Christle, IST and Falling Through Stairs

What a title, eh? A lot has happened in the past month and half. One of my best friends here, Christle, was having a hard time and getting triggered by things occurring at her site so she decided to Medically Separate from Peace Corps. (there are many ways to leave, Medically Separate, Medically Evacuate, Administratively Separate, Early Termination, etc etc.) This was a hard decision for her and a hard time for Kelsi and I to see her leave, although we supported whatever she wanted. We went with her to her island and helped her pack and say bye to her host family. It was sad. Really sad. 

 Christle with all of her stuff

Waiting for a boat back to Parika from Wakenaam

Kelsi, Christle and I had a mini thanksgiving together with chocolate cream pie and popcorn! The best with the best!

Education had an IST, in-service training, surrounding literacy and best practices. It was great to get back together with the Education volunteers. We were at the Grand Coastal Hotel for a couple days and they had a separate Annex for the volunteers where we basically lived in a big house together for a couple days. It was like Real World: Peace Corps, so fun! Wish we could do our service from there all together. My counterpart from Laluni, Miss Cindy, came with me and we both really enjoyed the sessions and learned a lot!

Our IST happened over Thanksgiving so we had a little celebration with our counterparts and all the volunteers. It was nice to be together and talk about what we were thankful for.

 GUY 30 Education!

Trying to explain Thanksgiving to Grade one and two! We made hand turkeys and they were pretty cute about all of it!

The past two weeks haven't been the greatest. I had a little accident in Laluni, where one of my stairs broke and I fell through and hit my knee, head and hurt my back. The Peace Corps nurse had to come in and get me and take me to the hospital. Luckily nothing was broken, just bruised and sprained. I've been staying in a hotel in town getting better and while at the hotel I got a staph infection in my armpit. The nurse thinks I scraped my arm on the wood and then got infected somewhere because of that. My friend, Kelsi had two on her legs so we've been keeping each other company with our misery and ailments. Thankfully I'm feeling better although my knee is still pretty hurt. I'm trying to rest it and get it better before we are supposed to hike to Kaiteur, a famous waterfall in two weeks.  Cross your fingers!

"If you think small, your world will be small, if you think big, your world will be big." -Paulo Coelho

Mom in Guyana!

On November 3-11 Mom came to visit me! I arranged for a taxi to pick us both up and then take us to Georgetown, where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast that volunteers love to stay at. We caught up, went to Popeye's for dinner and she showed me all the goodies from America she brought! It was really nice and relaxing to just have a night together before we went to Mainstay.

  

The next day we took a mini bus to the Parika stelling, to take a ferry to the Essequibo coast where Mainstay is. We met John at the stelling, boarded the ferry and found seats for the hour and a half journey!

We arrived at Mainstay Resort, checked into our room and then headed over to my host families house! Everyone was very excited to meet Mom and feed us lots of food! In fact, we never ended up eating at the resort. My host mom, Sunita insisted on feeding us every meal. It was very sweet and I was really glad to be back in Mainstay with my Guyanese family. We went swimming with John at the lake, another volunteer, Carly, came in for one of the days and we just relaxed and gaffed with all my family. They had a big family dinner the first night to celebrate my mom being there and she got to meet the whole extended family! 

My host nephew, Luther! Sunita will say, "Where's Auntie Chels?" and he'll look over at me, it's pretty cute!

Cousins and sisters! Tia, Lorianne, Tiffany and Luther!

Mom meeting Mom! Sunita was very happy to meet Mom, she cried because she was so happy and then we cried! I was really glad they got to meet each other and spend some time together.

Christle, Kelsi, Carly and Bri

After Mainstay we headed back to Georgetown where Mom had so graciously booked us two nights at the Marriot! She even let two of my BFFs from Peace Corps come stay with us to enjoy it's luxury! It was so nice. We got to eat the breakfast buffet, which was amazing, and eat dinners there. The three of us volunteers were amazed and thrilled at everything, while Mom was not as surprised at the Marriot glamourousness. We ended up meeting up with more volunteers at the mall for some dinner and a movie. I was glad Mom was meeting all of my friends and getting lots of perspectives on Guyana life. 

Christle, John, Kelsi and I out to dinner with Mom!

We went to the National Park where there are a lot of manatees, or what Guyanese call, sea cows! You can feed them reeds and grass and they come up and say hi! It was so cute!

Our final stop was to Laluni! Mom came to school with me and met all my students and teachers. The children were very excited to show her their reading skills or for her to read to them. I walked her all around Laluni and introduced her to my favorite families, showed her the creek and made sure she tried all the food,

My host sister Victoria and her daughter, Prescilla came over and we taught Mom how to make a pointer broom out of the palm leaves. It was fun to watch Mom try to make it and meet this family as well.

Showing Mom how it's done!

It was really nice to have her come visit and meet my Mainstay family, Laluni family and Peace Corps family! She got to see a little bit of my life here and experience Guyana. She tried all the food and was a trooper in Laluni without running water and electricity! Love you Mom!

"Life is about not knowing and doing something anyways" - Mark Manson

Silly Students!

School started on September 4 and it's been great to be back at school and working with the kids again! I pull out a couple of students every day from different classes who need a little extra help with letter recognition, phonics or reading comprehension. It's been really fun and I am actually really enjoying trying to help kids learn how to read. It's really challenging but I am trying to make it fun and exciting for them, which makes it more fun and exciting for me as well!

The Grade 6 girls borrowed some of my chalk to welcome students back to school!

Loving all these jokesters!

Prescilla pushing me around the manual merry-go-round left over from Heritage!

I'm excited for this school year and getting to know all my students and the teachers better. We are already a month in and it is definitely the best part of being here, hanging out with the kids, laughing with them and just learning so much from them!

"All of my past lives, they got nothin on me." - BØRNS

Amerindian Heritage Month

September is Amerindian Heritage Month all around Guyana. This celebrates Amerindian history, culture and also signifies the time when the first Amerindian was allowed in Parliament. All of the Amerindian villages all over Guyana have a special day, usually a Saturday, where their village celebrates Heritage. This usually consists of traditional dancing, food, and drinking!

Another tradition is going to "burst the worm." The tocuma worm that is! Six weeks before Heritage Amerindians will go out into the bush (the jungle) and chop down some ite palm trees and let them sit. A black beetle will come and the worms will start to grow and spread throughout the trees. Then the day before or the day of Heritage, they go back to those trees and chop them open to find and collect these worms. This is a tradition from long ago when Amerindians needed and used every part of what they could for food. 

I am lucky enough to live in one of these villages and so my host sister, her husband, and my niece took me out to burst the worm! Many Guyanese haven't even experienced this so I felt really lucky that I was getting to! 

Adventure is out there! You have to be prepared out in the bush! I wore long pants, a long shirt and long boots in order to trudge through. Sometimes the water was higher than my boots....

 My niece, Prescilla, getting me all dressed and ready for the bush! 

We had to hack our way back to the trees with cutlasses and we only burst two out of the five trees that they cut down because it was getting so dark. There were so many mosquitoes, cow flys, and insects everywhere, I didn't feel like I could rest from slapping some part of my body that was being bit! 

My sister's husband chopped open the trees, which was a lot of work, and then we all searched through all the nooks and crannies of the tree to find all of the worms. Some were so fat and big while others were still really small. It was really gross. Prescilla made me try one and it was so weird! You have to rip off the head and then you just eat it raw! Bleh. I ate two and felt pretty accomplished. I've heard now that it's better fried though...

Holding all of our worms!

The government of Guyana picks a village every year to sort of represent the country during Heritage. The nearest volunteer to me, Michaela's village, Pakuri, was chosen! I headed over to her village and to stay with her to experience Heritage! They had booths selling crafts, different foods and drinks. We ate labba, a large rodent type animal found in the bush, cassava bread and pywari which is Amerindian alcohol that has been fermented with cassava. 

The people of Pakuri had great traditional dances and skits to showcase the culture and history of Amerindians in Guyana. 

The President of Guyana, David Granger even came to speak! 

We had a Heritage in Laluni and also a smaller celebration at school. These are a couple of our dancers! It was really cool to learn more about the people I am living with and celebrate with them! I feel extremely lucky to be living in an Amerindian community and getting to experience these rare and random things!

"It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." 

- Tom Hanks in "A League of Their Own"

Cocoa Pods!

When I was visiting one of the families in my village they were nice enough to give me some cocoa pods from their cocoa tree! One tree can have two different kinds, the yellow and orange kinds. These are all yellow pods.

I took them home, split them open and this was how the inside looked. The white part breaks apart and is actually a very sweet fruit. You sort of suck all of that off and then peel the rest until you get to the seeds in the middle. 

Here are all the peeled seeds! I then put them out in the sun to dry for a couple of days...

Until they looked more like this!

I crushed them up and then roasted them on the oven for a couple minutes until they were pretty crispy but not burned, and ta-da! Homemade cocoa nibs! One of the many benefits of living near farms!

"Without fear there can be no courage." - Christopher Paolini

United States of PCVS

This is a map that a couple of the volunteers made to show Guyanese (and Americans) where all of the volunteers come from in America! Most Guyanese only know about New York so it's a helpful tool to show the diversity of GUY 30!

Creolese 101

Phrases:
Boy why you slumberin ~ being slow
I gotta go fresh up ~ go bathe and make yourself look nice
Miss, you packing up the books? ~ putting the books on the shelves
This book stale ~ This book is boring
Don't go wet up your skin! ~ don't get wet!
Sun come out sharp ~ it's hot!
Shake them off ~ Wave
Mosquito plenty ~ TONS of mosquitos
Mango tree barin greedy ~ no mangos on the tree :-(
Miss you plenty ~ I miss you!
Here wha happen ~ the beginning of every story
You'll get accustomed to it ~ what guyanese say to us about everything different
Breeze blowin nice ~ Finally some cool air
Belly full? ~ what my host gran asks after every meal
You gettin tru? ~ How you doin?
Ya all right? ~ See above
I weary bad man ~ I'm tired
Miss, take me out ~ Take a picture of me!
Mosquitos singin ~ TONS of mosquitos
Pickney ~ Chilren ~ Children
Take out your food now ~ Dinners ready!
It bore my finger ~ I hurt my finger
Night too short? ~ What my host mom would ask every morning
Heiss me up! ~ Pick me up!


Arawak Words I've Learned:

Chota ~ pancakes
Chilali~ small fried pancakes
Danshe kabee ~ I love you
Yowri ~ Big rat thing
Acuri ~ Capybara

Myths and Legends:

Beware of snakes in rainy weather, the creeks get flooded and they come out
Beware of snakes in dry weather, they come out looking for water
Black nosed dogs= bad dogs
Put essence (like extract) in dog's food so they only eat your food and won't eat poisoned food
If you heiss a dog too much they will get sick and die
If you sweep someone's feet they won't get married
An old hague is an old woman who takes off her skin and scares children
If you hand someone peppers you and them will quarrel
Mermaids live in the waters and try to drown you and eat you, especially if you're menstruating
Jiambis come out at night and whistle three times, then try to kill you and eat your insides
Canaimas also come at night and take the form of different things to kill you
If you drink the black water (from lakes) you'll never wanna leave Guyana


More to come!

"A ship in harbor is safe - but that is not what ships are built for." John A. Shedd

The past two month in Laluni!

Wow can't believe I've already lived in Laluni longer than I lived in Mainstay! It's been a crazy couple months with lots of learning curves and challenges but also lots of laughs! I am getting used to not having electricity or running water and it is becoming second nature to cook our meals by kerosene lamp light. It is rainy season so it's been raining nonstop, which is actually really nice because it fills all of our rain barrels and we have plenty of water! It's also bringing out tons of animals! I've seen two anacondas, saw jaguar tracks where it had eaten three sheep, tons of huge spiders, baboons and freakin bats galore! I hate bats. Jungle livin! 

 This is like my best friend in Laluni, Ryan, a couple days a week I go on a walk with him and another girl and we play soccer, ride bikes and he asks me lots of questions! "Miss why can't you drink our water, you have special American water??" 

 This was one of the snakes I saw! It's stomach burst open cuz it ate a bag of live chickens!

 I have been spending most of my time in the library, painting it, organizing it and labeling it so the kids can use it! It's been a lot of work but really fun!

 I painted the bookcases pink, walls blue and floor grey!

 Another walk with Ryan and Amesha!

 Two first graders watching me paint!

 6th Grade boys helping me wash the walls before painting the final wall blue!

 Laluni library is open for reading!

 The past volunteer who lived in Laluni, Eben, had a dog, who has now adopted me! I give him the leftover jelly in my coconuts. #caribbeandog

 I was invited to a BBQ one day and these are two students who went to pick up the chickens for dinner! 

 Priya, the 6th grade teacher at my school, and Cindy, the 4th grade teacher and my counterpart with the PC!

Since the library has opened, I made a log where I write down the student's name, grade and what book they borrowed and they can borrow it for a day. The kids were so excited and they ask me every day, so I can borrow another one right? And I can do it again tomorrow? They are so confused but so excited! A lot of them can't read but they are just excited to look at the pictures. It's really sweet. I also had to teach a library intro class, on how to treat the books, how to put them on the shelves, and where to put them back. It's pretty crazy to think about these kids not growing up going to the library every week like I did with my mom and knowing how it works. But it also feels awesome to be the one introducing it to them and sharing my love of reading with them! 

"A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, the man who never reads lives only one." - George R.R. Martin