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.