So much Swearing... In

On April 13, 2011, Nate and I were sworn in as the 23rd group of Peace Corps volunteers to serve in Guyana. Additionally, this year is the 50 anniversary of Peace Corps. We had a two-hour ceremony that occurred in Georgetown were our host families, community partners, health and education ministers, US ambassadors and all Peace Corps staff attended. Together with another PCV, Emily Berling, we represented our group by giving the volunteer remarks. Below is the speech Nate and I wrote and I presented.

~
One of the first things we heard off the plane was that the Peace Corps service was analogous with riding a roller coaster. Submitting our application was like purchasing a ticket for the ride, waiting was like…well, waiting in line. Some had a fast pass while others waited years to snag a seat. The excitement and anticipation of arriving in our new home of Guyana was like buckling in and riding the coaster to the first peak. But with any rollercoaster there are multiple peaks and falls.

Kennedy’s promise mentions that we are here to serve even in conditions of hardship. As many of us have already learned, there is no hardship too small that does not require adjustment and further adjustment. Some of these adjustments can be as simple as learning to love the smell of Mozipel for the sake of saving your skin from mosquitoes, that digestive issues is just your body’s way of adjusting to fresh food, and that embracing “smalling up” is just another way to further integrate with your community. However some hardships require more of us than we can bear by ourselves, and those are the times that give us the opportunity to lean on one other in our new family. In the short time we’ve been here the relationships we have formed with each other, our training team, counterparts and especially our host families have given us the support and knowledge we will need to be successful in the years to come. In our effort to develop sustainable projects --- these relationships will be what sustain us.

Although it is useful to use the analogy of how the Peace Corps service is like a roller coaster to explain the ups and downs, perhaps the way our service is different from a roller coaster is more important to note. On a roller coaster everyone’s path is pre-determined, the same highs and lows are experienced at the same time, and the gratifying feeling of finishing the ride may only last a few minutes. In the Peace Corps, although community partners and volunteers are all working toward a common goal, each of us is challenged to determine our own path to address our community’s needs. Our mission as community development professionals transcends the categories of health and education and we are empowered by the bonds we make with our community partners to facilitate growth in all aspects of human well being.

In the last 50 years over 200,000 volunteers have served in 139 countries and no two experiences have been the same and not forever life changing and gratifying. Today the world is more interconnected than it was 50 year ago and therefore it’s never been more important to have relationships based on mutual understanding and respect. We are privileged with the rare opportunity to serve as representatives of peace and carry on our nation’s tradition of service. We are honored to be the 23rd group of volunteers to serve in Guyana and deepen the bonds we have just begun to form.

Once again we would like thank our host families, community partners, trainers, Peace Corps staff and fellow volunteers. This experience and celebration could not have happened without everyone’s support.
~

With our first host mom Eslyn. She surprised us and brought us some beautiful hand-woven Baskets.

With our second host mom Debbie and her sister Nalini.

With Dr. Millie, who kept me alive and was instrumental in keeping me healthy for the last two months.

My JFK!

Ilana's speech at our Peace Corps swearing in ceremony.

Till next time

A little diddy

A few nights ago we had a family appreciate night where we celebrated our host families for taking us into their home even though we were complete strangers. Part of the night was a talent show where we volunteers got up to share our talents, which included things like juggling while singing a Guyanese song, self defense demonstration, the American national anthem, and of course a choreographed medley featuring Justin Bieber's "Baby." I wrote a song (which was originally intended for our swearing in ceremony but needed to be cut for time reasons) about training. Then a friend and fellow PCV, Seth McIntyre, helped me record it in studio room 202 of the Regency Hotel Georgetown.

Video from the talent show on Vimeo.

Here's the mp3:

Recording thanks to Seth.

Tomorrow we officially become part of the 50th class of Peace Corps volunteers!!!

Celebrating Rama Navami

Living in Guyana we get to experience many sub-cultures wrapped into one main Guyanese culture. One of the sub cultures that we’ve had the opportunity to get a good taste of is that of the Indo-Guyanese people. The reason for this is of course because our host mom is Indo-Guyanese, and she has made sure that we get to experience everything from her culture, which includes food, music, religion and of course Indian soap operas (which surprisingly there are a lot of). The majority of Indo-Guyanese are the descendants of the Indentured servants who were brought from (then) British India, to what was then called British Guiana to work in sugar cane plantations after the abolition of slavery in 1833. Indo-Guyanese are the largest ethnic group identified by the official census, making up 43.45% of the population and are primarily Hindus.


Even though our host mom is not Hindu most of her family and friends practice this religion and invited Nate and I to join them at their temple, which is called a Mandir, to partake in the religious holiday of Rama Navami. Rama Navami is a Hindu festival celebrating the birth of Lord Rama to King Dasharatha and Queen Kausalya of Ayodhya. They celebrate the holiday by having a service for nine nights which consists of chanting, offering of fruits and flowers, and an element of fasting, which for the Indo-Guyanese means not eating meat or any meat products like eggs and avoiding alcoholic beverages. At the end of each service a different family is the host of the Mandir and provides food and drink for the temple, usually consisting of some sort of curry and parsad, which looks and kinda tastes like cookie dough without the chocolate chips. However, before accepting the food you are supposed to drink milk that is poured in your hands. Funny story about this~ When we went to the Mandir the first night I was given milk in my hands to drink, but because I had no idea what I was supposed to do with this and the woman next to me said I was supposed to do this before eating the parsad, I for some reason assumed that “doing this” meant washing my hands. So…I starting washing my hands with the milk and Nate followed my lead. Oh boy! Quickly we realized that we were doing something wrong when the woman next to us starting laughing and our hands started to smell like sour milk. Needless to say, we made fools of ourselves! Oh well, certainly hasn’t been the first time and it will definitely not be the last time.



The temples are full of color and are absolutely beautiful. Adding to this beauty are the multiple colors of the women’s attire that I was so privileged to wear. I was able to have two outfits for each night of the Mandir. I was psyched to have multiple costume changes. Don’t judge me…you can still be a girly girl in the Peace Corps. The first night I wore a maroon colored Sari and on the second night I wore a mustard colored Salwar Kamee, which are loose fitting pants with a long dress shirt worn over the pants and a shawl. Married women are supposed to wear the shawl over their head. It was too hot, so I didn’t do this. The clothes are incredibly comfortable. In fact, they are so comfortable I wish I could buy a dozen of them and wear them all the time, even to sleep in. Nate, unfortunately, was not so lucky to have an outfit change and just wore khaki’s with a white shirt.

Thanks to Mahindra, Sunita, Patsy, Ram and Nalini for letting us tag along and participate in the nine days of Rama Navami.

Till next time.

Boom Boom there goes the Mini Bus

A couple of posts back I talked about the experience that is a mini bus, and I figured since this will be a daily occurrence it might be good to give you all a better mental picture of what these dare devil rides consist of. There are three different types of mini buses, which are called Boom Boom, Corkball, and Slingshots. Boom Boom buses are tricked out, no seriously, like what you would expect Snoop Dogg to show up in. The buses have nice rims with incredible photo-realistic art of poster girls on the inside of the buses. Most of the buses have different color lights that flash at night and some even have a small disco ball, so that maybe for just a few minutes you feel like you are in a club. The music they play is well…hysterical. Let’s see, a typical play list sounds some thing like this; 98 degrees, Celine Dion, Toni Braxton, Shakira, some sort of inappropriate chutney song talking about rum and girls, Britney Spears, Lean Rimes, some religious church song, an American Idol song and then Bob Marley or some reggae Creolese song. The music is blasted so loud you practically have to scream at the top of your lungs to get the “conductor” to stop at your location. Corkball buses are a bit more modest. They are not really “tricked out,” they have all the seats in pretty good condition, they have regular yellow or white lights to be able to see at night, instead of graffiti art featuring fairies and butterflies (oh yeah I didn’t mention that before) they have quotes such as “Only God I trust, all others must pay cash,” and they play music at a much lower level with a more focused 90’s pop play list. Slingshots, as I am sure you have already figured out, are the least nice buses and most of the time are missing a bench of seats, have no rims, breakdown on the side of the road pretty often and have no music. In other words, they are just a few more oil changes away from the junkyard.

Mini buses ride up and down the main street (really the only street) all day long and to stop them you have to stick out a finger pointing to the ground. Of course by using this method you never know which bus you are going to get. Once you get on, there is a “conductor” which could be a small child, a man, a woman, a grandma, etc. that opens and closes the bus door, collects your money and calls to the driver to stop at your location. But remember me saying that you practically have to yell to get the conductor to stop at your location, well I would say that 2 out of every 5 times they forget your stop and miss it. So they either will back track for you or make you get off a few meters past your stop. The tricky thing about conductors is that they love to rip you off, especially if you are white. We call it paying the “white tax.” Since there is no place that posts the fares for distances, you have to guess and often times have strong words with the conductor or driver about the correct fare, especially if it’s a location you have never been to and don’t really know the fare. Oh and they love to say that the fares change due to gas prices being raised, but once again there really is no way of knowing. This happens to Nate a lot more than it happens to me, I don’t know if it’s a gender thing or the fact that Nate is really white and well, they cant really figure out where I am from, so I have a bit more leeway…or so I think.

The interactions on the buses are probably the most interesting, but before I talk about this, I think its important for me to explain how reckless mini bus drivers are. Drivers honk at any and every person standing on the side of the road whether you have your finger out or not. Since they’re paid based on how many people they can deliver in the least amount of time, they drive as fast as the bus can go, which depends on the bus. Slingshots can’t usually go any faster than 40 mph, but the Boo Boom’s…well I have actually never looked at how fast they are going because well…what’s the point, if things are blurry when you are driving pass it you are probably going too fast. They also love to drive on the incoming traffic lane and pass one another. I feel like they are in a race that just never stops and the fastest mini bus I guess wins…who knows. Now add some cows, dogs, sheep running across the street and just for the hell of it throw in some rain and you have got yourself a real dare devil obstacle course. Exciting…right?

Back to social interactions on the bus; “smalling up” is a necessary survival tactic on mini buses, this means trying to get as small as possible so that instead of fitting 3 people on a bench, like the engineers intended, you can fit 8. “Doubling up” is also tons of fun, especially when 2 or three people sit on each other’s lap. I refuse to do this, I rather not be able to breathe because my face is smashed up against the side of the window than have someone sit on my lap or vice versa. And to top this incredible adrenaline rush ride of a lifetime (sarcasm), people love playing the uncomfortable staring game, which consists of staring at you like you have two heads for the ENTIRE ride! But trust me, its getting easier, well on days that I get a slingshot bus.

Till next time.

Photo updates from our site in Mabaruma

Hi all! We're back from Region 1 and it was awesome! We'll be living in an Amerindian village named Mabaruma. We flew there on a small 13 seater prop plane, rather than take a 24+ hour boat ride. The purpose of our visit, which was from last Sunday until today, was to check into our site and start getting acquainted with the area. We were able to see our house, which is actually bigger and newer than our condo in Gainesville. I'll post some pictures of that once it's finished and we get settled. (Mabaruma view on the left)

The plane to Mabaruma.

The airstrip in Mabaruma.

Right off the plane we met up with another PCV who showed us around. The day we arrived was a huge holiday called Phagwah, which involves spraying water on each other and then throwing stain powders to celebrate the beginning of the spring season.

The culprits that powder-spanked us.

Post Phagwah... and yes it stains the clothes permanently.

Our first day we took a hike down the hill to a waterfall where we saw monkeys. Mabaruma is awesome and we feel so lucky that we got placed there. Ilana's job is at the hospital and will involve maternal & child health, while my job as a teacher trainer is at the Department of Education, which allows me to travel up and down the rivers to the different schools.

On the way to the waterfall.

The waterfall we walked to from our house.

One great thing about our site is the number of other development workers and VSOs (volunteer service organizations) that are placed there. We met a Canadian family: Judd and Karen Wickwire and their sons Jake and Zach who are just all kinds of awesome. Judd is a pilot who works to med-evac people from the region while Karen home-schools the boys. They own a boat and invited us down the river with them. They also provide internet in our village for a small fee. Thanks Canada.

Mabaruma has a population of roughly 800. It's situated on the ridge of large hill surrounded by rainforest as far as you can see. There is one avenue that runs down the spine of the hill and it's straddled by huge rubber trees.

"De Road"... the only road, straddled by rubber trees.

The view down the northwest side of the ridge.
Ilana next to one of the rubber trees.

Straight... up... jungle.

Right now we're back in West Demerara for another 3 weeks to finish our training and get sworn in on April 13th. We're happy, healthy, and safe and really excited that we have such an awesome community to look forward to in Mabaruma.

Guyana Snapshots

Liming (Guyanese for "chilling")

At training learning about breast feeding.

Talking to home.

Grillin it.

Gaffing (Guyanese for "talking") before getting sent to training.

Guyanese money... 200 Guyanese dollars to $1 USD

Making chicken the old school way.

Melting faces.

A sari given to Ilana by our host family's neighbor.

It was alive and trying to flip over (phone for scale).

Eslyn and Aaron, our first host parents, making a broom from a palm frond.

Strangers in a strange land.

This week, PC brought us back into Georgetown for the Counterparts' Conference, which is where we find out our site placement (where we'll live and work for 2 years) and meet our counterparts (the people who will be our co-workers and liaisons in our new community). We PCTs happily loaded onto a bus bound for Georgetown... land of air-conditioning, hot showers, net-free beds, and walls that go all the way up to the ceiling. We were also excited because it was the first time we'd all be together since the training groups had been split up between West Demerara (coastal/urban) and St Cuthbert's Mission (remote).

Our giddy anticipation of hotel amenities was soon tempered by the realization that our destinies would soon be revealed. What part of the country will we be assigned to? What are the people there like? What amenities will my house have? Will I be safe? Who will live near me? What will my job description be? Will I get along with my counterpart? Will my skills be used? The answers that many of us had been waiting months for (years in our case) would all be revealed and all we could do was wait.

We're number 1.... no really, we're going to Region 1.

After all the stress and anticipation, I’m happy to report that Ilana and I have been stationed in a community named Mabaruma in Region 1, which is in the far northwestern corner of the country. Ilana will be based in Mabaruma Regional Hospital at the level of a regional administrator (her specific job description is yet to be determined). I will be working for the department of education as a teacher trainer and student counselor. We’re very happy that our work experience was taken into account and that the level of our positions will give us the best chance to build capacity here. Everything we’ve heard about Region 1 sounds awesome… a hilly pristine jungle, only accessible by boat (22 hours) or plane (1.5 hours). It’s home to Shell Beach, where 4 of the world’s 8 species of sea turtle come to nest. It’s also apparently walking distance to Venezuela, although the border is disputed between the 2 governments because of disparate claims to the oil offshore.

The PCVs in country have been an invaluable resource…. And sometimes their advice has been the only reliable source of information. We were told on arrival that the first 2 months of training and living with a host family will be one of our greatest challenges. They were right. Many PCTs feel like our adulthood has been stripped away. In the States we had jobs, money, a car, control over what you eat, when you go to bed, where you live, what your job is, etc. Here we’re truly strangers in a strange land.

We can't wait finally see where we'll be living and working for the next 2 years. Thanks to all of you who have sent letters and packages... it's really great to feel your support.

Much love,

Nate