One month in…

One month living in Guyana and half way done with our pre-service training, we encounter things we used to take for granted every single day. Some of these realizations really make us reflect and shake our heads in disbelief while others make us laugh out loud.

Expert knowledge. In developed countries you can find expert knowledge in almost every single field imaginable. If you don’t know something, need something repaired, or need something explained to you there is someone who knows the answer and you never have to wonder if what they are telling you is accurate. Now of course you always get a second opinion and you do your own research, but 9 out of 10 times you are confident that information being relayed to you by an expert is researched, tested, peer-reviewed and accepted in that person’s field. In developing countries this is not the case. There is a lack of expert knowledge and the reason most of time is because the country suffers from “brain drain”. We have encountered this on a daily basis and have a better understanding why programs such as PC exist in developing countries, such as Guyana. However, it’s still shocking when you hear the most expert people make statements that are blatantly untrue, especially in the realm of health. Now, I think it’s important to understand that in the case of Guyana just one generation ago the majority of the people in this country were indenture servants for cash croppers. This means that there access to research-based health information, all information for that matter, is a recently new development. It is overwhelming and frustrating, to say the least, when you hear, for example, a medex or nurse tell a patient that breastfeeding is just as effective as any other method of birth control to prevent pregnancy.

On a lighter note, things we used to take for granted include: not needing ninja skills to get out of a mosquito net in the dark and then quickly apply repellent to ward of the swarm of mosquitoes while making your way to the bathroom. Needless to say, I have an internal struggle every night to decided exactly how bad I need to use the bathroom and whether it can wait till morning. Screens! Yes, Screens. I don’t really understand why none of the houses have screens because it seems like such an easy, cheap and effective solution to mosquitoes and the need for a bed net. However, every time we ask this question we get looks of bewilderment, like if we were suggesting we all live under ground to avoid the mosquitoes. Washing machines. Every volunteer I know complains about having to wash clothes by hands and that they never realized how much they took a washing machine for granted, blah, blah, blah, but with my midget clown hands it is practically impossible for me to ring out clothes without having a huge puddle of water at my feet when I am done.

Of course, the experience of living in South America is well worth realizing all the things we take have taken for granted and truly appreciating the simplicity of life.

We have already had some great cultural experiences such as eating “Seven Curry,” which is a Hindu dish that consists of seven different types of curry that you eat off of a huge leaf with your hands as a way to celebrate the life of a deceased friend. Riding on a mini bus, which is a huge cultural experience in itself. These small buses are crammed with about 30 people (the capacity is 15), blast American music, while zipping around town. If you are lucky you may even get to share the bus ride with poultry. Shopping for food strictly in an outdoor market and buying fruits that you have no idea how to eat, because they don’t exist back home. Everyday we either eat or learn how to cook something new (I am a Roti expert now) and on great days we actually get to cook something from home (this has only happened once, but it was glorious); I even learned Nate’s hidden talent of baking bread from scratch (it only took him 5 years to share this talent with me). It was incredible, and now he will have to make it every week for the rest of our life. Maybe that’s why he never shared this with me before, smart man!

Till next time

The Guyanese Appendicitis Diet...try it!

Our host family, Khan and Debbie.

The street we live on, New Road.

Three weeks, 10 pounds, one belly button ring hole sewn shut, and three incisions later I am finally adjusting to the Guyanese way of life. We have moved into a village called Vreed en Hoop (sp?), which apparently is Dutch for “Peace and Hope”, though we haven’t been able to confirm this. We are living with a host family that consists of a middle age East Indian couple who love, I mean LOVE, American 90’s soft rock and just blast it almost every day. Classic! We live in a modest two-story house that consists of a concrete bottom, a wood second story and an aluminum roof. We bathe with a bucket every night, but have to make sure we bathe between 5-9pm, because the water that is piped into the house shuts off between 9pm and 6am. They have a small kitchen with a gas stove that they cook a lot of Indian food on. We are becoming pretty accustomed to the diet, which is carb-heavy and lots of veggies fried in oil. We eat almost no dairy and rarely have cold drinks, but that surprisingly is easy to get used to. We eat fresh fruit in the morning and try to eat the fruit that the birds have picked at because they are sweeter (it’s true). I have no idea if birds pick the sweetest fruit or after a bird picks at a fruit is becomes sweeter, but it works every time! Any fruit with bird holes in it are noticeably sweeter than no bird-hole fruit. For lunch we eat sausage, which as you can imagine is not the same thing as it is in the states. Sausage or chicken is Hot Dogs and if you want chicken you have to ask for “pluck chicken.” Needless to say, we have eaten a lot of hot dogs thinking it would be chicken. Healthy, I know! (can you sense the sarcasm). Dinner usually consists of sautéed veggies, deep-fried fish or chicken or something curried, and rice or roti, which is a flour tortilla-looking thing. My favorite meal thus far is Dahl Puri (split pea soup) Roti (baked flour tortilla-thing) and Fried Okra!

Our host mom in front of our house entrance
(we are the last house of 4 in a row)

We sleep under a mosquito net and apply bug spray likes it cologne and live among geckos, huge beetles and tons I mean tons of small frogs. To be more exact I have about 7 to 8 small frogs join me for my daily bath. They jump out of the pipes, buckets, and my toiletry kit and scare the living crap out of me (ironically they also have giant toads called crapos). It’s like I am showering in a herpatarium fun house every night.

On the weekends we go to what in the States may be considered fast-food, but here is a special occasion restaurant in town called “Chesters” to drink beer (in which they put ice!) and eat fried chicken and french fries. This is a very special night out. Not a lot of people can afford to do this, actually on our PC salary we cant afford to do this, but our host family is very generous and has treated us to this taste of home. I am surprised at how quickly our perspective has changed in just three weeks, and how an outing such as this is such an incredible treat!

Typically village road

During the week we go to our training site all day, which sometimes can be very mundane, but its nice to get out of the house and be with other people our age. On Tuesdays and Thursday Nate works in a primary school and I work in a small health center that is comprised of an outside seating area and one exam room. The clinics here are not very sanitary, have no confidentiality or record-keeping policies in place, and have very little to no resources. The Medex here, even though they are educated at the Georgetown University, practice a lot of “bush medicine”. For example, when I started getting pains in my side the Amer-Indians believed that my “womb” had fallen and tried to massage it “back up.” Of course I quickly put a stop to this and explained to them that I understand what a womb is and that it had not fallen down. This occurs even in the more urban areas, for example a man came into the clinic because he had stepped on a nail and had infected his foot. The nurse had advised him that for future occurrences such as these, he should put hot wax in the wound to limit infections. Once again, I quickly jumped in and tried to explain to the Medex why this may be more harmful than helpful. Nate is in a school, were they literally put the kids that they think "can't learn" in a room and leave them alone, just because they didn't pass one standardized test. Most of the kids are not at an appropriate reading level, but the headmistress and headmasters are more concerned about the teachers' handwriting on the board. Nate already got in trouble for mixing capital and lowercase letters on the board, while he was teaching a lesson! Priorities are very different here but we see lots of potential for our skills to be useful.

As weird as this place seems to us, we seem even weirder to them. There are a lot of funny mistakes we make on a daily basis, which makes us feel like walking jerks. Let see, people don’t bless sneezes and stare at you like you just farted when you do, we try and use clean language like “freakin” and that is even worse than the “F” word, we never order food correctly no matter where we go (e.g. having a cashier scream at us “Use in” or “Take Away”) and we are constantly wearing shoes when we are supposed to be barefoot and vice versa. Little reminders like this every day tell us that culture is so much deeper than food, language, and music.

Till next time.

Getting our groove back

It's been said that when life gives you lemons, you need to paint that s--t gold. While gold paint is in low supply down here, we are looking at our recent adventure as a learning experience and we're thankful that our life here has begun to normalize.

We've moved out of the Windjammer hotel in Georgetown and the decision was made not to move Ilana and I back into the remote training site right away in order for her to have a chance to heal closer to medical resources. We're currently at the coastal training site and living with a new host family... who's awesome. I'm prohibited from giving too many details (for security reasons) but they're a younger East Indian couple who are psyched to have American guests to spoil.



Some differences:
-Aptly named "mini buses" are used for all transportation.
-No privacy since the walls that divide rooms don't go all the way to the ceiling.
-Different house pets include tree frogs, geckos, huge black beetles.
-Sleeping under a mosquito net takes practice (i.e. don't sleep touching the net)
-Shower with a bucket and before 9pm since the water cuts off.
-All the food, even though it may go by the same name (e.g. breakfast sausage = hot dog), is not the same.


Some things we miss already:
-Privacy
-Cheese
-Wine
-Beer
-A prompt and corruption free postal service
-Anyone who is reading this post.... REALLY miss you guys!

Some things we like:
-Hammocks
-Roti (Indian baked good)
-All the fruits and veggies... Whole Foods eat your heart out.
-Everything is super cheap (15 min mini bus fare cost $.30)
-The generosity of the Guyanese

Right now our day to day involves taking a mini bus to the training site, the distance varies for every trainee. Our host family cooks us breakfast, packs a lunch, and teaches us to cook Guyanese food for dinner. Since all the volunteers in Guyana are either health or education promoters, our training sessions are a combination of group discussions/lectures and breakout sessions that focus more relevant to out areas. We all have practicum sites in the area (schools or clinics) where we get the opportunity to get experience doing what we do in Guyana. Part of our training also involves doing a mini project at our practicum site, for which we get a $10,000 GUY budget (roughly $50 USD).
The biggest complaints of the volunteers so far have to do with cultural differences like food (everything curried), no privacy, being treated like little children by our some host families, and the realization that all your issues could be resolved by simply requesting to go home.

We're very happy right now, feel very safe, making news friends, and looking forward all that is Guyana.

Much love.

She’s Alive! She’s A-L-I-V-E! (in a mad scientist voice)

Sooo…that was scary! Less than one week in country and what does my body decide to do, oh yeah how about appendicitis? That sounds like fun. Well, needless to say that was probably the most traumatic event my 25 years of life has graced me with so far. Thanks for that! Nate’s story is spot on for how quickly a stomachache became the worst pain I have ever felt and how now I laugh, mwahaha, in the face of child labor pains (bring it on) not literally, but you know what I mean. Today, 4 days after surgery, I feel somewhat human again. I can get out of bed without Nate having to pick me up, food is starting to taste somewhat normal again, I am able to eat more than just half a bowl of soup, and I am able to sleep more than a couple of hours at a time because I can lie on my side (it’s the little things).

As you can imagine, having emergency surgery just one week off a plane and in a strange place can mess with one’s head. I would be lying if I said I haven’t cried my eyes out one or two times due to the mere stress of the situation. So many questions have been circling in my head, wondering whether we will stay or go, how will this affect our training, will we be able to find a host family on such short notice in the urban area, how long until I am completely healed, could I bring myself to going remote again, and the list goes on. I guess that happens when you have 5 days to do nothing but think and watch pirated TV. [Tangent~ the TV here is a trip. Due to the fact that there are no copyright laws here, you can watch one channel for four hours and see the same channel change from Discovery to TLC, to Fox, to NBC, to Lifetime. Also, instead of having the obituaries in the newspaper they do it in the evening on the television. They have a picture of the deceased and then all the names of the family members with insane music blaring in the background. Oh, and they also love to start a show and then mid-way just change it to something totally different.] OK moving on, so I wish I could say I had answers to all of those questions, but I don’t. PC is trying to figure out the logistics of our unique situation. In the 23 years PC has been in Guyana, no trainee or volunteer has ever had surgery in country. Yup I am the first! Most medical issues that manifest themselves usually don’t occur until some weeks into training or after they have been sworn in and are placed. So you can imagine the --rhymes with “lusterbuck”-- we are in right now. PC has been letting me heal in a hotel room for the last couple of days before any decisions are made, which I greatly appreciate, because I have needed some time to process everything and get my head on straight.

Of course I want to stay and get a fair chance at this experience, but I part of me is a bit terrified after everything that has happened. We were having such a good time before my lovely appendix decided to do it’s thing. We had a great host family (Eslyn, Aaron and Moses) out in a remote setting. They had a farm with all sorts of fruit trees, turkeys, chickens, and pigs and we were already learning so much: how to make a broom out of a palm frond, how to make Roti, how to wash our clothes by hand, words in Arawak, they even had the following weekend lined up for us to learn how to make Cassava bread and how to do some basket weaving. The location of their house was smack in the middle of the jungle and already the wildlife was amazing. So we were pretty stoked! But now …well who knows.

I am thankful that I am alive, and that the medical staff and the hospital acted quickly and carefully and that I got good medical help. I am thankful that I am with Nate, because there is no way I would have made it through this last week without him and whatever may lie ahead. I am thankful my belly is not as swollen anymore (it looked like I was two months pregnant after surgery). I am thankful I am in an air-conditioned room and that Fresh Prince of Bel Air comes one everyday at four and that Pizza Huts exist all over the world (again people, it’s the little things).

For now I am doing well and soon I will be doing great. Because just like Dr. Frankenstein said “[S]he’s alive” and its going to take a lot more than appendicitis to take me down, it may take a whole village with pitch forks instead. Only time will tell.

Till next time.

Sometimes life throws you a curveball... and sometimes you get hit with a pitch.

First let me preface this post with the fact that we are fine and that the Peace Corps acted quickly and appropriately to help us and literally save Ilana's life. Here's what happened:

Short story version.... Ilana had to be medically evacuated from our remote site because she required emergency surgery to remove her appendix here in Guyana. The doctor said that a few more hours without treatment and it would have erupted (that's the medical term they used), spreading the infection, and making Ilana's situation much more grave.

Thankfully, she is OK now. The surgery was successful, she walked out of the hospital yesterday, and she's sitting next to me right now in our hotel room in Georgetown. She's sore in the area where they did the surgery, but she's in good spirits and already showing improvement.

Long story version.... we had been living with our host family for about a day and a half and things were going great. Even though we were only there a short time we were quickly feeling at home.

Saturday night after dinner Ilana began complaining of a stomach ache. Throughout the night the pain worsened to the point that she could not get relief and it never seemed to subside like a normal gas or constipation pain would. In the morning we let our host parents know and they promptly called the Peace Corps medical team, who dispatched the remote medical team to come check her out. Based on her symptoms, the team decided she needed to be evacuated from the site to do some tests in Georgetown.

Because of heavy rains through the night, our route to Georgetown was more challenging. To get out we had to take a motorized dugout canoe through the forest, Ilana had to walk the better part of a mile to the trail where a truck could pick us up, then our driver had to navigate the sand road that was washed out in several places, then drive another hour into Georgetown. Once in Georgetown, the PC medical team met us to evaluate Ilana. They quickly determined that she likely had appendicitis and needed to be admitted to the hospital.

An ultrasound helped doctors make the official diagnosis of acute appendicitis. The PC medical team was in communication with Washington DC to determine if Ilana should be flown to the states to have the procedure, but the decision was made that there may not be enough time and the operation needed to happen here in Guyana. I'm not able to find the words to express how scary that was.

Hospitals in a developing country like Guyana are... different. No elevators, wards are segregated by gender, they don't provide even ICU patients with food or water, zero bedside manner, and after surgery they ask you to sign to say you've seen what they just cut out of you! Then they give you a DVD of the procedure and survey to ask how you liked their service... adorable. That being said, they saved Ilana's life and I am eternally grateful to the PC medical staff and the staff at the hospital.

We're not sure what happens next.... will we be able to stay? If we stay, will we be able to go remote? If we have to come home, what will we do? Those are big questions and we're just trying to take things a moment at a time and get her to heal as best as possible. The PC med staff, administrators, and other volunteers continue to be super supportive.

I'm sure some parents of other Peace Corps volunteers will read this with a lump in their stomach. I want you to know that the staff here considers the health and safety of the volunteers and trainees to be of paramount priority. Although you can never predict crazy things like acute appendicitis, we are all in good hands.

More updates to follow... until then we'll be watching pirated American TV and getter Ilana healed.

To see a pic of her appendix after it was removed take a deep breath and click here. She's one tough boricua.

Much love,
Nate

No anacondas yet.... but here's where we are

Here is a picture outside our hotel window of the city of Georgetown, Guyana .

And here's a picture of our sweet air-conditioned hotel room...


Interesting Georgetown fact: the city is 1.5 meters (5 ft) under sea level, consequently no building is allowed to be higher than 5 stories.

I know it's not much info but there hasn't been a lot to report since we've just been training and practically under house arrest in the hotel, of course for security until we've been further acquainted with the ways of Lady Guyana. More to come soon.

Love,
Nate

Flip Flip Flipadelphia!

I don’t really believe in good omens and I am not really superstitious, but if there was ever a time to believe in that mumbo jumbo, well….now is the time. We are in Philadelphia! Why am I so excited, and why is this a good omen? Drum roll please…our blog name was named after the brilliant show “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” and we are in Philly! Do you see the connection? Good omen, huh? I think so! So here is our whirlwind of a schedule for the next three days. We left for Philly on Sunday Feb. 13th and spent 24 hrs at a pre, pre-service training on the basics called “Staging.” After a full day of training we got on a bus to NYC to take a flight at 1am to Guyana where we will arrive at 8am, check into a hotel, freshen up and start a half day of training until that evening. We will be spending four days in the hotel getting briefed on every possible thing like bus etiquette, vaccinations, and safety procedures, among many other things. On Friday Feb. 18th we get bused to our host family, where we finally get to settle in a bit and start our 2 months of Pre-Service training before we officially get sworn in as Peace Corps volunteers. Jeez, just typing that exhausts me. We cant wait to start our new adventure, and to be honest we can’t believe it is finally here. It feels like we have been waiting an eternity to get this show on the road and we are finally getting on the road, figuratively and literally.

The last two months have already been a life-changing experience and I know I have said this before, but I will say it again, I don’t think I could have done any of them with out some essential people in my life. Nate is awesome in every sense of the word; actually come to think of it the word awesome should be changed to Nawesome, (haha I crack myself up). Our parents are rock stars and with out them we would have been broke and homeless, our grandparents are endless pits of valuable information and they have already taught us some many tricks like how to wash clothes by hand without killing ourselves, our siblings have spoiled us with top-of-the-line media so we have enough music and movies to last our two years of service, our aunts and uncles who have been incredible cheerleaders (watch out “Glee” Cheerios) and lastly our hard-drinking, hard-partying, travel-junkie friends who always manage to put a smile on our face and make us laugh when all we wanted to do was cry and wished we owned a punching bag. THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart.

Puerto Rico was incredible and being home for six weeks reminded me how much I love that beautiful little island of mine and why when Puerto Ricans leave the island they never shut-up about it. Some good times were had, especially at the cost of my dear husband who tried to practice his Spanish as much as possible. Let’s see, he made some pretty hysterical mistakes such as calling ants (hormigas) meatballs (albondigas)~asking for ice cream (helado) in his scotch instead of ice (hielo) ~asking the woman attendant at the supermarket where the pool (piscina) was instead of where the fish (pescado) was, in which she giggled and then very seriously said “No,” I think she thought he was hitting on her, and lastly telling the Campesino who was working on my dad’s land that everyone was dead inside, when he was trying to express that he had killed the wasps that had stung the man earlier in the day. Needless to say, I laughed a lot. Spending time with my family and all of our incredible friends, all 11 of them that visited us in PR, going to the most beautiful beaches, listening to incredible live music a couple of times a week, sight-seeing, sleeping in hammocks, going to the cock fights (Azul, Azul, Azul), made this vacation hands-down the best one yet.

So now its time to finally start this new chapter in our lives and start writing about Guyana, Peace Corps and our simplified life, the real reason you signed up to follow this blog. But this blog thing works two ways people, so please post and tell us what’s new in the world and with you, in other words let us know we aren’t talking to ourselves. We also have our emails so write us at ilae85@gmail.com and n8stew@gmail.com or send us handwritten letters to the address on the right-hand side. I know, I know who writes hand-written letters anymore? But here is the solution, type your letter on your handy dandy laptops, print it and then put it in an envelope. Brilliant, I know; so no excuses. We love you all and already miss you.

Till next time.