Essequibo Coast - Charity - Pomeroon River

Thursday we headed west from Karla's village. Crossed the wide Essequibo River on an hour-long speedboat ride that darts in between the many islands in the river delta. Then went further west out to a coastal community where Wes (another PCV) lives. Wes has a pretty sweet set-up, with TV and DVD and video games, and we watched several movies that night. He rents from a family who lives above him, and I got to know the daughter, who is in teacher college. Wes made pizza for dinner.

Friday we went to the end of the road, a river market town called Charity. Whereas most of Guyana so far had looked and felt more like the Caribbean or West Indies culturally and physically, here it really started to feel like South America for the first time. From Charity, we took a speedboat up the Pomeroon River to Philip's village, St. Monica's Mission.

The village was on the first hill I had seen in Guyana. There's not much to the village - the health clinic and old clapboard school where Philip works. A few houses, including his, and the pier on the river. When we arrived school was just getting out, and the pier was crowded with cute little Amerindian children. They live further up or down the river, and commute to school by rowing canoes. How cool is that!?

We went out canoeing ourselves, into a tributary to the large river. We paddled through shallow water through the rainforest. It was awesome. The quintessenal rainforest experience. Very cool. We also hiked around the area, saw some of the villgers and their small farms, saw a wooden church on top of a hill where all the villagers come because it's the only place where cell phones get reception. We went swimming in the river at dusk. We made Mac and Cheese for dinner.

Saturday there was a big rainstorm as we were going back down the river to Charity. We hid under a tarp to keep from getting splattered by the painful hard-driving rain. All the way back to Meten Meer Zorg. We went to a Jhandi, a Hindu party and religious celebration, for a woman called Grandma who had been Karla's host during training. There was music on an organ-like instrument and tablas and singing. Then there was the feast - seven curries, all served on a lily pad and eaten by hand.

Sunday morning I was off to the airport and flew back to New York. They'd had a big blizzard and my flight was delayed but I made my bus back to State College in time.

I was really glad that I went to Guyana, both because I got to spend a lot of time with Rustin, and his girlfriend Karla, and because I got a pretty good picture of a new country. Guyana is certainly an interesting place. 50% East Indian, 33% Black, 10% Mixed, 6% Amerindian, and 1% Chinese. People there by and large were very friendly. It's not the most efficient country, but it's got heart and life. The locals will tell you that they like their country because it is "free". Sometimes this means because there are no rules, or because rules aren't very well enforced (for instance, drunk driving is a big problem and rarely punished. People can play loud music and never worry about nuisance laws). This can translate into some real problems with crime. Large swaths of Georgetown are considered extremely dangerous, one of the most dangerous places in the world. There are parts of town where you simply don't enter unless you want to get mugged. Even in the "safe" part of the city, it is possible to get mugged, in broad daylight. Most of the PCVs have been mugged during their time there. Something like 40% of the PCVs drop out before their time is through. But Rustin and Karla have stuck with it. We were riding in a taxi one day with a Muslim East Indian taxi driver. One minute he was telling us how he believes in universal love and brotherhood and understanding. The next minute he was saying that all Blacks are no-good thieves and that they don't want Guyana to develop so they opposed the construction of the new cricket stadium. The Indian and Black populations are somewhat segregated, with the Blacks mostly living in the cities, and the Indians mostly in the villages (with the Amerindians in the remote interior). There is some mixing, though.