"An AmerIndian's Life is Not So Easy"

"Black Water" is the color of iced tea, and just as pleasant temps to swim in.

Moon Mission Meeting

Chicken lickin’, feather pickin’, feather’s stikin’ from our hair.

Buck bead stringing, women singing.

Fish are frying.

Turtles dying.

Sun is trying, and succeeding.

Men are hissing, some are pissing, most are missing why we’re pissed.

Fly wine flying from the stands, straight to our hands and stains our glands.

Sun stains us tanned.

Children creeping (pupils peeping), white bodies: steeping bags of tea, black waters be.  All eyes on me.

Full moon amps up the winking night.

Full volume sets a stage for fight.

This festival at nine month’s close.

More fun of time, none I coulda chose.

St. Cuth’s and Peace Corps’ Mission meeting, host families plus friends.

Our mission is met.

*********************************************** 

So sums up my weekend excursion to the closing festival for Amerindian Heritage Month at St. Cuthberg's Mission.  And, as they played the lyrics on repeat over the two days I was there, I repeated and hummed to myself  "...not so easy.  A manke kasi ti".  Interestingly enough, it was a phrase I said very often, aloud, in Mandinka, while I was in Gambia.

Travel to and from St. Cuth's was in fact, relatively easy.  So easy in fact, I thanked my lucky stars on the night of the full moon.  It only took us two and a half hours by transport, with what would have surely taken at least four and a half in Gambia.  It was my first travel adventure in country, outside of Peace Corps transportation.  

The term, Amerindian, refers to indigenous persons who inhabited the Americas as far back as 11,000 years.  Guyana is one of the few countries whose native population refers to themselves this way today.  There are nine prominent tribes spread across the country (Wai Wais, Machusis, Patomonas, Arawaks, Caribs, Wapishana, Arecunas, Akawaios, and Warrus).  In the St. Cuth's region, you can find the Arawaks.

The festival kicked off with a pageant.  Let me repeat that.  The festival kicked off with pageant.  It was to crown the Amerindian princess of that region, to compete in next year's national Amerindian pageant.  We were in a small Amerindian village, far away from anything else, on a Friday night inside the tiny primary school, where the generators might had well just run off beer, because everyone else was.  Villagers young and old crammed in to see the show.  Seven teenage girls alternated between displaying themselves in evening gowns (soundtrack: the first 8 measures of Sinead O'Conner's "Nothing Compares" on repeat, yup, seven straight times in a row), to convincing the judges each is the most passionate about their platform, to dancing traditional dances in grass skirts and bikini tops.  At one point, a very drunk villager jumped up on stage, in front of the entire crowd, and danced lewdly with the poor girl performing.  It took two people to forcefully pull him away and drag off the stage.  It was the first live pageant I had ever seen and I can easily go the rest of my life without ever experiencing another one.

Shanty in the middle of town.

There were many neat things about the festival, though.  The following day, I met about 20 two year volunteers, placed all around the country.  I spent the night with one who lived and taught in St. Cuth's.  She actually stayed with her host family, in an upstairs room, and the next morning the familiar smell of deep fried omelets and Nescafe wafted up the stairs and straight into my nostrils.  It was nice to be back in a village, hanging out with native families, if only for a day. But, as I was getting ready to crawl into bed the night before, I searched to turn off the light switch all around her room, with no luck.  So I decided to ask her host brother if he knew where it was, to which he guffawed, "We ain't got no switch!"  Totally embarrassed, I thought to myself, of course they don't.  The electrical grid gets turned on when the guys feels like it (probably around 4 or 5 pm) and turned off when he remembers (around 10 or 11pm).

We spent the rest of our time watching native dances, supporting the women's cooperative craft market, hiking down the lonely palm lined trails that led to chilled relief in the form of black tea-tinted creek waters, tasting delicacies and getting to know each other a little more.  The day was as full and familiar as the moon.

Primary school sports day at the brewery.

The past couple of weeks at work have failed to follow the waning cycle of the moon, actively speaking.   National Child Protection week was two weeks ago, which involved outreach in the form of sensitization presentations to businesses, parades, concerts and heightened awareness in the schools.  It was also sports week, during which students compete within their schools and the winners then compete regionally, and finally, nationally.  I had the opportunity to attend one of the primary school's sports day, which was held at...a park?  No.  A secondary school's track?  No.  The national beer brewery?  But of course!  Fifty elementary school aged kids ran wildly and determined-like around the Banks Brewery field while a small crowd of men sat sipping booze, glued to the football match on the tube.  At least there was endless ice!!

In addition to my responsibilities at ChildLinK, a fellow PCV has asked for some help with a project that overlaps with my area of focus here in Guyana.  She and a friend are planning Guyana's first Women's Resource Exposition (WEnEX) and enlisting the assistance of folks involved in different business, organizations, governments and government sectors, to pull it off.  It will be held on November 26th and we'll be inviting women run and women focused businesses, as well as women supporting organizations to serve as vendors who will showcase their products, promote their services, and network with each other.  The idea behind the whole event being to promote awareness of successes, as well as challenges that the women of Guyana encounter and face, to raise awareness of gender based violence, to empower, encourage and help bridge the gap of inequality that is so pronounced in this country.  I've been able to contribute thus far by helping write the invitation letters for the businesses, organizations, key note speakers and panelists, as well as the sponsorship letter for the major corporations from whom we are seeking help.

A counselor introducing the Tell Scheme to parents at a PTA meeting.

And...in addition to this exhibition, our counselors at ChildLinK have been asked to put on a Children's Convention in mid November.  We sat down last Friday to brainstorm and came up with some great sounding ideas.  This convention will serve as the community outreach portion of the project, which is projected to wrap up finally, March 2013.  We'll hold the event at one of the primary schools, and invite children and parents and teachers from all of the schools in which we work.  There was discussion of children from the five schools performing skits, poems, etc., as well as inviting prominent members of the field and government to give opening remarks, small entertainment in the form of a bounce house and trampoline, informational booths surrounding education, protection and privacy, health and play (the last of which I enthusiastically volunteered to help support, but to no avail- I was assigned health, which was a close second for me, anyway).

Still, everything moves slowly.  Back home, I'm used to packing my days to the brim, often times beginning with an awakening and refreshing 6:30am Mysore yoga class with friends, and ending with one of the numerous social or educational "obligations" which regularly present themselves on an almost nightly basis.  The entire day would be filled with working a half day at one job, half day at another, or another, taking time to be a mentor with one person, and a friend to another three, taking time to write, stopping in to check on my art at the shops around town, making art, making meals, feeding friends, working on or around the house, etc. etc, etc, all while transporting myself with my trusty and true Free Spirit baby blue bicycle.  I enjoy days packed to the brim, although, I suppose it's easy to get wrapped up in the hustle and bustle.

Coming to Guyana has forced me to once again slow down, and once again explore that very important virtue, patience.  I don't have the same resources or sources of support here that I do back home.  I've told myself that this period will be a time for personal reflection and growth and writing, since I don't really have any art supplies, and the ones at my disposal are quite pricey with this PC budget.  But that's totally fine.  Focusing on other interests and  accepting new challenges helps make one a more well rounded person.  What slowing down means for someone, speeding up presents similar struggles for another.

Botanical Garden's pond in Georgetown.

It's strange to think about what I miss from home and be thinking about what I will do when I return to home, all at the same time, in such short of time.  Of course, friends, family and Roscoe top the list, and everything that comes with all of that.  But I started thinking about sounds recently.  There are no railroad crossings, trains or train whistles here.  I don't hear clock towers chime or church bells ring, or even mosque calls for that matter.  I'm in the capital city and mostly I hear horns.  At night I hear crickets and an orchestra of barking dogs.  In the mornings, I hear roosters crowing, and as of late, my next door neighbor's mother-in-law, singing an acapella devotional in the loveliest voice, which brings me out of my slumber and into a presence that I can only feel inside my home.  It is completely different out there.  I hear sips and kisses and whistles and the bells of horse carts and horse hooves clacking on the pavement, nonstop talking, Caribbean and Christian music blaring, children being children and numerous other things.  The other day I saw a decaying baby crocodile on the pavement on the way to one of the schools...

I miss hugs and warm, sincere smiles.  I constantly wonder what's in store for me, come January.  Will I have a job lined up?  Where will that job be and what will it entail?  Why is it so hard to remain present, so far away from home?  Even when home is not even so far away, with both distance and time...