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

Mainstay Video!

We had to do a presentation on the part of Region 2 we were living in for training. It was part of our training for PACA, Participatory Analysis for Community Action, where we learn different tools for integration and helping our communities. The five of us at Mainstay decided to make a video and have a little fun with it! Enjoy :-) 

Culture Day, Host Family Appreciation, and Swear in!

Hello! Finally have a day in Georgetown to catch up on things! Here is a wrap up from training in Region 2! On one Saturday we had a Culture Day where you had to come dressed as the culture your host family was, bring traditional food and each group spoke about the history of their specific culture. It was really fun and interesting. The three main groups were Amerindians, Indo-Guyanese and Afro-Guyanese. My group was Amerindian so our host moms gave us these costumes to wear, from the Primary School. We made Pepper Pot, a traditional Amerindian dish made of cow face, and Cassava bread, a hard bread made from cassava or a yucca type root. We did a little dance that the kids from the school taught us and it was just a ton of fun! 

 With our moms!

We also had a Host Family Appreciation day where we made a slide show with a bunch of pictures from the past two months, made food for our families and played lots of different games. It was really nice!

 Three of my favorite volunteers, Dorie, Kelsi and Christle!

My "Mom," Sunita Pearson!

 The whole Pearson family!

The next day was our Swear in Ceremony! It was more emotional that I expected and really amazing. It had sort of felt like camp for the past couple months being in Mainstay and going to training every day. Now we were becoming real volunteers and going out into our sites to begin our 2 year service! So scary yet so exciting! The Minister of Education and Minister of Health spoke, the US Ambassador spoke and finally our PC Guyana Director spoke. It was really nice, then we were each called up to receive a pin and certificate for finishing training. 

The other volunteers from Mainstay and I decided we wanted to do something special since we all had such a great and special bond with Mainstay. Since they are known for their "tigers," really jaguars, we decided to have special dresses and a shirt for John made. We were the talk of the ceremony!

 Sam, Rachael, Me, Karin and John rocking our tiger dresses and shirt!

 Host sister Lorianne and Mom Sunita!

 Dorie, Kelsi and Christle

 Loving life!

Mainstay tigers!

Receiving my certificate and pin and becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer!

"It seemed like a long time and also it seemed like my trip had just begun, like I was only now digging into whatever it was I was out here to do." -Wild