100!!!!!!!!

This is our 100^th blog! It is hard to believe that we have been writing on this blog for 23 months and have written 100 entries! To commemorate our adventure thus far we summed up what we were up to each month of blogging and even created a word cloud using one entry from each month. Check it out!

December 2009: Found out our assignment to Guyana, accepted it and said our first good byes to family and friends.

January 2010: Moved out of our apartment in San Diego, said more good byes

February 2010: Finished work at Health Sciences High, left San Diego and arrived in Guyana and started Pre-Service training, met our host family

March 2010: Learned tons in Pre-service training, went to visit older volunteers for a week visit, more learning, got our site placement

April 2010: Swore in as official Peace corps Volunteers, moved to Linden, started work on our projects, Tim turned 29

May 2010: Found Rasta kitty, celebrated with fellow Lindeners at Town Week, explored our region on outreach trips, Sara turned 24, witnessed a baby born at the health center

June 2010: Adventured around Guyana, floundered a bit with our projects, celebrated our one year weddinged anniversary

July 2010: Watched almost every FIFA World Cup soccer match, met back up with our training group for a reconnect training meeting

August 2010: Built our own bookcases and dressers from plyboard, planted papaya trees in our front yard, Chelsea turned 25

September 2010: Struggled with various tropical maladies, enjoyed an amazing vacation in Barbados, met with our counterparts for a project planning conference

October 2010: Midwifed for Rasta when she had her kittens, organized and distributed thousands of unused books for schools throughout the region, finished writing teacher training manual

November 2010: Celebrated Thanksgiving with fellow PCVs and Sara's family, started working as the host for local TV program Health Watch

December 2010: Attempted a trip into the interior to visit friends, got stranded and learned patience and acceptance, had a wonderful Christmas celebration at home in Linden with enchiladas and friends

January 2011: Finished training for the Be Safe program, big project accomplishments, got staph infections, cured said infections

February 2011: New training group arrived in Guyana, facilitated tons of training sessions with the newbies, marched in costume in the G/town Mashramani parade, dressed as our alter egos for a party commemorating our 1 year in Guyana anniversary

March 2011: Continued to help with newbie training, completed the Be Safe! Program and hosted a well-deserved graduation ceremony, planned and executed first annual Linden young authors fair

April 2011: Visited home in the U.S. For a month, kicked it with our families and friends, gorged ourselves on American fare and libations, Tim's dirty 30^th birthday

May 2011: Started running with the Guyana Hash House Harriers, attended mid-service training conference, dealt with broken computer frustrations, cried over a sick baby, then busted butt to get him help and save his little life

June 2011: Worked with remedial teachers in secondary schools, planned/stressed over our future plans, survived without a fridge when it broke for a month, celebrated our 2^nd weddinged anniversary

July 2011: Traveled to Shell Beach and watched leatherback turtles lay eggs, professional development with summer school teachers, started law school applications

August 2011: Kept on keeping on with so so many different projects, Chelsea's 26^th birthday celebrated in Barbados when we made a short stop there in the way back to the States

September 2011: Joyously celebrated D+L's wedding back in Oregon and enjoyed family and friends for 2 weeks, experienced ancient Guyanese culture at the Amerindian Heritage festival, submitted law school applications

October 2011: Submitted grant for an infant nutrition class, hosted excellent activities for Education Month, celebrated Diwali, good things still to come......

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!

The Seasons

So I have this recent attraction to the changing of the seasons. Living in Southern California most of my life the seasons were kind of a side-note. Sure, it got colder in the winter, maybe pretty hot in the summer and just right in autumn and spring, but there wasn't any snow or sleet, perhaps there was some rain, but that was it. However, compared to the some of the USA the seasons could've been non-existent.

But now, after living in Guyana for year, it seems the seasons were glaringly apparent in SoCal.

A few days ago was the Spring Solstice. I forgot all about the 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of nighttime because there are only two seasons here: rainy and dry (well so they say, but like Chels I am skeptical.) Now I think it is suppose to be the dry season, but it's been raining for days at a time. Maybe Linden is an exception to the rule? Either way, the typical changes aren't so apparent, even to this SoCaller's limited awareness.

It's been a good week hanging with the new Trainees, cooking, and gaffing up a storm. The holiday on Monday was fun, even if I wasn't covered in powder, and thus far this week I've done development sessions and worked with the High Schoolers on study skills (ReQuest and SQ4R for my teaching buds). I may even get to go to the River areas next week where I've been dying to go since I got here. But I'll keep you updated.

But now Bob Marley is blaring, rum and cokes are calling , and Guyenese Tacos are ready to be consumed. Til next time.

Rasta Kitty Shot, we're taking to her to a fellow PCVs this Friday to watch while we head to the States. We love her soo much and will definitely miss her.

Much love.

March Madness (and not the Bball kind)

So as our previous blogs have mentioned, Tim and I have been spending a lot of time this month away from each other helping with training. It has been odd living alone, cooking for myself and being left alone with my thoughts. I am glad to have Tim back today for the rest of the month. But, now that we are pretty much done with training we are both finding hat we have a TON of work to do in the last few weeks before we head to the States for our month-long vacation (eeekkkk, so excited!!!!).

I am trying to coordinate wrapping up the Be Safe! Program and set up a graduation ceremony for everyone who finished facilitating the lessons. I also have to record not one, but two, episodes of Health Watch TV show to air in April and May, since I will be gone all April and won't be able to film then. This is keeping me busy, but it is the annoying sort of busy where my plans rely on other people, so I can't just power though and get things done myself. It feels like a lot of hurry up and wait.

Another annoyance that has been causing me some serious irritation recently is the obnoxious tom cat that is pestering Rasta Kitty and stealing her food. We leave the sliding door open while we are out (the grate stays locked for safety) so that Rasta can go outside to pee and explore. However, if we leave food in her bowl, the tom cat will come and eat it all! If we leave the door open at night for Rasta to go outside, he will come in and fight with her. So, we have started closing the door up at night. I didn't think Rasta had a problem with this until recently I started fining puddles of cat piss in corners! She peed on my art supplies, so I move them off the floor. Then, last night, I heard her scratching, and jumped up just as she was peeing on a duffel bag of medical supplies! I was so ticked off! I think we are going to have to start keeping a litter box in the house again, which I hate! I so much like the idea that Rasta was an outdoor cat, but this bully of a tom cat is making problems for us. Ahhh!

This last week has been very, very rainy. It rains almost steadily all day long. I have not been able to do my laundry since it won't ever get dry. It is getting a bit annoying. I am also left very confused about Guyana's “seasons” I was under the impression that now was supposed to be the dry season. Yeah, right. I have pretty much resigned myself to never understanding the weather and chalking all the wackiness to living in the tropics.

I have been spending a lot of time this past week thinking about my family. It is hard to be away from home when my family is going through difficult times. I won't go into details but all my love and support goes out to my brother, Stephan, my cousin, Dallas, and my Aunt Ondi. May you all find comfort and healing in the love of family. I am looking forward to seeing you all in just under a month.

In Four Weeks...

It is crazy how much we have grown accustomed to life in Guyana. The things we once found odd we live with and enjoy; the food, the music, the transportation. But, as we anticipate our visit home to the USA we are getting really, really, really excited about being able to see the people we miss, eat the food we miss, experience the media we don't have access to, and drive around on our own. So, we decided to make a list of some of the things we are looking forward to about our visit home so we don't forget anything, and so you can help us make them all happen. Feel free to take us out to dinner/drinks, cook for us, or otherwise spoil our poor, deprived Peace Corps selves. Love and thanks in advance!

 

Tim at Hodad's in San Diego. October 2009. Yum. Burgers.

Things we want to eat and where we want to dine when we get home:

• Mexican food!
• Craft beer!
• Margaritas
• California burrito
• Toppers pizza
• Bjs: baked potato, honey crisp chicken salad, pizooki
• Mrs. Olsen's Cafe
• Sals or Yolandas
• Taco de Mexico
• Rice, bean and cheese, burritos....mmmmmm
• Thai food
• In-n-Out
• Islands: Chili cheese fries (AD JC), burgers
• Sushi
• Starbucks
• The Bagelry
• Marini's
• Pizza My Heart
• Volteros or Bronx Pizza
• Loaded potato skins
• Ben and Jerrys
• Haagen Daaz
• Slurpees
• Dominics Italian food
• Gin martinis
• Wine
• Cotixans or La Posta
• Hodad's
• Stone beer
• Taco Bell
• Broccoli

Things we want to do when we get home:

• See a movie in a theater
• Go to the beach
• Drive a car
• Visit Pasadena
• Visit San Diego: HSHMC, Beat Attack Brew Shack
• Go on some law school campus visits: Davis, UC Berkeley, Hastings, Santa Clara
• Get massages
• Get a hair cut (get them all cut...)
• Meet baby Evelyn
• Fix our computer
• Go shopping
• Renew our license at the DMV (not something we want to do, but something we have to...)
• Celebrate Tim's 30^th birthday
• Download new music, movies and media. Stock computer with entertainment. Itunes gift cards please...
• Go to a dive bar

Our tentative schedule:

April 8^th: arrive in LA

April 8^th-17^th: In Oxnard, Ca. Work a trip down to LA and SD in there somewhere.

April 17^th-28^th: In Santa Cruz, Ca. Work a trip up to the Bay Area in there somewhere.

April 28^th- May 2^nd: In Portland, Or. Hang out with Dad and Lisa and visit Dal, James and the baby.

May 3^rd: Arrive back in Guyana.

Brief Updates from Chelsea

Project Updates: Chelsea and Sara completed the Be Safe! Training with 22 nurses and teachers. They collected their work plans and passed out the materials. The facilitators should start delivering the program in the classrooms next week. Chelsea and Sara also are halfway through recording the next episode for Health Watch TV. The topic is nutrition and a balanced diet. Tim is still looking for funding for prizes for the author's fair but everything else is all organized. He has even begun to get some applications in from students!

Mental/Emotional Health: Right now we are really happy! Time has been flying by since we have been so busy. Even though we are really looking forward to our vacation home we are happy here. When we first came to Guyana we were let down but the seeming lack of 'culture' but after being here almost a year we have come to see the beautiful uniqueness of this country. Some things that used to annoy us like taking minibus rides, listening to Soca music, and drinking watery Banks beer, now amuse us and provide color and life to this experience.

Physical Health: Although we are both fighting off a pesky staph infection, which never seems to go away no matter how many antibiotics we take, we consider ourselves healthy. The perpetual exhaustion and sweatiness that comes with living 4 degrees latitude north of the equator has also become standard and cope-with-able. So, not to worry Moms, we are doing great!

Rasta Kitty: Rasta has been a little despondent lately. I think maybe it is because we gave her baby away to another PCV. It could also be that a huge jerk of a black cat from the neighborhood keeps sneaking into our house when we are away or asleep to eat Rasta's food. She had a weird wound on her leg (maybe from fighting said asshole cat) that is now healing nicely, without any treatment from us. She still likes to snuggle on our bed and chase lizards outside.

Number of books read in country: Tim has read 57. Chelsea has read 38. Tim goes crazy and reads like a manic here.

Things we are thankful for right now: New music to listen to, courtesy of Sara. New TV shows, courtesy of a iTunes gift card from Dad and Lisa. Our site in Linden. The luxuries in our house (running water, electricity, internet). Each other. Our friendships with other PCVS.

Things we are looking forward to this year: Celebrating our 1 year in Guyana anniversary at an Alter Ego Party at Megan J's house. Meeting the new group of PCVs in 3 weeks. Our trip home in April (seeing family and friends, meeting Baby Evelyn, Mexican food, wine and beer, Marini's, In-n-Out, visiting law schools, going to the beach, watching a movie in a theater). Dad and Lisa's wedding later this year.

Things we are looking forward to Post-Peace Corps: Our adventure throughout South America (we are thinking Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Bolivia, and Peru for a month before coming home). Road trip around the Western United States (Utah, Zion, Yellowstone) and meeting up to travel with the Quinlivans. Buying a car. Going to law school and grad school. Getting a permanent teaching job. Living in the Bay area? Starting our family?

Life here is raw and rugged

         Tim and I are almost four months into our service as Peace Corps Volunteers in Guyana. As we expected, we have been through some ups and downs along our service. We are so grateful to have been placed in Linden, our busy town with a fierce pride in its culture and history. Daily, we take joy in the company of our housemates and our little kitten Rasta, who is snuggled up on my lap as I write this post. We are slowly but surely finding how we can fit in at our work places and see much potential for development projects. However, we think of our friends and family at home every day with a twinge of sadness. We get especially nostalgic for the life we left in California when we hear news of both the monumental and inconsequential moments that our loved ones at home are experiencing without us. How we wished we could have been at Heather and Jeff’s wedding, for example (although they knew we were there in spirit). And when I hear about Stephan’s choir and improv performances, I especially miss being with my little brother as he continues to grow into an amazingly talented and handsome young man. On some days we think about all the things that await us back home; friends, family, law school and job prospects and wonder why we continue down this road in the Peace Corps. 

But on other days, we experience the most amazing things and realize that this is the only time in our life when we will have the chance to experience life in such a raw, rugged sense. Life in the U.S. is so orderly and regulated compared to life in a developing country. It is a comfort to know that our secure life is waiting back home for us but we needn’t be in a hurry to rush back to it when every day we get to take part in some miraculous moments in here Guyana. To give you a picture, let me share two of the most raw and rugged experiences that I have had in the last month or so: 

“No, Mom, I do not want to be a nurse,” I remember telling my mother when I was applying to Political Science programs for my undergrad study. “I respect you a lot for being in the health profession,” I said, “but blood and bodily fluids are really not my thing.” Well, it’s funny the way things work out. Here I am, with my Poli Sci degree, working in a health center. This does not mean that I am working as a nurse, but since I’ve been here I have witnessed an amazing birth and assisted with horrifying dental procedures. How my UCSD education qualified me for this is still a mystery to me. 

The Birth:

A young woman comes into the health center for a malaria test since she is not feeling well. She is obviously very pregnant, 8 months, she thinks. She mentions to me, and a Senior Nurse, that her stomach is paining her and she just passed blood when she urinated. The Senior Nurse sees this as a situation better handled at the nearby hospital and calls an ambulance and, in the meantime, gives her a quick examination to see if everything is alright. To our surprise, she is almost fully dilated. She won’t make it to the hospital. The baby is going to be born in our Health Center.

I watch as nurses hurry to get sterile equipment into our clinic room. They place a clean sheet on the examination table, help the mother up onto it, and place a steel basin between her legs. The nurses instruct the woman’s own mother to run across the street to purchase sanitary pads and 2 clean pairs of underwear as an emergency form of bandaging up the pregnant woman after delivery. She seems undaunted by the fact that she now has an audience; at least 4 nurses, two nurses in training, a dentist who is very pregnant and expecting her own first baby soon, and myself, the mysterious white girl. It all seems very surreal as the senior nurse tells the woman when to breathe and push, while the mother during this entire process makes little noise other than a grunt, maybe two. Within 7 minutes, with a loud sloshing sound and a rush of blood and fluid, a healthy baby girl slips into this world. I stand, awestruck.

Visits to the Dentist:

The dentist, Medex, HIV counselor/tester, Sara and I ride down the Demerara River in a speedboat to a small village about two hours away. As the boat passes houses and shacks nestled in the jungle we wave to people to let them know that the medical professionals are on their way to the Health Post. People who need medical attention clamber into canoes and paddle up the river to meet us. 

We set up in a Health Post with no running water or electricity. Sara is asked to record names and information for Medex and I do the same for the dentist. As people come into the small room where we have set up a folding chair, a basin of liquid disinfectant, syringes full of Lydocaine and a terrifying array of plier-type tools, I take down their names and ages. Our patients range in age from 7 to 70. The dentist asks them which tooth is hurting them and calls out the tooth number to me, “Chelsea, number 42. Chelsea, number 21.” As I write down these numbers, the dentist, without further explanation, sticks the patient with Lydocaine and sends them outside to wait for the anesthetic to take effect. 15 minutes later, the dentist calls his patient back in to yank the rotten teeth out with what look to me like pliers. With very little friendly bedside manner, the patients are given gauze and told to rinse with warm salt water the next day and sent on their way. 

In one instance, I am particularly surprised when the dentist calls out 5 different, consecutive tooth numbers to me, while looking into the mouth of a man in his forty-somethings. I know enough by now to realize that this man is about to have five of his upper front teeth extracted. When the dentist is doing his extractions I usually try not to look, unless the patient is a small child and is squirming, in which case I stand up and hold down the child’s flailing limbs, trying to be as soothing as I can while they suffer though the procedure. However, one point during the extraction with the 5-tooth-extraction-man, the dentist calls upon me to assist. “Chelsea,” he says, “can you glove up and hand me some gauze. I am having some trouble with this one.” What else can I do but what he says and shortly I find myself staring into a mouth full of bloody, gaping holes and into eyes full of excruciating pain. I proceed to hand the dentists tools, whose names I don’t know, and gauze to stop the bleeding, all the while thinking, WHAT AM I DONG HERE????

The dentist

But after I am able to wash my hands, and clear the images of blood and bodily fluids from my thoughts, I feel a sense of wonder that I know is rare and raw. I never would have crossed paths with these sorts of things in my ordinary life. These are the experiences that Peace Corps promised and I know will stick with me for the rest of my life. So, although daily I ask myself, “How did I get here and what the heck am I doing?” at the end of the day I am full of gratitude for the experiences I chance upon in this crazy Peace Corps adventure.