Rainy Season Fun

Not too many new interesting things have happened in my life recently. Rainy season began in March and is still in full swing here. The other day it rained so hard, the sidewalks flooded and children were forced to hop gingerly around the school on the heels of their shoes to avoid soaking their socks. On Friday, it poured so hard that I couldn't be heard above the roar of the rain on the corrugated metal roof. And still the storms keep coming. As a result, there has been a lot of lightning. Since the power grid here can't handle lightning strikes, they shut off the power every time there's a thunderstorm. There have been a lot of thunderstorms the past few nights, so I've been going without power a lot. Instead, I wander around the house with my headlamp on. It certainly makes cooking interesting. Caroline and I do it by candlelight. Occasionally, since Caroline does not have a headlamp, she will ask me to look at things or stand next to her if she needs more light. I am a walking street lamp.

In addition to the blackouts, the rainy season has brought fire ants and, if it is possible, even more termites. The table in my bedroom has an ever-growing pile of sawdust under it. I have tried getting rid of the termites with Baygon, a terrible-smelling insecticide, but to no avail. I guess I just have to live with them. Also, I detest the use of insecticides, which has made it easier to give up the fight.

The ants have been even more terrible. Yesterday Caroline and I got home from school to find that the jar of peanut butter we left on the counter was totally engulfed in ants. Really. I took a picture of it. The whole outside of the jar was a mass of red ants. Running from the jar to the window was a highway of them. It was most inconvenient to cook last night, as fire ants always assume that it is you getting in their way. When you make them angry, they bite you, sometimes leaving small blood blisters. This in addition to the blackout last night made trying to get dinner an experience. I did what I could to lure them outside, but it wasn't enough. I would have actually condoned the use of Baygon on those nasty little brutes, but the night before last Caroline used the last of it on a cockroach.

Sunday May 16, 2010

This morning as I was walking across the street to the internet café to check my email, a small group of people, three little boys holding pieces of wood and two men, were standing on the edge of the road. When I looked down, I noticed that they were all standing around caiman, which at first I thought was alive, but which had clearly been beaten over the head. The men explained that the boys had killed it when they found it down in the trench by my house, the trench I’ve repeatedly had to stand on the edge of to fix our water pipe. I asked the boys if I could take their picture with it. They were standing at a cautious distance from the dead caiman and only hesitantly shuffled a few inches closer before doing their best tough-guy poses. I showed the boys the pictures I had taken, the smallest peeping timidly at the camera screen. It was difficult to see the picture in the sunlight.

The caiman was about five feet long with a dark gray-brown back and tan belly. Though its legs were short and squat, it was clear that its muscular tail had been very powerful. I asked the men what they were going to do with the dead animal. One of them rolled it onto its back with his foot and jiggled its stomach with his toe. He said that most of the caiman would not be used for anything, but that people would eat parts of it “from here to here,” he said, indicating with his foot an area just behind its hind legs to the tip of the tail.

The men warned me to stay out of the trench from now on. I told them not to worry and left to check my email. On my way home, the creature was still on its back on the side of the road, but no one was standing near it anymore. I stopped to get a better look and noticed that someone had stuck a stick in its cloaca. I thought this was a rather undignified way to treat it, but I did not remove the stick. Someone was shouting at me from a distance, offering me some of the meat, which I declined. A short while later, someone went out and dragged the caiman away, probably to butcher it.

A few weeks ago a 9-foot-long caiman was caught in a village outside of New Amsterdam, right next to Bohemia Primary School. I heard about it through a teacher at BHS, whose yard it was found in. She said the meat had been used to make a curry and that caiman tastes a bit like chicken, but tougher. Finding an animal like that is not too common around here, so it seems to create a bit of a stir. I will probably hear about this one on Monday at work.

****

Today I noticed that no one had, in fact, butchered the caiman. The (attempted) disposal method was to burn the body on the side of the road. It smells terrible. Still, the biologist side of me wants to go over and visually dissect it. I'm sad they had to kill the caiman, but it makes sense for a lot of reasons--the major one being safety. It's not as if there are animal control officers around here who could have released it into a better habitat.

In other news, there is a bird family which has taken up residence in the wall of one of my classrooms. Here is the baby sleeping (finally). It likes to interrupt.

Spring Break!

Hello again, everyone. I apologize for my extended hiatus. Last term was a doozy for me. It began with me drinking contaminated water and getting so sick I ended up spending a day in the emergency room of the New Amsterdam hospital with an IV. Luckily, Caroline was an excellent nurse and probably prevented me from getting even more seriously ill. The only thing I was grateful for from the whole episode was that it gave me the opportunity to get an inside look at a Guyanese hospital. All in all, this experience, though educational, was not the least bit fun and I do not recommend it to anyone. It had a tremendous impact on both Caroline and me. When Caroline refers to that period of time solely as “the time you were sick,” she doesn’t need to clarify.

Shortly after I recovered, each of the graduate schools I had applied to took turns denying me. Then, I was squashed by a massive workload. I was given three new classes to teach halfway through the term when I was struggling to get caught up with the classes I had missed due to my illness. I was not happy. And that is all the more I am going to say about that.

When Easter Term mercifully ended, my friend Nathan came down to visit. Caroline, John (another WorldTeach volunteer), Nathan, and I traveled around Guyana for the two weeks of break. Our first stop was Georgetown. We stayed at a homey little place called the Rima Guesthouse, which was only a few short blocks from most of the sights of the city. Caroline, John, and I showed Nathan the botanical gardens, the zoo, the national art gallery, and our favorite destination: Giftland. Giftland is probably the only shop in Georgetown where you can buy anything you need from shaving cream to DJ equipment. We also ate at one of the largest, brightest, and most glittery restaurants in town, The New Thriving Chinese Restaurant.

After Georgetown, the four of us took a taxi down to Linden. Linden is mostly known in Guyana as a mining town. One of the first things you see when you enter the town is what look like large towers belching out gray smoke, but the smoke is actually bauxite dust. Due to the timber and mining industries, much of the land in the area has been stripped of large trees. What remains are hills of white sand covered in shrubs. Hidden on the outskirts of all of this, beyond the markets, beyond the mines and the hospital compound, on the bank of Demerara River is the Watooka Guest House. The colonial guesthouse was built by the Demerara Bauxite Company in the 40s, but it is now owned by the government. The large white wooden structure is surrounded by green lawns and coconut palms. Notable people like British royalty and Guyana’s former president, Cheddi Jagan, have stayed there. Now I can proudly add my own name to that list.

When we arrived at the Watooka, the only people there were the hostess, the cook, and a cleaning lady. There were no other guests. We were given a suite that had a mini fridge, air conditioning, and even hot running water! One of our windows overlooked the Demerara and two massive mango trees. It all seemed too good to be true, however the emptiness of the hotel gave us all the distinct feeling we were in the shining. Later, a couple more guests, an Englishman and an Irishman, stopped by. Nathan and I met them in the bar where they bought us a couple beers. They told us that no one stays at the Watooka for vacations anymore—the only reason to be there is if you’re just stopping through on your way to the interior.

Before leaving Linden, we visited one of the Blue Lakes, which are holes created by mining. Even though we were there on an overcast day, the water was strikingly turquoise. For this reason, we suspected chemicals left over from mining had given the water its unique shade of blue. The debate over whether or not it is safe to swim in the lakes because of the chemicals did not stop us from wading in.

After Linden, we went back to New Amsterdam for Easter. Not much happened there. I showed Nathan the school where I teach. The four of us played with the children at the orphanage and flew some kites with them. On Easter Monday, traditionally everyone goes out to 63 Beach to fly kites. Like we expected, most of the region was out there when we arrived by minibus. The kites were flying so thickly, they looked like swarms of mosquitoes.

Finally, we took the advice of the men in the bar at the Watooka and booked a trip to the Amerindian community of Surama. To get to Surama, we got seats on a charter bus with a route running from Georgetown to the border of Brazil on the Linden-Lethem highway. The bus left from a bakery/bar/hotel/internet café/Interserv bus terminal called Jerries at about 9PM during a rainstorm. The trip was slow going, not only because we had to stop and get out every couple of hours at police checkpoints, but because after Linden, the highway is no longer paved. It becomes a curvy, narrow, pothole-ridden red dirt road. I awoke at dawn to the intermittent blasts of the bus’s horn and was annoyed with the driver until I realized he was honking in order to warn anyone who might be on the other side of the curve. If we were to meet anyone on the road, in order to avoid a collision, one of the vehicles would have to pull over to allow the other to pass. At about 8 that morning we all had to get off the bus to take a ferry across the Essequibo River. Finally, at 10, a full thirteen hours after we began our trip, the bus dropped us off at the intersection of the Linden Highway and the road to Surama and continued south to Brazil.

We spent two nights at the Surama Ecolodge, but it felt more like a week. On our first day, we were taken on a short walk through the jungle by our guide, an Amerindian man named Milner. From the main shelter at the “lodge” we looked at monkeys through a telescope. Then, during a rainstorm, Milner took us for a walk through the village, which was two miles away. The first night we were given cabins, called benabs, to stay in, which overlooked the Pakaraima Mountains. In the morning, Milner led us up to an overlook on a mountain on the opposite side of the village from the lodge. He told us that from where we stood to the savanna where the village lay was a greater elevation than Kaieteur Falls. At the top we could hear the eerie call of howler monkeys. In the afternoon, we hiked down to where we would spend the night, the shelter by the canoe landing on the Burro-Burro River. Caroline, Nathan, and I played in the river during a rainstorm. Our guide told us it would be safe as long as we put a stick in the water first to scare the piranhas away. That night we fell asleep in hammocks to the sound of howler monkeys. In the morning, before leaving, we were taken on a canoe ride on the river. I got to see wild toucans, macaws, and a funny little rodent called an agouti.

The day we left, we were driven back to the Linden Highway and advised to be on the lookout for the bus back. Apparently sometimes, if you don’t flag it down, the driver forgets to stop. We were told it would pick us up at noon, but true to form, it did not arrive until 2:30. When we were finally picked up, another WorldTeach volunteer and a few Peace Corps and VSO acquaintances happened to be on the bus. Owing to the good weather, the ride back took only ten hours instead of thirteen. We arrived in Georgetown at about 1 AM and crashed at the house of our field director, Zoe.

That was only a little over a week ago, but it feels like an eternity. The final term of this school year, called August Term or Promotion Term, began on Monday. So far, nothing terrible has happened. I get the feeling this term will fly by. As of today, I only have 88 days until I return home. I’m on the lookout for a job when I return back to the States, so let me know if anything turns up.

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Well, alackaday, as Kerouac would say. The earth has gone a little further around the sun, and Christmas break has come and gone. Though it’s only been a week since I’ve been back in Guyana, I miss everyone at home very much already.

This last term was probably the toughest four months I have ever experienced. The first three weeks of class were a circus—the school did not know I was coming until the day before I arrived; I had no teaching schedule and nothing to do but sit most of the time. On a couple of occasions, I taught lessons with no more than forty-five minutes of warning to prepare. In one instance, I showed up ready to teach a class only to find out Caroline had also been assigned to teach it. When the dust had finally settled at around midterm, I had been given 367 students between the ages of 12 and 16 to teach at least one of five topics. The topics I now teach are as follows: 4th form human and social biology, 3rd and 4th form biology, 3rd form chemistry, and 2nd form integrated science. Depending on the class, I see the students for up to three 35 minute periods per week. With as many as fifteen different topics on the students’ timetables, I feel lucky I’m given any time at all.

In the Guyanese school system, the students are divided into classes of about forty. Each class is given a number, a letter, and a classroom. The number is the level of the class and, for the first three years of secondary school, the letter is arbitrarily assigned. At this stage, all of the students take the same classes. When the students reach their fourth year of secondary school, they are split off into “streams” according to what their job aspirations are. The letter assigned to their class is the first letter of the name of their stream. At Berbice High School, the streams the students choose from are agriculture, arts, business, general, science, and technical. At this point, their lessons become more specialized to their streams.

On top of my teaching duties, I have also been made a form teacher, which is basically a homeroom teacher. The class I have been assigned is 5T, which is to say, the fifth form technical students. My general duties are to take attendance every morning and afternoon, give announcements, keep the students’ records updated, and make sure they keep their classroom clean. 5T is generally a good group of kids, though sometimes I swear they are trying to give me gray hairs at the age of 23.

After a rocky beginning last term, I expected to start this year off feeling energized and ready for anything. Unfortunately, the past week has gone by more slowly than I expected. Shortly before I left the US, I learned that due to personal reasons Moses had to return home for the remainder of the year, leaving Caroline and me with a vacancy in New Amsterdam. Late Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, she and I were attacked by an unexpected case of food poisoning. We were forced by our stomachs to stay totally bedridden for the rest of the day. It was the first time either of us had been sick since we came to the country.

Still, the setbacks have only been minor. Things will get better once I get back into my routine. Despite my love of snow, I also find it heartening that at the beginning of January I do not have to wake up before light to scrape a thick layer of ice off my windshield before creeping cautiously off to work. Things in Guyana aren’t so bad after all.

63 Beach

63 Beach is a stretch of hard brown sand that meets the chocolate brown water at the junction of the Corentyne River and the Atlantic Ocean. The wind blows continuously off the water packing the sand, which is as fine as flour, into a surface nearly as flat and hard as concrete. Peering into the distance, one can just barely make out the black treetops on the coast of Suriname. Although not considered as picturesque as the white sand and blue water found in other Caribbean countries, the beach is a major tourist destination in Guyana. Every weekend, families park their minivans just out of reach of the waves and go for afternoon swims while behind them men in sports cars or on motorcycles race.

Caroline and I made our first trip to 63 Beach last weekend with a VSO friend who says he has made the journey “loads of times”. Traveling by minibus in early afternoon, we made our way from New Amsterdam curving north and then southeast along the coast, through Good Hope, Leeds, Benab, Village 62, and a variety of other small towns. The beach is not geographically far from New Amsterdam, only about 30 miles if one were to cut through further inland, but because the only road there hugs the Atlantic, our trip was stretched to over an hour and a half.
Unless one has a car or a lot of money, the preferred way to travel long-distance in Guyana is by minibus. Most of my students catch them daily to get to and from school, but for me, riding in one is more akin to playing an extreme sport. Although exhilarating, it is not something I want to do more than a few times in my life.

Minibuses can most accurately be described as sardine-can deathtraps on wheels. To maximize profits, the 15-passenger vans have been known to cram 30 or more people aboard. They travel at speeds upwards of 70 miles per hour on pothole-riddled roads, somehow negotiating cattle and feral dogs. The stink rising from 30 sweating bodies in the unconditioned cab is unsuccessfully masked by bundles of pine tree air fresheners hanging from the ceiling. Reggae music and horn continually blaring, complete strangers sit practically on each other’s laps using the noise to ignore each other.

Still, traveling for the first time by minibus was liberating for me. I finally felt like I was getting the true Guyanese experience. We averaged 24 people on our trip—as soon as one person got off at some middle of nowhere destination, another always got on. They always seemed to know exactly where they were going and how much they owed the driver, even though there seemed to be no clear system for calculating fares. Arriving at my planned destination and paying the correct amount felt like a success in itself.

From the edge of Village 63 we caught a ride in a Tapir, a small box-like van and the only automobile made in Guyana, to the middle of the beach. The three of us settled in a spot where a large log had fallen and hard wet sand met powdery garbage-covered dunes. Nearby, a dilapidated shack was dissolving slowly into the ground. We put down our things and scanned the horizon. A man and a woman were selling food and drinks from a light blue horse-drawn cart. My VSO friend and I bought a snack before Caroline and I braved the salty brown water.
Like every afternoon in Guyana, that Sunday’s was warm and pleasant. After swimming for a while Caroline and our friend built a sandcastle while I explored the dunes with my camera. The area around the beach is undeveloped, though a few small businesses have sprung up, calling themselves resorts. Where we had put our things, there was not even a road nearby. It was refreshing to be able to experience a little of the natural beauty of this country without the intrusion of car horns and loud soca music.

On our walk back to the main road to catch a bus home to New Amsterdam our friend stopped at a stand and bought a coconut. The milk from a coconut is a refreshing drink that tastes like thick lemonade. It is consumed straight from the husk, which has had the top hacked off with a machete. Tired and sun beaten, we at last caught a bus. I stared at the countryside until it was too dark to see.




A shadow has been cast over my day at the beach: on Monday, Caroline and I received an unusual text about remembering someone who had just died from a friend who lives across the street from our house. It was not until Tuesday, when we saw an article in the paper, that we made the connection between this poor kid and our trip to 63 Beach. Apparently, just as the three of us were leaving the beach, 16-year-old Vivian Singh and a 15-year-old girl he was there with were attacked. The two had stolen a watermelon from a field near the beach and were subsequently beaten by the farmer with a length of bamboo. The two kids were rushed to the hospital where the boy died of his injuries. Singh and our neighbor both graduated from New Amsterdam Multilateral Secondary, the school where I live.

Hey Whitey!

“Miss, miss, hey! Miss!” “Whitey! White girl!” “Hello, blondie.” “Hey, Sunshine!”

These are some of the nicer things called after me everywhere I go. Men sitting in their taxis and fruit stands, or walking down the road yell tenaciously at me as if their lives depended on my propitiatory sideways smile. If I ignore them, they make sucking noises until I look in their general direction. “Afternoon,” I reply each time, with a slight wave and a grimace.

I do not understand the urgency with which these men seem to need my attention. It is as if they expect me to stop what I am doing, even to neglect to steer my bicycle, to respond. Where I am from, saying hello is supposed to be a courtesy, not an inconvenience. Furthermore, though I am unusual-looking with my white skin, I am nothing in terms of beauty in comparison to many of the women of this country. Some of the most beautiful women I have ever seen are Guyanese.

I finally began to understand the importance of looks several weeks ago when Moses, Caroline and I went to Georgetown for the weekend to get our work visas stamped into our passports. We stayed in the house of another two WorldTeach volunteers, a large townhouse apartment with exposed timber framing and hollow-sounding wooden floors. It was exciting to get the chance to reminisce, commiserate, and share a few experiences with fellow volunteers.

That Saturday was my birthday, which made the day feel special despite the lack of any particular celebration. I celebrated by going shopping with Caroline and Zoe, my field director, in Bourda Market, which is one of the two big open-air markets in Georgetown. The other is Starbroek, which we were told it was unsafe for foreigners. I felt rumpled and dowdy in my hastily packed clothes. It was difficult for me to find anything in the high-fashion shops that suited my somewhat simple taste. That is to say, there was nothing in earth tones or without some sort of gaudy embellishment. Although the day of shopping was relatively unsuccessful, being back in the city somehow felt a little like going home.

That Sunday, I awoke, 23 years old and no longer my birthday to make it special. I’m 23. Just 23. Caroline was fluttering around me outside of the mosquito net we had shared, preparing for her day trip to Kaieteur and Orinduik Falls. A little sad I could not afford the trip, I consoled myself by gathering my computer and walking the few familiar blocks to my favorite coffee shop in Georgetown, Oasis. On my way to the air conditioned café, I heard the occasional catcall and felt a few stares. I laughed to myself about the attention I was drawing: I am short and always a bit disheveled. My skin is now a light golden-brown, but compared to Guyanese women, I look sickly pale. At the time, I was sweating profusely and my sunglasses kept sliding off my nose. When I finally reached Oasis, I noticed a patch of sweat blooming out from my navel like a Rorschach blot. I thought about how much I contrasted with the beauty pageant contestants I had seen the previous weekend.

The weekend before our excursion to Georgetown, Caroline and I had gone to the Miss Sari Beauty Pageant at a fairground in Canje, north of New Amsterdam. At the pageant, young girls ranging in age from thirteen to their early twenties were to compete at the skill of modeling those long, intricately embroidered lengths of silk. The atmosphere of the event itself was much like a county fair in Iowa, except there were no rides, corndogs, or livestock. A stage draped with streamers and flanked by towers of amplifiers was set up at the far end of the grounds, opposite the stands by the gate. In the field between were brightly colored tents sheltering barbeque stands, beer vendors, and carnival games.

Unsure of when the event was actually going to begin, we arrived early in the evening, shortly after the gates opened at 7:30. We had to yell to each other over the medley of American pop and Indian rock music thumping from the stage as we waited. In typical Guyanese fashion, the actual modeling of saris did not begin until almost midnight. I stood in the audience, just in front of the massive subwoofers, which blared the same clip of music for each of the eight contestants as she paraded across the stage. One by one, the girls strode by, glittering with gold hanging from their ears and around their necks, embellishing their saris, and even woven into their hair. I was struck by their transformation from young students in crisp white shirts, long pleated skirts, and Mary Janes to ageless golden statues.

Although amazed by the appearance of the pageant contestants, the largest impression was made on me that night by the crowd, itself. Overwhelmed when we first arrived by the mass of people, Caroline and I decided to sit in the stands for a while to observe. Uncertain of whether or not the pageant was going to be a formal affair, she and I had agonized over what to wear. We settled for slightly nicer clothing than usual and were afraid we might be overdressed. People-watching in the stands, we were relieved to find we had nothing to worry about: the Guyanese put a great deal of emphasis on appearance. Rich or poor, it’s impossible to tell the difference. They are all dressed up, all the time.

With image being so highly valued, I have often wondered why out of a crowd Caroline and I, as well as other volunteers, seem to draw so much attention. It isn’t that we’re particularly attractive or even dressed as well as the locals. I have come to the conclusion that it is because we look shockingly different. Where I am from, this idea would have never sunk in properly, as I had never known what it was like to be a minority. However, the other day I was looking out over the edge of a balcony at school when I saw Caroline crossing the grounds with a group of students. In comparison to their uniform darkness, she practically gave off light. We are like those queer fish with translucent skin living at the bottom of the ocean, out of the sun’s reach. When we are seen unexpectedly, we surprise people so that their only reflex is to let out a yell.

Climate Change

View from my front door on a smoky Saturday afternoon.

The lifeblood of Guyana is its rivers. Though the dark brown waters are not bordered by white sand like other parts of the Caribbean, they are, nonetheless, striking. Several waterfalls are located in Guyana, including Kaieteur Falls, the largest single-drop waterfall in the world. More than just for sightseeing, in a country with few well-paved roads, the rivers are highways to the interior. For the Amerindian community, canoeing is a major form of transportation. For the communities on the coast, the rivers are important shipping routes. Being such an important geographical feature, Guyanese are proud of their rivers and love their bridges, especially the new floating toll bridge, which traverses the Berbice River. A couple of weeks ago at an assembly I even heard the Guyanese mention some rivers in a patriotic song. To the tune of This Land is My Land, they sang “From the Rupununi to the Corentyne, this land was made for you and me.”

On Sunday morning, Caroline and I went for a bike ride, traveling north of the Canje, a tributary of the Berbice which bisects New Amsterdam. When we reached the huge arching concrete bridge, like the men who cycled ahead of us while carrying weed-whackers and plastic racks of bottles, we had to dismount for the walk to the top. The exertion from riding up the steep slope in the sun caused me to sweat; my heavy tee-shirt clung between my shoulder blades. I savored the steady wind blowing over the river as I took in the view.

The top of the bridge is possibly the highest elevation I’ve been to since I arrived in Guyana—it provides the best view of New Amsterdam. I was unprepared for my first sight of the Canje, though I’ve crossed it by car several times. The main part of town runs parallel to the Berbice, obscuring any view of the water, so it is easy to forget there are even rivers there at all. For the first time, I got a real sense of how flat this country is. Spread out below were dilapidated wooden houses, palm trees, and fields of rice and sugar cane. Like in Louisiana, much of the country is below sea level and continues to sink as more land is carried out to sea. Though the vegetation along the river was a rich green, the further from the water, the more the grass looked parched and brown. Smoke and dust clouded the air, making everything in the distance look pastel.

Saturday night, Moses, Caroline, and I had gone to a small gathering of volunteers at a VSO’s house. We all got to talking about the market and how to get the best price for your produce: the way to do it is to go to the same vendor every time. To keep your loyalty, the seller will cut you deals. Unfortunately, I found out, because the rainy season never came this year, produce is much more expensive now than it had been even in the recent past. The price of tomatoes has jumped from about $60 a pound to over $300 since our host arrived. I thought about the price of tomatoes as I looked from the top of the bridge at the dusty landscape.

They say global warming is the cause of the new weather patterns in the country. Although this is a country is approximately 80% pristine rainforest, there has been little rain since I’ve lived here. I have heard some say that countries closer to the equator are more vulnerable to changes in global climate. After only being here a month and a half, I am beginning to believe from firsthand experience that this is true. On Monday, I was sitting at my desk in the staffroom at school when I noticed the sky begin to darken in the distance. It was not a rainstorm, but a massive cloud of dust. The wind began to build and kicked up sand from the cricket field, blinding and choking me as I tried to teach my afternoon lessons. Today we finally had rain. It came down in torrents during the mid-morning cricket match, but had mostly dried up by early afternoon. Although the rain helped, this country has a long way to go before it makes up for the recent lack of precipitation.

Though many adults have noticed the changes in the weather, my students are blissfully ignorant of the rapidly occurring changes in their climate. From my perspective things seem ominous. In my human and social biology class, I did an activity in which the students were to pick a social or environmental problem in Guyana, predict what could happen if the problem is not addressed, and explain how we might use our understanding of science to help fix the problem. Many of the students picked global warming as their problem. I quickly learned the children here do not have a good understanding of the causes of global warming. One even asked me: Is global warming because the sun is moving closer to the earth, or because the earth is moving closer to the sun? I was flabbergasted, but tried to calmly explain about greenhouse gases. He did not know what a greenhouse was.

In addition to not understanding the causes of global climate change, the students could think of little wrong with the prospect. I reminded them that Georgetown is currently eight feet below sea level and is only being protected by a seawall. They must feel too at home among rivers, because when I informed them that if global warming continues and the ice caps melt, much of the coast, including Georgetown, will flood, they did not seem terribly concerned.