First Time I Ever…

Going into the second half of the project (!!!), I thought I’d highlight the things I’ve done for the first time ever:

• Wield a cutlass
• Picked my own coconut
• Teach a classroom
• Live with other people not family
• Volunteer overseas
• Camp next to a river
• Sleep in a hammock
• Do laundry on top of a septic tank
• Sleep on a bunk bed with a mosquito net
• Clap roti
• Watch the delivery of donations from an NGO
• Speak with a drunk guy at 2 in the afternoon
• Live with giant spiders
• Ate off a fish head
• Dry off wet baby chicks
• Walk in the rain while in a rainforest
• Swim in a ditch
• Use a pipe as a waterslide
• Watch the death of a chicken
• Play with children
• Deal with chiggers
• Walk in puddles while barefoot
• Attend a wake and a funeral
• Taste bush alcohol (cassava wine)
• Shampoo and bathe in a black water creek
• Fetch water to flush toilet
• See fireflies
• Watch goats fight right outside my window
• See a horse on a beach
• See dead dogs on a beach
• Clean a high school
• Have a firecracker go off nearly in my ear
• Integrate into a foreign community
• Take malaria pills
• Sleep outside during a rainstorm
• Attempt to teach someone to read
• Deliberately avoid cops
• Judge a high school class decorating contest
• Took  photo of something dead
• Attend a church service to bless a school to remove demonic influences
• Have men try to talk to me while I bathe
• Have my hand shook for Valentine’s Day
• Speak loudly for so many days in a row
• Speeched off two people in as many weeks
• Wade in a river and almost lose a slipper
• Live life with no electricity except for 4-5 hours a night (sometimes none, though)

Not too shabby a list, eh. Now, here’s hoping the second half of this project will bring the same amount of new experieces!

This is where we have a bath once a week (in addition to bucket showers)

Proof I’m Alive

Officially half way through the project!

Eat, Drink, and be Gravol’d

Just joking. I don’t think any of us have gotten sick from any food as of yet. Not from our lack of eating, though. I, personally, do not eat a whole lot when hot, but I still manage to try all sorts of things. Due to my Trini heritage, many of the foods here are familiar – but most are slightly different enough to be a bit new. So, here, for your culinary pleasure, is a summary of what I’ve been eating the past 5 weeks.

1. Eggball – it is a hardboiled egg in the middle of either a fried ball of potato or cassava. It is usually eaten with a spicy mango sauce called sour. It’s pretty good! And easy to make too, so I just might do my own version at home!
2. Chicken foot – enough said.
3. Chow Mein – if I never have this stuff again, it would be too soon. We were sent to SCM with a giant pile of food and amongst this bounty was a ton of dried chow mein. We eat a lot of it either mixed up with veggies and chicken Vienna sausages (whoo) or like spaghetti with corned beef.
4. Fried Rice – a second Chinese Guyanese staple. Fried rice is always good – i eat it with chicken but you can get it with other meats as well.
5. Cook-up – for you Trinis, cook-up is like pelau – a rice dish with coconut milk and meat. Methinks that every culture out there has a version of a rice dish with meat…
6. Roti – Manna from heaven. It is a bread that is kind of like a pita but definitely not like a pita. Flour based. You can eat it plain or use it to scoop up your curry whatever – potato, meats, veggies.
7. Channa – another name for chick peas. You fry it up with spices. I’m used to eating it with curry and/or roti but people here eat it alone as a snack usually. You can buy little bags of it and off you go!
8. Hot dog – here they are chicken, not beef or a mix up of by products. It comes with ketchup, mustard, mayo, and cheese. And it is served in a little white plastic bag. Yummy-ness!
9. Cassava bread – the biggest disappointment of the trip so far. I had cassava bread in Dominica and it was pretty much the best bread ever when freshly made. Cassava bread in Guyana is totally different though – it has the look, consistency, and flavour of thin dry wall with wall paper paste mixed in. It is revolting.
10. Bake and fry bake – both are breads but the former is fried (though called fry, not fried) and the latter is done in a pot. You can eat it with whatever you want – jam, meats, plain…
11. Pholouri – only the best snack food ever. Pretty much just a fried dough ball (but of course, the dough has spices in it). People here eat it with the sour but to me, which is sacrilege. A good pholouri needs no sauce!
12. Crackers – we got a lot of these in our food boxes so this is what I’ve had for breakfast pretty much every day. Crackers with peanut butter and guava jelly. If you’ve not had guava jelly before, do your taste buds a favour and find some!!
13. Dhal – basically just split pea made into a soupy mixture. Guyanese dhal is thin, while Trini dhal tends to be thicker. Still pretty good here. Usually eaten over rice.
14. Choka – this is an eggplant dish. Indo-Guyanese would eat this more as a breakfast mean along with roti. I had this the other day along with a mug of coffee. I hate coffee, but this stuff was good – tasted more like a coffee/tea mix with a lot of sugar and milk. Also had a glass of chilled coconut water. Can’t get much better than that!
15. Coconut – I picked and split open my own coconut. Should have seen me wield that machete! Still don’t like coconut water (except chilled) or the jelly. But I think I am in the minority for that!
16. Chicken – the main meat here which is fine by me. I’ve had it fried, curried, BBQ, and in stuff like fried rice and cook up. Also went camping with a live chicken but unfortunately for her, she was dinner.
17. Plantains – like a giant banana but not really. It is delicious fried. In SCM, we’ve had it fried like French fries and as thin chips. A great snack especially when lightly salted.
18. Fish – I’ve had it a couple times and fresh fish is really yummy. Camping, we had a fish called yarrow (sp?) that a fisherman gave us. It was just fried in some margarine and was absolutely delicious. I even picked meat off the head!
19. Fruits and veggies – haven’t been eating a whole lot of fresh ones which is disappointing. But the ones we have had are: bora, soursop, paw paw, grapefruit, mango, orange, orawa (sp?) and pine. We have to eat fresh things quickly because they spoil within a day. It’s the lack of preservatives as well as the heat!
20. Drinks – the usual suspects of coke and sprite, big red, filtered and/or boiled water, Banks, Mackerson, and powdered milk. Actually, we the milk to cook or put in tea/coffee but i think we’re expected to drink that stuff as if it were real liquid milk… not happening…

Though i have managed to try some new things, I’ve not yet tasted everything i want to taste. For example, alligator and a local bush meat called labba. Wish me luck in finding them! And apparently, we have to taste a local delicacy which is this large fat white worm…

Oh and I lied re number two. Chicken foot is not a foot and nor is it from a chicken. It is a spiced flour dough treat that is thinly cut and fried. Very crunchy and very good.

House or Home?

So, am I homesick as I pass the six week mark? Nope

One thing that I have realized when I travel is that you need to make wherever you are “home”, especially if it is a long term travel situation. If you treat it as a ”temporary home” situation, things fall apart, get stressful, and you end up just wanting to go home.

We’ve been treating our red-roofed place as a house – no rules, no schedule, no organization. Speaking as someone who has never lived with anyone except family AND has lived alone for almost three years, it has not been fun. Not quite hell on earth but nor has it been Hakuna Matata neither. But as of this week, it will all change. I’ve taken the initiative to get the ball rolling on creating a list of house rules and a chores list. The lists are up on the wall for others to add to. By this weekend, we’ll have it all ironed out and then no more crappy kitchen! Now, hopefully, this will go a long way in changing our view point from house to home.

So, what does our place look like? Well, it has a living area, three bedrooms, a toilet room, a shower room, and a kitchen. There are no closets or shelves in this place, so that is annoying. The floors are tiles but many of them are coming off. The walls  need painting. We don’t have a dining table but there is a loveseat, a couch, and two armchairs. In the kitchen, we have a sink that doesn’t have a working tap (we got the drain fixed last week). We have a stove/oven that doesn’t work and two camping-like burners, one of which doesn’t work. No fridge – so food must be eaten at each meal or else thrown out (I won’t say who but one thinks we should eat it even  up to the next day but I flat out said no) – just a matter of learning the art of cooking less! Our backyard consists of a huge water tank, a septic tank, and a multi-person outhouse, probably for the use by the general public. Oh yes – there is also a cemetery behind the house… There are four shops in a five minute radius from the house. The health centre is our neighbour, as is the Anglican church and the primary school. The computer lab is a one minute walk away. Our river is ten minutes away. And my work place is 5 minutes away.

So, we have a little neighbourhood, are in the process of developing rules and dividing chores, and some good people in the house. What more would I need to have a home?

Fun Times in SCM

Last week’s post was a little bit of a downer so I thought I’d swing the pendulum in the other direction this week. Now that we’ve been in Guyana for three weeks (!!), it is safe to say we have a good idea what there is to do for fun in SCM. On the surface, the quick answer is “not much”.  But all you gotta do is dig a little deeper and it is rather surprising how many different things you can do to amuse yourself.

1. Swimming in the creek is great – I’m not sure why they call it a creek since it is clearly not one. It is big enough to be called a narrow river. There is an area by the c reek called “The Landing” which is  basically a grassy area by the creek. The creek itself is the Maihica River.The creekis also fu n because it apparently has a mermaid that takes one or two non-SCM residents as a sacrifice each year. I’ll let you know if I find this mermaid!!

2. Picnics! Who doesn’t love a picnic? We went on one last weekend with a local family. The seven of them and the five of us piled into their pickup 4×4 (we sat in the back! WHOO!) and off we went to a random creek in the middle of the savannah in the middle of nowhere. There, they made cook-up which is rather similar to pelau. Cooking over an open fire is always cool. We also had fun with the creek itself since there was a rubberized pipe that water was flowing through – naturally, we used it as a waterslide. We even had a competition to see who could climb UP the pipe in the “wrong direction” against the flowing water. Only one other volunteer and I were successful on our first try!

3. If the first two are too exciting, then there are other more pedestrian fun to be had. For example, the internet lab. We only get 30 minutes of computer time per day, usually 6 days a week. But we are at the mercy of the internet lady who may or may not show up to open the lab.

4. Want some physical accivity? Why not play with the billion children that are here? Anyone who tells you that running around with kids is not real exercise is a LIAR. Or you could play football (soccer) with the local boys which I have done twice, now. Even scored a goal Or you could just wander around and explore the village which is set in a savannah of a two mile radius.

5. If watching sports is more your speed, then why not catch a cricket game on Sundays?

6. Liming and gaffing are also past times. The former is hanging out and the latter is chatting. We’ve done this a number of times with three separate women of the village. We could lime at their respective shops or homes. Sometimes, they even feed us!!

7. Having fun and learning are not mutually exclusive. So far I’ve had a lesson in roti-making (need a couple more, though) and how to split open a coconut.

In the upcoming weeks, I hope that we do a lot more of the same but also climb a tree and go fishing with the local kids, most of whom I teach! And we’ve discovered that one of the shops here has movies every evening during electricity hours so we’ll go check that out at some point. Oh – and we’ve also have been having some fun getting revenge on the bug kingdom by killing little and medium sized ones

Open Letter to My Teachers

Dear Teachers,

Many of you have taught me over the years, both in Trinidad and in Canada. You were nursery school teachers all the way to university professors. Some have taught me to speak up in class and others focused on improving my handwriting. Some were accommodating with my hearing problems and others helped me develop my leadership skills. Still others passed on their joy for History and English while others encouraged me to become even better at sports. To all of you – thank you. Thank you for your patience, your kindness, your time, and most of all for passing on tools I need to succeed in this life.

I vow to never take not only the ability to read, but also the JOY of reading for granted. I vow to never take for granted that accommodations can be made for my hearing and sight problems. And I vow to not hate math but to value my ability to add and subtract.

I apologize for all the times I zoned out in class, skipped class, or secretly rolled my eyes at you. I apologize for the times I didn’t take my work seriously. And I apologize for any time I spoke badly of you behind your back.

I now have an appreciation for what you all go through as teachers. In SCM, I teach the grade 7, 8, and 9 English B (Literature) classes, each class twice a week. This is the second week I have been teaching. There are about 25 students in my grade 7 class, 18 students in my grade 8 class, and 40 students in my grade 9 class. Many students are at LEAST three grades behind in their reading and writing abilities. It is so bad that we now have a remedial English and Math class for an hour each once a week – teachers have identified the “slow learners” (actual term they use) to attend. To give you an idea what level we’re staring from, today we reviewed when to use capital letters and only about 6 of 25-ish students got all 6 spelling words right (kitchen, dream, gone, town, vacation, quiet). Did I mention that the remedial lessons are for the grade 7 and 8 students?

The schools in SCM, including mine, do not have enough teachers so there is always at least one class without supervision. On top of that,none of the classes have enough textbooks for the students so I have to write out lessons on the chalkboard so they can follow along. The classrooms are not like what we have in North America.Students sit on wooden benches and share a desk, two by two. The chalkboards are awful as they are not of the smooth variety. As for the classrooms themselves, the grade 9s have their own room but I can hear the other two classes while I’m teaching. The grade 7-8 room, on the other hand, is a nightmare. A big echo-y room with only a chalkboard to divide the space.And when it rains? Forget it. I’m just surprised my voice hasn’t given out, yet.

Despite all the negative things, I see now why teachers teach. Their enthusiasm when they understand something or get things right is fun to see. To make a connection with one or two is always rewarding as well. Presents are even better My grade 8s gave me four oranges last week. It just makes me sad knowing that my students have dream jobs of engineer/architect/astronaut/doctor/nurse/electrician (I asked them all what their dream job would be as an icebreaker) and most of them won’t make it. Not if they continue on the path they are on, anyway.

So, my teachers and all other teachers out there, I admire you for going into this profession and for all of you, I wish the following: decent class sizes, appreciative students, proper supplies, supportive staff members, a non-echo classroom, a photocopier, and a smartboard. Keep fighting the good fight and though you may not know it right away, do know that at some point at least one of your students will finally fully understand what it is you go through. Never doubt that you have an impact on your students’ lives, even though you may not get to see what that impact is. Keep the faith.

Yours,
Kendra

Out of Comfort Zone

Comfort Zone? Where are you? Come back, Comfort Zone! Excuse me, Reader, have you seen Comfort Zone? Mine seems to be missing…

I think the reality of what I was about to do started to sink in when we were loading the van with our gear for SCM. Crates of food, cleaning products, pots/pans, gas tank, camping cook stove… Our suitcases too. As each thing went into the van, the flatter the tire got. Then we had to squish in seven people so we ended up looking like a clown car.

SCM itself is quite a nice village built on sand. Which makes for a house that is impossible to keep clean. The bathroom is gross but it is at least a flush toilet (gotta fill a bucket each time and fill the back tank to flush it, though. And no seat.) There is a shower room which has a shower that doesn’t work – in fact, none of the faucets in the house works. Showering works by buckets. We get all our water from the rain tank outside. We have a seriously crappy water filter that is also extremely slow – so slow, sometimes we have to boil water as well! I’m not convinced at tall that we’re drinking clean water…

Living with four other people (3 volunteers and 1 rep from YCG) is taking getting used to since I’ve never lived with strangers before. But everyone is being nice and good so it has been okay so far. We have been cooking for every meal but the kitchen is seriously crap so it is hard to keep it clean and organized. We have made a new friend here named Alex and he came over yesterday and today to cook for us He is a chef at a mining camp who is home at SCM on holidays. He leaves later this week. Last night was curried beef and roti. Yum.

So what is SCM like? Pros: near a lovely river (they call it a creek), very picturesque, lovely people. Cons: garbage in random places, glass bits everywhere in the sand, and the infernal music! It comes on during the week when there is electricity (6pm to 10pm) and pretty much all day long on weekends (some people have discovered the joy of generators…). And children. They are everywhere. They were very overwhelming the past few days but I think they are calming down now. Either that, or I’m getting better at ignoring them. But, of course, our house is about 2 seconds away from the primary school…

What have I learned so far? Clean is a relative term

How many bugs? 1 giant grasshopper, a little frog in the toilet, endless mosquitoes, a million flies, a green wasp, a few spiders about 4-5 inches across, a couple smaller spiders that jump…

Homesick yet? Don’t think any of us are but I think we all could have wept with joy when we discovered a few little shops that sell cold drinks like coke/sprite/big red. Key word is “cold”

New found appreciation? My fridge back home!!

Living the Guyanese High Life

On the surface, it would seem that my group and I are living it up in Guyana: met at the airport, a room at the guesthouse, beach three minutes away, personal chef, waterfront property, daily entertainment.  However, let me further break that down for you…

1. the drive from the airport to Gtown was about an hour in a van with no seatbelts and even less suspension. the ride was rather bouncy, to say the least. but it was fun! what i saw reminded me of Trinidad but more rundown. also dirtier due to garbage everywhere. also, there seems to be much more instances of “nice house, shack, nice house, crappy house, shack, massive house, shack”
2. the guesthouse seems to be where many volunteers come before going to their placements. the sleeping arrangements are dorm style. but at least there are flush toilets! more than one!
3. okay, the beach. umm… nicely put, it is kinda ew. garbage, including glass, everywhere and to get to it, we have to cross a major road. but once that road is crossed, the sea wall leapt over, the field of garbage navigated, you reach your reward – the deep shining brown sea. yep, the water is brown due to the Amazon dumping its load into the ocean.
4. we have a lovely lady here who cooks for us while we stay in Gtown. whoo for food! it is great to have this because once we’re in SCM, we’re on our own!
5. no lie! we have waterfront property! many properties here have it. massive drains and waterways just teeming with standing water and who knows what else. no wonder there is a mosquito problem here!! if you don’t have a net securely fastened over your bed, you will get eaten alive! one person on our team can most certainly attest to that!
6. we have front row seats to some entertainment! on Monday, a tortoise appeared in the yard and just wandered about. Tuesday, four goats walked down the road, one deciding to poop before continuing on. Wednesday, the same goats came back but this time two of them got into a fight right outside my window!

GTown (downtown) is not a place I would want to spend a ton of time in. The architecture was interesting, though sad that much of it is “faded glory”. And because our team of four is 75% white, we do get a lot of attention. Apparently the men here do a lot of teeth sucking at women but either I ain’t as young as I used to be or my deaf ears are doing me a favor, but I’m not hearing any at all…

We are hoping to be back in GTown in mid February for Mashramani so I’ll be able to explore the capital a bit more. For now, onwards to St. Cuthbert’s Mission!!

Meditari

It has actually arrived. In all my travels, I have always found that the strangest thing was the actual arrival of the time to leave on the trip that I’ve spent so long planning. I was accepted as a YCI volunteer in early August, spent the whole fall fundraising, left Canada early to visit my family in Trinidad, and now the time to leave for Guyana draws near.

I spent my last couple of weeks in Canada shopping for this trip (personal gear, workshop and teaching supplies, house supplies) – the dollar store became my new best friend! I also discovered  that some government departments have free documents that you can order from them. For example, I got food guides and nutrition posters from Health Canada. My idea is to use them in a health related workshop, so hopefully we have one

Packing for three months of volunteering is no easy task. The Great Suitcase Battle of 2011 was lost as I had originally only wanted one suitcase but I now have two. I think about 80% of what I’m bringing is school/workshop/house stuff so at least I will have lots of space in April to bring back Guyanese items!!

As I spend the last few days relaxing before I gallivant over to South America, many thoughts have been harassing my poor brain. So, what do I think volunteering in Guyana will be like? Well, it certainly won’t be a walk through a manicured city park, that’s for sure.  I expect lots of difficulties and a huge need for patience.  I also do not expect to see long term impacts of our contributions but that will just be a lesson in learning to appreciate daily “in the moment” things and achievements. I also think that “adaptation” will be the Sesame Street word of the day, everyday: adapt to heat/humidity, adapt to giant spiders and fish with teeth, adapt to a new culture, adapt to living with three virtual strangers, adapt to being the centre of attention, etc. As an introvert, many of those adaptations will be hard but there are ways to keep my sanity (for example, I will have to find a tree to hide under for some quiet solo time). Another thing that I think will require adaptation is that privacy will be MIA for those three months!!

There are many other things that I expect from this experience. They range from developing the skill to create educational yet engaging workshops to becoming proficient at river bathing. I also expect to learn leadership skills, how to make a yummy paratha, to further develop my photography skills, and to learn how to hand wash laundry in a river. I also expect to learn how to appreciate children I expect to eat something I’ve never had, to discover if International Development is the career path for me, to go hunting or fishing at least once, to see Kaiteur Falls, to photograph a tree frog and a piranha and a weird looking bird. I also expect to see an Amazonian animal, preferably some sort of jungle cat but since that is highly unlikely, any jungle animal will do.

But in the end, I think it is important to approach overseas volunteering with an open mind and little expectations. Have goals, yes, but keep them a little flexible! I fully expect to learn some of the things I mentioned but also some things that I haven’t even thought of right now! As for fears, my only fear right now is that I’m not sure I brought enough memory cards for my camera.. Seriously. The world may as well end if I run out of memory cards…

So, as I have said in other posts, I will have some access to electricity and internet. I will try to up date this blog at least once a week. If you have anything you want me to talk about in particular, just let me know! Other than that, see you on the other side!

I’m warm!

The Motherland greets you! For about 6 hours, I wasn’t sure I would actually make it here. The flight from Toronto to Trinidad had the worst and most protracted turbulence I’ve ever experienced! And believe me, I’ve been on many a plane (Guyana will be my 18th country)… The flight attendant said that they had the same turbulence the day before but instead of reassuring me, now I started to wonder if the problem was the plane itself and I looked out the window to see if there was any duct tape flapping in the wind. Other than that, I arrived sans problem and the pre-arranged driver was waiting to pick me up. Nice guy, very careful driver which is a rarity on this island!

It has been almost three years since I’ve been back. Things change over time and Trinidad is no exception. So far I have only been on the drive from the airport to my grandparents’ house and already I see change: there is now a gas station and KFC right by the airport! (lol, I think I am making T’dad sound rather provincial…) But it does make me wonder, what does Port of Spain look like now? Another change is that the neighbours have built a second story on their house which now partially blocks the hilltop view my grandparents have. Sigh, I’m not sure if I like other people getting money…

The weather is lovely – unlike the -25 y’all had in Ottawa yesterday There have been some brief spurts of rain but it has remained 98% sunny and hot. But fairly windy! though, that does make for some awesome cross breezes in the house.

Anyway, I just wanted to let everyone know that I”m alive and well. I”m already working on my final post – final before Guyana, anyway! Last minute thoughts, expectations, and all that wonderful stuff. You will be able to read that here or on the YCI blog since that will probably be the one they choose to post on their site.

Adios por ahora!