Across Four Rivers

A Piranha bit your finger??!!  What?! 

A Piri captured from the river..many people are missing toes who live near the water

Okay, let me back this story up for a second.  I know I said last month I didn’t have that many new things to report, but silly me.  This is Guyana and I am a PCV, just when you think you’ve seen mostly everything, something else comes up and bites you, or perhaps someone sitting in the same speed boat. 

I was charged with the task of carting some supplies for our mini Camp GLOW all the way from town to Moruca, an Amerindian village about four or so hours away.  Transporting already can be stressful, but add some hula hoops, a canvass, and a large box filled with arts and crafts and you triple your trans p fun.  Luckily, I had some volunteers to help me along the way, which made everything a bit easier.  It was my first time on the other side of the country, the largest region/area of Guyana called Essiquibo.   

View of the Essiquibo River from the speed boat

Catching a speed boat

The Essiquibo River is so large that you need to take a speed boat for 45 minutes to get across it.  It is a beautiful ride, but not calm and tranquil at all. In fact, I would say the Essiquibo boat ride, or at least the first one I rode on was the antithesis of tranquil.  I got all of my stuff loaded on to this speed boat and waited for us to leave.  Gradually we pulled out of the stelling and on to the main waterway.  The boat picked up speed jerking everything inside towards the back as the stern lifted high out of the water.  Each wave pummeled the boat back down towards the water, creating quite a bumpy ride.  This would have been a lot more fun if I wasn’t terrified that my bag, which was leaning slightly out of the boat at the very front, would go flying into the rough waters.  As furiously as I was willing my bag to stay in the boat, the Guyanese were also on a mission not to get soaked by the spray of waves raining down on us.  Each row was issued a tarp that everyone strategically hoisted at the right, or not so right moment, to avoid being drenched.  Unfortunately, the tarp blocked any sort of vision I had of my bag, especially when we hit the worst bumps.  This of course was not helpful to me, the mad woman sitting poised for action, ready to leap into the water if my bag decided to jumped ship.  Everything ended up making it across the river safely and I waited for a car to take me on the next part of my journey.  I did almost forget my hula hoops, but luckily someone noticed and I caught the speed boat before it left. 

Another volunteer and I made it to the next stelling in a bustling town called Charity.  We had been waiting for our next speed boat to Moruca at the dock and had been chatting away.  We failed to notice the cause of commotion that was happening right near our boat.  A little while later, we stumbled upon an interesting scene as we boarded.  There was a young, teenage girl sitting on the boat gingerly holding her hand that was wrapped in a bandage.  A woman sitting next to her was feverishly cleaning a beautifully decorated white wedding cake with a toothbrush and vodka.   Perplexed?  So were we.  It turned out that the teenaged girl was resting her hand on the side of the boat,  NOT in the water.  Apparently, a super hungry Piranha hurtled itself out of the water towards this unsuspecting girl’s hand.  It did some damaged and chomped on this girl’s finger, which sprayed blood across the boat.  To make this very anomalistic situation worse, the wedding cake that this woman carefully carried on mini bus and speed boat (no easy feat), received the brunt of the onslaught of blood.  For some reason the lid on the container the cake was in was off at the time of the attack.  Thus we found the frantic woman trying to scrub droplets of blood off of a wedding cake.  It was a very bizarre situation, most likely exacerbated by the determination of the woman to serve the wedding cake, blood and all, to guests at the wedding the next day. 

Organizing sessions

Mini Camp GLOW at Moruca Secondary

"What we learned from camp"

Doing some stress relief

My friend and I eventually made it to Moruca for mini camp GLOW and it was pretty awesome.  It felt very different from our week long camp GLOW, but the girls in Moruca enjoyed it.  It was also amazing to see our GLOW girls take on leadership roles and run some of the camp sessions.  Mini camp was much more relaxed than our week long camp, which was welcomed.  It meant our GAD taskforce group got a chance to bond and enjoy Moruca.  Moruca is one of the largest Amerindian communities in Guyana.  It is a really beautiful village and we were even able to see some monkeys and go for a swim.  Apparently they also have toucans, but they must have been hiding while I was there.  Some of the other GAD members took the boat back towards town a day earlier than I did with some of the camp supplies.  The boat ride is very early (5AM) so everyone was half asleep.  When I finally met them in town, they told me that once the boat got going, the lid to the arts and craft box blew off before they were awake enough to realize the glitter and notebooks scattering everywhere.  They had to turn the boat back to collect the lid.  

 

A villager paddling a corial or dug out canoe

A 5am boat ride is the only ride out of Moruca, but it is beautiful

Perfect view of what they call the rivering savannah in Guyana

I spent the rest of the week in town for a GAD taskforce meeting.  I must say, we are pretty good eaters as a group.  We ate lots of fall themed ice cream flavors at Brusters and did some serious damage on an Indian food lunch buffet.  There was a big Halloween/Birthday party on the weekend, so we all used our PC resourcefulness and created some very unique costumes. 

Mario and Luigi

Dori the fish and a flamingo

I made some Halloween crafts with the kids so they got to partake in some festivities as well

 It was a lot of fun, but I was also yearning to get back to my site.  If I had known what awaited me, I might have considered staying away a few extra days.  My neighbor greeted me when I came home and said she missed me and that my house had some foul odor emanating from it.  Uh-oh!  I cautiously entered my house and prepared for the worst.  I did indeed find the remnants of the worst.  Somehow a large rat found its way into my bedroom and decided to produce copious amounts of poop and die underneath my bed.  Then something (probably my cat) ate it and the whole thing was just a dried out, shriveled up, stinking mess.  When you get home exhausted at 8pm from traveling, the only thing you can do is get rid of the dead body and pour bleach all over the floor.  Luckily, I have two bedrooms, so I decided to sleep in the rat-free one.

Once again, I am back at my site, but not for long.  This weekend I have the next mini camp GLOW in Black Bush.  I am also attending a woman’s networking event at the end of November and of course we are all getting together for a big potluck style Thanksgiving dinner.  I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to travel, but I feel very out of the loop when I return back to site.  You kind of lose the groove of fitting in and just being a part of things.  I am looking forward to January to stay put for a while.

I hope everyone enjoys their Turkey Day with their friends and family.  Please know that I am forever thinking about you!  I am beyond thankful to have you in my life and for all of your support and encouragement while I am here in Guyana.  It really does mean everything to me-in case I haven’t had the chance to tell you yet.  :-)  Gobble Gobble!

-KB