Today, we came to New Amsterdam and although most of the drive was very close to the ocean, the sea wall blocked any view of the ocean. New Amsterdam itself is a nice little down, and so far everywhere we’ve gone—4 or 5 places has been within walking distance of each other on the same main street that runs through the town. We had our first interview with an HIV+ woman today and she was really amazing. She told us about a dream she had where God showed her a garden and everyone in it had HIV—and it was her job to take care of them. She didn’t think she could do it, but she talked to her pastor and he said it was her calling. Later in the afternoon, we talked to a guy whose official job has nothing to do with HIV, but who seems to make a hobby out of talking to church groups and others. Like in Kenya, my feeling from being here is not that there needs to be more talk about condoms, but that monogamous marriage is not being celebrated. I won’t dismiss the argument that an over-emphasis on abstinence can compromise people’s ability to "prepare adequately for unexpected sexual encounters" (i.e. carry condoms). But the opposite is also true—promoting the idea that most people are promiscuous and thus need to carry condoms—makes abstinence or monogamy seem less realistic and undermines people's commitment.

I met yet another cool RPCV today, this one working at Catholic Relief Services. Being able to understand and appreciate another culture—while still understanding and appreciating your own— is so powerful. She was very good at dealing with some of our gotcha questions.
Because we were “working so hard,” I didn’t get to eat lunch, but only had a piece of vermicelli cake which is noodles in a sugary sauce with a good sized chunk of cinnamon bark. I don’t know if it’s baked or if it’s just sugar and time that kept it in a solid square shape while I was eating it. Interviewing people does energize me, but I do wish Americans would reconsider their fetishization of working through lunch.
It hasn’t rained as much as I’d expected, but today it rained very suddenly, hard enough to get me wet in the time it took to run from the front door of a building to a waiting taxi, and persisted for at least an hour. We took our taxi to the Pegausus so that we could interview Magda, a woman in her 70s who has been very active in Guyana’s woman’s movement. She had been educated in Britain—including Scotland—and reminded me of Joan’s grandmother Agnes.

from Linden

I spent at about an hour just sitting on the balcony and watching the town wake up. The mini-buses started arriving from about 7 and the flow was constant by around 8. Vendors were coming to market, school children in day-glo blue uniforms were coming to the Linden School of Excellence, trash men came hauling garbage behind a trailer, and nurses in white dresses boarded other mini-buses to go to their hospitals.

Linden is a world away from Georgetown; it was founded after colonialism and shows little in the way of British influence. The central business district lies on opposite sides of the Demerara River, and we had a good time exploring the market stalls and buying hot sauce. The market is covered and so its dark among the stalls and the passages narrow, but the people were very friendly. The town is town and it feels especially tiny in comparison with the Bauxite mining operations that surround it: enormous piles of grayish dirt, multiple levels of conveyor belts and waterfalls, and firestacks that spew smoke so thick it looks like whipped cream.

to Linden

We celebrated Pagwah some more, this time by driving around until we found some people playing with water and playing with colors. A few of us got out of the taxis so that we could first be dowsed with water and then smeared with red and blue powder. They gave me some red powder so that I could also color some people.

I wore my colored shorts on the way to Linden and they made a nice conversation piece when we stopped to help someone with a flat tire. Some Amerindians had also come out to look at the tire and although they hadn’t played with colors themselves they could see that I had. We didn’t understand each other very well, but they tried and they were very friendly.

We arrived in Linden at about dusk, and there was still a mood of holiday excitement. After dinner, we sat outside the pastry shop and I noticed a boy copying my gestures while I talked at the phone. His name was Devon and he told me he was 14, and a couple of my friends that he was 12, 13. His favorite subject is maths and he is saving money to buy a bike. I was very tempted to give him the last 3,000 ($15) that he needs.

rules

I got three text messages from my son today and two from my wife so I am very happy. I can imagine us living in Guyana for a little while. I know there are dangers here, but Peace Corps is cautious about where they send people and the volunteers don’t live under our rules regarding not going out without a taxi and/or a supervisor.
If I were allowed to, I would go swim in the ocean which I can see from my balcony and which can be accessed by going to the second floor, then down the Kingston wing, down the steps, a few steps, through the sidewalk, jumping the fence and running over a small dune. The people few down there are poor, swim in their underwear, and while one might ask for your shirt her friend will tell you don’t give her nothing.
We went back to Salt and Pepper Food Court for lunch. Wanting to mix it up a little, I ordered the potato curry roti as did my colleague. Our meals both looked remarkably like the chicken curry he had eaten the day before. After a couple of enquiries, they relented and added a piece of curried potato to each of our plates—sarcasm?

Georgetown, Monday

I’m missing my family a lot and they are missing me, especially my oldest son. He’s asked me to never again go away without him, and I want to honor his request at least until he’s older and at least when I’m going to be away for this long. Although when I explained what I was doing he told me he wanted to be a lawyer, too.
In between interviews, we had lunch at the “Salt and Pepper Food Court,” which is a buffet restaurant that sells takeaway food downstairs. We bought our lunch downstairs and ate at the tables. It’s close to the area that in Kenya I’d call “the stage” where all the mini-buses wait for passengers, and also to the Staboek market, so it’s a great place for watching a commotion.
After our interviews, we went to an event at the University of Guyana to recognize International Women’s Day and hosted by Professor Bibian Isoto. Bibian is originally from Uganda and was dressed kienyeji (“traditionally”—kind of) and knew a little bit of Swahili. One of the other professors knew quite a bit more—although he was Guyanese, he had spent some time in TZ.

worship

I went to church twice—to the Methodist in the morning and to the Catholic Cathedral at around 5pm. The supervisors are rather cautious about allowing us to leave the hotel without a chaperone, and while I am indeed full of Christian zeal, I expect I would have done something else in the evening if I’d had more options. And I probably would have missed out. Although the homily was typically difficult to hear, the ritual was moving. The hymns were sang mainly by the two women who also played the organ (and maybe another instrument) and, they used the same otherworldly, very high and tremulous voices that I’d heard at pagwah the night before. And as they started singing the first hymn the wind picked up to rustle the flags and the fluorescent lights came on to add both light and a low, buzzing hum.
And Pagwah the night before—this is a Hindu holiday and took place at a temple. From what I heard, the Pagwah events started with a religious ceremony and ended with the variety show that we watched. A band sang what seemed to be pop songs, using mainly what I would call “Indian” instruments plus a keyboard and conga drums. The band’s performances alternated with performances by a group of very energetic dancers who danced to Indian disco music.

We had a busy day of interviews in the course of which I met a former Peace Corps Volunteer. Talking to her (as well as with a current Peace Corps Volunteer later) reminded me of what an excellent group of people we Peace Corps Volunteers are. They showed a similar combination of wisdom and hope; despite knowing the challenges for themselves and Guyana, they were cheerfully committed to their work.
We also spoke to some CSWs (Commercial Sex Workers—a lot could be written about the names we apply to people who engage in sex in order to get money, whether for basic necessities or something else, but I’ll leave that to others, at least for now) and of course that’s not a common experience, especially since we were speaking (in an oblique way most of the time) about their sex work. Supposedly men will pay double for sex without a condom, and considering the poverty and desperation involved, I’m not surprised that many women accept, even if those we talked to insisted that they would not. One way to explain the man’s recklessness is that such men know they are infected, but another explanation is “cognitive dissonance,” that such men separate themselves from the entire experience o f “picking a fare.”
Because Sunday was an off-day, we went out for dinner at Celina’s, the only restaurant in Georgetown with an Oceanside view. The water here is definitely the Atlantic rather the Caribbean, and it has the same gray-green color and generally foreboding look as it does in, for instance, Maryland. We waited a long time for our food and I got to feeling a little quiet and sullen. (As opposed to quiet and happy, my usual mode).

jet to Guyana

On my flight to Guyana, I sat next to a Guyanese man who, upon later reflection, I think may have been involved in drug trafficking. He runs a hardware store in Brooklyn and owns several rental properties there, and makes a trip to Guyana every six weeks to spend a week relaxing. A man in his fifties, with lots of “tough love” wisdom on a variety of subjects (“And if you ever get into any kind of trouble where there doesn’t seem to be any way out, remember that it’s a result of your not working hard enough.”), I feel disrespectful suggesting he was doing anything except relaxing. But the regular trips to Guyana, combined with a couple of the stories he told me, has made me wonder if he doesn’t carry something back with him, even if he pretends not to know what he’s doing and despises everyone else involved.
About those stories—The first one isn’t so much a story, but a best practice. When he arrives in Guyana, he told me, he would collect his luggage and retrieve a long knife from his suitcase. When he gets a taxi for the four-hour ride to the east coast, he’ll show the driver the knife as a warning. He doesn’t want the driver to use his cell phone during the journey or to drive down any dead ends. If they get attacked by bandits, the driver dies.
The other story is about a time when he got beat up by drug dealers in New York. The details were muddled—it seemed to have something to do with activity going on in one of his rental properties. The police considered him a suspect for a while, but cleared him (I think). Even the attackers came back and apologized that they’d attacked the wrong person. It was hard to focus on details, as I was a little distracted by the photos he had to go with it—a few of himself with a badly bruised face after the attack, and one of his very bloody shirt.

jet to Guyana

On my flight to Guyana, I sat next to a Guyanese man who, upon later reflection, I think may have been involved in drug trafficking. He runs a hardware store in Brooklyn and owns several rental properties there, and makes a trip to Guyana every six weeks to spend a week relaxing. A man in his fifties, with lots of “tough love” wisdom on a variety of subjects (“And if you ever get into any kind of trouble where there doesn’t seem to be any way out, remember that it’s a result of your not working hard enough.”), I feel disrespectful suggesting he was doing anything except relaxing. But the regular trips to Guyana, combined with a couple of the stories he told me, has made me wonder if he doesn’t carry something back with him, even if he pretends not to know what he’s doing and despises everyone else involved.
About those stories—The first one isn’t so much a story, but a best practice. When he arrives in Guyana, he told me, he would collect his luggage and retrieve a long knife from his suitcase. When he gets a taxi for the four-hour ride to the east coast, he’ll show the driver the knife as a warning. He doesn’t want the driver to use his cell phone during the journey or to drive down any dead ends. If they get attacked by bandits, the driver dies.
The other story is about a time when he got beat up by drug dealers in New York. The details were muddled—it seemed to have something to do with activity going on in one of his rental properties. The police considered him a suspect for a while, but cleared him (I think). Even the attackers came back and apologized that they’d attacked the wrong person. It was hard to focus on details, as I was a little distracted by the photos he had to go with it—a few of himself with a badly bruised face after the attack, and one of his very bloody shirt.