A Belated Christmas Message and Photos

Whew! So far this holiday season has been a full one. There have been people over at our house constantly. We had 3 volunteers come down last week to spend Christmas with us, and then a few days ago two more came from out of the bush as a nice little surprise. Moreover, Chelsea and I attended two weddings one on Christmas Night, and the other on Boxing Day night (Dec. 26). Work has been fairly slow since it’s the holiday season and schools are out on vacation still, so we’ve been “showing our face” , “gaffing” a bit with our co-workers and then heading home to hang out with our guests. Anyway, this morning the last two guests that showed up left to Town to run some errands, but we will hang out with them tomorrow on New Year’s Eve (or Old Year’s Day, as they say here) and then head back to Linden to ring in the New Year.  It’s been really great having all of these friends here in lieu of family. They are all a great support and I think each one of us benefited from each others company. This blog will mostly be pictures from our Christmas experiences, weddings, and even a little photo shoot that was did at this abandoned aluminum factory a few blocks away. I hope you like them.

And we wish you all a belated, yet happy Christmas, and a wonderful and prosperous New Year! 

Some of my co-workers showing Pre-Christmas spirit.

Our buddy and fellow PCV Chris Olin is sharing some Christmas music with us.

Our X-mas tree from Sara's Mom!

Presents under the tree!

Tony and Sara anticipating the gifts.

PRESENTS!

LAUGHTER!

ASTONISHMENT!

HAPPINESS!

Marcus getting ready for his white elephant exchange.

A priceless shot.

Who doesn't need placements? Yeah Chelsea stole them during the game. :)

Megan W, stoked about her key chain. Plus I like the second camera in the shot.

Secret Agents?

The Linden 4

X-mas dinner. A piece of home out here in Guyana.

One of the weddings. A lot was going on there.

Wedding food!

You making eyes at me?

Part of our photo shoot. For more pics you can look on my Facebook account.

Chris being Dirty hairy.

This place has been shut down for about 30 or 40 years.

I love the sky and this angle.

Another part of the Factory.

This was the second time we went with our friends the Quinlivans. This is Paul's Hero Shot.

Another section of the factory

A view of Linden from above.

The Demerara towards G-town.

Yeah. This is where we live.

Ziggy emerges to say "Hi" to Paul and Sa'Sa

Rasta Ain't too pleased with Sa'Sa, but Alyssa is real happy.

SA'SA

Some barber shop white gyal.

Paul waves to some kids across the way. 

Happy Holidays!
T & C

The Run

Yesterday, was the first day of winter (Happy Solstice). The shortest day of the year...and it was 95 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat baked the asphalt roads and hardened the red clay pathways. Blue skies were prominent and, with picture-perfect precision, white tropical clouds painted the firmament. It was a typical day in Guyana.

However, I did have some adventure in the cooler hours of the morning. I woke early, even before my alarm. The orange face of my cell phone glowed 4:15 AM and I was wide awake. This morning I planned to run to this mined out area we visited on Thanksgiving. Not knowing how long it would take to get out there, and since it was a weekday, I took my awakening as a sign that I should begin the run as soon as possible. I jumped out of bed and got ready.

A mined out area in Linden on a typical Guyana day. This is where I wanted to run too.

As I went into the road, I noticed the moon looked different, but dismissed it since it would be behind me for the entire first half of the run. The journey past the hospital, towards Watooka, was uneventful.  The darkness was thick. No lights lined the road and I’d left earlier than usual so I had no idea when the sun would rise. It was a little frightening. Then, I saw a dog come towards me. I slowed my jog and eyed him. He wasn’t having any of it. As he passed me, he quickly turned and began barking at my heels. I walked away. Slowly. The barking stopped so I snuck a quick glance around, and made sure he was well on his way. I took up my jog again.

I passed the last tree on the road and kept going. The darkness enveloped me like Death’s shroud.  I turned left towards some larger houses whose second story windows glowed like beacons. I jogged at a snail’s pace because I couldn’t see the ground in front of me and had no desire to twist my ankle. I’d been this way before, but it was much lighter last time. The first house on the left, a Bauxite executive, had a guard. I noticed him leave his guard hut when he heard the crunch of my shoes on the gravelly road. I would be suspicious too on such a dark, ominous, early morning. My legs kept pumping. I had a keen eye for dogs, travelers, and other sketchy things.  I was almost at the end of the block where the road turned to dirt and trees loomed on each side of the pathway when two dogs came out to the road and began barking furiously.

I turned around. Not today.

As I made my way back I spied the moon looking like a queer quarter moon, but I could have sworn it should’ve been full.  It looked odd: bright white on top, utter darkness on the bottom. Regardless of appearance, it followed me home, watching over me like some demigod. At one point, I slowed. I walked. Perplexed. But then quickly picked up the pace again as home inched closer.

The moon from my veranda after I got home.

I got home early, around 5:30 AM. I was out for about 50 minutes. Chelsea was just rising and then went on for her morning walk with Sara. I got on the computer, read some e-mails, and found out why the moon looked so peculiar. It was a lunar eclipse and by happenstance, because I awoke extra early, I was able to catch the spectacular sight.

I feel this story is a representation of our Guyanese experience thus far.  There is darkness because we don’t always know where we’re going, but we take these tentative steps towards the known, yet unknown. There are dangers lurking in the darkness, not just the physical dangers from being a stranger in strange land, but other dangers like failure and being let down. However, being aware, cautious, and knowing when we need to turn around and start from the beginning are skills we have to cultivate to be successful. Similarly, we have to have a thick skin and look at the little things to measure our success (I was up at 4:15; I still tried to run; and still was out for a fair amount of time).  Which leads me to my last point: the lunar eclipse. We have no idea what each day will bring. Sometimes there are these awe-inspiring, beautiful moments where it’s like “Yeah, we did that,” and we brush off our shoulders with a charming smile. There are times when new people from our community approach us and tell us how our actions, or our talks, or are seminars changed their behavior in some positive way. There are other instances where we hear from a third party that someone else, a person who may have simply been another face in the crowd, has taken our suggestions and are acting on them. Those are the marvelous moments. Yet it is not always honeybees and butterflies. There are tough times too. But we need to overcome these nadirs and move on. However, the question that begs to be asked is: will I look back upon these years as a waste of time?

Absolutely not.

Some other photos:

Christmas Kitties! Happy Holidays all!

Another shot of a hot Guyanese day. This is at Vreed-in-Hoop near Town.

When you want to travel into the interior, don’t try to travel from the interior.

Oh the lessons we learn....

Tim and I were wildly excited about visiting our friends, and fellow PCVs, Paul and Alyssa, in their remote site called Monkey Mountain. We had planned for months to visit this week. The plan was to take a mini bus down the road for 6 hours into Mahdia, where there is an airstrip that flies into MM. We knew we could fly into MM from G/town too, but the plane tickets were much cheaper leaving from Mahdia and we didn’t mind the long bus ride to save a little cash. So, we loaded up on Christmas gifts for our friends, things they can’t get in their site (eggs, bread, cheese, wine, a warm blanket and some of our favorite books) and hit the road.

On the bus ride down on Tuesday, Tim and I talked about how excited we were to get out of our urban site and see the more rugged side of Guyana. Paul and Alyssa told us about many hike we would take together to visit waterfalls and other beautiful vistas in their small, Amerindian village. We were so excited to visit with our friends, who we rarely get to see outside of Peace Corps conferences, due to their remoteness.

Arriving in Mahdia felt like entering the wild West. It is a small mining town and I imagine the, ‘get rich quick and to hell with the consequences of my actions’ attitude that seemed pervasive in the community is similar to what the California gold rush must have been like. At least we were greeted by another PCV, who has spent almost two years living in this outpost town. She greeted us with wonderful hospitality and let us spend the night before our scheduled flight the next day.

Wednesday is when all the best laid plans turned upside down on us! Although we arrived at the airstrip in time with money in hand to pay for our flight, the airline had packed the tiny prop plane full of goods and left no seats for paying the passengers, us! So off flew the plane to Monkey Mountain, packed with beer, rum and mattresses for the villagers for Christmas, and Tim and I stayed flustered on the ground. We spent the next 6 hours on the airstrip, trying to finagle with pilots, airstrip coordinators, airlines in G/town via phone and Peace Corps in the hopes that we could somehow get another flight and make it to MM that day. I won’t go into all the sad details but, needless to say, nothing worked.

We were told that there was a flight going out on Friday though, could we wait in Mahdia until then? Tim and I were discouraged at first. Would the 2 pounds of green beans, tomatoes, carrots, cucumber and cheese we had brought for our friends last until then?Could we extend our trip and make it back in time for Christmas? Or should we chalk it up to a loss and head back to Linden? Well, after an encouraging work from Paul and Alyssa, we decided to stick it out. After all, we had come this far, why turn back now. And, as Paul said, “When Guyana gives you lemons, turn them into pears!” (Not quite sure what he meant by that but it cheered us up and we held out hope that the next day, Thursday, we could book a plane ticket leaving Friday and still enjoy our mini vacation with our friends.

However, when we went to pay for our tickets on Thursday the airline representative in Mahdia told us that there isn’t any flight leaving for Monkey Mountain until Monday! What!?! I thought for a minute he was kidding. But, no, that was the truth. Unless we wanted to wait until Monday, stuck in Mahida, sleeping on Ryan’s extra mattress on the floor, and rapidly running out of money so we wouldn’t even be able to buy food over the weekend, we didn’t have a choice but to head back to Linden.

So, this morning we woke up at 3:30 am and crammed back into a minibus, bumped over the unpaved roads back home, feeling like we had failed. Well, we try not to think about this adventure as a failure. More like a mission UN-accomplished. We tried to fly out of a remote town, to visit our friends in an even more remote town, during Christmas time, and things didn’t work out.

Can we glean any lessons out of this debauched travel attempt? I think so. In Guyana, it is not advisable to try to fly out of small, rural airstrips unless you have to. If you have an  option, book a ticket through Georgetown and pay for it in advance. That way you will be guaranteed to get on the plane before they pack it full of stuff instead of people. We can also apply this lesson to travel in general, when you are trying to get to an off-the-beaten track location, plan on getting there from a busy transportation hub. Even if it seems like you are saving time and money by taking the road less traveled, the road less traveled often leaves you stranded. Also, walk with more money than you think you need, just in case.

The Sock Monkeys getting ready to go to Monkey Mountain. Their first outing in Guyana!

Waiting for the bus outside Linden

At a rest stop, I make a friend! Yay monkey!

Waiting to cross the river by ferry, almost to Mahdia

On the ferry, almost there

Rain on the E'bo river

Trying to get on the plane

This is as far as the Sock Monkeys (and Tim and I)  got to Monkey Mountain. The darn air strip in Mahdia...

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! I am sorry we haven't blogged in such a long time, things have been happening, both good and not so good and one of them was that our computer stopped working :( We're in the works to get it fixed, though. Anyway, we will update when we get the time probably in several different posts.

To day we're having a Guyanese Thanksgiving! We are grilling the turkey (yes we had a bbq made for us from a guy down the street and found a butterball turkey in G/Town) having tons of mashed potatoes, candied yams, and a pumpkin pie that our fellow Volunteer, Becky, made! We are spending a relaxing day enjoying each other's company. Sara's family is here and they brought us our new camera (which is amazing, by the way) and its good to share this holiday with folks from home, even if they aren't our own. Anyway, back to cooking!


Enjoy the holiday!
T & C

Progress

This place is truly beautiful. As I run at 5 AM (or 0500 hours, here) the sun rises and reflects its pale orange glow off clouds high in the distance. My thoughts return to the other day when those same clouds flashed with crackling lightning, but too far away to be heard. To the right, as I climb the largest hill near our town, fog floats over the jungle calmly sitting over a creek that cuts through the darkened foliage. I take a deep breath of the moist morning air and think back on my own progress since the PDM conference…

After returning from the conference I felt rested and a little fearful that the project goals talked about would come to naught. That all the well-laid plans my counterpart and I made during the week would come up short. I was wrong.

The first thing that got off the ground was moving tons of books to schools that haven’t had new books in long while. I think I mentioned these classrooms full of books in an earlier post, some time around June. Anyway, since then I have been lobbying to get them moved, but I hadn’t had the clout to make it happen “just now.” However, during the week that my counterpart and I were away, the Secondary School Education Officer (who ranks behind the Regional Educational Officer (R.Ed.O.), who is in charge of all the region’s schools) had an epiphany. She had been visiting schools for the 6-year program (the transition program for the remedial students entering secondary school) and was appalled that there were no texts for these struggling adolescents. She remembered us mentioning these classrooms filled with books and sprung into action. She mobilized many of the handymen from several of the region’s schools (a work force of about 15 plus 5 of us from the Department of Education) and decided on a day within the week of our return to clean that place out.


















The day arrived and the workforce decided to start with classroom that had the most books. We pulled out all of the books, separating them by schools. We didn’t have a list or anything; rather we just tried to distribute these books as evenly as possible to every institution (Nursery, Primary, and Secondary). It was a task. Some of these books seemed to have been in this room since 2007 or 8 maybe even as far back as 2006, before many of our staff worked in our office. The piles grew and grew, but then there was snag…

Working hard separating the books

Some of these books have been here so long, we had not idea what they were.

The first piles

…. The sun rises almost too quickly this close to the equator, but the land is bathed in saffron, sun-rising light as I go up and down, hills coming and going; gravity taking hold, helping, and then fighting; increasing resistance. Up and down, like a roller coaster, like my experience...my thoughts return to last week.

The region is in possession of a large truck, similar to a u-haul truck (the smallest version), which is used to distribute Juice and Biscuits to all the schools and also distribute books when we get them. However, on this particular day, at this particular time the driver of that truck, and there is only one, was taken ill. We had these piles of books, but no transportation to move them.

Almost all of the books on the lawn

Again, our secondary officer sprang into action. She called schools individually and asked them to get there own transportation; to hire a truck or go in with another school to get both their books. The piles receded, but the amount was still overwhelming. I wanted all the books to be moved in one day, but that wasn’t going to happen so we decided to clean out the now empty classroom and then organize the books by school. So when they come to get their books, they can just grab a hand trolley and roll them out to their transportation. It all became quite organized. I even labeled all the boxes to make sure every school got their fair share.

After the organization.

The day ended and although it was not a complete victory, it was a victory all the same. Recently, one of the heads of the more remote schools up the Demerara, a head I promised books to so many months ago, saw her stack and burst into tears. She was ecstatic and couldn’t believe the amount of books we set aside for her. When she comes into town next week she will carry them away. My chest swelled knowing that my actions had given someone so much joy. It reaffirmed my commitment to the Peace Corps and my projects…

…My legs hurt a little, but the ground levels off and the end of the “road” comes into view. If I keep running, I’d get to Georgetown up this main highway. However, I’m 3.5 miles away from my starting point, and now I need to go back. I turn. It is almost fully light now. The crisp air begins to flee as the heat of day fills the void left behind. Future endeavors dance before my eyes. I peruse projects and possibilities (in no particular order) as my feet stamp a steady tattoo upon the uneven pavement…

Every month, Head Mistresses and Masters come to Linden to attend a standing meeting. While they are there, I will do “Tim’s Tip of the Day” and explain one practical literacy strategy that they can take back to their schools and implement.

HM Meeting

Every month, teachers from every school come to a cluster meeting (by grade for primary schools and by department in secondary schools). My counterpart and I will teach these teachers different literacy strategies that they will take back to their schools and teach to other teachers during professional development sessions.

Go to different schools and co-facilitate Professional Development sessions after school with teachers and also perform classroom demonstrations of the strategy/techniques I taught them during PD.


Assist NCERD (in G-town) and educational consultants in establishing Literacy Committees within schools in Region 10. A literacy committee consists of several teachers who have a passion for literacy. Every month/week they will meet and think of activities that will promote literacy throughout the school, their community, and at home. These activities can vary from PD sessions to fun, engaging writing activities to monthly school themes/activities based around literacy. Anything, to promote and get kids and parents excited about literacy.


Finish my teaching manual, edit and revise it after input from my officers, classroom teachers, and former colleagues. Get it published with some sort of NGO/Grant money and hand it out to teachers to use. And then hold PD sessions on the techniques within the booklet. Moreover, once it is written and published the teachers coming to Cluster Meetings and HM meetings will be able to take one home and use it as a resource for their own in-house PD sessions.

Some resources for the Teacher's Manual

Assist with the 6-year transitional program, training teachers in practical “teach-niques” and strategies. Visiting their classrooms, observing their teaching and then conferencing with them. I also want to co-facilitate workshop for them and then go to their classes and perform classroom demonstrations to show them how successful the “teach-niques” could be.


Get approval and backing from Officers, HMs, teachers, parents, and students in order to re-open a teacher/student resource center. Get some money to fix it up. But this is still a distant memory…We still need to meet with REdO for his feedback….

The largest hill is behind me. The slightly inclined highway that leads to my street stretches before me. The heat is oppressive and its only 0615 hours. The day before me will be hot and probably rain in the afternoon for a small spell. But I feel good. I feel like things are coming together and it may not be perfect, but small victories await. My legs burn, and sweat drips from my face and back. My house comes into view It’s work. It’s all work. But it’s also progress…

-T