Mum and Dad came to Guyana!

I got back from Orealla and had 4 days to get everything in order, complete an audit of a remedial programme at the University of Guyana, run a course on reading comprehension, clean, wash and buy supplies as Mum and Dad were coming to visit! I was very excited about this and I think most people in New Amsterdam knew they were coming and were also very excited about meeting them!

Monday the 1^st was emancipation day – the day Afro-Guyanese celebrate the abolition of slavery.  On the Friday a lot of people dressed in traditional clothing (see picture below). The 1^st was a public holiday and there were celebrations including dance and special food.

Early Saturday morning I phone the taxi company for a taxi to the airport to be told “you do know there has been a plane crash it was coming from Trinidad”. After a small panic (!!) I found out that it had happened a few hours ago so thankfully Mum and Dad were not on it. They were due on the following flight. I tired to contact the airport / airline to find out what was going on, but this is Guyana so of course I could find out nothing. I headed down to the airport to discover it was shut. After 6 hours of waiting their plane finally came in and landed and it was great to see them.

I received my lovely plate so thank you to everyone who did that – it really meant a lot and now has pride of place on my shelf.

We headed up to Town and I gave them a brief tour going along the seawall, to see the lighthouse and to the parks. The next morning we started out journey to Kaieteur Falls. We took a 12 hour journey to reach where we were staying – this involved 11 hours in a 4 x 4 on a very bumpy road, then a one hour boat journey to Amatuk Island. Amatuk is an island in the middle of the river with two waterfalls either side of it. It was nearly dark when we arrived so we had a quick bathe in the water and got ready for the night in hammocks. The following morning we made another boat trip up the river to our next camp. It had been raining a lot before we arrived so the creeks were swollen and we couldn’t do any walking. The final day we started the OMG1 and OMG2 climb. It was hot and steep but we all managed it ok and completed the climb in 2 ½ hours. We climbed up through the jungle and at the top emerged onto the cliff face to the most stunning view. One way you could see for miles down a large valley with a river at the bottom and the other you could see the highest single drop waterfall in the world (741 feet).

We looked at the waterfall from the different view points and you can stand in the water right by the top. Part of the beauty of Kaieteur Falls is the lack of tourism. There are no barriers – you can stand right on the edge, you can put your feet over the edge of the cliff, you can do whatever you want! There are not many tourists – a small plane load arrived whilst we were there but after they had gone we had the whole place to ourselves. There is a simple house to sleep in, a ranger’s house and weather station.

That evening we sat and watched sunset over the falls – 1000s of swifts flew over our heads and dived bombed behind the falls where they lived. We also got up early in the morning to watch sunrise – everywhere was covered in mist. We saw the famous cock of the rock bird and the golden frog. I also saw a black cat – possibly a Panther. We flew out on the final day and got one last glimpse of the falls. The trip was very disorganised (even by Guyana’s standards) but the beauty and isolation of the place made it worth it. It will look very different in a few years when tourism takes off in Guyana. 

We then went to New Amsterdam for a few days – looking at the Market and seeing where I worked. I had prepared Mum and Dad for all the comments I get when I walk along the street and the sipping noises – but none of it came. In fact people were extra friendly and came and spoke to us about what we were doing. Interestingly when it was just me and Mum walking we did get sipped at and a few comments – I need to take Dad with me as a bodyguard!

Friday night we headed on the boat to Orealla and spent the weekend in the Amerindian community. We came back on Monday and had a few days visiting friends of mine. Everyone made a huge effort and Mum and Dad really enjoyed their time with them. They were fed well and given food to carry back with them! We hired a car for a few days and I got to drive in Guyana – not as bad as I thought it was going to be. The hardest thing is all the animals on the road so you need to constantly be looking out for dogs or cows etc coming into your path.

We went to some schools that were running remedial programmes, a summer day camp at another school (Mum got mobbed by the children when she read a story), and we visited the beach, a sugar estate and just enjoyed seeing the country.

Finally we headed back to town onto Arrow point an eco-lodge a few miles outside of the capital. The best thing was it was excellent customer service (something unknown here) they looked after us and it was good to have a few days to chill at the end! Dad got to go mountain biking with the owner and we caught fish and made cassava bread. We had a beach bonfire and went looking for Caiman at night. We saw monkeys and lots of birds.

There were a few tears when I left them Monday night to travel back home but it was a fantastic two weeks!

It was interesting seeing the country again through fresh eyes. I think a lot of things which don’t bother me now / I don’t see any more did again such as the noise, rubbish speed of the driving etc. But on the other hand it was great to take ownership of the country and show people around. It has made me miss home and reminded me about things from home but that is only to be expected.

At present I am working in Town at NCERD (National Centre of Education and Research development). I was asked to work here by the Chief Education Officer. It’s been nice to be in Town – there is a hotel with a pool next door so I have been going for lunchtime swims. I went to a big concert at the National Cricket ground on Friday – was supposed to be Kartel and Marvado but Kartel didn’t show up. There has been a big feud between these Jamaican dancehall artists. The rumours were Kartel didn’t show up as when he got on the plane as he saw one of Marvado’s dancers and so stormed off or he has been bleaching his face and customs didn’t recognise him. Anyway it was a great night with a great atmosphere. We were warned not to get there before 12 – so turned up at 11.45pm. The warm up act didn’t start until 12.45am and the main act at 2am! We got home about 5am. Was really nice to have the concert outside as it is very hot here at the moment and even at 2am I was still sweating!

I have also been to the hairdressers and got my haircut – I have not blow-dried my hair for 6 months it was strange to see it looking so neat. Though within 2 seconds of walking out of the AC hairdressers it was back up.

A big batch of new volunteers have just arrived – I cannot believe that was us 6 months ago and it is strange to be on the other side. One of them mentioned they had been here 8 days – I can remember when I was counting in days, then it turns to weeks and now months!

As much fun as town is I am craving getting back to my own house. For the past 5 ½ weeks I have been in different places with the odd day back there. I think it shows how far I have come because I really consider it home (something I never would have believed a few months ago).

September will be a busy month with school restarting and I have a few projects lined up to keep my busy! One may be working with the women’s prisons (will keep you posted). Also one of the volunteers I work with has finished so there are now just two of us.

I am also aware how quickly the next 6 months will go – September is booked up with school things, hopefully the beginning of October I will be working in a different region for a few weeks on another project. There are still many places that I want to go and visit.

On a final note – if you can download it / you tube? Watch the BBC’s Lost Land of the Jaguars – will show you what a beautiful country I live in. Guyana has one of the biggest pristine rainforests in the world.

And on that final note the BBC where here a few months ago filming a programme on Guyana with a group of teenagers – I think it maybe to do with Raleigh so look out for it!

I sometimes have access to Skype so if you email me your Skype username I can add you and hopefully speak sometime. 

African dress

Fishing in the sea

Me driving

Mum reading a story

Eating sugar cane

A plane crash from 15 years ago!

Making Cassava bread

The mist over the valley at Kaieteur

Walking on the runway!

We spent 11 hours on this road!

Where I work

I would like to say i was the only member of the Dixon family to catch a fish! We ate it later.

Washing our hair

I love the clouds in this country!

Swimming in the trench - it was a bit murky!

How to have a shower when you have no running water to your house!

Dont look at the pictures if you are squeamish!

It has only been a few weeks since I have last written but so much has happened here – there is never a dull moment in Guyana! I remember when I first arrived that I found the weekends and evenings quite boring as there was nothing to do but now the weekends are always packed and the evenings seems short. By the time I come home from work, maybe go to fitness and then cook, there is time for a little reading or a DVD and it is bed time (9pm – I am so tired by then – I think a mixture of the heat and all the new things your brain has to take in!)

A friend of mine had her great Aunt come and stay a few weeks ago. My friend was quite busy so I did some entertaining. The lady is Guyanese but has lived in the UK for the past 30 years. She was 70 and wanted to come and see where she grew up one last time. (Saying that she was the most spritely 70 year old I have ever met!) We went for long walks and net fishing in the trench. We didn’t catch much just tiny fish but it was interesting to see. Someone also let me ride their moped! She was a fun lady and it was interesting me from the UK showing her around Guyana.

On a sadder note domestic violence is very high here. I read a fact on a UNICEF poster today which said 18% of women think it is ok for their husbands / partners to beat them. One in three women in Guyana has experienced some sort of violent domestic abuse. I have seen a few things since being here or heard shouting, hitting etc behind closed doors but had my first close witness of domestic violence happen to a friend. The police were called but as he had only “pushed her around” at that point they wouldn’t do anything. She was too scared to return home so stayed at her Mums all weekend. She told me she has experienced this for years – I suggested leaving him but that just isn’t an option. I think the worst part is she is such an out-going strong women that it was heart breaking to see her being treated like that and taking it.

It is also normal to hit / beat children here both at school and home. There are guidelines for what is supposed to happen at schools but often they are not followed. I saw a friend hit her child with the pole from a rake the other night. I care for both of them and it was so hard to watch and not know whether to say anything.

Work has been very busy. I thought the summer holidays would mean it would quieten down but just as much stuff goes on. Teachers don’t get proper holidays here. If there is a workshop going on during the holidays they are expected to attend it and if they want to go away for their holiday they have to get written permission.

The past 10 days we (3 VSO volunteers and 1 Peace Corp) have been in Orealla. I think this is my favourite place in Guyana. Firstly it is a beautiful place with a dramatic river by the side and lots of lovely flowers (not seen often here) and wildlife. Secondly the people are wonderful and so welcoming and incredibly friendly.

We left Friday night by boat (well I think it was 3am Saturday morning but I was asleep in my hammock!) We got to see sunrise on the river and got to Orealla about 8am. They took about 3 hours to unload the boat. Everything had to come in by the boat so there are all sorts of random things being unloaded. We then carried onto to Siparuta the next village to leave our school supplies and big bags and caught the boat back to Orealla.

We were all sweaty by the time we got back so we bathed Amerindian style in the water with our clothes – you can have a good wash that way! There are 2 large poles by the jetty and the family’s boys were able to climb to the top and dive in. We went off exploring the village climbing down a steep slope to the waters edge – we left our water bottles half way so we could balance, yet people do this walk with a baby in one arm and a basket of washing in the other! We finally walked up onto the Savannah to watch the sunset – beautiful!

 On the Saturday evening there was Miss Region 6 Amerindian competition. The girls competed on traditional costume, dance, and knowledge of Amerindian language, a poetry performance and a platform topic. The winner will compete in Town in a few weeks against other winners. I will admit we didn’t stay until the end – I cannot do late nights any more!!

Sunday morning we woke early and watched the sun rise. A boat went past to complete the picture! Orealla and Siparuta are 20 mile apart by river or an 8 mile walk. All 4 of us set off on Sunday to walk the track. We saw a huge spider’s web (luckily no huge spiders) but the web must have been 3 or 4 meters long and 2 or 3 high and went back too. At the half way point was a lovely creek. We wanted a swim but didn’t want to walk in wet clothes so decided to do a bit of skinny dipping! Only the parrots to see!

At that point the other two turned back as they were in Orealla for the first part of the week and I and Raquel carried on. At this point the path changed from something easy to walk on into a muddy swamp! We knew we still had 4 miles to go and were hoping it wasn’t going to be like this all the way. The mud went over our ankles and I managed to fall over. There is a picture of me as Raquel kindly took this first before helping to pull me out. We saw 4 huge Macaws fly low over us – they were blue and so beautiful – I have lots of wild parrots here and pet Macaws but this is the first time I have seen them in the wild.

About a mile or so later the path got better again. We walked threw the woods hoping we were going the right way. The path got narrow so we walked behind each other – taking a step I said “that’s a snake” as I stepped over it. Raquel who was behind me said “its heads up” as she stepped over it. This means it was about to strike. The snake we had stepped over is called a Labarria and is poisonous! Needless to say we kept our eyes firmly on the ground the rest of the way! We approached the three hour mark of the walk and began to wonder if we had taken a wrong term when we saw some tire marks – we followed them and hurray arrived in Siparuta!

Monday morning we ran the remedial summer programme at the school so the teacher could observe and get some ideas on how to run it. The summer remedial programme is a 6 weeks programme run in most schools for grade 2-5 students who needs extra support. It was supposed to be on a ratio of 1: 15 but they changed it last minute to 1:25 (elections are coming up!!) I won’t get started on my feelings about this programme – but it is run in the schools so we helped the best we could. In the afternoon I ran a workshop with the teachers on phonemic awareness and phonics. The other volunteer I was with worked with parents on how to support your children in Numeracy. Both workshops went well and we were able to make some resources to support them. After the day we went to the local creek for a cool down swim. We were staying at the head teacher’s house so we offered to cook in the evening and spent a quiet night with the family. Siparuta is also an Amerindian community with a population of 500. The school has 65 pupils at primary and nursery level.

The Tuesday ran a similar course with me running the remedial class in the morning and in the afternoon I ran a workshop on reading comprehension whilst the other volunteer ran a workshop with the parents on how to help your child with literacy. We were aware that a large percentage of the parents were either illiterate or have low literacy levels so did activities which you don’t need to be able to read. Again after school we went for a swim in the creek and washed our hair – very refreshing!

The other 2 volunteers had been working in Orealla and Tuesday night we were due to swap over using a boat. Sadly that morning one of them has been bathing in the river and had had the end of his toe bitten off by a piranha. We knew there were piranha in the water but were told it wasn’t the season for them to bite you so had all been swimming in there. They had to carry him in a wheelbarrow to the medical centre where they bandaged him up. Hopefully long term he’ll be fine but be missing part of a toe! There is a picture at the bottom if you are not squeamish. The people there took very good care of him and a large percentage of the village came for a look! The guesthouse allowed the workshops to be moved to their house to save him walking. We decided it was best for him to stay in Orealla. So we went back in a boat to Orealla. A fun ride in a speed boat, it was dark by the time we arrived and there was an amazing blanket of stars above us!

Wednesday and Thursday we repeated what we had done in Siparuta with the teachers in Orealla. Whilst running the reading comprehension workshop I read a book called ‘My Grandmothers’ benab”. In there it mentioned a matapee. I explained I didn’t know what this was and encourage them to explain it to me (Long slender basket used to wring cassava juice from grated cassava).The teachers then told me there was a Matapee dance and demonstrated it – cannot imagine that happening back home! 

The Peace Corp volunteer who works at the special needs school in New Amsterdam (the only one outside of the capital) worked with a little boy who was deaf. He was 10 and doesn’t go to school as the teachers are unsure how to work with him. He was a very bright little boy and had developed his own communication system. He was very funny and often acted out situations such as burning his mouth with hot chilli or the piranha biting someone’s toe. She was able to teach him American Sign Language and work with his family too. He was quick to pick up signs and what was nice was other children and teachers wanted to learn some too.

On the final day we ran a “School is Fun day”! We wanted to show the teachers a variety of activities you could do with your children which were fun, interactive would make them go wow, all with a few resources. The morning was around numeracy. We did a variety of mental warm ups including using a sock puppet. We played Gladiator, guess my number and blindfolded one of the teachers and others had to direct them. We told the story of the king and his bed, acted it out and then did a variety of measuring activities from it. Finally we discussed open ended maths activities, gave them one to do and got them to make up their own.

 The second part of the morning was around science (thanks Dad for all the ideas). We did the experiment where you put baking soda and vinegar in a rubber glove and watched it expand. We also did the same reaction where we made a volcano and put red powder in it. We put raisins in fizzy soda and watched them rise and fall and finally we did a variety of physical activities and measured our heart rate. We were able to talk about predictions, fair testing and drawing conclusions. The teachers loved the experiments especially the rubber glove one!

The final part of the day was literacy. We spilt the teachers into two teams and got each other to write a treasure hunt for the others with clues which they hid around the school. One team had to write for a grade 2 child and the other for a grade 6 child. The teachers were so competitive and once they started, were running around the school looking for the next clue. The treasure was some biscuit and sweets – much appreciated! We looked at how to write a recount of what had happened.

The day was a great success and we had lots of positive feedback from it.

The second weekend some friends joined us from Town. We stayed up until 2pm waiting for them to arrive on the boat at the stelling. Some other people were also staying at the guesthouse that night too. There was one strange man who had followed us up to the stelling and was carrying a machete – not that unusual here but it had made us a bit uncomfortable.

By the time we got to bed it was 4am. At 5.30am we had a knock on the door by one of the people working at the guesthouse saying something’s had been stolen out of people’s rooms and we needed to check we had everything. Luckily nothing of ours was taken but one of the other volunteer had his Ipod taken plus a few phones were missing from other guests. We were quite luckily as we had not locked our door. Orealla is one of the safest places in Guyana – we had left our room door open most of the week. It transpired that the strange man from the night before had gone into rooms and taken things out. When the other men had gone to bed about 5am they had realised their things were missing. The guesthouse owner had gone down to the boat to where the man was sleeping and found some of them. The other guests had wanted to “sort him out” with a machete (machetes and alcohol do not mix!) but luckily it was removed so the man just got punched instead! All things were recovered and he was taken to the village jail. All the Guyanese guests decided to sit outside our room and discuss the events very loudly so at 6am I decided just to give in and get up! The police them came to tell us the man had escaped from jail by pulling the bars out of the window. About 3 hours later they caught him and he was walked back through the village in handcuffs. I expect he would have got a beating from the police when he got back for escaping! What a night! I felt bad for our guests who had come for the first time to Orealla – we had been telling them what a lovely place it was and they arrived to this.

Most people have a machete here – it is part of life and is needed to clear grass, cut down trees, open coconuts but a lot of people have been attacked by them. It is amazing to watch even young children use them expertly and I have never seen anyone cut something they are not supposed to! Children are amazingly skilled and have great motor control. They are also use to spending a lot of time on their own and are good at entertaining themselves.  

On the Saturday we walked to the creek and went up in the jeep to the back (like last time). We spent a few hours having competitions of diving in the water and swinging on the rope swing. Then we washed our hair and went for a walk in the jungle looking for monkeys. I had a go on the motorbike and sort of drove it into a tree – opps!

We walked back across the Savannah in the dark looking for anteaters and armadillos. We all spread out and one of the girls ahead thought she had heard something. We got to this large bush and could hear what we thought were hog noises. We shone the torch but couldn’t see anything. I sent the little boy with us back for his older brother who told us to wait back while he came with his gun (just in case). We crept closer and he thought it was a bush hog then the others jumped out – Surprise! They got us good – but I don’t feel too bad as the Amerindian guy who has lived there all his life believed them too! Good job we didn’t shoot them! By the time we got home I was ready for bed!

The next day we were invited to a wedding – we didn’t know the people but the whole village was invited, Most Amerindians are Christian and there are several different denominations of churches there. In some ways it was very like a wedding back home, when the bride and groom came out of the church fireworks and firecrackers (which were extremely loud) were set off. Then the whole procession walked to their house led by some men playing music on their guitars. There was a steep hill to climb which the women did expertly in their high heels! When we arrived at the house there were speeches, cutting of the cake, toasts and the first dance. Then enough food to feed two hundred people – huge pots of cook-up rice were served.

Sunday evening we boarded the boat for the journey home – again I ended up on the bottom layer of the hammocks and struggled to get in – at least it was warm. It was a superb 10 days with a lot of great memories!

Treasure hunt

tools to make Casavva bread