The Umbrella Project

Okay. So it's not really a project, but it's something I've been thinking about. As I hike to-and-from work, and to-and-from teaching my mind wanders. Sometimes I think about what I have to do that day, other times it's the particulars of this or that lesson, however, recently, it's been too hot to even think! All I want to do is find the next piece of shade and take a minute to cool down.

When Guy 22 first got here, a past volunteer gave us a tip and told us to “walk” with our umbrellas everywhere. Is this because rain storms can happen with little or no warning? Sure. But there is a second intention for umbrellas: a means for shade! Walking down the hot asphalt, the blaring sun showing all of its equatorial fury, can be a chore, especially if there is no shade in sight. So as a resourceful PCV, or a practical Guyanese, we create our own, with umbrellas.

At first I rejected this notion of umbrella shade. One does not see many male Guyanese walking with one, and my work was only a 5 minute walk away, so I didn't even think twice about having one. Then, I got my bike, so now work was only 2.5 minutes a way! And can you imagine riding a bike with an umbrella? Kinda weird, right? In a circus performer sorta way? But these last few weeks have changed my stance significantly.

I started doing Professional Development workshops at four different schools, but I didn't have money (or desire) to pay for transportation and my bike was more than sufficient. Somedays I got soaked (rainy season is May-July), but then I went home and went on with my life. August came along, dry season, and the pedal on my bike broke off. I tried to fix it, but I need to get a special size and I've just been lazy...so I began walking. It was pretty easy to stroll to all the schools, but the sun punished me. That umbrella would've been real nice some of those days.

This last week I've been teaching at the teaching college...still walking...but with an umbrella this time. It's been great! But, these last few days the heat has been incredibly uncomfortable. Granted the sun is no longer beating down upon my fair, fair skin, but the heat rises from the dark, absorbent pavement and the reflective white sand. Perhaps I can turn this into a project...an umbrella that both protects from the top and the bottom...now if I could only create breeze with my mind....

Anyway, we had a wonderful Friday night. A local business man, Mr. Dunstan Barrow, hosts a dinner every August for the top Grade 6 achievers in the Region. This was our second time attending and it was strange to think we did the same thing last year. Chels has been talking a lot about how time has been passing pretty quickly, but last night it really struck me: we did this last year and won't be here next year for the next one. It was an exciting, but also sad thought.

As the dinner was ending and the students, parents, and teachers were filing out. Chels and I stuck around with some of my department officers and Mr. Barrow's friends. We had a great time, drank some Chilean red wine (called “Sweet Bitch”), danced the night away, listened to some stories and jokes, and went home with smiles and a tinge of sadness. All-in-all it was one of those glad-to-be-in-Guyana moments. Much Love.  

PS. I was trying to post pictures, but its not working correctly. 

The END is nigh....

Not really. But today the dates of our COS conference were announced. COS (Close of Service) is the last conference we ever have as Peace Corps Volunteers. It is going to be held the first week in January, 3 months before we leave Guyana. In the conference we go over things like readjusting to life back in the States, finding a job, writing a resume, and all the millions of details we have to wrap up in Guyana, like writing a description of our entire service, doing a final medical check-up, blah, blah, blah. The COS conference marks the true beginning to the end, and it is only 4 ½ months away. This seems CRAZY to me (see previous post about time passing and readiness to leave or not).

To keep you more au courant with what is actually going on in our lives now, instead of 4 ½ months in the future, and as we say in Guyana, 'here wha happen':

• I have the flu. This sucks. It is about 90 degrees in Linden but it feels like 99. There is no breeze other than what my tired fan pumps out. I am stuffy and sneezy. Having the flu in Guyana SUCKS! I stayed home from work today and Tim stopped by at lunch to bring me a pineapple for vitamin C. I ate the entire thing, almost. Neither of us want me to be sick on our vacation. We leave next week Wednesday.

• Tim is being Super PCV these days. For a while now he has offered to help teach at the teaching college in Linden but they haven't needed him until now. Last week the head of the school asked Tim to teach a class to the teachers in training on using technology in the classroom. An interesting topic in a developing country. He went to a one-day workshop on Monday go over to the modules he is expected to teach. He began teaching on Tuesday. Everyday from 2-4:30 Tim works with a class of 30+ students in a computer lab with 7 working computers and no internet. He is expected to teach them all about Microsoft applications and how to use the internet, projectors, printers, make movies and websites. His students have a range of experience with computers, some own laptops, some have never held a mouse before. I am not sure how Tim is going to pull this off. But I am confident that he will. He is passionate and dedicated and awesome. I will let him write more about his own experience later.

Feelings at Month 18 of 26

Last night Tim and I sat in front of our computer and watched an episode of Iron Chef America that a fellow PCV had given us. I am a bit embarased to say that this silly show almost made me cry and inspired me to write a blog post about how we are feeling right now. The two chefs on the show were both cooking mexican food, my favorite kind of food in the whole world. I miss Mexican food so much and I miss being able to cook with all the ingredients that aren't readily available here (cilantro, tortillas, black beans, jalapeño etc). Drooling over all the delicious food on the show prompted Tim and I to talk about home. We kept reminding ourselves that all the Mexican food in California awaits us in about 8 months when we are finished with our service.

Our Guyanese-Mexican Food just doesn't cut it. Guy-enchiladas help, but aren't the same.

That got me thinking. Wow! I am so proud that we are a year and a half into this journey. Life has settled down to a nice routine and the PC adjustment cycle has stopped kicking the crap out of our emotions. But I also couldn't help thinking, sheesh, 8 months to go, that is a looong time. I guess it is all relative. We celebrate every monthly milestone in Guyana, congratulating ourselves on surviving another month and counting down the months until we are back in California. And recently, it seems like the months are just flying by. I can't really believe it is August already.

As we look ahead to what Sara called, “the beginning of the end” we are excited, eager, terrified, and reluctant to leave this life behind. I feel excited about the prospect of starting school again, supporting Tim as he gets a new teaching job, and moving into a new house in a new city. I am eager to return to California where I can eat all the Mexican food I want, shop at farmer's markets and Trader Joe's, drive my own car, and blend into a crowd. But I am also terrified when I think of losing the financial security PC provides. Sure, we don't get payed more than $200/month here, but that meager amount is always enough to pay all our bills, cover the cost of food, transportation and all our other needs. We don't have to worry about health insurance, we simply see Nurse Jean when we are sick and she takes care of us. Sure, we have other challenges here, but worrying about money/bills/insurance/savings/etc. isn't one of them. I'm scared to have to enter back into a world where those concerns are big players in my life. There are also many times I feel reluctant to leave Guyana. I like the pace of life here. I like the fact that I have so much time to read. I like my health center, coworkers, mother and babies. I like working on the TV show. I like knowing the people I see on the streets everyday and stopping to gaff with them. I like the music and fresh tropical fruits.

Having fun working on Health Watch TV show.

The kids at my health center make it so much fun to go to work!

They say the grass is always greener and I think this is true. Even when I have a fresh pineapple or mango that I got for pennies right in front of me, I sigh and wish for peaches, strawberries, cherries and grapes. I am sure when we are home we will wish we had a mango, ginip or pine available year round. So, all in all, I guess the “start to the end” is a weird place to be. We feel like the days are going too fast, and not fast enough. One day we feel like we have too many goals to accomplish here and not enough time left and the next day we feel like we are so bored that we could wrap up everything in a week and head out. We crave familiar foods but aren't ready to give up our favorite Guyanese snacks.

Then, on top of the weird, conflicting emotions about our impending close of service (COS), we are planning and getting excited for the trips and visitors and projects in the future. The things we look forward to that take our minds off the teeter-totter of emotions:

• Barbados/Portland Trip: 3 nights in Barbados for my birthday, on the way to Oregon for D+L's wedding. In Portland for 11 nights. August 24-September 7.

• Amerindian Heritage celebration in St. Cuthbert's at the end of September.

• Workshop in Region 9 (Guyanese savannah!) in early October.

• Mom and Stephan to visit over Thanksgiving, visit Kaiteur Falls, November 16th-25.

• COS Conference December than Christmas.

• New Year's celebration with PCVs in Bartica.

• Travel around South America after PC (Peru, Chile, Bolivia, Argentina)!

I am also getting a tad freaked out about law school applications. Law school application season, as I am calling it, opens on September 1^st. Then I, along with all the other eager law school “hunters”, will be stocking up on ammo and going to catch us some acceptances and hopefully scholarship money.

So, when I think about where we stand emotionally it summarizes like this:

• Excited to go home.

• Eager for familiarities and luxuries in the States.

• Terrified about financial prospects.

• Reluctant to give up the security, familiarity and slower pace of life in Guyana.

• Excited about so many fun trips still to come in the next 8 months.

• Freaked out about law school applications.

Excited, eager, terrified, reluctant, excited, freaked out. Yeah, that about sums it up. Happy Sunday all!

Something to laugh about everyday

In every Volunteer's PC experience there are hard times where we think, “What the hell am I dong here, why am I putting up with the stresses of a third world country anyway? And why can't I just go HOME!?!” These moments suck. They appear when we least expect them, sometimes for no reason at all. It has been a while since I have personally had one of these moments but I have no doubt that there are more in store for me in the future. For now I am glad that I can be there for my fellow PCVs, friends and, occasionally, husband when they are going through difficult times themselves.

Recently one of the coping mechanisms I have been thinking a lot about is finding something to laugh about every day. There is a lot to laugh about when you are a Peace Corps Volunteer. There is a TON to laugh about when you are a Peace Corps Volunteer doing work in the health field when you are a Poli Sci major and have no experience or desire to experience the nastier side of healthcare (thats ME!).

Yesterday I laughed when Sara told me the names of two babies at the clinic in her health center: Shaun and Toshaun (yeah, like Shaun number 2). Mom must really like the name Shawn. If she has a girl maybe she can name her Shauntell. LOL!

Today I laughed at the fact that I got a letter from my friend Heather S. I was confused reading it because she was discussing her Thanksgiving. It seemed odd so I checked the postdate; she had mailed my letter from California in DECEMBER 2010! Nine months ago! I could make a baby in 9 months but Guyana can't get me my letter in that amount of time. Annoying, no. Hilarious, YES!

I also laughed at the BCG vaccine clinic today when I got pooped and peed on by two different babies in a row. Gross, yes! Funny, hells yes! I won't go into graphic detail of all the messiness, although I want to. But anyone who knows the color and consistency of newborn (under one month old) baby poop can imagine what my health center looked like when one baby messed in the scale, then peed on the measuring board. Then the next baby pooped on me and the floor when I was lifting him from scale to measuring board. I had to laugh at this situation, otherwise I would have been mad or disgusted. It just made me think maybe we should weigh and measure these babies with their diapers on?

So, here I am blogging and laughing about poop, baby names and third world country postal service. I am presently giggling at the 80's music that is blasting from the shop down the road. I could be annoyed by all of these things. But instead I choose to laugh. I hope my fellow PCVs, in every country around the world, are also choosing to laugh at the strange joys that our Peace Corps life brings.

Laugh it up friends!

A refreshing weekend.

Cow milking is not going to be my new profession...

Tim and I went into this week feeling productive and refreshed from a really cool weekend. Did anything particularly spectacular happen? No. Did we

travel anywhere especially awesome? Nope. What we did though was hang out with some super people and had plenty of time to gaff with them. Peace Corps Volunteers are some of the raddest people in the world!

On Thursday and Friday I attended the Peer Support meeting in the PC Office in G/town. As always, this meeting left me feeling positive. The new Guy23 volunteer representatives of Peer Support joined us this time so we had a bigger group than usual (a whole 5 people!) and I think we have such great ideas as a group! Go team! We did some sessions practicing active listening and responding to crisis situations. We also did a ton of brainstorming for how we can continue to foster a network with in PC Guyana where our peers take an active role in providing positive, confidential support to each other. I think we had a great meeting!

Tim joined me in to office on Friday to get his toe checked out by Nurse Jean. He had stubbed it about a month back and we both thought it was broken back then. He decided not to go in and get it looked at then because, really we know there isn't much you can do for a broken toe. But recently he took a closer look and saw a black bruise looking spot on the toe and he got worried so he came in for medical attention. Guess what was in his toe!!?! A chigger! Ahhhh! I was so totally grossed out when Tim described to me how Dr. Benjamin had to use a needle to scoop the chigger eggs out of his skin. Nasty, right? Anyway, the x-ray showed no breaks but he has been advised to “take it light” for two weeks and keep his chigger wound clean. Tim would like to add that he is very proud to have survived his first chigger in Guyana. Okay, enough of chiggers.

While we were at PCHQ for our various reasons we were pleasantly surprised at how many PCVs were in the office for their own reasons. We got to catch up with a few people we hadn't seen for a few months. We also got to spend some time getting to know the Guy23 PCVs better. What cool peeps all around! The gaggle of us ordered food from the new sub place in G/town that I mentioned in this post (buffalo chicken sandwiches!). We also ordered pizza and ate bacon cheese burgers at a new burger grill. Nothing makes PCVs happier than spending are hard earned stipend on overly priced food that reminds us of home. Best thousand dollars (Guyana dollars) per meal ever spent!

On Saturday we headed over the Demerara river to visit Mark S. and his host family. Mark S is new friend of ours, a PCV from Guy23 who was assigned to Region 10 with us. He lives about 2.5 hours outside Linden, down a dirt road, and when he come through Linden he'll sometimes stay with us. He and Tim get to talk geeky guy stuff together and commiserate over the fact that they are both over 30 years old. Well, Saturday Mark's host family threw him a birthday party which was attended by a ton of Guy23 Volunteers. Tim and I rolled out and enjoyed the food and hospitality of his family.

We stayed at the host family's house over night and in the morning Mark's host dad introduced me to his cows (he is a cattle farmer) and even tried to teach me how to milk one. I am not cut out to be a farm girl. If I had to feed myself off of cow's milk, I would have a thimble full of milk and starve. We did get loaded up with fresh food from their gardens and kitchen; pumpkin, boulanger (egg plant), ginip (a sweet fruit sort of like a leechi), cake and roti.

All in all we had a productive and social weekend. We met new people and got to know old friends better. As I type we are simmering a pot of pumpkin curry and listening to new Guyanese music that another PCV gave us. Happy times!

We can totally take our own picture!

Hot Dog face with Jillian!

Mark S with his host mom!

Some Guy23ers enjoying the party!

Beautiful rice fields behind the host family's house

Even the kids in Mark's host family enjoyed watching me fail at milking the cow.

Three Cheers for Internet!!!!

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

So, I'm excited, what of it? We have our computer back and I can barley contain my contentment. I wanted to post a few pictures on some of our blogs and write another one.

While Chelsea has been doing law school applications, I've been working with some teachers using my manuscript. These last four weeks I've done professional development sessions with 13 teachers at least once a week. I've been going from school to school, meeting with the teachers, going over some strategies in the book, and then giving them homework to complete for the next week. It's mostly hands-on and strategy based with me modeling the strategies and then having them try to do it themselves. After the session they are suppose to practice one of the strategies at least three times before we meet again the next week. So far so good. Next week is my last week of PD sessions for the summer term, but I think I am going to try and do it during the school year.

We also had a 3-day workshop facilitated form a educational professor in the states. It was pretty cool. She did a great job. Some pictures are below. And some pretty pictures just for kicks.  

Methodology Manual

Teachers about to do a "Word Play" Skit, to practice their vocabulary technique

Teacher working at the Literacy Workshop

AmerIndians in Moruca taking the shade. I like their colours. 

Shell Beach Shot. Man I still can't get over how beautiful it was. 

Setting Sun. Guyana is amazingly gorgeous. 

Rainy Holiday Day

Happy Emancipation Day Guyana! Today's holiday brought to you by the emancipation of the African slaves in Guyana in 1834.

Tim and I didn't have big plans for the day, although we thought we might join our neighbor on a trip to the creek. However, the torrential rains decided for us that we should stay in today. Instead we are making pizza for lunch and dinner and our most exciting plan for the holiday is to open a bottle of red wine that we bought in G/town. We are enjoying the cooler weather that the rain has brought us. Tim has been reading all day and I am "entertaining" myself by researching law schools and trying to decide if I should take advantage of my LSAC fee waiver by applying to more schools in California. More schools = more possible scholarship opportunities? Maybe? I am thinking of maybe including USF, USC, Golden Gate and Pacific McGeorge. Anyone have any thoughts on these schools? Oh and I am also working (re-re-working) my personal statement, ugh!

Law school stressy-ness aside, this weekend has been a lovely three day weekend! Saturday Tim and I went to Georgetown to have lunch with our fellow PCVs for one of their birthday's. We ate at a new sub shop (think Subway!) and had buffalo chicken sandwiches. It was a lovely taste of home and one of the healthier meals we can get in G/town (better than Pizza Hut or Jr Burger). Yesterday we were invited over to Tka and Amy's house (the Guy23 volunteers in Linden) for dinner. Tka made Jamaican meat patties and Amy made pizza (okay, wow, now that I think about it we are eating a TON of pizza this weekend).

The "Sub"

Tomorrow we head back to work, but only for a few days since I have the Peer Support taskforce meeting in Georgetown on Thursday and Friday. We are excited about getting our computer back on Wednesday and then, at the end of the month, heading to Barbados and onto Oregon for two weeks!

We also wanted to let everyone know that we are FINE! We were not affected by the Caribbean plane crash at the Guyana airport. No one we knew was on the plane that, due to a pilot error, skidded to a horrible stop on the Cheddi Jaggan runway and cracked the plane in half. No one died, only injured. And, mom, there is totally NO need to worry about us. But we are glad you do anyway, since it just means you love us.