Adult Mash!

Adult Mash was yesterday and it was glitter-tastic! We started the afternoon by assembling the three floats, Education, Health and Admin at the bottom of the Mabaruma hill. Each department had its own elaborate costume, music and band (which is the group of people behind the float that dances). Nate was part of the Department of Education’s band and I was part of the Department of Health’s band. We began by dancing up the hill to the Recreational park, which is normally just a 20 minute walk, but because we stopped so many times to dance and be judged it took about 3 ½ hrs. Needless to say, we were exhausted by the time we got to the park. Once at the park the three floats were judged and then we had food and all the drinks you can imagine provided for us. Education won first prize and health…well we came in last place. Once the prizes were given out, we danced and drank into the wee hours of the night.

Getting glittered up.


She was the band leader for Admin

Our Mash is a very small production of what happens in town. In town the parade lasts for 5-6 hours and there are thousands of people and hundreds of individual and group costumes. You can barely walk in town on the day of Mash, because people from all over the country come to celebrate.

Education's Float

Admin's Float

Health's Float

Today, we are still finding glitter all over our bodies and house, even though we have scrubbed and swept at least a few times. I am sure we will continue to find glitter in places we didn’t even think could get glitter-fied. We had a blast. Maybe next time we will venture into town and see the real deal.

Till next time.

Happy Reading :)

A year ago, the Gainesville Sun wrote an article about Nate's and I crazy idea of joining the Peace Corps. I think in the article they even said something about us selling all of our worldly possessions and taking a leap of faith.

Well...one year later they have done a follow-up story on our adventure thus far. I think they did a great job at capturing our life here and most importantly our relationship, which makes it all worthwhile. Anyway...here is the article. Enjoy!

Till next time.

One Year In!

Normally I only post blogs when we have cool cultural experiences to share, but this week has been an abnormally super-stellar week, so I thought I would quickly share the reasons for my glowing attitude, since days, especially weeks, like these don't occur on the regular. First of all, on the 15th of Feb. we celebrated our one year in country. Can you believe it? Time flies when you are in the bush.

Ok, so this week we got to travel out of our site and spend it in Georgetown to train the new volunteers. Even though Nate and I were apart for a few days, I got to visit my original host family in St. Cuthbert's. They hadn't seen me since I was medically-evacuated. It was pretty surreal to be back, but super enjoyable. Then Nate and I met up to spend two nights in town which meant hot showers, eating pizza, burgers, cheese and drinking wine and watching TV in Air-conditioning! Can you say SCORE?

But the coolest thing is that this week Nate got published in Guyana's national newspapers, the Starbroek News and the Chronicle, due to his incredible work with adult literacy in a small Amerindian village in Region 1, Tobago Hill. He also published his first article on our friend's, Mike Jones, NGO's website, Open Equal Free.org. So freakin proud of him.

And on a small personal note Nate and I were featured in a Valentine's day article in The Alligator, which is my alma matter's newspaper. So yeah it's been a good week.

Till next time.

Mashin with Pride, Keepin We Traditions Alive!

On February 2nd, Nate and I celebrated Children’s Mash. Mash, which is short for Mashramani, is an annual festival that celebrates Guyana becoming a Republic in 1970. The festival, usually held on 23 February – Guyanese Republic Day – includes a parade, music, games and cooking and is intended to commemorate the "Birth of the Republic". The word "Mashramani" is an Amerindian word which means "the celebration of a job well done". It is probably the most colourful of all the country's festivals. There are spectacular costume competitions, float parades, masquerade bands, and dancing in the streets to the accompaniment of steel drum music and calypsos.

In our village there are two versions of Mash, children’s mash and adult mash. Children’s mash occurs early in the month and all the schools in the region compete in five categories which are Calypso, Dramatic Poetry, Dance, Physical Display, and Costume. It’s a day-long competition and the first place of each category goes on to compete in the country-wide competition later in the month. Nate and I not only were able to attend children’s mash, but we were asked to judge two categories each.

The Judges Table

Nate was a judge for Calypso, which is original song-writing and singing, and Physical Display, which is gymnastics. Impressive gymnastics! Your heart skips at least a few times in each routine, since there are no mats or any sort of protection and these kids get really high in their pyramids.

Calypso Competition

Physical Display

I judged Dance and Dramatic Poetry, which I think next to seeing the awesome costumes these schools put together with just glitter, wire and paper, dramatic poetry was my favourite. The theme of this year’s Mash is “Mashin with Pride, Keepin We Traditions Alive.”

Dramatic Poetry

Adult mash will occur at the end of the month (it’s a wee bit more colourful…wink…wink) and Nate and I are hoping to participate in our respective departments float….and yes we will both be decked out in glitter!

All the Awesome Costumes!

Till next time.

...IC!!! EPIC!!!*

Noemster and Ilana making a postcard.

I can honestly say, without a hint of exaggeration, that our recent trip to Barbados was the BEST vacation that I’ve ever had and I know Ilana feels the same way. It’s hard to put into words just how awesome it was.  To try to use a simile, if this vacation had been a concert it would be like if Led Zeppelin played a reunion show for your surprise birthday after finding out that John Bonham hadn’t actually been dead this whole time he’d just been gone working on his masterpiece, a whole new kind of bacon that gives  you a 6-pack, slows aging, and prevents cancer.... it was like that. 

Barbados as a whole was extraordinary. With a population of only about 300,000 it’s small enough to feel like a community. It is also very developed: extremely clean, potable water from every tap, electricity all the time, and everywhere we went the people were super nice (even outside tourist hotspots).  

Ilana and I arrived 2 days earlier than everyone. We spent our 3^rd anniversary at the Butterfly Beach Hotel, which was really nice. The hotel was not crazy expensive, right on the ocean, walking distance to a supermarket=  awesome.  We definitely experienced a period of adjustment going from remote Guyana to Barbados (hence the reason we dropped a serious wad at the supermarket our first night (mostly on salad ingredients, cheese, and wine (ok and bacon))). 

Then, they came. Some might say we had our cake and ate it too. Others might say it was like watching a cake ice itself, cut itself up, then dance it’s way onto your fork. First Noemi, sweet sweet Noemi. Then Alex and Cat, glorious. Then, about an hour before the New Year began, Drew and Hibby (is there an emoticon for holding back a tear?). Again, I’m having trouble finding words. 

I got a little excited to see the washing machine.

About what transpired from then, it is only fair to say “holy $@%, that was the best $@^*%@^ time of my life.” We laughed, we sang, we gained a combined weight of 14 pounds (just Ilana and me). I literally woke up each morning saying, “man, that was the best dream....” and then I’d realize it was really happening. 

'Nuf said.

Activities included: going to beautiful beaches, snorkelling with sea turtles, going on a pleasure cruise, swimming in caves, taste testing rum, karaokeing, mini bussing, and eating delicious food the best of which was prepared by Ilana and Drew.

For those thinking about going to Barbados and interested in the details of the trip, this is what we found worked well for us:

Staying in a 3 bedroom condo in St Lawrence Gap (called the Terraces), close enough to bars that it was walking distance, but far enough that it wasn’t loud. Thanks to Noemi, our card-carrying travel agent superpal, for finding it. I think my compatriots would agree that the condo made it the best vacation².

Were able to take the mini bus to Carlisle Bay, where you can snorkel with ship wrecks and turtles. We also did a 6-hour catamaran tour there that was this** good. We used a crew called Jammin and would highly HIGHLY recommend them.

Pleasure cruise.

We went to Oistins Famous Fish Fry Fridays to on a Friday, but were happy to discover that it’s better to go on a weeknight because there were alot fewer people. At the pier right behind the fish market you can take the guts of the fresh you just bought and feed it to sea turtles for free. We got in and swam with them there too.

To the northern parts of the island we went to a beach called Sheba Bath that looked right out of a James Bond movie. Also went to Harrison Cave and Animal Flower Cave.

Rum tour close to Bridgetown is fun if you love Mt Gay rum, but it’s not actually where they distil it. For that you have to go to a different place up the island. 

Animal Flower Cave.

Thanks to our friends for coming and seeing us in Barbados. We look at the photos often and say that was just one of many awesome vacations we’re going to have with you guys. Alex, it was ok to see you too I guess. Our plan of joining the Peace Corps to get you to buy us an iPad has finally worked. Didn’t see that coming did you? Gra

*Works better with “legendary”.

**As good as the blacked out parts from Hang Over but on a boat.

 

Coincidence or Barbados love bubble magic?

Despite the Rainy Season...We Got Our Second Visitors!

Well…Mother Nature you tried, but I am sorry to inform you that you failed. My parents arrived in Guyana on January 7th, and despite the enormous amounts of rain we were able to make it out to Mabaruma, even if it was two days later than planned, and show them what our day to day mostly consists of.

Echevarria’s-1, Mother Nature-0…

After returning from our kick-ass trip from Barbados (Nate will be posting about these glorious 10 days) we were quickly welcomed by my mom and dad who arrived the same day as us. We spent the first two nights in Vreed en Hoop were we trained prior to moving to Mabaruma and introduced my parents to our host mom Debee and the rest of the clan. We commemorated our reunion, yup…you guessed it, with an awesome bottle of wine my parents brought us and finally made it to sleep at 2am after all the excitement of seeing each other began to wear off. The next day we caught up and our host mom cooked my favorite Guyanese meal for them to try and then that night my parents treated us all to dinner at the Brazilian Restaurant. That night we had an impromptu little party, were my mom showed our Indo-Guyanese friends how to dance Puerto Rican reggae (this was just one of the many times my mom showed Guyanese how to dance Spanish music). Needless to say, they now ask me on a daily basis when my mom is returning to Guyana to dance with them, because they don’t see me dance and well they like her better. Haha! Thanks MOM!

We spent the remaining two days trying to get out to Mabaruma, but since our air strip is a dirt road and there are no lights, the rain was too much for us to fly. So we were forced to stay in Georgetown for a few more days. But because my parents are awesome and brought multiple bottles of wine and tons of snack goodies, we spent those days just catching up drinking and talking.


We finally made it out to Mabaruma and only had a few days to show them the highlights of our village. We showed them the market, went for a day-long hike to the falls, played pool, went out to WhiteCreek and cooked some Guyanese food, walked around our village and introduced them to about a hundred people, we took them to our jobs and gave them an idea of our daily work schedule and lastly we went to a rum shop, where yes my mom danced again, but this time it was Salsa. My dad spoiled us by cooking almost every meal and giving us a break from the kitchen, and then as quickly as they arrived they were gone. Bummer. We didn’t even get to show them how we do our wash (wink…wink). I think they figured if they kept us occupied they would leave before we would realize wash needed to be done. Smart.







Our holiday season was epic. Between having both sets of parents come visit us, not only to Guyana but all the way out to the middle-of-nowhere-Mabaruma, as well as having five of our closest friends travel all the way to Barbados to spend new year’s with us, well I don’t want to get too mushy, but we feel soo unbelievably lucky. Thank you Thank you Thank you. Thank you for not only coming and seeing us, but also for bringing us sooooooooo many goodies, loving us and then making sure we got to see, eat, drink and do everything we have missed this last year while we were with you.

Karen & Charlie, Edda & Jose, Alex, Cat, Hibby, Drew and Noemi WE LOVE YOU!

Till next time.