Going Remote and Going 'Mash'ing

I spent most of last week helping out with training for the new group of Volunteers at the remote training site. It was a fun experience for me to get to meet new colleagues who I will be spending the next year with and also get a taste of what a more remote Peace Corps experience would have been like. The training is being held in an Amerindian village about an hour away from Linden (25 minutes up the highway and 35 minutes down a bumpy dirt road, though a swampy grassland rife with giant puddles and pools). During the day I added my input and experience to the technical sessions regarding health topics and Peace Corps policies and procedures. At night I stayed with a family in the village who Peace Corps is renting a few rooms from. They had a large concrete house, still under construction, with an outdoor shower and a pit latrine (fairly common set up in the village). Bathing outdoors and walking outside at night with a flashlight (electricity only comes on when the generator runs from 6-10pm) was how I expected my whole Peace Corps experience would be. After living that life for a week, avoiding the silver dollar sized spiders who lived in my room, I decided that I am grateful for my urban placement.

I came home to my house in Linden and instead of facing discomfort because it is too quiet/too dark/too isolated, the church next door was having a week long, all day long revival camp. So, I stayed up all night listening to shouting, praying, singing and speaking in tongues. This is an example of how some of the challenges between an urban and a remote site in Guyana are different like night and day. In an urban site you have to get accustomed to noise and light at all hours (honking horns, annoying music blasted at crazy decibels, community events that block roads or make noise all day and night). Not so in a remote site, where the sounds of howler monkeys and bugs and birds are your only noise (unless someone has a generator and decides to play the same CD over and over again during parties). In an urban site, we don't know everyone intimately, compared to when I was in the remote training site for a week and already knew the names and family histories of everyone I lived near. In an urban site I have to budget for transportation to and from work and the cost of utilities, in a remote site you get to walk to work but have to budget for inflated food prices and the high price of transporting your goods in and out of your site. Yet in both sites we volunteers face the same challenge of being isolated because we are strangers in this culture. We have to face the cultural problems of domestic violence, alcoholism, and many other social issues that go hand in hand with a poverty. In both sites, the work we do as Volunteers helps our communities live healthier lives. And I came to the realization that if I can do that and still have a flush toilet, then I am a lucky gyal.

On another note, I went to celebrate Mashramani on Wednesday and “mashed” (danced and marched) in the Mash parade in Georgetown, with the Ministry of Health Youth Friendly Services float. It was a ton of fun! I was in a bright yellow jumpsuit sporting a headpiece with a man exercising on it to promote exercise. My day lasted from 7am when I got to the staging place, got into costume and make-up until 4pm when we arrived at the end of the parade route and I was sunburned, sweaty, covered in glitter and ready to pass out! It was a blast to dance with the Peer Eds as we moved along the crowded parade route and celebrated the holiday.

Now I am back home spending the weekend with Tim before he leaves for a week to help in training in the urban site all next week. Hopefully I can stay busy and this month will fly by. Heres looking forward to April 8^th and our visit home! And thanks to all who commented on my previous post about our future. We are still pondering and will continue to take in the wisdom of friends as we figure things out. Much love to all!

-Chelsea

The remote training site

How PCVs get to work in remote sites

My house for the week

Walking with PCV Andrea and PCT Kristen to her host family's house, though the creeks

Floats and costumes

Me, enjoying the silliness, after the parade finished

International Volunteer Float

Childrens' Mash, back in Linden, so cute!

Work and Haikus: A (rare?) Day in the Life of a Community Education Promoter

 

Wednesday 2/23/11

All day, hot sun, beat,

But reveled in Mash, much fun,

Home, sunburned, tired.

Thursday 2/24/11

Wow, busy, busy,

Not much time to breath, relax,

But we must go on.

Maybe some of you didn't know this about me, but prior to joining Peace Corps I tried to write a Haiku a day for an entire year. I got to day 250...then I petered off, too many other things began to happen. Anyway, most of 'Ku's were directed towards Chelsea gushing love, compassion, understanding (I am a romantic, whatever) and so forth, but sometimes I wrote them as a journal. My attention span couldn't handle writing an entire daily entry, but a 3-line poem, sure, no problem. Recently, as of February 14^th, I picked up this habit again. And I've written them everyday since. These two above wrap up my last two days.

I am sitting at my computer around 9pm or 2100 hours Guyana time after a 12 hour work day. Chelsea is out training some of the new trainees at the remote training site and I am listening to music, rambling on our blog. One thing I've taken away from development work is that when it rains it pours. Many projects culminate at once and then it's time to start a new project and continue the cycle, all the while sustaining previous projects that need to be revisited until it becomes a gigantic juggling act. Granted, not everyday is like this. There are some days where not much happens and projects progress at their own pace without much direction from me.

But today was not one of those days.

The day opened with me putting together the winner's display of the Regional Author's Fair I helped organize. My Guyanese counterpart and I had kids from all over the Region submit poetry and short stories around the theme of the Mashramani Season (Republic Day), “Showcasing our culture, sustaining our pride”. We ended up with about 37 entries which I count as an amazing success because this was the first of it's kind in the Region. The idea behind it was to promote literacy through the nurturing of creativity in creative writing. My hopes were to get students to research their own heritage and culture then write a fictional account using the knowledge they gleaned. It was really great reading through the students' accounts and learning so much more about Mash then I ever thought possible. (I will get into Mashramani later).

After I completed the posters, I had to rush over to the nearby high school and facilitate a professional development session with the entire staff (40 + teachers). We went over a few comprehension strategies (For my teaching buddies: GIST and Reciprocal Teaching) and I was able to demonstrate model lessons for each strategy, then explain how they can incorporate it into their daily lesson plans. Overall I think it was successful and actually pretty fun. (Literacy coach here I come!) 

Then, I had to rush back over to office to see how my counterpart was coming along with the borders on the posters. She finished them up and then I carried them over to the National Library, Linden Branch. I had to get permission from Georgetown to use the library's space, even though the Linden head Librarian was all about it; she had my back from the start of this project about 2 months ago. The display looked really good. It is right near the entrance so whoever enters the library sees them. We are working on getting letters to the winners and the schools throughout the region to check out the display (and maybe introduce some new kids to the aweseomeness that is the biblioteca, perhaps as an unexpected side effect? This is something else development work has taught me: see the benefit/success in ALL that you do). And then we need to plan and host some sort of awards ceremony, but I think I will do this next week, from a distance, since I will working with the new Trainees next week. But I ramble.

After we set up the library I came home for a quick bite to eat then then I had to head over to the main road to facilitate another session around 530 pm (I got home from the library at 445 pm). This session was completely different from the session earlier this afternoon. I was working with a PTA of a nearby Nursery School on a “Father's Only” workshop. In November, Chelsea and I did a similar workshop for this same nursery school, however, that first time, there were only 19 women and 1 man. This time, though, the school invited only the father's of the children. It was a great concept. The Regional Education Officer (REdO) and myself think it's one of the first in the region based around educational goals.  I did my session on Communicating Effectively with your child/children (yeah crazy, right? My dad, bro, and mom can attest to that!) I went first and then we had two other facilitators give their presentations. It was a really good event. And even without planning it, all three of our presentations really melded together well. As an added bonus, we had the Media there. I don't own a TV, but I think I may be on the local news within the next few days (this would be the second time, the first was when I was the time-keeper for the regional/interregional debate.)

It was a very busy day, so maybe that second Haiku makes sense, right?

Yesterday was a good day too. I was able to Spend Mashramani in Town. But that can be a whole other entry (here is at teaser: Chelsea in a BRIGHT YELLOW jumpsuit with a hat of a man exercising on her head walking all over the City. And then picture me with beers, camera, and bright lime, green shirt. Yeah. think on that....). For now though, I will relax and will post some pictures soon. And maybe a few more Haiku's...

Much love,

T

The Future: Pondering Perplexing Prospects...

A year into Peace Corps service is about the time many Volunteers begin asking themselves, what next? Some of the most common post-PC plans are grad school, extending PC service in country, doing Peace Corps Response for another 6 months to a year in another country, trying to get hired by PC, trying to get hired by the Federal government, trying to get hired anywhere. If grad school is in a PCVs future, maybe they are thinking about where to apply and for what. Volunteers start researching prospects on the job market and deciding where in the world they want to live.

Tim and I never really expected we would go through the, “what next?” conundrum. We came into Peace Corps knowing with unwavering certainty that our plans after PC were, for Tim to get a teaching job and Chelsea to go to law school. Then after I finish law school, Tim would go back to get his masters degree in education and we would think about starting our family. Seemed like a simple, straightforward 5-7 year plan.

Well, one of the funny things we have found about Peace Corps is that this experience makes you rethink everything from who you are, who you want to be, what your priorities in life are, the nature of humanity and life itself and other deep, mind boggling nonsense. For a time, Tim and I had adopted a very Zen mentality; we would be the pebbles and let the river of life flow over us. We would take in these experiences and go with the flow. But now, with a little over a year left in our time here we are having to think about whats next and we are finding ourselves reevaluating that simple, straightforward plan. Thus we find ourselves, as the blog title states, pondering perplexing prospects. The purpose of this blog is to lay out some of our thoughts to you, our friends and family, and solicit advice from our loved ones.

Law school: now, later or never?

Recently there have been a ton of articles published about why law school is not such a great idea. The first of these articles I read was in the New York Times, titled, Is Law School a Losing Game? (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/business/09law.html). And, frankly, it freaked me out! Most it talks about how overpriced law schools are, how tough and competitive the job market is and how the debt you will go into in law school makes you a slave to the work force, basically chaining recent grads into jobs they don't love just so they can make loan payments. This, and many other similar articles, recommend that if you want to go to law school you had better damn well be sure you want to be a lawyer and even then, don't be so cocky as to think that you will be one of the very few, who upon exiting law school, will nab one of those $160k jobs. Well, to honest, I was sort of envisioning exactly that. Am I being naive?

I have always wanted to go to law school and become a lawyer. I worked in an immigration law office and LOVED it! I envision myself dong immigration law, at both a corporate level and also working on the type of cases I dealt with at Casa Cornelia Law Center; refugee and asylee cases and victimized women and children. But maybe I have been confining myself to that idea, not looking outside the box. In the light of these recent articles, I had to ask myself, is there anything else I can see myself doing? And the honest answer is “yes”. I believe I could be happy doing any number of other careers. I could work for Peace Corps in a regional office, I could work for a University doing all sorts of administrative things, I could do administrative or design and management work for non-profits and community organizations. There are almost too many things I can see myself doing that would make me happy. As Peace Corps has taught us, anything in life will be what you make of it. So, considering that, do Tim and I want to put ourselves 150k in debt for me to go to law school at all? Maybe it's not worth it since we already have a hefty debt from both our undergraduate work and Tim's teaching credential and we could be happy as a couple of working individuals. Or maybe we both work for a little while (5 years?) and save some money so we don't have to fund my law school on debt alone? I mean, law school isn't going anywhere, right?

The other factor that is throwing a little wrench into our proverbial future planning gears is our changed philosophy on family. Maybe its being in Peace Corps and being so far away from our families that has made us reevaluate the concept of family. Maybe it is working around children and mothers and advising families everyday that has made us yearn both for our families back home and a family of our own making. But in any case, we have decided to make family a bigger priority in our life planning. We want to be able to be geographically close to both our families (they are spread out across California, so we want to limit our job/school searches to our home state of Cali) and we want to have a baby. Sooner rather than later. So that means we will either become parents while I am in law school (which, although it may sound NUTS, we have actually read is a great time to be new parents, since the flexibility of being a student is more than the flexibility of being a brand new attorney) or within the first few years of being back in the work force in California.

So, where does all this leave us, besides perplexed? Well, We know for sure we want to live in California. We want to be able to take a road trip to visit either of our families, so sorry to the rest of the United States, but we are ruling you out as a prospective new home for the Tibbses. We know Tim will teach when we get back, and he can get a job almost anywhere in California, although the more flexible we are in terms of where we live, the easier it will be for him to find a job. We know Tim will go back to graduate school within the next few years, working towards a masters in education and probably administration (which means more student loan debt, but will open so many more opportunities for Tim and be well worth it). And me? Well, I have no idea what to do. Apply to law school, bite the bullet and take on the debt? Go to a top tier school, knowing I will have better chances of landing that cushy corporate job or apply to lower tier schools hoping for more scholarship money? Or work, save money, start a family and maybe go back to school later, but cross that bridge when we get to it?

Tim and I talked a lot about this recently and his opinion is that I should apply only to the top law schools that I want to get into, Berkeley, Stanford, UCLA and UC Davis, and if I get in then I should go. Yes, we will have debt but I shouldn't be too freaked out about it. He is confident that we will be able to make minimum payments at least and if we are ever in a pickle we can defer. Plus, no one can ever take your education away from you, so there is no better reason to go into debt. If I don't get in to any of my top schools, he says, we work out what to do when we get there.

Yet, I am one of those people who like to have an idea of where I am going in life. I am a planner. I used to be more attached to the outcome of my plans, freaking out when things didn't go as I had intended. But in this last year, living in Guyana has helped me be a little more flexible. I know that we cannot plan our lives out to a T. I know that even if we try, we will inevitably be directed along different paths, by the world's mysterious forces, call them what you will. I guess, at this stage I am just trying to decide which path to take, knowing that we may get blown off course, but at least we are going in the general direction that we purposefully set. And, we are trying to be realistic and practical about our life plans, whatever that means, taking into account long term goals; our education and careers, having a child, saving for a house, a college fund, our own adventures and luxuries, etc. How do we get there if we don't even know where there is?

No matter how perplexed we are in this moment, we have been having some interesting conversations with each other, which is fun (and sometimes stressful) and revealing. We are learning more about each other. For example, I have found out how savvy Tim actually is about financial matters, like lending jargon. And Tim is grateful for the long-term foresight that I bring to the table. We have had hilarious conversations about our child rearing philosophies, fears and excitements. We continue to work together as a team to figure out what we want in life, as a couple. I am proud of us and confident that no matter what we decide to do, our lives will be rich with love and support. But, stewing in the pot of the future planning conundrum, we invite you, our friends, family and readers in the blogosphere, to add your spicy advice to make this perplexing stew even more rich and interesting.

Yay! Not the Babies Anymore!

Yesterday the new group of Peace Corps Volunteers arrived in Guyana. Welcome Guy 23! Now we, in Guy 22, are no longer the babies (I jump because I am not the baby anymore!)! Tim, Sara and I, along with a few other Guy 22ers met the new group at the airport with excitement. It brought back memories of our arrival, or rather, brought me back to that fuzzy place in my mind where my memory should have been, but I was too exhausted/excited/overwhelmed/hot/etc. to really take in what was happening to me at the time. It was great sitting on the bus with the new group and seeing Guyana through their new eyes. Often Trainees would lean over to me and ask questions, which I was happy to be able to answer. But mostly I tried not to narrate Guyana too much. I feel like we all have to experience Guyana on our own to really know it, so instead I just sat back and enjoyed watching the faces of my new colleagues taking in the awesome sights and first impressions of Guyana. Anyway, I didn't get much time to hang out with the newbies since they were whisked away into training sessions almost immediately.

I am looking forward to getting to know the Trainees better when I spend all next week at the training site to help facilitate sessions. This year, PC Guyana split the Trainees into 2 groups to be trained in a remote site and an urban site, in the hopes that those who eventually go remote will be better prepared for their experience. And, although I live in the second largest town in the entire country, I will be spending most of my time helping teach the Trainees in the remote site. Go figure. I guess PC thought because I have ventured into the interior a few times for outreaches I can speak better to the issues than my other colleagues can? Who knows. I will do my best and hopefully focus on technical training info. Ha! This city gyal is just as excited to be spending some time in the bush as the Remoties are.

We spent the rest of yesterday cleaning the PC Lounge (our haven when we are in G/Town) to make the newbies feel welcome, eating pizza and celebrating our fellow Volunteer's second Guyana birthday with chocolate ice cream, brownies and pretzel M&Ms!

Today is a national holiday in Guyana, Youman Nabi, a Muslim holiday celebrating the birth of the prophet Mohammed, so we got the day off work to lounge around the PC office, order chicken burgers and take our leisurely time traveling home to Linden.

Tim and I are now snug back at our site. As I am blogging and uploading photos Tim is experimenting making pepper sauce for the first time. Pepper is a super spicy Guyanese hot sauce that we love to add to most food. Since we had a ton of hot peppers growing in our garden faster than we could use them, Tim decided to try his hand at home-made pepper. Check out the results of this experiment on Hobbit Food in the near future.

Tomorrow I am recording my third episode of the Health Watch TV show and Friday Sara and I will be conducting small group check ins with our Be Safe! Facilitators for the first time since we did the initial training 3 weeks ago.

Life continues to be full of surprises and excitement. For example, when we came home today we found Simeon (the daddy long leg spider who lives in our bathroom) had caught and eaten a GIANT bug and had it all wrapped up like a burrito. We went to a super fun one year in Guyana party last weekend at another PCV's house. It was a costume party with an alter-ego theme and that was a blast. Emily and Heather sent me jeggings (jean leggings) and I bought a matching top to wear and actually wore them out in public, which made me laugh so much since it is a fashion I abhor, but is very stylish in Guyana (so I felt very integrated...). Rasta kitty seems less freaked out about being baby-less and even snuggled up to sleep on my legs the other night which she hasn't done since she had kittens (but sort of freaked me out since I woke up thinking I had no feet...). Tim and I made falafels from scratch, affirming the versatility and our love of chickpeas. And my best friend, Emily went to visit my mom on Valentine's day to give her flowers and a card “from me and Tim” which just proves once again that she is the most awesome, thoughtful, amazing woman and I am so lucky to have her as a friend! Emily, I love you more than chickpeas!

On a whole, all the activity, both work and fun, is making January and February fly by! We are very very very excited about or visit home coming up in a month and a half! We miss everyone back home very much but we are well aware of all your love and continued support! 

Guy 23 Arrives!

Sara, Becky, Abby and I waiting to welcome the new group

Sara and I have Super Heroes as alter egos, Tim is a 70s Creeper

Super Heroes, a tacky Exerciser, and a Bible Camp Counselor at Armageddon?

Rasta in our yard

Yum! Falafels!

The brownie-cake we made for Meg's Bday

Meg Wag, blowing out the candle (okay it was just a match, but that was all we had...)

No Longer Strangers

 On Friday, I woke up early, walked, stretched and chatted with Sara as we usually do. My plan for the day was to tidy up the house and then go the children's Mash costume and dance competition at the McKenzie Sports Club.

After eating a breakfast of bagels and cream cheese (a real treat that Tim brought back from G/town), while the morning was still cool, I sat on my front steps and hand washed a load of laundry. By the time I had rinsed it in the pipe in the yard and hung it on the line, Tim was off to work and I was upstairs sweeping and tidying up the house.

Travis, our mailman, stopped by with a lovely surprise for me. A package slip! So I called Tim, telling him I would swing by the post office to pick it up. I was happy to hear that most of his coworkers were leaving the office to attend the Mash event and so my husband could join me. YAY!

So together we collected the package that Emily and Heather B. had sent (a wonderful box of goodies, including photos, earrings, letters, magazines and jeggings/jean leggings...)! Then we were off to the the event.

Now, Mashramani (or Mash) is a national holiday in Guyana, also called Republic day. Mashramani means, “celebration after hard work” in Arawak. The holiday was first celebrated right here in Linden, in 1970. The day is dedicated to highlighting the beauty of Guyanese culture and the strength of the Guyanese republic. The actual holiday is on February 23^rd but the schools were celebrating early with a costume and dance competition. This event is sort of a warm up for the parades, dancing and celebrating to come, and the winners of the Linden competition go on to compete in the National Mash competition in G/town next week.

From our house, we could hear the music and cheering at the Sports Club around the corner. So we hustled off to the event. The inside of the Sports Club is basically just permanent stadium seating and a soccer field, in which a stage had been built. The stands were packed with students (who got the day off school) and their families. Basically, all obligations had been suspended in Linden for this event and no one felt bad about missing work and dressing up in their most colorful outfits to celebrate the day. I was thrilled to follow suit and join in the fun!

I have posted pictures that I hope capture the feel of the day better than I can describe it. From the moment we entered we were enveloped in color, music and a community enjoying themselves with innocent fun. As we squeezed our way through the crowds, we were stopped by our students, teachers, nurses and neighbors. We were swept up into hugs and covered with glitter, called 'sprinkles' in Creolese. Tim and I found seats up in the stands with his coworkers and watched the dances, getting up every now and then to take pictures of the stunning faces and colors around us. We were given food and juice and bought ourselves plantain chips. It felt like a festival or fair.

At one point in the day, as I stood on the field with my camera, in the midst of dancing, laughing children, trying to snap candid shots of the day, I suddenly didn't feel like a stranger anymore. I looked up to find Tim in the stands and saw him sharing conversation and a meal with a friend and I felt like we belonged. We can choose to see ourselves as outsiders, or we can decide to see ourselves as our community sees us, just another splash of color and diversity in an already diverse community.

Today it has been one year to the day since we left the United States. We have come a long way in our journey. We no longer struggle to pinpoint “Guyanese culture”, as we once did. We no longer question why we are here, or how we are making a difference. We see these things in the pride on the faces of the teachers as our students dance traditional African dances, or sashay to Indian melodies, or act out Biblical scenes in interpretive dances. We hear them in the voices of our students who call out to us from across the bleachers, “Chelsea, Sir Tim! We miss you! It's good to see you! Did you see me dance?”

At last, we are no longer strangers, in a strange land. We belong, this is home. 

A dance called flouncing. At some point in the dance, people come throw money at the dancer, who has to pick up the cash with out stopping the dance. I should learn how to flounce.

Revelation: mini demons from hell steal souls while angels stand by. Spoiler: the angels win in the end.

Tim's candid shot of the day

Group dance

Such a fun dance! You can tell the girls are enjoying it!

Tim and his coworkers

I wasn't really taking Tim's photo, rather the amazing outfit on the lady behind him

Some of our students, enjoying the day

A vendor selling plantain chips and peanuts

My favorite candid shot of the day

My favorite costume of the day

Colors and costumes are part of the fun of Mash

Kids covered in sprinkles

Super fun dances

Me and my friend Faith. Trying to get a picture of both of us, but just managing to get Faith's beautiful smile