It was not until Wednesday when I came to Bartica, until then I stayed in another VSO’s place (Thanks Viveth & Xerez for your hospitality!). Monday was okay because I was soooo tired that nothing could stop me from sleeping but Tuesday night? That’s another story… I slept quite okay last night without a mosquito and I was tired of sleeping under a net, it’s being like that for month a half already and trust me I’m still not used to it. You know how ridiculously optimist I can be sometimes plus I was feeling lucky so I decided I did not need to put the mosquito net that night because no mosquito would bite me. WRONG!!! SERGIO YOU WERE WRONG!! I think mosquitoes living in the house heard that comment and called all their relatives and friends to come, and they also called their friends and relatives so I think that was a good night for the rest of people sleeping in Georgetown because Every fucking mosquito was in my room beating me or waiting their turn at the window to enter! It was terrible!! I tried everything…changed to the sofa in the living, put all kind of repellents I had, showered around 3 in the morning, tried to read to fall sleep but every time after 5-10 mins I would listen to the zeeeeeeeeeeeeee and I knew they were coming again, so I finally gave up around 5am without any success.
After packing some of my things (for 2 weeks that I was supposed to be staying in Bartica), having my second shower and several cups of Nescafe (unfortunately that was the only thing available with caffeine) I was at the office around 9 and at 11.30pm we started our trip (it took us around 2hrs) by car and then by boat. As you can imagine by that time I was already nervous because I was going to meet my future boss and tired as my body was screaming for some sleep.
So there we were, Timothy, Diane, Mr. Knights (Chairman of the RDC 7 (the government in region 7) and Cianna (Information Officer for RDC 7 and my future colleague). We were there for almost 2 hours, and although it was interesting to know more about the work that I’ll be doing here and meet my new boss and one of my colleagues, I was there having one of the hardest fights I could have with my body not to fell asleep without being noticed and doing my best to reply when I was being asked to! (of course I had to repeat the question every time but I would pretend I did not understand because of the guyanase accent..)
I was lucky afterwards because Diane wrote everything down so I could find out what was discussed in that meeting next day, so no big deal at work but I wish I had a very different first day in my new job!! The good thing is that from that day things can only goes better…
Meeting my flat mate and my settlement at the rainbow home!
Let me introduce you to Kane, an Australian VSO volunteer, based in Bartica, which role is related to “literacy advisor” in the education program and came here only a few months before me also for 2 years. He has a spare room in his place so I’m staying there for the last 3 weeks. He’s a nice guy in his late 30s with an open mind and willingness to listen/share experiences. We get along very well and as he also has been into many different places there’s always something to talk about in the evenings. Another particularity of Kane is that he is vegan and to make things easier while I was staying at his place together with my curiosity in vegetarian diets explains why I’m following a vegan diet now!! And so far so good!! I’m not going to say I’ll become vegan after this but he’s an excellent cook and enjoyed every meal and learned some new tasty vegetarian recipes!!
His place is up in the hill next to one of the 2 Secondary Schools that are in town, in a very cool area where sunsets are amazing. We call it the “Rainbow house” because while its minimalist decoration gives the place a very interesting look the different colors of each room, varying from yellow, green and pink provides the place with a unique warm atmosphere! It’s simple but cool!
I need to admit that when I saw the bathroom I was really surprised. Firstly about this size, as I’ve lived in rooms, much smaller than that (Mariam & Lazarito, os acordáis de la habitación en casa de Javier?? Esa sí que era pequeña!!) and secondly because there were 2 bouquets of water inside the shower. I had to ask! And the reason is that is very normal that there’s not enough pressure to get a proper shower so what you do is to fill both bouquets and with a small pan just serve yourself!!! It’s very funny and the best part is when you finish showering and empty the big bouquet in yourself!! I’m enjoying my bouquets showers so much that I’ll miss them when I leave Bartica!
Another thing I will always remembered from Kane's place is that it did not have a washing machine!! Incredible, right?? :p Well, not so easy to find one in this country as most of laundries are done by hand...
So, here I was, with a pile of dirty clothes, a couple of buquets, some water and some soap! Ready to do my first laundry ever!! I still laugh when I remember... I had done 3 laundries by now and the quality improved but the first one it was the best one!!
Left my clothes for 30 mins on water, then took them out put some soap and put them in water again, it took me 2 hours to do it and the results: Not only I was not able to remove any stain from my clothes but not even the bad smell!! And I did not think about where to put my clothes to dry afterwards so I had to hang all of them from my mosquito net above my bed. Summary: After 2 hours of hard work, I had the same dirty clothes, but wet, and I had a smelly and wet room that night!! :p
And finally I started working...!!!
Yes!!! And that’s the main reason I’m here!!! I wanted to do something that could have more meaning to me, something I could enjoy and at the same time could help others!! Well, I still think that’s what I expect from Guyana but patience is going to be crucial. Let me explain…
As I mentioned before my first day at work was not very productive due to my restless body but next days I realized it was not a big deal. Let’s say the work culture here is quite different, the speed here is slower, things happen “just now” and everything can change any minute so plans, if you are brave enough to plan anything, must be 100% flexible!!
While I was in Bartica I was based at the RDC 7 Office (Regional Democratic Council) and although there are no many resources in my office, I’m happy I do have a place to seat, a table to put my laptop, a window that looks to the harbor and even a fan pointing straight at me (my most luxurious article) and of course a very friendly group of colleagues ready to help anytime. I’m aware that it will take me some time to adjust myself to this new environment so I’m trying to be as patient and understanding as possible! (Mariano & karina & José María me acuerdo mucho de vosotros diciéndome tienes q ser paciente… :p).
My position here is a Community Development Advisor and I’m included in a EU funded project for 2 years which main target is to improve the quality of life of 25 Amerindian communities from the hinterland regions 1, 7 & 9 of Guyana. Well, right now we are trying to help them to choose which villages will be included in the project by gathering information and analyzing it. I did visit a couple of the villages to gather some information and my feelings were that I’ll be happy to work with the Amerindian!!
Where Cuyuni, Mazzaruni and Essequibo meet you can find a small but lively city: Bartica!
Where the Cuyuni, Essequibo and Mazzaruni rivers join together forming a beautiful landscape you can find one of the weathiest citites of Guyana. Bartica is definitely is a mining city and you can notice at first glance just looking at the many places where you can sell gold, the big trucks sometimes crowded of exhausted miners that come to the city to spend most of their money. It’s not a big city and it’s funny because its squared and simple design (it has seven avenues and nine streets) remains me a huge one, Barcelona. It´s the capital of Region 7 and it gives a home to 1500 Barticians. Is the door to the rainforest so you can have a little bit of civilization and a little bit of Nature.
Being a rich mining community means you get people coming in the search for gold and in Bartica you find many Brazilians who came long time ago and established there, putting their restaurants and of course their night clubs for the miners…That’s one of the reasons that Barticians are known in Guyana because of their friendliness, hospitality and their parties.
You can access Bartica by plane but the cheaper and more popular way to come here is by a 1 h speed boat’s ride from Parika (from Georgetown to Parika you can go by boat or by car, it take around 45min – 1h). I just love that ride, having the breeze in your face and such a beautiful landscape in front relaxes me so much that normally I just don´t want it to end!
What else can I say about this city? It’s warm and I really had a good time here. I don’t know exactly why so I guess a mix of many things, I ‘ll share with you some of them and maybe you understand me better…
How do I start my days in Bartica…
I normally wake up around 5.30-6am when the sunrise and the light is getting through my blue curtains while I hear a bunch of birds getting around my window (the landlord throws food for them every morning there), get on my trainers and go jogging for one hour, in my way I usually find cows, goats, dogs, and some neighbors who always smile at me and greets me with the thumbs up!
I run through “the line”, which happens to be the only road that connects Bartica with the hinterland villages of Upper Mazzaruni in region 7. Is just beautiful, leaving town for about 4 miles and getting into the rainforest while the sun is rising and lighting everything up. Around 7am I get home, sweaty and tired but satisfied and proud of myself, greet Kane that by then is awake preparing coffee, and go straight to have my bouquet’s shower…mmm…Refreshing!! When I’m done I prepare myself my deserved breakfast including a couple of tosts with spread tomatoes and olive oil, some fruits and my morning coffee!
Get dress for work and let’s go!! I live up in a hill so I go down the hill towards the Essequibo during a 15 mins walk where I meet many children from 4 to 15 years old dressed up with their perfectly washed and ironed colorful uniforms who also are in their way to school and each one of them smiles at me and greets me with a “Morning morning”, as you can imagine by the time I reach work at 8am o’clock, yes I’m getting punctual and don’t mind starting to work before 10am (hard to believe even for myself) there’s a huge smile in my face!
Fish & Chips, a few banks and Ease the Stress!
Bartica is a place surrounded by water so as you can imagine fish is quite present in many dishes (Also you can get a lot of meat in the Brazilians restaurants). On Fridays in Bartica we get together around 7 pm and go for some Fish & Chips. It’s a cool crew formed by VSOs, Peace Corps, The Bible guys and some local friends. Is not as good as my Friday beers in Leiden but it’s a very relaxed way to start your weekends.
Of course from there you go to basically the only street in Bartica with some “pubs” where the most popular one is “Ease the stress” ( I never saw a guayanese stressed but that’s where everyone in town goes ) for our 5 banks (the local beer) for 1000 $ ( around 4 euros)… It’s an interesting street where you can really see the cultural differences… Everyone is buying drinks and going out to the street where the dj helped by huge speakers try to spoil people to dance?? I got my doubts…Let’s say, that here the dj’s comments and voice get more attention that the music he puts as he’s cutting any song after 30 sec maximum, making some comments and putting a very different one. Results: You can’t enjoy the music, you have to scream to have a conversation and there’s no one dancing, you just go for “liming” there (liming is the guayanese word that means hanging around without really doing anything). My feelings? I miss the dancing part but I enjoy watching and mixing with the people in the street.
Playing football in Guyana can be such a different experience…
The first question when I speak to a Guayanese is related to my home country and when I say I’m from Spain of course I’m received with a big smile, a shaking hand and sometimes even a hug, all of this because we are “the World Champions”!!! Is one of these moments when you realize how a sport consisting in 22 players running and hitting a ball can have so much impact into different societies all around the world. Amazing…. The thing is that saying I’m Spanish and like football and like playing football welcomes everyone to invite me for playing!!! (of course they don’t know who are they talking to but I play with that and leave all the mystery for the actual game).
So I was invited and went for training for the Bartica’s team! After waiting for 15 mins for someone who left a car in the middle of the football field we started the game. Of course I was not playing defense, I was right wind, and need to say that I did pretty okay, considering I’m not fit at all. They had a good level but the ball was going from one side to another, it was exhausting after 30 mins… Of course none of my teammates knew how to pronounce my name so guess how did the call me? Serch? Nooooooo Mogki? Nooooo “The white man”!!! And of course there were no uniforms, pits or anything so one team played without t-shirt and the other with their t-shirt! Yes…You are right I was showing my “tanned chest” to everyone!! It was so funny!! I then realized that I was the only white person not only from the two teams but for the whole stadium!!!
My first contact with guayanese jungle!!
Is one of things that I like most from Bartica is that is not far away from civilization but is just the door of the jungle! Of course in my 3 weeks there I was able to do some walks and I must say I was amazed! It’s difficult to express it with words but if I have to define it with one I would refer to “peaceful”, being there surrounded by nature hearing many different sounds and being aware that there are monkeys, snakes and some other wild animals around (even if I did not see any of them) it puts you in a different mood….I don’t know, but could not stop taking pics at the same time did not want to take any, as I just wanted to be part of it. I had long and short walks, with and without heavy rain but all of them ended with a swim in a remote beach in the Mazzaruni river! I’ll put some pics and as we say in Spain a picture speaks more than 1000 words, so let them speak!
Amerindian Heritage at Batavia
It was 2 Sundays ago when I went to Batavia. Is a small Amerindian village located in the opposite side of Essequibo and they were celebrating the Amerindian Heritage there! I would explain briefly, September was the Amerindian month and there were celebrations all over the country. They do it once a year and is quite interesting because they show their main activities, such as griding the cassava, arrows’s shooting, working the cotton, building a bow & arrow, traditional dances, etc… And another thing they had in Batavia, was the pageant Miss Amerindian 2010!! It was really really funny! Is not that Amerindian women are not beautiful, some of them look really good, but the organization as it most of events in Guyana is caothic…They were calling people who was not there, sometimes you could not hear the music and some other times you could hear the presenter because the music was too loud…let’s say there’s a lot of room for improvement!! However I had lots of fun there and even tried the labba (wild meat) and the cassava bread!!
A different way to start a working day
It was 5 am of last Wednesday when I woke up and 5.10 am when I was out already in the street with a sleepy face and Kane (in similar conditions) and without shower or breakfast! We were heading out to the beach. It was dark when we left home but 20 mins later when we arrived there was some light already. We found that the stream was still high so there was still no beach, only water… Anyway we got into the river and felt the warm water. It was good very good and even better when the sun started to rise from the other side of the river. Beautiful! The swimming only lasted for about 30 mins but it was a GREAT way to remain myself how easy can be start my day with a big smile.
Who said Guayanese people are not open and welcoming??
On my first days here in my Introduction Training during one of the sessions I was told Guayanese are not very open people, they don’t invite you to their home and it’s very difficult to make guayanese friends. I don’t know how is for everyone, but I can speak from my experience and from that I need to say that I really disagree with it. In my 7 weeks and a half here I have been invited several times to Guayanese homes for having lunch or dinner in a very open and friendly way. I have spent a weekend in Essequibo where I was given a room to sleep and succulents and delicious meals, I have been invited to have “pepperpot” (a meal is normally only cooked in Xmas because it requires a lot of time & money to prepare it) for lunch with him, his girlfriend at his place by a bartician and yesterday I was invited again to another guayanese home for dinner in Georgetown!
I think all of you know my theory that there’s good people and bad people all over the world and that generalizing can make you judge people without meeting them so we all need to be very careful when doing that!!
Thanks Clive, Linden & Natasha and Seeram for showing me the hospitality of Guyana! Of course if you ever come to Spain you know you are welcome at my place!
The steamer : The nicest way to leave Bartica
As I said before to access Bartica you can go by speedboat and it takes you one hour from Parika. Is a nice trip but there’s another one even nicer! The steamer!! (probably is not the correct spelling but hope you understand) It takes almost 5 hours instead of 1 and it goes through a different route, not so direct but equally beautiful! Basically is a big boat that goes only twice a week and takes cars, passengers and food. It’s just a different experience. It departs around 6am so you can enjoy the sunrise from the boat and it goes reaaally slow so it gives you the opportunity to see the river’s life from a different perspective. You can see the small “school boats” taking the children from one village to another so they can go to school, or you can see passengers coming to the boat by small boats, or even small boats that come to the big one to sell bananas, eddos, or any other different fruits. You find many islands in your way and can take amazing pics but it’s very difficult to capture the trip in an image, if I had to use a word to define I would use: “Inspiration”.
Let me introduce you to Kane, an Australian VSO volunteer, based in Bartica, which role is related to “literacy advisor” in the education program and came here only a few months before me also for 2 years. He has a spare room in his place so I’m staying there for the last 3 weeks. He’s a nice guy in his late 30s with an open mind and willingness to listen/share experiences. We get along very well and as he also has been into many different places there’s always something to talk about in the evenings. Another particularity of Kane is that he is vegan and to make things easier while I was staying at his place together with my curiosity in vegetarian diets explains why I’m following a vegan diet now!! And so far so good!! I’m not going to say I’ll become vegan after this but he’s an excellent cook and enjoyed every meal and learned some new tasty vegetarian recipes!!
His place is up in the hill next to one of the 2 Secondary Schools that are in town, in a very cool area where sunsets are amazing. We call it the “Rainbow house” because while its minimalist decoration gives the place a very interesting look the different colors of each room, varying from yellow, green and pink provides the place with a unique warm atmosphere! It’s simple but cool!
I need to admit that when I saw the bathroom I was really surprised. Firstly about this size, as I’ve lived in rooms, much smaller than that (Mariam & Lazarito, os acordáis de la habitación en casa de Javier?? Esa sí que era pequeña!!) and secondly because there were 2 bouquets of water inside the shower. I had to ask! And the reason is that is very normal that there’s not enough pressure to get a proper shower so what you do is to fill both bouquets and with a small pan just serve yourself!!! It’s very funny and the best part is when you finish showering and empty the big bouquet in yourself!! I’m enjoying my bouquets showers so much that I’ll miss them when I leave Bartica!
Another thing I will always remembered from Kane's place is that it did not have a washing machine!! Incredible, right?? :p Well, not so easy to find one in this country as most of laundries are done by hand...
So, here I was, with a pile of dirty clothes, a couple of buquets, some water and some soap! Ready to do my first laundry ever!! I still laugh when I remember... I had done 3 laundries by now and the quality improved but the first one it was the best one!!
Left my clothes for 30 mins on water, then took them out put some soap and put them in water again, it took me 2 hours to do it and the results: Not only I was not able to remove any stain from my clothes but not even the bad smell!! And I did not think about where to put my clothes to dry afterwards so I had to hang all of them from my mosquito net above my bed. Summary: After 2 hours of hard work, I had the same dirty clothes, but wet, and I had a smelly and wet room that night!! :p
And finally I started working...!!!
Yes!!! And that’s the main reason I’m here!!! I wanted to do something that could have more meaning to me, something I could enjoy and at the same time could help others!! Well, I still think that’s what I expect from Guyana but patience is going to be crucial. Let me explain…
As I mentioned before my first day at work was not very productive due to my restless body but next days I realized it was not a big deal. Let’s say the work culture here is quite different, the speed here is slower, things happen “just now” and everything can change any minute so plans, if you are brave enough to plan anything, must be 100% flexible!!
While I was in Bartica I was based at the RDC 7 Office (Regional Democratic Council) and although there are no many resources in my office, I’m happy I do have a place to seat, a table to put my laptop, a window that looks to the harbor and even a fan pointing straight at me (my most luxurious article) and of course a very friendly group of colleagues ready to help anytime. I’m aware that it will take me some time to adjust myself to this new environment so I’m trying to be as patient and understanding as possible! (Mariano & karina & José María me acuerdo mucho de vosotros diciéndome tienes q ser paciente… :p).
My position here is a Community Development Advisor and I’m included in a EU funded project for 2 years which main target is to improve the quality of life of 25 Amerindian communities from the hinterland regions 1, 7 & 9 of Guyana. Well, right now we are trying to help them to choose which villages will be included in the project by gathering information and analyzing it. I did visit a couple of the villages to gather some information and my feelings were that I’ll be happy to work with the Amerindian!!
Where Cuyuni, Mazzaruni and Essequibo meet you can find a small but lively city: Bartica!
Where the Cuyuni, Essequibo and Mazzaruni rivers join together forming a beautiful landscape you can find one of the weathiest citites of Guyana. Bartica is definitely is a mining city and you can notice at first glance just looking at the many places where you can sell gold, the big trucks sometimes crowded of exhausted miners that come to the city to spend most of their money. It’s not a big city and it’s funny because its squared and simple design (it has seven avenues and nine streets) remains me a huge one, Barcelona. It´s the capital of Region 7 and it gives a home to 1500 Barticians. Is the door to the rainforest so you can have a little bit of civilization and a little bit of Nature.
Being a rich mining community means you get people coming in the search for gold and in Bartica you find many Brazilians who came long time ago and established there, putting their restaurants and of course their night clubs for the miners…That’s one of the reasons that Barticians are known in Guyana because of their friendliness, hospitality and their parties.
You can access Bartica by plane but the cheaper and more popular way to come here is by a 1 h speed boat’s ride from Parika (from Georgetown to Parika you can go by boat or by car, it take around 45min – 1h). I just love that ride, having the breeze in your face and such a beautiful landscape in front relaxes me so much that normally I just don´t want it to end!
What else can I say about this city? It’s warm and I really had a good time here. I don’t know exactly why so I guess a mix of many things, I ‘ll share with you some of them and maybe you understand me better…
How do I start my days in Bartica…
I normally wake up around 5.30-6am when the sunrise and the light is getting through my blue curtains while I hear a bunch of birds getting around my window (the landlord throws food for them every morning there), get on my trainers and go jogging for one hour, in my way I usually find cows, goats, dogs, and some neighbors who always smile at me and greets me with the thumbs up!
I run through “the line”, which happens to be the only road that connects Bartica with the hinterland villages of Upper Mazzaruni in region 7. Is just beautiful, leaving town for about 4 miles and getting into the rainforest while the sun is rising and lighting everything up. Around 7am I get home, sweaty and tired but satisfied and proud of myself, greet Kane that by then is awake preparing coffee, and go straight to have my bouquet’s shower…mmm…Refreshing!! When I’m done I prepare myself my deserved breakfast including a couple of tosts with spread tomatoes and olive oil, some fruits and my morning coffee!
Get dress for work and let’s go!! I live up in a hill so I go down the hill towards the Essequibo during a 15 mins walk where I meet many children from 4 to 15 years old dressed up with their perfectly washed and ironed colorful uniforms who also are in their way to school and each one of them smiles at me and greets me with a “Morning morning”, as you can imagine by the time I reach work at 8am o’clock, yes I’m getting punctual and don’t mind starting to work before 10am (hard to believe even for myself) there’s a huge smile in my face!
Fish & Chips, a few banks and Ease the Stress!
Bartica is a place surrounded by water so as you can imagine fish is quite present in many dishes (Also you can get a lot of meat in the Brazilians restaurants). On Fridays in Bartica we get together around 7 pm and go for some Fish & Chips. It’s a cool crew formed by VSOs, Peace Corps, The Bible guys and some local friends. Is not as good as my Friday beers in Leiden but it’s a very relaxed way to start your weekends.
Of course from there you go to basically the only street in Bartica with some “pubs” where the most popular one is “Ease the stress” ( I never saw a guayanese stressed but that’s where everyone in town goes ) for our 5 banks (the local beer) for 1000 $ ( around 4 euros)… It’s an interesting street where you can really see the cultural differences… Everyone is buying drinks and going out to the street where the dj helped by huge speakers try to spoil people to dance?? I got my doubts…Let’s say, that here the dj’s comments and voice get more attention that the music he puts as he’s cutting any song after 30 sec maximum, making some comments and putting a very different one. Results: You can’t enjoy the music, you have to scream to have a conversation and there’s no one dancing, you just go for “liming” there (liming is the guayanese word that means hanging around without really doing anything). My feelings? I miss the dancing part but I enjoy watching and mixing with the people in the street.
Playing football in Guyana can be such a different experience…
The first question when I speak to a Guayanese is related to my home country and when I say I’m from Spain of course I’m received with a big smile, a shaking hand and sometimes even a hug, all of this because we are “the World Champions”!!! Is one of these moments when you realize how a sport consisting in 22 players running and hitting a ball can have so much impact into different societies all around the world. Amazing…. The thing is that saying I’m Spanish and like football and like playing football welcomes everyone to invite me for playing!!! (of course they don’t know who are they talking to but I play with that and leave all the mystery for the actual game).
So I was invited and went for training for the Bartica’s team! After waiting for 15 mins for someone who left a car in the middle of the football field we started the game. Of course I was not playing defense, I was right wind, and need to say that I did pretty okay, considering I’m not fit at all. They had a good level but the ball was going from one side to another, it was exhausting after 30 mins… Of course none of my teammates knew how to pronounce my name so guess how did the call me? Serch? Nooooooo Mogki? Nooooo “The white man”!!! And of course there were no uniforms, pits or anything so one team played without t-shirt and the other with their t-shirt! Yes…You are right I was showing my “tanned chest” to everyone!! It was so funny!! I then realized that I was the only white person not only from the two teams but for the whole stadium!!!
My first contact with guayanese jungle!!
Is one of things that I like most from Bartica is that is not far away from civilization but is just the door of the jungle! Of course in my 3 weeks there I was able to do some walks and I must say I was amazed! It’s difficult to express it with words but if I have to define it with one I would refer to “peaceful”, being there surrounded by nature hearing many different sounds and being aware that there are monkeys, snakes and some other wild animals around (even if I did not see any of them) it puts you in a different mood….I don’t know, but could not stop taking pics at the same time did not want to take any, as I just wanted to be part of it. I had long and short walks, with and without heavy rain but all of them ended with a swim in a remote beach in the Mazzaruni river! I’ll put some pics and as we say in Spain a picture speaks more than 1000 words, so let them speak!
Amerindian Heritage at Batavia
It was 2 Sundays ago when I went to Batavia. Is a small Amerindian village located in the opposite side of Essequibo and they were celebrating the Amerindian Heritage there! I would explain briefly, September was the Amerindian month and there were celebrations all over the country. They do it once a year and is quite interesting because they show their main activities, such as griding the cassava, arrows’s shooting, working the cotton, building a bow & arrow, traditional dances, etc… And another thing they had in Batavia, was the pageant Miss Amerindian 2010!! It was really really funny! Is not that Amerindian women are not beautiful, some of them look really good, but the organization as it most of events in Guyana is caothic…They were calling people who was not there, sometimes you could not hear the music and some other times you could hear the presenter because the music was too loud…let’s say there’s a lot of room for improvement!! However I had lots of fun there and even tried the labba (wild meat) and the cassava bread!!
A different way to start a working day
It was 5 am of last Wednesday when I woke up and 5.10 am when I was out already in the street with a sleepy face and Kane (in similar conditions) and without shower or breakfast! We were heading out to the beach. It was dark when we left home but 20 mins later when we arrived there was some light already. We found that the stream was still high so there was still no beach, only water… Anyway we got into the river and felt the warm water. It was good very good and even better when the sun started to rise from the other side of the river. Beautiful! The swimming only lasted for about 30 mins but it was a GREAT way to remain myself how easy can be start my day with a big smile.
Who said Guayanese people are not open and welcoming??
On my first days here in my Introduction Training during one of the sessions I was told Guayanese are not very open people, they don’t invite you to their home and it’s very difficult to make guayanese friends. I don’t know how is for everyone, but I can speak from my experience and from that I need to say that I really disagree with it. In my 7 weeks and a half here I have been invited several times to Guayanese homes for having lunch or dinner in a very open and friendly way. I have spent a weekend in Essequibo where I was given a room to sleep and succulents and delicious meals, I have been invited to have “pepperpot” (a meal is normally only cooked in Xmas because it requires a lot of time & money to prepare it) for lunch with him, his girlfriend at his place by a bartician and yesterday I was invited again to another guayanese home for dinner in Georgetown!
I think all of you know my theory that there’s good people and bad people all over the world and that generalizing can make you judge people without meeting them so we all need to be very careful when doing that!!
Thanks Clive, Linden & Natasha and Seeram for showing me the hospitality of Guyana! Of course if you ever come to Spain you know you are welcome at my place!
The steamer : The nicest way to leave Bartica
As I said before to access Bartica you can go by speedboat and it takes you one hour from Parika. Is a nice trip but there’s another one even nicer! The steamer!! (probably is not the correct spelling but hope you understand) It takes almost 5 hours instead of 1 and it goes through a different route, not so direct but equally beautiful! Basically is a big boat that goes only twice a week and takes cars, passengers and food. It’s just a different experience. It departs around 6am so you can enjoy the sunrise from the boat and it goes reaaally slow so it gives you the opportunity to see the river’s life from a different perspective. You can see the small “school boats” taking the children from one village to another so they can go to school, or you can see passengers coming to the boat by small boats, or even small boats that come to the big one to sell bananas, eddos, or any other different fruits. You find many islands in your way and can take amazing pics but it’s very difficult to capture the trip in an image, if I had to use a word to define I would use: “Inspiration”.
