies were playing Zimbabwe and after what seemed like a strong last innings (based on my limited knowledge of cricket) and won. There was quite a good atmosphere as every time anyone scored any runs people started jumping up and down waving whatever they happened to be holding. I wondered if I would get bored but actually it was a really fun day out. We only went for a half day this time so maybe I'll get a full day in before I leave.

Once again it's been a while since my last post, and now with just over 7 weeks left in the country I suppose there won't be that many more. Anyway, the past couple of weeks have seen a lot of activity - a trip to a beautiful house across the Essequibo, Mashramani and plenty of partying inbetween. There's a bar in Georgetown called Jerries which is open pretty much all of the time - visits at 4 or 5 in the morning are always entertaining as it is the "wash-down" place to be, so I've been spending a bit of time there recently.

Last weekend a group of 15 hired a bus and headed West, across the Demerara (my first crossing of the harbour bridge) to Parika which is a major crossing point over the Essequibo. The Essequibo is in parts a massive river, and I am told is 26 miles wide at its mouth. Anyway we boarded a boat and took about an hour-long trip up and across the river to Bartica, a mining town a little inland. The boat then took us 1 minute further up the river to Bidarabu, a big wooden house with five big bedrooms, big verandas, a swimming pool and a private beach. Well I say private, when I went down there in the morning a local woman was having a wash so I had to make myself scarce pretty quickly but essentially it is a secluded spot - perfect for a party!



It felt like something from a Hollywood film; a pool party with seemingly endless food, rum, party games and splashing around in a swimming pool. I know one of the biggest things I will miss about Guyana will be sitting outside in the warm weather. The group was great fun too - a significant number are development workers, who are much more glamorous than volunteers. I get the impression that there's an ex-pat hierarchy, from volunteer types (like me) at the very bottom, living in basic housing and counting cash, right through development workers with housing allowances and all the way up to diplomats with swimming pools and guards. Anyway this crowd is particularly good fun and our weekend was a non-stop party although some people balked when I cracked out the rum again the following morning. Hair of the dog I suppose...

The following Tuesday was Mashramani - Guyana's carnival. I went on the road at about midday and it seemed that every square meter lining the road had someone with a cooler or a stand selling beer and food. There were barbeques everywhere and floats from different groups, organisations and political parties. It was very jolly, although it seemed to take a long time (sometimes an hour and a half) between floats. The first part of the day was quite overcast but when the sun came out in the afternoon it got seriously hot. In the evening a small group of us went to sit by the sea wall and watch the sun set which was nice, and very busy. There were cars and speakers playing loud music everywhere which meant there were people bouncing and dancing everywhere - in Guyana, if there's music everyone bounces.


That evening we went to a Machel Montano concert, who is apparently a leading Soca star from Trinidad. It was great fun - although the support act didn't start until past midnight and he didn't come on until 2am, and he was only on for about 90 minutes. Still, armed with some brown rum we had a good group and it was a great show.

So after all this partying it's time to calm down a little - although it's Paguah on Monday so another day off and a party at someone's house. I'm also organising a final trip down to the Rupununi for Rodeo which is at Easter weekend. Still, I have also spent some time at Mercy Wings school recently and their computers are now in good condition and next I hope to help another VSO set up some literacy software on there. Saints is doing well too - I'm moving towards wrapping things up and leaving it to improve without me.


Until next time...

Well, it's been a while since my last post, mainly due to a large number of things going on at once. The last week has been very busy as my Mum came out to Guyana to visit me. Her last visit to the country was in 1985 so things will have changed a bit. Apparently the main differences are more cars, traffic lights and imported goods, but otherwise the feel is the same. I think she had a good time and got to meet up with some people she hadn't seen for a very long time. I took her to have a look around Saints and Mercy Wings, and also took her along to Woodside choir to see what that was like! During her visit I got plenty of free meals which is always a bonus.

For the weekend we went to a resort called Arrowpoint for an overnight trip. It was nice there - although a little odd as we were the only two people so we rattled around a bit. Nevertheless we did a few walks in the forest, kayaked and went on a few boat trips where we saw some small Cayman. Most people have recommended it to me but I think it would be best with a decent sized group - I think our trip only ran because two guys came out with us to fix the wireless internet.. I have now packed her off on a plane to Carnival in Trinidad where I imagine she will have a great time.

It's coming up to Mashramani - Guyana's own carnival and there are a number of events going on in the lead up to it. One was a Steel pan competition held at the National sports hall in Georgetown which I went to last night. It was a really great evening with a good atmosphere. There were soloists and duets which got a bit drowned out by the ambient noise (people selling stuff and shouting "Pringles", "Nuts" from time to time, as well as general chatter and shuffling) but the best shows were from the bands. The police band ended up winning but there were a number of very good acts. Everyone played the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah (which comes off surprisingly well on the steel pan) and a piece of their own choice, which in all cases involved a lot of jumping around, swapping of pans and so on. By the end everyone was bouncing around and for the police band encore the centre of the hall was filled with bopping persons.


An entertaining aspect which to me didn't actually detract from the event was that it started (naturally) very late. With a start time of 5pm I dutifully took my seat at 4:58pm at which point a couple of the bands were still arranging their instruments and unpacking. Music finally started at 6:30pm "a few minutes late" which apparently was to "allow for efficiency later on". I didn't see much of the efficiency and it didn't finish till 10pm but nevertheless it was good fun. Other funny things included a chap selling nuts wearing a blue Cellink (mobile phone operator) cape and chef's hat, and the fact that there was one slow person serving at the food table with no change and 100 hungry customers not exactly queuing during the interval.

As for everything else, well with just over 2 months left it's time to get on with things. This week I'm going to be spending some time at Mercy Wings so I imagine there will be more on that shortly.

Until next time...

Well the last six weeks have involved plenty of travel and holidaying but now I'm back in town for the foreseeable future and back to work. I mentioned in a previous post that I was interested to see what would happen at Saints if I disappear for two weeks - and fortunately it went without mishap. I had made an effort to leave some documentation and check that the technician I work with had everything in hand and it all worked out. A dry run, if you like, for when I leave in April; I am trying to avoid coming in to set something up that will only fall apart when I leave.

In fact the work at Saints is going well and we have a good platform for building up the facilities and ultimately their education benefit, so I will soldier on. I also saw another side of Saints on Friday - one of the teachers put on a Spanish afternoon - Cafe Caribe, which involved small tables being set out in the forum and a number of performances on stage. There were several Spanish presentations and poems, and a number of dance acts which were all very impressive. Two couples wowed the crowd with some quite enthusiastic dancing and there was one group act of about 12 people which was quite outstanding. Apparently they had only spent two weeks preparing but it came off very professionally. Some of the people I associate with are a bit skeptical of what goes on at Saints and it is easy for that to rub off - but it is a vibrant and lively place with some very talented and intelligent students - which showed at Cafe Caribe. They also gave me some cake, and free food always improves my opinion. As well as the dancers a group of about 15 boys from the 4th or 5th form (I think) sang a couple of songs - including "La Cucaracha" which was very funny to see. There were some good costumes too - unfortunately I wasn't armed with my camera (myself and the technician were forcibly escorted form the IT lab to our table by two chicas) but I did manage to get hold of some photos.

On Wednesday I took another trip to Mercy Wings school, where they are hoping to install a network and increase the usage of their (fairly decent) IT lab which is only used for a few hours a week currently. I have said I will help with this, and I also hope to do some work to encourage/guide the use of the facilities to help with teaching. A while ago I wrote about a trip to Mocha where I was planning to help with some community IT project; the problem there is that I would not have time to set something up from scratch that could be sustainable, particularly given that I have never done anything like that before. Mercy Wings has good facilities already so all it would really need my enthusiasm which I hope to lend over the coming months.

Last night I was invited to a lime (read drinking session) with my landlady who lives upstairs which was quite fun, and her daughter who had just returned from the UK presented some Wine Gums and Jelly Babies for the snacks bowl - both things you can't get here so I had plenty with the ensuing sugar low.

Not many photos this time unfortunately, I shall have to do some more scenic activities for the next post. Also my mum (who is British) arrives in town on Wednesday for her first trip to Guyana in 25 years so it will be interesting to see what she thinks of it after all this time...