Keep Your Head Above Water and March On

Storm clouds rolling in for rainy season

During rainy season many places flood, which can be a big health issue

The announcer on the radio said that May and June are the rainiest months in Guyana. I haven’t been here for too many months, but long enough to notice the change in weather. Once May hit, there has been rain all during the night and periodically throughout the day. There have even been a few good thundersto

Marching for Midwifery Day- Maternal health is HUGE in Guyana

rms, which always evoke a sense of exhilaration. Guyana, the land of many waters, now has water rising everywhere. You see people out in their tall boots trying to navigate their flooded yards or cars careening through water logged streets. Everyone is just trying to stay dry and above the murky, creature filled waters (see previous posts if you want to know what may be lurking in that water). Meanwhile, I too am trying to keep afloat. I have learned a lot in the past few months; I have been turned upside down, spun around, and some days contemplate if the hypothetical “up” even exists. I ride each wave of ups and downs, preferably swinging in my hammock listening to music. It is funny because each day it is something different. Some days I have no water or current, I find a favorite American food, my co-workers will bring something special for me, or I’ll be told essentially that I look like a hot mess. Others evoke feelings comprised of a deeper substance, I’m really getting to know the other volunteers in my region, I feel I’m not being productive, my co-workers have taken me under their wings and are getting me involved in different events, or that I’m always in the spotlight, constantly gauging my actions and emotions. Nevertheless, the longer I am here the more I am learning. For instance, Americans (and the British, so I’ve been told) can say no in such a nice way it almost sounds like yes. In Guyana, people are much more deliberate and will straight up tell you no (or that you really should brush your hair).

Marching in the rain

I am also learning that I need to change some of my thinking. I don’t know if this is a common occurrence among other volunteers, but I have thought and dreamed of plans and scenarios for where I will be after my service. The main problem is I am trying to fast forward two very important years of my life. Why would anyone want to automatically be two years older and simultaneously deprived of the memory of here and now? Little by little this mode of thinking is changing. I am paying more attention to the plans I have next week instead of next week two years from now. Roots are creeping their way out of my mind and I can feel them yearning for a place to grow. I think I am beginning to find those places. I was fortunate to attend two marches with the School of Nursing. One was at my site for International Midwifery day and the other was for Nurse’s Week up in a place called Skeldon (you can see Suriname across the river from there). Although I am neither a nurse nor midwife, the feeling of solidarity was riveting and I was happy to lend my support to the students, nurses, and midwives of Guyana (we even made it in the local paper! ) Nurses and midwives are very important worldwide and essential to health care (if you haven’t recently you really should thank them for all of the good work they do!).

View from Sandhill

I have also been going on walks/ mini parades with the neighborhood kids to a place they call Sand Hill. It is basically a place where a bunch of sand is dumped into giant mounds, but it elicits joy and adventure from my neighbors. It is hard not to get wrapped up in their excitement and it reminds me of when I would spend hours playing in a creek near my house. One of my favorite parts of Sand Hill is this one particular view. When the sun is setting, it illuminates the clouds with magnificent colors behind a set of palm trees. It makes me think of how wild this part of Guyana must have been and also stirs some of the adventure and excitement I felt when I first started out on my journey. I know I will ride the waves and continue marching along, exploring the unknown, even if it turns out to be just a big, exciting, pile of sand.

Hope everyone is enjoying the warm weather! It is still winter in my mind in the States!

-KB

My neighbors also had a baby parrot I got to hold!

My little neighbors playing at Sandhill

In case the link above doesn't work. http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/05/05/gphc-honours-midwife-on-international-day-of-midwives/

Cooking in Guyana...Pumpkin Curry!

When in doubt, make a curry!  The Guyanese make all different types of curry.  You name it, it probably can be put into curry.  My favorite thing is when you are out on the road with people and all of a sudden they sniff the air and say, "someone is cooking a NICE curry!"  Usually, people will eat curry with rice or with a tortilla like thing called roti (I will tell you more about roti..jus now!).


Recipe adapted from http://www.inner-gourmet.com/2013/03/guyanese-chicken-curry.html 


 

3888 × 2592 - signatureconcoctions.com

Ingredients 

Seasoning

• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 head of garlic cloves, peeled
• leaves of a few sprigs of fresh thyme
• desired amount of wiri wiri pepper or scotch bonnet pepper
• 1/4 cup water

Curry

• At least a cup of pumpkin
• 4 tbsp seasoning (for masala-curry powder mixture)
• 4 tbsp garam masala
• 3 tbsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp ground geera (cumin)
• 1/3 cup boiilng water 
• 6 tbsp oil, canola or vegetable
• 2 tsp salt (or salt to taste)
• 3 cups boiling water
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 2 cloves, (not pictured)

Directions:

1. In a blender, combine medium onion, head of garlic, thyme leaves, pepper, and 1/4 cup water. Blend until smooth and thick like a smoothie. 
2. Cut up the pumpkin.
3. In a bowl, mix 5 heaping tbsp seasoning, masala, curry powder, geera, and 1/3 cup water into a paste.  
4. Heat a cast iron pot with  6 tbsp oil.  Add masala-curry powder paste and fry for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly until mixture looks darker and not watery . 
5. Add pumpkin to pot and stir to coat with masala-curry powder mixture.  
6. Cover pot and let pumpkin cook for 15-20 minutes on medium heat stirring every once in a while.  Remove lid and allow water to evaporate.  Add salt and stir.
7. Add boiling water, tomato paste and cover with lid.  
8. Let curry boil on medium-high heat until gravy has reduced by one-third and thickens to your desire   

Forming New Habits

Whew! So I have been in Guyana nearly three months and it has been about a month since I wrote my last post (sorry!). Time seems to be flying as it tends to do. Now I could go through the details of everything that has happened in the past month or so, but I think that would be incredibly boring for you to read. In a nutshell, I endured my last week of training, swore in as a volunteer (yay!), and headed off to my site in New Amsterdam.

Me in traditional African clothing and my counterpart for swear in ceremony.

Since the milestone of becoming an official volunteer, I’ve been acclimating to my new environment; finding out what is where, who people are, and where I might fit in. I should add that the grace period for the “figuring stuff out” part was pretty short lived. It’s more like I am spotting things as I go. Within the first week, I was teaching classes and playing soccer with the neighborhood kids. The community I live in is already used to having a Peace Corps volunteer, so they have an idea as to what to expect. Of course I on the other hand, through polite smiles and good mornings, am asking myself “Was that the right thing to say/do? What was her name again? Where doRunner’s World (thanks Tulane package!) and they said that it takes three weeks to establish habits/routines. I have been at my site for a little over three weeks now, so that would make sense and believe me, there are a lot of new habits/routines/things in general I have (almost) gotten used to.

I find that place? Did I just look like a big idiot?” The latter question I tend to ask myself quite a lot. Nevertheless, I think time is flying because I have established a sort of routine. I was just reading

Water:
Water runs from the main pipe at certain times of the day, which means you have to pump water (when it is running) to fill your tank for use when the water isn’t on. Pumping water inevitably means that I get drenched in a shooting stream of water as I try to attach the pipes up to the pump. I also found that the pipe to my shower sometimes breaks open and depletes my whole water tank (hopefully I solved that problem with my med kit tape). The water also likes to spurt out leafy looking brown goo from time to time, which can be a surprise when you are showering or trying to clean dishes. The best thing about the water is that if you shower at the right time of day, the water is hot because it is warmed by the sun. Everyone likes a hot shower every once and a while.

Critters:
The last volunteer had a cat and dog that are now owned by the neighbors’ upstairs, but the pets still think of the downstairs as their true home. I am an animal person so it is nice to have some extra company; unfortunately, those aren’t the only critters in my house. If I go into my kitchen at night, I have to be armed with shoes and a broom. My house even eerily hums because of the hundreds of mosquitoes flying around. There is no telling what I might find when I turn on the light. I have toads, salamanders, cockroaches, giant spiders, and who knows what else. It was once horrifying and now it is becoming kind of a sport (except for the giant spiders). It was also half amusing, half terrifying when a fellow volunteer came over and he tried to kill a cockroach with a broom. It was the night we both figured out not only do cockroaches move fast, these ones can actually fly! He took one swipe at the cockroach with the broom and the thing flew towards us. We both freaked out and I might have pushed him into the path of the oncoming flying danger (hopefully I will be forgiven for that one). Needless to say I am very thankful for my mosquito net, which I diligently tuck into my mattress every night.

Neighbors/Children
At any given time, there are about 10 kids in or around my yard. My house is always bustling as I live below six of the aforementioned kids. It is both great and requires some patience. Since I live on my own, it is really nice to have the kids around. They are always game to play sports, do some crafts, or just hang out. Sometimes when I think I am done for the day, I will be enticed into a game of yard soccer and end up playing for a few hours. The older girls have also gotten me into watching these soap operas about African Lady Gaga and Beyonce. They will invite me upstairs (I don’t have a TV or internet in my house) and we will make fun of what is going on. Remind me to bring some back to the U.S.! I am, however, happy that my bathroom does not have windows. The kids are always checking to see what I am up to and I have been woken up at 6am by them calling me through my bedroom window. I was worried about living on the bottom level as I have this inherent fear of looking out my window and seeing someone staring back at me. Someone must have tipped the kids off to this, as their new favorite game is to try to scare me by staring at me through the window. All in good fun.

Biking
I am glad that I biked to work in D.C. because I bike everywhere at my site. It is the best method of transportation (except during downpours) and it saves me time and money, not to mention the added exercise. Biking is also usually the time where I ask myself the “do I look like a big idiot” question. I always have my large backpack to cart groceries or the day’s supplies. Also, wearing a helmet is uncommon here:
Man at Post Office: Are you American?
Me: Yes….
Man at Post Office: Oh I can tell because you are wearing a helmet. Americans always wear helmets. Are you all just accident prone?
Me: No… we are not accident prone.
Man at Post Office: Okay so just you are then?
Me: No, it is Peace Corps policy and I’d rather crack my helmet than split my head open.
Man at Post Office: Oh okay got it.
Me: [Thinking while biking away] Don’t crash into anything or fall over while this guy is watching you!
 


I do get a little nervous with traffic here, as the drivers are a bit fast and crazy and there is an unlimited amount of obstacles that come into play. I almost ran into another biker the first day biking around because he suddenly stopped to say hi to someone.

Even with all of these new habits, I’ve still managed to keep some of the old. I am running in the mornings and am actually training to run a marathon in Barbados in December (come join me!). I also have been cooking a lot and using a cookbook with recipes from past PC Guyana volunteers. I have become sort of a "Freetarian", which means I only eat meat if someone gives it to me; otherwise it is too expensive and not super sanitary. I do however still look around when my students address me as Miss. Brooks or sister, but there is still time to get used to that.

Pumpkin Curry!  Recipe to Follow!

I will try to be more diligent with my blog posts but until next time! Also thanks for the birthday wishes! I had a great birthday week filled with a beach visit, mac n cheese (of course!), and lots of other good food and fellow volunteers.


-KB

Today Was a Good Day

As the title of this post says, today was a good day and I kind of needed it. I've been in a funk the past few days and I'm not quite sure why. I had a wonderful site visit last week. I have a cute apartment, complete with furnishings, acquired pets, and a constant supply of cockroaches. I was walking around my house with a broom before I went to bed at night and killed a significant amount of them. Luckily, I have a mosquito net which keeps most critters out. I live below a large family with 6 kids. They seem pretty nice and there is always someone around to play with.

I will be working at the New Amsterdam School of Nursing and possibly teaching Community Health and Anatomy & Physiology. My introduction to all 178 students went something like this:

Tutor over the microphone: Students, I'd like you to all meet our new Peace Corps volunteer Mrs. Brooks
Me: (quietly whispering ) Excuse me, I'm not married
Tutor over the microphone: You're not married?!!
Me: Umm..no not yet
Tutor over the microphone: Ohhhh, okay. Well students this is Miss. Brooks...

Besides the marital status mix up, I am really excited to be working at the school. It is going to be a big challenge teaching so many students that are around my age, but I think I can pull it off. I am also very grateful for the current volunteers at my site because they were awesome and showed me around and even cooked dinner. :-)

This is where I will be working for the next 2 years!

This was the original maternal and child health bed in the clinic

So despite the encouraging visit, some how I landed flat at the beginning of this week. Maybe I've been a bit homesick or just a bit nostalgic/jealous of the Cherry Blossom pictures people are posting (having access to FB can be a blessing and a curse). Fortunately, today was just what I needed. A group of us on the Health side has been working with a local health center. This was our week of project implementation. We really weren't given much time to organize everything and gather supplies, so I was a little worried about how much we would be able to get done. Our goals were to fix the examining bed for pregnant moms, cut down all the weeds surrounding the center, and general clean up. In short, a health center beautification project. On Tuesday, we did a general clean up, put up health posters, and secured a cushion for the maternal health bed. Today we were set on painting and still in desperate need of someone to cut the grass. Soon after arriving for the day, we had a whole group of Community Health Worker students, the clinic staff, and ourselves listening to music, painting, and chatting.

Working with the health centre staff to beautify the clinic!

Even better, we had a potluck style lunch to keep us all going. However, we still had money in our budget for someone (anyone at this point) to cut the grass. A neighbor stopped by the clinic for a check-up and we told him about our tall grass situation. He said he'd go check, hopped on his bike, and came back a bit later to say a guy would be coming, just now. I'm not sure if I mentioned this, but just now is a Guyanese phrase that means now, a few hours from now, a few days, weeks, or months from now, and any time in between. To our surprise, just now meant about 10 mins and we had someone chopping away at the tall grass. We finished our mural and took a step back to realize all of the positive changes we were able to make with a small budget, a short time frame, and some really great relationships with our clinic staff.

Only 1 week left until I am a full fledged volunteer!! Until then!

-KB

I'm Finally Here

“The big occurrences in life, the serious ones, have for me always been nearly impossible to recognize because they never feel big or serious. In the moment, you have to pee, your arm itches, or what people are saying strikes you as melodramatic or sentimental, and it's hard not to smirk. You have a sense of what this type of situation should be like - for one thing, all-consuming - and this isn't it. But then you look back, and it was that; it did happen.” -Curtis Sittenfeld

That moment, that "big occurrence," happened. I left my home over six weeks ago and moved to a completely different country. At the same time, I didn't feel any different. Excited, yes, but all consuming? Not yet, not even close. I kept asking myself, is this Peace Corps? Am I REALLY here? Well...am I?

This past week has been super busy. My fellow trainee Beth and I woke up early last Saturday morning to kill and pluck 20 or so chickens for our Host Family Appreciation dinner. After getting over the initial shock/horror that the chickens in the pen would be our dinner in the upcoming week, we got to work. Thank goodness Beth's host family had a plucking machine so we had a little less work to do, but it was time consuming and a bit messy.

On Monday I gave a talk about preventing illnesses by having good hygiene/hand washing, sanitation, and keeping food safe. Little did I know that later in the day I would fall victim to the same types of illnesses I had warned others about. It was so unfortunately ironic, that I had to laugh. I think it helped me to a speedy recovery.

On Wednesday, my group went to our local health center and primary school to give talks about good hand washing. One of my fellow trainees made up a song about washing your hands so we had a good time getting all the students to sing along with us. It was pretty catchy, so look for a music video in the future. ;-)

Hand washing at the La Grange Primary School

Thursday was a holiday called Holi or Phagwah.  (To learn more about Phagwah click here!) It is the Hindu holiday for the triumph of good over evil. A fellow trainee and I were invited to a Mandir to celebrate so we thought it would be fun to check it out. We walked to the Mandir (we were a bit late) and noticed everyone was sitting down for a service. We got worried and didn't want to interrupt, so we tried to walk away slowly without anyone noticing. Silly us, it is Guyana! Everyone notices and knows everything. We were spotted and were ushered inside. The service was very interesting and we were presented with lots of snacks afterwards. Then, we played Phagwah. This consists of throwing water and colored powder on everyone. It was a blast! We were soaking people young and old with water and powder.

The thing is, the WHOLE neighborhood / all of Guyana plays (as long as they say so), so we had neighborhood kids waiting to soak us and some people even drove by with supersoakers. We were already stuffed with the amount of goodies that people were offering us, but we had yet to have REAL lunch, which was the famous and delicious seven curry dish. We managed to stave off bursting our bellies by splitting some of the food.

Eating traditional Seven Curry!  Recipe to follow!

Later on we went to the stadium where there were 10,000 people all throwing powder and shooting dye at one another. My host family barely recognized me when I came home. It has been 4 days, many many showers later and my eyebrows and parts of my hair are still pink.

Friday was the big day. Site assignment day!! Of course they didn't tell us until the very END of the day and even then we had to answer question correctly in an intense game of Jeopardy to reveal who was going where. For each question a team answered correctly, they got to reveal one site placement with our names and pictures on a big map of Guyana. I was so excited and nervous to find out. I have some patience, but I was really at the end of it when each person's site was so slowly revealed. At last, they announced the name of a site in New Amsterdam, Berbice at the College of Nursing. My PM looked directly at me before my name was read, so I knew it was me. I didn't know what to think. I was excited but I wasn't exactly sure for what. I found out about the apartment I will be living in, a little description about my job, and other miscellaneous details. I go to visit my site on Wednesday this week so I will have a lot more to say about my site assignment and job then.

I might call Saturdays, Chicken Saturday, because once again yesterday morning I was dealing with more chicken. I was in charge of cooking 52lbs of chicken for the Host Family Appreciation Day. I woke up early to marinate all of the chicken.

I thought about Murphey's Law and someone was on my side because all terrible events that could have happened, somehow didn't. I almost stepped on a snake carting chicken from one house to the next, there was an accident in front of my street so I was worried my helpers wouldn't make it, and we had a short blackout while the chicken was cooking. Like I said before, the potential was there but somehow all the chicken was prepared and we went off to the Host Family Appreciation Day.

Wearing traditional Guyanese clothing for fashion show

HFA was a great event. It started out a bit slow, but eventually we had our host families and trainees participating in games, we had a big potluck dinner, and then a talent show. Everyone did a great job and I think the host families really appreciated it. At the end, one of the trainees made an awesome video where we said Thank You to our host families. It made me realize how much we have already been through and how much I am going to miss my host family.

If I haven't lost you yet with this long post, I can tell you that after HFA, I realized that I am finally here. I have been in this moment for a while now, but just haven't been fully aware of it. If I look back on the past few weeks, I can see some of the progress I've made. I adore my host family, I think of my fellow trainees as family, and I recognize a lot of beauty and humor throughout Guyana.  We were also lucky in that our urban group got to visit the remote group in St. Cuthbert's Mission, an Amerindian community.

St. Cuthbert's Mission

We went on a scanvanger hunt around the mission- The one volunteer is dressed in traditional Amerindian clothing

St. Cuth's Host Family Appreciation

Now, I am looking forward to visiting my site this week and meeting my counterpart at my job. I have a feeling I will be very busy until swearing in, but I will try to keep you posted on it all. Thanks for reading and FYI, you East Coast people are now on the same time zone as me. :-)

-KB

Finding a Little Bit of Home Away From Home

I am not sure how many of you like to travel or have lived in many different places, but I find that in new places I always try to connect things back to what I know. It is the same for when you learn a new language; you look for cognates or similar sounding words and pretty soon you can say a few phrases.

When I look at where I am, part of me thinks I am just in another part of the U.S. When I was in the capital city Georgetown, I was reminded of the vendors selling their goods in Chinatown NYC. As I ride in cars around West Demerara ( a little more rural/country) I can almost picture some of the same houses in New Orleans. Someone once told me that New Orleans is the closest city to a third world country you can find in the U.S. I absolutely LOVE New Orleans and mean no disrespect, but I have found a lot of truth to that statement.

As I mentioned above, I love NOLA and was really missing the Mardi Gras festivities this year (Yes, I do have Mardi Gras beads in my room). So I was very excited to hear that Mashramani (Mash), a holiday to celebrate Guyana as a Republic, is celebrated with dancing, bright colors, glitter, a parade, and floats! ( To learn more about Mash click here!) I went with my host mom and had a pretty good time. We even managed to walk in the middle of the parade trying to meet up with people. While I missed eating King Cake and dodging beads flying at my head, I did enjoy eating lots of Guyanese food, listening to some bumping music, and seriously contemplated how some of the performers moved their bodies the way they did.

Parade at Mash, people get all dressed up and dance to soca music

As for other home away from home events, our group managed to have a "Happy Hour." Imagine about 20 something foreigners descending on an unsuspecting fried chicken fast food restaurant. It was a great way to hang out after a long week of training and the fried chicken was pretty good.
Another night, some of us went out for some good old fashioned Karaoke. This also consisted of a disproportionate amount of foreigners invading a local place. The locals actually took their Karaoke very seriously and sang a lot of Celine Dion and some very heartfelt love songs. I personally enjoyed some of the videos that were played along with the songs. They featured Americans who seemed very emotional and who were sporting some very funky attire. If those videos were all you had to go on, I would be giving Americans some really weird looks too.
To round out the weekend, a bunch of us went to a fellow trainee's house and had a Thanksgiving like feast. We ate a TON and sat around sharing stories and laughing until we had to make our way home. It really reminded me of having potlucks at friend's houses or the "family dinners" I would have with roommates and of course my actual family.

It is amazing that even in such unfamiliar territory, I am still looking for the familiar "homes" I have lived in. It might be the easiest way to accept change, find all of the similarities you can hold on to and then take baby steps towards the big, scary differences. And believe me, the differences can be scary. Just look at was in my dinner the other night:

Cook-Up Rice  Recipe to Follow!

Yes, that honeycomb looking meat is cow intestine.


:-)

-KB

Here's to New Experiences

Naturally, when you move to a country you've never been to before, you are going to get some different experiences. It is part of the reason why I signed up for the Peace Corps, to experience different people, cultures, foods, and to gain work experience. I always say that I am willing to try most things once, for the experience. But what makes an experience different from just going about your day to day business? The dictionary states that "an experience is the fact or state of having been affected by or gained knowledge through direct observation or participation." That describes the process, but in more precise, meaningful terms, an experience is "the conscious events that make up an individual life." They are the stories you tell, the pictures you show, and the things you laugh at and learn from.
So now that I have been very philosophical about gaining new experiences, I will let you in on one that was very surprising and of course a little embarrassing. My life here would not be complete without a few awkward/embarrassing moments (some things don't change).

Our training center for Peace Corps is made up of two rooms. For some sessions, our Health and Education Volunteers split up into separate rooms. The washroom (bathroom) also happens to be attached to the same room where the Education Volunteers have their sessions. Not a big deal. So today I went in and used the washroom (per usual) fixed my skirt, and walked out to wash my hands. I walked out of the room and back to the room where the other Health Volunteers were. As I was walking I noticed something kind of poking me in, well...the behind. I just thought it was a tag sticking out from somewhere and tried to ignore it. I tried to readjust my skirt, but then it started to get pretty painful. I felt the spot where I thought the problem was coming from. To my surprise/horror, I felt something and what ever it was got angry and started biting/stingy even more. Upon realizing that something alive and angry was in my unmentionables I proceeded to freak out. I shouted to the whole room that there was something in my pants and proceeded to sprint out yelling. I ran through the other room and straight into the bathroom. The Education Volunteers were very confused and amused as to why I sprinted full speed into the bathroom. I am sure my "Oh My God! Oh My God!" shouts from inside made it even better. I immediately looked at the troubled area and found a small black wasp literally attached to my derriere. I promptly smooshed the sucker and exited the washroom to explain what had happened. As I would have suspected, everyone laughed and sitting through training was a little more painful than usual. Luckily, I am not allergic to wasps/bees (I can't imagine how that would have played out) and it definitely will be a moment I won't soon forget. I was also reminded of how new experiences can humble us and how important it is to laugh at ourselves. I am, however, still quite perplexed as to how that wasp ended up where it did.

Until next time,

KB