To Suriname and Back

  

As I mentioned before, I took a very short trip to Suriname for New Years.  We took a ferry across the Coretyne River and found ourselves in a completely different country.  The landscape looked pretty much the same, but language, supermarkets, cars, houses were pretty different.  When the boat reached Suriname, there was a mad sprint to get off the boat.  I had never seen Guyanese move with such speed!  All of a sudden I heard something that sounded like gunshots and saw uniformed officers up ahead.  I froze and tried to make sense of what was going on.  Then I heard cheering and realized the Surinamese border patrol lit off fireworks to celebrate New Year’s and to play a prank on the normal passengers who sprint to get a good spot in the customs line. 

Of course we thought we outsmarted everyone.  We took our time coming off the boat and went directly into the duty free shop to view some of the very inexpensive spirits for purchase.  We were amazed by small cups of wine and meandered around the selection for a while.  We probably entertained ourselves for a good 30 minutes and then decided to go through customs.  Much to our dismay, the line was still incredibly long!  It barely moved and it seemed like our plan completely backfired.  The only good thing is that we did have our mini solo wine cups, so we, being the very end of the line decided to have a seat and enjoy a glass of wine.  Only in Suriname would this be possible.  An hour and a half later, we were officially cleared to enter the country. 

We hopped on a bus and spent 4 hours viewing the scenery or catching a nap while the bus zoomed along towards the capital city, Paramaribo.  We were completely amazed when we reached.  The city was very organized, clean, and reflected its colonial past.  It seemed like we had teleported to one of the historic districts in Boston.  Our hotel was also super nice.  We were dressed for travel, with large packs and t-shirts, not like the swanky patrons of the hotel.  A few of us tried to blend in / disappear because we were cramming about 6 into our two person room, PC style.  We were excited to take a hot shower, check out the hotel casino, and ring in the New Year.  A few volunteers and I decided to forage for some food out in the city.  This is when danger struck.  Normally, I don’t carry much with me walking around in Guyana, or anywhere if I don’t have to.  Since we had just arrived, I had yet to empty my wallet of important items, such as my passport or camera.  We got some chicken and chips and I was on a busy, fairly well lit road a few steps from the entrance of our hotel. 

I feel like I was a bystander witnessing the whole thing, if only that were the case.  Some teenage boy yanked my purse off of my wrist and took off running. I was really angry but decided it was a lost cause.  My fellow volunteer on the other hand took off running, so I followed the pursuit.  When I caught up to him, he had a boy by the arm, but he was not the one with my things.  Luckily there was a police station nearby so I went in and filed a report.  I was more annoyed than anything else, but was determined not to let it get me down.  We joined everyone else back at the hotel and relayed the story to them.   My friends pointed out that I still had the box of chicken and chips I had purchased.  I hadn't even realize that I had been chasing bandits with one hand holding up my tube dress and the other clutching a bag of chicken and chips!  Clearly I have my priorities straight. 

We ended up ringing in the New Year on the roof top of our hotel watching the whole city erupt in colorful fireworks.  One display was right in front of us so the fireworks were bursting at our eye level.  It was really just mesmerizing.  After we went out and danced til 5am.  Overall, it was a fun night and a perfect way to ring in the New Year.  We slept until almost 2pm and then were craving food.  Unfortunately, being a holiday NOTHING was open!  This was also bad for me because I was looking into getting a replacement passport so I could go back to Guyana the next morning.  Somehow we found out McDonalds was the only food place opening at 4pm.  I haven’t been to a McDonalds since High School, but we were SO hungry, anything would do at that point.  It was like a scene out of a zombie horror film.  Hoards of hungry tourists were descending upon the only open food place in the city.  We happily ate our food and I was quickly reminded why I've stayed away from the place for so long, but at least we were full.

 When I got back to the hotel, I witnessed a New Year’s miracle.  An officer was there with ALL of my things!  Camera, passport, phone, everything!  I couldn’t believe it.  I had to go down to the station to make a statement that my stuff had returned but it was all there.  I could have hugged all the officers at the station.  We spent the rest of the night watching movies and drank wine in our comfy hotel room and then headed out the next morning for the bus and ferry back to Guyana.  It was a short trip, a very eventful one at that, but thankfully it all ended well.

I now have about a week until our Close of Service conference (COS), seven weeks left in Guyana, and 3 months until I return to the U.S.  I am going crazy figuring out everything for this move while still trying to enjoy and do work like normal.  It isn’t easy!  I also accidentally spent out most of my money in Suriname so have about $10 to live on for the next 10 days.  That is about $1 a day, which is about the world poverty level.  $1 a day can go pretty far here in Guyana, but only in terms of feeding one person.  Bills, rent, gas, traveling would never allow you to make it on that.  I think it is good that Peace Corps tries to get you as close to what it is really like to be an average host country national but it will never be the real thing.  I can live on $1 a day and say I’m doing an experiment, but that is all it is.  I can maybe “feel” what it is like to live on that level, it can be a “challenge” for me but the key word is experiment.  It is much different to know you have nothing, no one is coming to save you, and you can’t just go back somewhere and work or ask a friend of family member for an extra few dollars.    When you are living in poverty, these options have already been exhausted and you are where you are.  Sure you can try to understand, but you will never really know unless you are in that situation.  In Peace Corps, we might complain about things, how hard it is to get things done, whatever whatever, but at the end of the day, we are going back to a very different place.  Sure we have to deal with things for the two years we are here, but people that live here have to deal with these things their whole lives. 

Alright probably only a few more updates left from Guyana.   I’ll keep you posted!

-KB

The Year of No Expectations

I have been thinking a lot about how I wanted to write my first year reflection.   I also figured I’d better just start and get it over with because I know how time goes here.  

“Expectation is the root of all heartache”-William Shakespeare

The Demerara river the separates Wizmer and Mckenzie

Upon submitting my application to Peace Corps, I was told to have no expectations.  Do not expect anything about where you will end up, how you will be living, or the job you will be doing.  Expectations lead to disappointment and only muddle your experience.  Well that sounded easy enough.  I am pretty open-minded, would go most places, and as long as I was working in health I was good to go.  Unfortunately, being open-minded and having no expectations are two different things.  I expected to serve in Guatemala and that turned out to be my first lesson in the no expectations rule.  Having no expectations even meant that you were not guaranteed to go anywhere, even if they said you would.  I wasn’t about to touch the hot pot twice, so I really tried to let everything go.  I put my faith in the process and hoped for the best.  Of course, no matter how hard you try not to have them, expectations are always there.  I certainly had to wrangle with a few when I came here and probably still am.  The thing about having certain expectations in the Peace Corps is that every individual’s experience is completely different.  I know that is one of those cliché Peace Corps statements, but everyone is in such a unique situation.  We all miss different things or people from home, some cultural things might bother some more than others, we all live in different houses with all sorts of neighbors, and of course we all work in different places.  How we react to everything, how we cope, is all up to each individual volunteer.  The place you might have expected to be might have been the worst place for you.  You never really know.  The beauty with not expecting much is that you become an open vessel.  As you go along, you become filled with the things around you and you begin to accept life in a new form, for better or for worse.  If you are full to begin with, how would you have room for anything more?

Walking around Linden

For the past year, I have tried to live in Guyana with as few expectations as possible, just trying to soak it all in.  Believe me; I have become saturated with so many things. Now as I enter year two, I get to have some expectations again.  I know to arrive to meetings about 15 minutes late so I get there “on-time.”  I know I will see some assortment of livestock running around on my way to work.  More importantly, I have more realistic expectations as to what I could accomplish here.  I use ‘could’ because I also recognize that I am still in Peace Corps, I am still living in a foreign country and I know the unexpected can happen anywhere, but for some reason, it seems to be much more prevalent here.  Nonetheless, it is nice to have some sort of an idea as to how things should go.  

In Guyana we have sand to sled on!

A very PCV Christmas

I enjoyed my Christmas and New Year’s here and am surprised I am already into February.   For Christmas, a bunch of volunteers got together in a town called Linden.  We had a big BBQ, we swam in a black water creek, went on a hike, and even attempted to sled down a big sand hill.  Yes!  Linden has hills!  I returned briefly back to site where I wrapped and shared out some Christmas gifts with my neighbors.  It was pretty fun because I don’t think they really wrap gifts here so all the kids took their time to neatly unwrap the paper.  I remember when I was little I just tore into my presents and could care less about the paper.  

My neighbors and I celebrating Christmas

The next weekend I went into town and rang in the New Year with more volunteers.  It was really nice to get together and we danced most of the way through Old Year’s night to New Year’s Day.  New Year’s is not as big of a deal here as in the U.S. so we had the place we went to pretty much all to ourselves.  They did however, have a ball drop!  Although they announced “30 seconds until the New Year!” and then a bit later, “Sorry we are having technical difficulties with the ball drop, but its 2013!!”  So we missed the final countdown but that is just kind of how it is here.  

Work has started back, although my classes are finishing, which presents a new challenge.  Our GAD group has also started to plan for Camp GLOW August 2013. I took an AMAZING trip to see some fellow volunteers in a small village up near the Venezuelan border.  I think I was in the most remote area I have ever been in (I will explain this trip in more detail just now).   My friend Tara is also coming to visit in one week so I certainly will have more stories to come.

 

So much has happened this past year and I’m sure 2013 will have its own share of memorable events.  I am now armed with a few expectations for this year so I’m looking forward to see how it all pans out.  

I hope everyone is doing well and are surviving the winter!  Spring will be here before you know it.  :-)

Lots of Love,

KB