Well here I sit almost exactly one week before the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving thinking what does Thanksgiving really mean to me? I have never really thought of it before. One of the things I have come to view differently about my home land is that it is truly a land of excess. Whether it is the supersize portions or the amount of stuff we collect. We are, if we are truthful, a nation of excess. I must confess that I totally bought into it. One reason could be because we can. We are blessed with so much abundance that even in our time of recession, we still have excess, just not as much, which is what bothers us. Examples in my life; never once in the U.S. did I wash out my plastic freezer bags to reuse. They were tossed after one use. Here I wash them not once but until they fall apart. Or have you ever taken all the left overs in your refrigerator and mixed them together to eat and felt delighted that you had something to eat, or even delighted that you had a refrigerator.
Thanksgiving is the appropriate holiday for us for several reasons. As a nation of excess it is the holiday where we eat excessively without guilt, in fact we are encouraged to do so. But in addition I do believe we are a grateful nation and do actually use this holiday to be thankful for all that we have.
Since my last blog I have been totally immersed in my work and other issues at the University. It has also been a time of travel for me in the country of Guyana. Until now I have not had time to do any travel of my choosing inside Guyana because I was so busy traveling to the states. At the end of October I traveled to see a fellow Peace corps volunteer in New Amsterdam over Halloween weekend, another holiday not really celebrated in Guyana. While New Amsterdam is one of the larger towns of Guyana, it pales by comparison to Georgetown. Georgetown having a population of 350,000 to New Amsterdam's 31,000. The town is fairly small consisting of three main roads with about a dozen cross streets.
It has a Mayor and a thriving market. From New Amsterdam you can quickly travel to Suriname, another country
in South America. There are about 5 or 6 Peace Corps Volunteers based there and when I went to visit I had a wonderful time. Being much smaller than Georgetown, it is also much friendlier. The people all know each other and know all the Peace Corps volunteers and want to help them. Unlike Georgetown, where I can honestly say walk 2 doors down from me and I will have no idea who lives there. Being Halloween we did our best to put together some type of costumes, well not our best, as you can tell, but at least costumes.
The week before I went to New Amsterdam I got watch the light parade that is done in honor of the Hindu celebration of Diwali (festival of lights). Cars, trucks and other motorized vehicles are basically wrapped in lights and parade in mass down the main streets of Georgtown. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, others, not so much. Except for the Esiquibo Coast, New Amsterdam was the smallest place I had visited in Guyana. However since that time I have been to Mabaruma, populations 1500. First you must be told
that Mabaruma is considered remote even Peace Corps standards, so you can imagine by my standards.
Who knew that I could live without internet, TV, electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing? It was quite the adventure, cooking by oil lamp, and hearing the bats fly all over the room while your were safely under your mosquito net. That was at night. During the day, the landscape was magnificient. Beautiful waterfalls are a walk away. Mabaruma is comprised of three towns Mabaruma (the regional capital), Kumaka (the port city) and Hosororo (an Amerindian community). There are a number of other small cities in Region 1. The jungle is literally at your doorstep. Watching a picturesque sunset from your front door,
while listening to the sounds of howler monkeys and macaws can be surreal. Many of the houses are literally next-door to the overgrown jungle. There is one road that goes through town. The greatest challenge I noticed for the volunteers living here is lack of accessible communication and total lack of passable roads. Most of the roads are dirt with large potholes, and those are the good roads. Much of your moving about is done on walking trails leading thru various parts of the jungle to small isolated towns. The person I was visiting is a nurse in one of the health outposts and often spends a great deal of time just walking from one house to another. The reverse is also true, any patient needing a nurse must spend a great deal of time and effort traveling to the health outpost, probably while they are feverish or dehydrated.
The food for most meals must be obtained from a market that ranges from 30 minutes away for some to 2 and 1/2 hours for others. Once the food is obtained it must not need to be refrigerated because there is either no power or power only 4 or 5 hours a day. Creativity is a must and most of the time the food is being prepared by oil lamp light. Baths are taken from a bucket in an out door wash house in the most primitive sites, while there are rain water showers in others. There was no question in my mind that while a week was an adventure for me this could never have been my site. This all being said I must tell you what amazing people I came in contact with. People willing to stop what they were doing at any time to help you or a neighbor in need. I
watched people carry a man who could not walk. They carried him on a hammock supported by a tree limb to the spot where transport could finally pick him up. The people also really know how to live off the land.
In the jungle/rain forest a
re some of the most beautiful butterflies and foliage. Bamboo grows wild and to heights of 50 or more feet. The look is spectacular. Much travel must be done on the river since there are few roads and this does limit the quantity of things which can be transported. Finally there are wonderful areas of water to swim in such as the one we walked to on the Sunday I was there, called Hosororo Falls.
While it is a simple hour flight to
Mabaruma, it is on a prop plane, carrying 12 passengers, all of whom must be weighed before the flight and who can carry no more then 20 pounds of baggage.
Traveling there at this time of the year gave me much to reflect on and realize how incredibly blessed I have been. For that and for my wonderful family and friends I will be very thankful this Thanksgiving and hopefully for a long time in the future.
Can not end my blog without out at least one reference to my beautiful granddaughter, Sloane. She is growing smarter and more beautiful everyday. Now she is really something to be to be thankful for.
