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.