Welcome to Kwakwani

6/29/15

Well, I made it. It wasn’t easy. Hard might even be an overstatement. But I made it nonetheless.

It started in Georgetown and after losing two compatriots to illness, another two to a faster route which left me, this new Guy 27, Kristen and her counterpart Andrea. This being the first time any of us had met each other, conversation was sparse to say the least. That being said it was still an interesting journey.

After departing Georgetown to the east, we found ourselves in New Amsterdam after an hour and a half. Then we waited on a boat man who would take us up river to Der Achstel, Kimbia, and Calcuni, the sites of the new 27s. We found the boat man at the dock and as he guided us to the boat I was initially a little shocked at the size of the boat meant to carry 4 people and their luggage.

The hard, wooden edges of the seats cut into my butt and lower back. Now, anyone that’s been on a fast moving boat knows it’s anything but a smooth ride. The bumpy water plus the hard edges made the ride about as uncomfortable as a ride down a South American river on a boat the size of a large table can be. After an hour and a half of excruciating pain we reached De Achstel. Der Achstel, and all the riverine sites, are very interesting. The villages themselves are not what you would expect a village to look like in the traditional sense. They’re essentially just a collection of homes that line both sides of the river and the only way to get from one house to the next is by boat. After quick stops in Kimbia, where Kristen got off, and in Calcuni we powered toward Kwakwani just me and th boat man, Colin. It eas a race to get there before darkness fell and after six and a half hours, we made it.

I dismounted the boat and caught a ride into Kwakwani Park which is the main grouping of houses about a 5 minute drive from the river. We stopped next to Shack’s Shop, a local landmark, on the way in to pick up the volunteer that already lives in Kwakwani, David. He guided us the rest of the way, at least, as far as we could drive. The road doesn’t actually run past my house. You can’t just drive up to it, you have to get out and walk, not too far, luckily.

The house itself is immense. It has three bedrooms, one bathroom, and I’m suspecting a cat lives in it while I’m gone. Its décor is…Christian. Lots of things decrying God’s love and love in general. It’s a little unsettling. Also, there’s about a half dozen stuffed animals whose eyes won’t stop following me. If I disappear suddenly, it’s probably the stuffed Pooh bear.

Making Moves

Well, about a year ago I swore in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, kind of. We totally messed up the swearing in we couldn't remember all the words to the ritualistic chant that is scarily similar to what the Army uses to indoctrinate it's own volunteers. But that's beside the point. A few weeks before the swearing in my group voted for me and two other volunteers to give a little swearing in speech. In my speech I told my group and the attendees that today, July 4th, 2014, that every journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step (Thanks Rob). And tomorrow I take the first step on another journey, the one to Kwakwani.

Kwakwani is small mining town in the middle of Guyana. To get there, you travel from Georgetown to Linden (1.5 hrs.) then from Linden you get a bus to Kwakwani (3-6 hrs.). In the sense of actual travel, it's much easier to get to then Suddie in Essequibo but travel time fluctuates a lot and I imagine my patience may be tested to it's absolute limits in the next year. I'm taking up a new position as well, Peace Corps Volunteer Leader. Essentially I'll be looking out for the new volunteers in the area. There'll be 4 or 5 new GUY 27s that'll be using my house as a base if they need to come in and get some internet, or just hang out and be around some other Americans. I'm looking forward to it, a little nervous since it's essentially starting service over in an entirely new area, but I didn't come down here to be comfortable. I came down here to test myself, see how much the things that I say matter to me actually do. This is another part of that test.

Scott's Thoughts

Hi everyone,

This is a guest blog written about John and Scott’s recent trip to Guyana.

In April, John and I made our trip down to Guyana to save Tim. At least that’s what we thought we were doing. Let me set the record straight: Tim is doing fine. There aren’t nearly as many snakes as I imagined, the locals call him “White Jesus”, and his host mom poured rum and coke for us at 11am. So, instead of saving Tim, we decided to spend two weeks down there kicking around the “Land of many waters.” Seriously… They say that a lot.

Our trip got off to a rough start after being held forransom by Caribbean Airlines in the Miami Airport. The airline wouldn’t give us our ticket 55 minutes before the flight because we were “late”. This is the first lesson on international travel we learned: Airlines are crooks and will make you miss your flight so you have to pay a new airfare. Be early and this can be avoided. We spent the night in the “Miami INTERNATIONAL Airport!” Sorry, the airport has an overly enthusiastic woman welcome you to the airport every 15 seconds over the intercom. You would think they might turn that off between 1am and 6am, but they don’t. I can’t get her voice out of my head. The next day we paid our ransom and made it to Georgetown, Guyana by 930pm. This is the point where we learned our second lesson on international travel: If you are travelling internationally, know the address you are staying at. They will assume you are a drug smuggler if you’re vague about where you’re staying. Our customs agent actually walked outside the airport to bring Tim back inside to explain where we would stay. Problem solved. Thanks Tim.

The next morning we went to the Stabroek Market. This place was actually one of my favorite parts of the trip. It felt like the entire Guyanese economy ran through that market, which isn’t saying a lot because their economy is in the dumps. We saw one of the tallest wooden churches in the world when we visited St. George’s Cathedral. Just down the street we walked past the Supreme Court and the house where the president lives. John and I thought that was pretty cool, but Tim really downplayed the importance of their president. We went back to the hotel to get a $1,000 ($5USD) plate of meat with some hot sauce and a Coca Cola with 64 grams of sugar (that’s 20 grams more than in the US!). I really enjoyed the hot sauce down there. It made most of the terrible food bearable to eat. That’s the other thing. The food sucks. Tim will probably say that’s not true, but he’s pretty skinny now so he’s not to be trusted.

We travelled around a lot in our 12 days. My favorite places were outside of Georgetown. Tim lives in a nice rural area where everyone is nice to each other. Depending on the time of day, they all greet each otherwith good morning, good day, good afternoon, etc. I really liked how friendly they were to me when I was clearly a stranger in their home.

One of my favorite days was our hike to Mashabo. We walked around this giant, beautiful lake that had trees growing through the water in the middle of the lake. I’d never seen anything like it. When we got to the village on the other side, Tim’s friend was waiting for us with lunch ready. It was one of the best meals we had. Fresh bread, cabbage and these black chunks that I assumed were some sort of bean. The black chunks are “chicken substitute” so I’ve decided to just not think about what that means too much. After lunch we learned to play some cricket. It was a bucket list item for me, but I still have no idea what the point of that game is. We met a family that lives in Mashabo and they cut down some coconuts from their tree for us. Then they gave each of us a “pear”. Don’t be tricked if you’re in Guyana and someone offers you a pear. It’s an avocado. Only accept it if you’re willing to eat a whole avocado without chips.

Santa Mission was another highlight of the trip. We took a 90-minute boat ride through the jungle in the middle of a heavy rain to get to Santa Mission. This site was secluded to say the least. My biggest fears in Santa Mission were panthers and snakes. We heard a story about a one-armed man who recently punched a panther in the face in Santa Mission, so we were preparing for the worst. Fortunately, we didn’t see any panthers. I still wonder how close we came to one though. We did encounter one viper on this part of thetrip though. We were hiking through the jungle to scout the marathon trail Tim will be running in November. I was the fourth person in a straight line, and I was the first person to see the snake coiled up in the middle of the path. That sucker was camouflaged pretty good. Only Tim was behind me to see the little dance I did to avoid it. It wasn’t the biggest viper I’ve ever seen, but it will get bigger as I tell the story more. For right now let’s call it 3 feet long. Kelly, the Peace Corps volunteer in Santa Mission, told us the village believes if you see a snake you have to kill it. If you don’t kill it, it will be invisible the next time you encounter it. We took our chances and left it alone.

 Before the trip, I read a lot about how to stay safe while traveling in Guyana. The basics were to never take minibuses, and only take yellow taxis because other taxis will kidnap you if you’re American. We took a lot of minibuses and most of our taxis were just people driving by that wanted to make a dollar. However, if I only followed the advice I read, we still wouldn’t have avoided our only risky driver of the trip. We took a yellow taxi on our way to the airport for our trip to Kaieteur Falls. The driver undersold all of the other drivers around and said he would take us for $5,000 ($25USD). This was about an hour drive, but this was still a pretty good price so we took it. This guy was the most offensive man I’ve ever met. He told us about his plans to rob the currency exchange downtown (it was a really bad plan), he told us he wants an American girl (which I assume he’ll kidnap), and went off about a few different races he doesn’t like. We’ll leave it at that. At the end of the ride, he demanded another two thousand dollars ($10USD). Tim handled it like a pro and said no because we agreed on a price. The driver immediately turned down a side dirt road and I my heart sank. I though for sure we were being kidnapped, robbed or murdered at that point. Turns out the driver didn’t know how to get to the airport and had to ask for directions. He still threw a fit when we paid him $5,000, but we were alive and didn’t have to see him again so we were relieved.

The trip to Kaieteur was once in a lifetime. A definite must-do if you ever find yourself in Guyana. It’s the tallest single drop waterfall in the world. It’s three times taller than Niagara Falls. We took a single prop plane carrying 12 passengers on the flight to Kaieteur. It was awesome and terrifying at the same time. John sat co-pilot and had controls in front of him. If our pilot had any trouble, John was our backup. Flying over the waterfall was one of the most surreal thing’s I’ve ever done. It was worth every penny.

Tim put together a great trip for us. He gave us the trip of a lifetime with limited resources. John and I made plans for this trip with the intent of sitting around and hanging out with Tim for two weeks. We were content to fish, play cards and sleep in hammocks. We had no expectations of travelling around the country and seeing everything we did. It’s two weeks of my life I’ll always remember. Thanks Tim.   

February to May, in Brief

5/8/2015

Phew, it’s been awhile since I posted but now is as good a time as any. A lot has been going on, almost too much to keep track of but I’ll update you on the big ones and fill in the little ones as you text and email me. Hint, hint.

February

February was a total loss for me. I was in site maybe a few days. All the other days I was in trainings or seminars in Georgetown. I can’t remember all of them but I did a week long one where we adjusted and reviewed trainings for the incoming group. I did a PEPFAR training where we worked on ideas for how to use PEPFAR money at our big girls’ camp, camp GLOW. There was one more training but I jus can’t remember it so it can’t have been that good.

My friend Mollie’s sister came out to visit her. We all hiked out to Machabo which was very cool. We saw a few monkies jumping from one tree to another like we were in a documentary or something. It was very cool.

That’s it for February, bit of a short month so not a lot of time to fit stuff in.

March

March was a bit of a blur as well, time has taken on another meaning here. “The days go slow but the months go fast” as one well-meaning temp DPT said once. March was spent hurriedly getting ready for Camp BRO which was in April. I had to lock down the location, money, supplies, food for 30 people for 3 days. This was one of those real Facebook Peace Corps moments.

April

The first week of April was also spent getting ready for BRO. Luckily, we were ready for BRO just in time. The Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of the second week of April we had our first camp BRO in Essequibo and second one in Guyana. There were some pretty great moments that came out of that and I’m happy I was able to be a part of it. That being said, it was a bunch of work that I wouldn’t wish on a soul individual again. After that, April was all downhill and I sailed through it pretty quickly.

My good friends John and Scott came to see me, which was pretty cool. They stayed for about 12 days or so. We went to Machabo to see Ally, Santa Mission to see Kelly, Mahaicony to fish and see Kaylee, then we just hung out in Essequibo for a while and chilled. It was very nice to see some familiar faces. This has been the longest I’ve gone without seeing John in the last 10 years so it was a real treat. We had a lot of fun and I really enjoyed it, thanks for coming, fellas.

Also at the end of April we had another volunteer, and my friend, leave. Ryan went back to Florida. He’s a good guy, he will be missed.

May

Well, it’s May 8^th as I write this. The big election is May 11^th, this coming Monday. We’ve been told by Peace Corps that we shouldn’t do anything on Monday and just be real chill for a few days after. Some volunteers are being consolidated and they’re all staying at a hotel together in a supposedly less dangerous area.

Essentially, this is the political landscape as I understand it. The People’s Political Party (PPP) has been in power for the last few decades. They haven’t been doing a great job so far and most people suspect them of stealing money as the majority of people in the government have large houses and their children go to school in the US. Basically everything you could conceive as being a blatant violation of their civic duty, they’ve been accused of including rigging elections. The APNU/AFC is a combination of two of the opposing groups that only recently joined forces last year. Rewind to last year, there were rumblings of them combining their parliamentary votes and calling for a vote of no confidence (like Star Wars and Chancellor Valorum) in the current president, Donald Ramotar. Donnie didn’t like this so he enacted a proroguement that stated Parliament would not be able to meet for the next six months. That six months ended in January, I think, the APNU/AFC called for a vote of no confidence, succeeded and now there’s this election. So that’s the setup for this election. If you recall, I said the PPP has been accused of rigging elections before and that is why there’s a concern for us volunteers.

The elections work similarly to elections in the US. There’s polling places people go to and vote and there’s reps from both parties counting votes and that kind of gives us an idea of who will win. Then they spend the next two days recounting and consolidating votes and an official winner is announced. There’s four scenarios that are possible here. First, the PPP is forecasted to win that first day then is officially announced two days later. Second, the PPP is forecasted again but then APNU wins. Third, the APNU is forecasted and wins. Fourth, the APNU is forecasted but then the PPP wins. I legitimately don’t know what the fallout will be from the results. I’ve been told if the fourth option occurs that’s when we might need to be a little worried but we’ll see what happens.

Well, until next time I guess. Y’all take it easy and I’ll be home real soon.