Holidays in Guyana

Merry Christmas All! Here is a quick look into the Christmas Season in Guyana:

Tim and I have both, along with all our colleagues and friends, wrapped up our projects and work until the new year. Now we are in the full swing of the holiday season here in Guyana. Christmas feels different here for many reasons. Even though it is our second Christmas here, we still aren’t with our families so that always feels a little strange. The weather is still hot, muggy and sunny, which isn’t much like holidays back home. But the spirit of the season remains the same. Even in Guyana, people are eager to make their houses nice for their family and friends, putting up Christmas lights and decorations. Everyone makes plans to visit each other and share food, drinks and good company. So that’s what we plan to do this holiday.

Today we are going over to a neighbor’s house to spend the day. We prepped yesterday by heading over to fellow PCV, Tka’s house and learning how to make Jamaican meat patties which we are bringing over to our neighbor’s to share today. Tomorrow we are heading to New Amsterdam to visit with some other PCV friends and take a mini-vacation into a river village near them for some relaxation, nature and fun. Then we hope to ring in the new year in Georgetown before heading off to our Close of Service Conference (COS), the last workshop we will have as Peace Corps Volunteers. It is crazy to think how far we have come.

But in the here and now we are enjoying being together, sharing a last Christmas in Guyana. Check out some pictures from our holiday treat baking, visiting Georgetown and other crazy holiday adventures.

Sara baking yummy Christmas cookies at Tka's to give away to family and friends (I thiefed some....)

Holiday decorations in the clinic at work

Our Halloween tree in November gets Christmas presents that Mom brought from America! Thanks Mom!

A very scary, huge, white Santa give Season's Greetings to everyone in Georgetown. TIG!

For Christmas, I fixed Tim's shabby old copy of The Brothers Karamazov. Resourceful PCV with duct tape. Yay!

Starbroek Market in G/town was so busy the weekend before Christmas. So many people shopping and selling. 'Scuse me little veggie sales girl!

Selling tons of imported goods. Box cake anyone?

Local, Guyanese holiday necessities: sorrel, hot pepper, thyme and tubers.

Homemade Jamaican meat patties! Yum

15 Weeks to Go

We’ve been thinking a lot about leaving Guyana since we only have 15 weeks left here. As with most things in Peace Corps, we have very mixed emotions about leaving this beautiful country that has become our home. We decided to make a list of things we will miss very much about Guyana and also note the things we can say we won’t be missing at all. This is by no means a complete list, we are sure there are things we forgot about but here is what we have for now anyway. Here goes:

Things we will miss:

• Easy and cheap access to fresh tropical fruits: mango, pine, papaya, passion fruit and weird stuff you have probably never heard of (awaro, five finger, ginip, star apple, dounce) etc.

• Living on the river, admiring the beauty as we cross it everyday
• The beautiful, expansive skies: brilliant, fiery sunsets and sunrises and nights with millions of glittering stars

• Greeting everyone with a friendly, “Good morning/afternoon/night”
• Always being able to predict the weather. Let me guess: hot and muggy! Correct again!
• Loud Caribbean music blasting from mobile carts on the roads
• Food: plantain chips, cookup, roti, pepper pot, dahl puri
• The sounds of the jungle morning, noon and night: birds, frogs, bugs, roosters
• Evening thunder and rain storms

• Knowing our neighbors, shop keepers and a general a sense of community
• Getting everywhere by public transportation; mini buses, cars, and the freedom of not relying on anyone else to get anywhere because we can walk most everywhere!
• The flora of the jungle
• The fauna of our urban jungle: cows, sheep, chickens, dogs and cats that run (seemingly) wild all around the streets and yards of the entire country
• The “just now” attitude, island time, taking it easy, nah takin’ worries and time to relax and chill
• Having most of our “adult” responsibilities (bills, rent, medical care, etc) taken care of by Peace Corps and not having to worry about those things, peace of mind, job security
• Guyanese hospitality
• Random events that make us smile and laugh: seeing a 6’6 black man driving a supped up car with a Celine Dion CD blaring from the stereo or almost stepping on a mamma sheep as she gives birth to twins in the side of the busy market road
• Having luxurious free time to read (Tim has read over 150 books) and watch movies/TV
• Cheap and delicious Guyanese rum
• Getting DVDs of movies just released in theaters in the USA for $100 Guyana dollars (50₵)
• Dark, super-sweet, local Guyanese sugar
• The smell of sun dried laundry
• Being able to make our own work schedules and, at times, when work is slow, being allowed to show up, “show my face” then leave work to take care of personal business
• Our coworkers, neighbors and friends who all know and love us and watch our backs

Things we won’t miss and are glad don’t always exist in California:

• Mosquitoes
• Cold showers
• Men sipping, being called white gyal or bai/whitey/Barbie/baby/sweetie/sexy
• Animals (and animal dung) on the public roadways and in our yard
• Homesickness
• Incessant, unavoidable heat
• Our grammar degenerating into a poor version of Creolese (“I wan fuh go ah the market”, “watch at this ting” “me nah know” “how baby today? He goin a’right?”)
• Long, hot and uncomfortable mini bus rides
• The “just now” attitude, showing up late or not at all, little to no accountability
• Turtle slow internet connection
• Being judged and told we are going to hell because I (Chelsea) am not baptized and we are not Christian then almost forcibly dragged to church services to save our souls, being told by total strangers that I (Chelsea) am a sinner for wearing pants when the Bible says women should not wear pants…
• Only having three choices of bland Caribbean beer (Banks, Carib, Stag)
• Not having an oven
• Hand washing all our clothes
• Being asked very personal questions by strangers when we first meet them (are you married, do you have kids?, why not? how old are you? would you like a Guyanese boy/girlfriend?)
• The smell of garbage/dead things rotting in the trenches
• Humidity
• Being the victim of the Guyanese habit of stating the obvious (when Chelsea is bloated: “you gettin’ thick, you must be getting a baby”, when she is out in the weather without an umbrella: “white gyal you takin’ too much sun/rain”, when she is exercising: “you takin a walk”. Why yes, I am thank you!).
• People assuming that we are rich/privileged/religious/ New Yorkers because we are white
• Having no anonymity at all: leaving our site to go across the entire country and still being identified by strangers then having people in our own site tell us how they have heard of our exploits (probably from said strangers) in the far-off town upon our return
• Having to bring our own toilet paper and hand sanitizer everywhere we go because there is never any guarantee that there will be a well-stocked bathroom

Election Stay-cation

Almost immediately after my mom and bro left, life for us Tibbses in Guyana took an interesting turn for two reasons:

1. We got an awesome ROOMIE! Our PCV friend, Cassie, moved into the spare bedroom in our apartment. She had been stationed in a remote site in the savannah of Guyana, near Brazil, but needed to leave her site for her own important reasons. She still wanted to be able to finish out the rest of our service however, so we asked her to come live with us and, along with Peace Corps staff, we helped find her a temporary assignment in our hometown! We excitedly opened up our space to Cassie. She is a smart, funny, free-spirited woman with an amazing capacity for love and laughter. We have been enjoying hearing of her adventures in remote Amerindian villages. She taught us how to make wine out of local fruits (by fermenting it in sugar, leaving it in bottles to get “strong” in the sun for a week or so, straining it and voila!) and we have had many fun game nights since she moved in. Despite the fun we’ve been having, it has been an adjustment to have another person in the house. We now share a tiny, super mini dorm fridge amongst three of us, same goes for filtered water, dishes and chores. It is a challenge for all of us to adjust but the three of us get along very well, enjoy each other’s company and still manage to give each other space so ultimately it is a positive change.

Cassie and I being silly with Wax vampire teeth!

2. Occurring almost simultaneously with the addition of another to the Linden Crew, were the highly anticipated Guyanese National Presidential Elections. Elections in Guyana happen every five years. People get the opportunity to vote for a party (rather than candidates) for the presidency. It is a proportional representation system so, depending on the number of votes each party gets, seats in the parliament are assigned (more votes for your party = more seats your party gets). Historically, race plays a large factor in politics, with the Afro-Guyanese siding with a particular party and the Indo-Guyanese with another. People here debate how true that is today but, in the past, things have gotten pretty heated amongst the different parties (riots, theft, arson and mild civil unrest) so Peace Corps had to prepare us for the worst. Here wha' happen:

The election was on Monday, November 28th and, starting on Sunday we were officially put on “alert”. Now PC has all sorts of rules for us to keep us safe from any turmoil that might occur including, but not limited to: avoiding any political conversations, demonstrations and public gatherings (basically staying in our house), keeping ours phone on, charged and full of credit at all times and having a go-bag packed and being ready to evacuate at any time. With this sort of preparedness we were almost excited for something to happen in our usually quiet urban jungle paradise. So, Tim, Cassie, the rest of the Linden Crew and I stayed indoors as instructed, slept in, did laundry and long-avoided chores, made fruit wine and delicious meals, played cards and watched an entire season of Gossip Girl.

We were on official “alert” mode (i.e. election stay-cation) until the elections results were finally announced on Wednesday evening. Yep, you read that right, it took 2 ½ days to count and verify elections results. Hand counting ballots takes time. Not quite as easy as the fancy system with almost instant results in the USA. It was a trio to watch the news and hear the hubbub of gossip from our friends while we waited for the results. All was quiet, almost eerily so, but still no unrest, no excitement. Even when the results were announced (the majority party stayed in power in the presidency but the coalition parties have the numbers in parliament) almost all stayed civil and cool. Except for one small demonstration-turned riot-with rubber bullets all was very democratic, peaceful. I think there is more contention at an Occupy demonstration than there was in this election in the developing country we live in. Go figure! All in all it made our stay-action seem a little foolish but I actually rather appreciated the forced down time. It was relaxing and much needed.

Passion fruit, Cherry, Pine, and Star fruit wines brewing

We hit the ground running back at work after the elections. Cassie started her new job, I finish with the first of two six-week infant nutrition workshops this week and Tim just wrapped up his professional development sessions with his remedial teachers. Now, as December speeds by, we join our neighbors and friends getting excited for Christmas and holidays from school and work. We promise to blog about “winter” holidays in Guyana just now. Until then, blessings from all of us.