The point is not to change it, and other musings

My last post was basically a life summary, something I feel obliged to give. Trips, project progress, that kind of stuff. This one is different, introspective. Just a warning.


Peace Corps service has given me a lot of time to sit with myself, especially during holidays when I can't lose myself in schoolwork. Things aren't always sunny in sunny Guyana. In high school I had my busy routine to insulate me from loneliness; in college, with my awesome friends, there was no space to be lonely. Here in Guyana, there is nothing but space, time. I've battled with self-criticism and depression over the past few months, and it's been a tough fight, but I think I'm growing stronger for it.

Another thing: the title of this blog is a lie. The point is not to change it. Make change the prize and keep your eye on the prize, and you won't see anything else. Live to fix things, and everything will look broken. I did that for a while, and it was miserable. (Still do it, and often, but less than before.)

So what is the point? The point is to be here, to be as here as I can. And change is part of this, but so are good conversations, so is giving an honest hug, laughter, watching the sunset. I am here when I smile at the baby staring at the strange lady with white skin, forgive the men sipping me because they don't even realize it offends me, appreciate the teacher who showed up to substitute for my summer school class instead of berating the one who didn't.

Being here means that when I realize that I'm wrong about something, I stop focusing on covering my ass and instead look to see how this new information changes the way I'd been looking at a situation. It means turning off the problem-solving voice in my head for a minute or two to just listen. One cannot be a force for positive change without a commitment to deep understanding, and one cannot understand without being here.

I will never give up on wanting things to be better. The challenge is striking a balance between striving for progress and recognizing that the world, however flawed, is whole, not broken.

Yeah, that's the point. But all that would be way too long for a blog title, so we'll leave it as is.

Old news

(Wrote this post almost a month ago, before my trip home. Finally posting it!)


This happened last year, too...where did summer vacation go? It's the end of August, summer school's done, and in less than 24 hours I will be on American soil.

If you recall, my last post was pretty sunny, talking about all of the projects I had planned. A quick update: the girl's camp fell through but will hopefully be rescheduled. The art workshop was a roaring success, and my exercise buddy and I have been meeting sporadically. Summer school was...rough, but worth it. I've never taught kids that young before for any extended period of time. My students were wilder than I expected, and didn't learn their letters as quickly as I had hoped, but they did learn, and they had fun, and (most of the time!) I had fun, too. I'm definitely glad I did it.

My reading home visits have been going well, too...I've been able to conduct them more frequently with my easier schedule, and I found a new interested parent to work with. Part of me wishes I could keep with my half-day schedule during the school year so I could work more with parents! I love teaching, but the goal of Peace Corps is sustainable development, and when I see a parent help her child sound out a simple word (something that I've never seen a teacher do here), I know that's happening, even if it's in a small way.

As for finding a market for the ladies' baskets, some progress has been made, but we have a problem: no more internet in my village. (Long story.) We might get it back, but we might not...and I'm not sure how feasible it would be for the craft center ladies to communicate with a North American retailer without easy access to internet. At this point, I'm leaning towards ONWARDS!! and we'll cross the internet bridge when we come to it.

My visit to Barbados was AWESOME...snorkeled with sea turtles, ziplined, stuffed myself with delicious food, drank fancy cocktails, ran on the beach, got seasick on a fishing boat, and got to spend time with my family.

And then...Mom's visit to Guyana...slightly less awesome. Protests about increases in light bills in a town called Linden, about an hour from my village, turned violent when the police shot and killed three people. As a precaution, the US Embassy blocked the road my village is on for all American citizens. (My village wasn't actually affected at all—Linden is on the highway, we're in the bush!) Fortunately, I was allowed back home at the end of the week, but Mom didn't actually get to come to St. Cuthbert's, which was why she came to Guyana in the first place!

We did go on a day trip to Kaiture Falls, a gigantic and beautiful waterfall in the middle of the rainforest. You can walk right up to the edge—no guard rails or anything, just a sign saying to stay 8 feet from the edge which the guides don't even pretend to enforce. Pictures don't do it justice.

I have two more posts written, and they will post automatically on the next two Saturdays, so keep your eyes peeled!

Projects!

Several volunteers who served before me told me that the first year is the hardest, and that work especially comes easier in the second year because you have more connections, you know your community better, and it's easier to find projects that will really work. Unbelievably, I'm already almost three months into my second year, and as far as I can tell there's some truth in that statement. My first year of Peace Corps service was rife with project ideas that went nowhere. They were good ideas in a vaccuum perhaps, but not in practice because I didn't have the necessary community support. Now, I'm in the midst of starting up a few projects that will hopefully see some success!

Peace Corps Guyana holds a girls' leadership camp called Camp GLOW every year, and last year my host mom's niece, Breonie, attended. She's a very intelligent, motivated and mature sixteen year old, and when I got the idea to hold a Camp GLOW in miniature in my village, I hoped that she could help me with the planning and execution. Well, I announced the camp at the secondary school today and Breonie, Wendy (my host mom) and I have had several planning sessions. If all goes well, up to 20 teenage girls from St. Cuthbert's Mission will be attending a two-day mini-camp the first weekend of August. I'm trying to get as many girls involved as possible and also recruiting a few more women from the village to act as counselors. It won't be anything too formal, but it should be fun, educational and motivational for the girls, and hopefully it's something that could continue next year even if I'm not in the picture. I'm psyched!

Another project—baskets. If we're facebook friends you may have heard about this one. The ladies in my village weave gorgeous baskets and other items out of natural straw, but they sell at low prices...$10 US for a medium-sized basket that could take a woman 2 days to make. ($10 is about the lowest a daily wage gets in Guyana—you know, unskilled labour, police, untrained teachers...) Anyway, I think that these women deserve a real wage for their work, considering that it is NOT unskilled labour and especially because there are very, very few job opportunities within the village. The idea is to aquire a market outside of the US, and I'm currently in the process of locating potential retailers and researching shipping options. I've got a few leads, but this project is barely off the ground. If any stores come to mind that you think might be interested in selling these baskets, please let me know! (Or place an order directly through me! I'm coming home in August and will definitely have room in my luggage for a few extra baskets.)

School's ending this week, and while I will miss my amazing Grade Four students to death, I have plans for remedial summer school for the incoming first graders! There's mandatory nursery school (no kindergarten) in Guyana, so the kids SHOULD know their letters and numbers coming into first grade, but many of them don't. The goal of my summer school, which will be 12 hours a week for five weeks, is to get these kids primed for grade one so they have the best possible chance for success once they start their primary school education.

I'm also doing home visits with interested parents and students to help them with phonics. Private lessons aren't really something that I feel comfortable committing myself to—that's not my role—but if a parent shows initiative and is willing to work with their student during the week, I make myself available to coach that parent in different phonics activities to use for practice. I have 2 parent/student pairs who I'm meeting with weekly, and another two who I visit occasionally. This is another “not too formal” thing—seems to be the best ways to make many projects work here is to not get too caught up in formalization. I like visiting with the families for the social aspect, and am seeing various degrees of progress with the different students—but progress all around for sure!

Running-related projects: the St. Cuthbert's “marathon” (which is actually 11.5 miles, go figure) was about two weeks ago, and I had a group of kids (mostly ages 11-15) who I was coaching for that. It was pretty awesome to have about a dozen “regulars” plus another 10 or so who came when they felt like it, so that on any given practiceday I'd have about 15 students running with me. There was a 3 mile race along with the marathon, and all of my runners were amazing! I was the most awed by the second-place female finisher (I was first place :-) ) who managed to finish the race only five minutes behind me...that's about 9 minute mile pace for almost 12 miles, in 90 degree equatorial heat in the direct sun...she was 11 years old. Girl's a beast. Keep an eye out on the Guyanese Olympic track team for that one. Since the marathon, running's taken a different turn: I have a friend, Lorena, a few years older than me who's run/walking with me at the ungodly hour of 5:30AM (her idea, not mine) to get in better shape. We're trying to get some other ladies involved, and if we can get the interest up high enough, we want to organize a Ladies' 3 Mile race sometimes in the fall, probably. Once again—a project I have an enthusiastic local to work with. Win!

Finally, I can't really take credit for this but a woman I met through a Peace Corps activity is coming to St. Cuthbert's to do an art workshop for a week, and I've been helping her with the logistics end of things. Not really my project but trying to help her get the word out and set up different aspects of it has been keeping me busy for the past week or so.

But busy is good! Typing all of this out makes me feel...I don't know...productive? Useful? Like I'm “making a difference”? At the very least, I feel like I'm doing a pretty good job of making the best of my time here.

I have LOTS of things to look forward to coming up soon: a trip to Barbados in 11 days (!!!), and then my mom comes to stay in my village for the week! After that is my girls' camp, and on August 22^nd or thereabouts, I'll be coming home for my friend Ashley's wedding! I want to see as many people as I can, but I'm only home for 2 weeks so I can imagine how busy it will be, especially with wedding stuff going on. Then back to Guyana and it's September and I only have 7 months of Peace Corps service left...wow.

In a nutshell

I have been in Guyana for one year, three months and three days.  I've been "adopted" by three different host families, spent innumerable hours laying in hammocks, and read something in the neighborhood of 45 books.  I've broken three computers and a phone, developed a love for Banks Beer, and filled a journal and a half with the overflowings of my brain.  I've befriended six Canadians, loved and lost six dogs, and learned to make a pretty damn good fried bake. I've eaten chicken feet, tecumah worm, gizzard, iguana, bush hog, and labba; I don't know how I will survive without pumpkin, roti, dhall puri, fig bananas and fresh pine. I've been within view of Surinam and Venezuela, become a better dancer, and grown a ridiculous amount of curly blonde hair.  I've gotten some crazy tan lines, made a pointer broom, and heard both hurtful and hilarious rumors and half-truths about myself.  I've come to enjoy washing clothes by hand, I've learned to wake up at 6:30 without an alarm, and I found a true friend in a housewife old enough to be my mother. I've discovered frogs, bats, lizards, a tarantula and a snake in my room.  (The snake was in my bed.) I've learned to play trump, been beaten at Bananagrams by people who didn't finish high school, and gone on barefoot runs down a sand road flanked by two dozen children.  I've cried a lot, but I've smiled more. I've taught children about planets and letter sounds and fractions and the continents, and I've taught adults about evolution and how to write a five-paragraph essay and that dinosaurs and humans did not, in fact, cohabitate the earth; but I've learned infinately more than that, about the importance of family, about how to relax and enjoy the present moment. I've learned that culture does, in fact, sculpt who we are, but that our cultural differences are not an end-all but rather a lens through which we can analyze who we are, what we can forgive, what we value and how open-minded we really are.

There are few products but many processes.  There have been many dead ends but other doors are still waiting to be opened, and I have 11 months to open them...I'm not done with you yet, Guyana!

Mashin' it Up, and gender relationships in Guyana

Last Thursday was a much-needed holiday from school, Mashramani.  Mashramani is Guyana’s Republic Day, and the word means “celebration after hard work” in Arawak, which once was the native language of my village.  (Today, Arawak is only spoken fluently by old people.)  I had heard about Mash Day celebrations in Georgetown, stories of a parade, dancing and costumes.  I decided to go and see what all the fuss was about, if only for the “cultural experience.”

This story would be better told with pictures, but since I do not have a camera anymore, words will have to do.  I walked to meet the truck at 6:00 and was surprised to see that most of the 50 people waiting to go into town were secondary school students.  A day with a bunch of teenagers…this could prove interesting.  Our sleepy group piled into the back of Mackey’s giant army truck, and we began the two hour trip to town.

I had thought about trying to meet up with other Peace Corps volunteers in Georgetown, but when we arrived I decided to stay with mission people, so as to ensure I would catch my ride back to St. Cuthbert’s later that afternoon.  We were herded to the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, and the feeling of being a sheep continued for a while...I followed people to a free breakfast, then realized that everyone else was joining the parade, so I would be, too.  We trailed upstairs to a room where we were given hideous, ill-fitting costumes that merged traditional Amerindian wear with Mardi Gras style, and I doled out the “sun cream” I had brought to even the darkest-skinned among the mission girls.  Even by 8:30, the sun was brutal, and we would be seeing much more of it later that day.

After another half an hour of scrambling around to get faces painted and towering headdresses stabilized, we were called to line up behind our float—the parade was about to begin.  Our group, representing the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, included well over 100 people, only some of whom were actually Amerindian.  We were yelled at to stay in our lines and checked to ensure that our costumes were identical as our float and all of those behind it slowly started inching forward, music blaring.  Last year, the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs was the winning float, and I think they wanted us to make a good showing again, though I had trouble seeing how costumes as repulsive as ours could win anything.

At first, most of us were walking, though a few women were eager to dance and began “wining” as soon as we started moving.  Wining is the seductive way in which Guyanese people dance, and it’s impossible to explain. The ability to wine seems to be bred into Guyanese people, since I’ve encountered many four-year-olds who are better at it than I am, and I’ve been told I’m passable.  Wining is in the hips, but then, it’s in the legs and the waist too, and it can be done alone or with a partner.  That’s “wining up on” someone, and it’s basically grinding. Wining up on a guy can escalate into daggering, which is basically sex with clothes on.

When the parade really got going, and walking through the streets turned to dancing through the streets, something I had half-expected started happening: the males amonth the group began moving throughout the lines, squeezing into spots behind a girl they wanted to dance behind…first just the brave ones, but eventually every guy was dancing with (behind) a girl.  Call me prude or culturally insensitive, but I didn’t really want to be rubbing my butt into the crotch of some guy I barely knew while parading around the streets of Georgetown.  I set my boundaries, and they were challenged a few times, but fortunately the generous girl/guy ratio worked to my advantage and the sanctity of my personal space bubble was preserved as we danced through the streets of Georgetown. 

For hours.  Man, by the end my legs were tired.  I enjoyed people-watching from the inside, waving at people who grinned and pointed when they saw the white girl in the parade.  I got quite a few pictures taken of me, some guy yelled “White Amerindian!” in my face, and I even got interviewed.  (The next day some of my students said they saw me on the news.  All innocuous stuff, What do you think about the parade, that sort of thing.)  We reached a stadium at the end and circled in front of the judges as an announcer described the symbolism and significance in our costumes and floats.  A shame, I thought, that this was the first time almost all of us were hearing about what our costumes meant;  a shame, too, that in the group performing a choreographed dance in front of our float, there was not one Amerindian. 

When we got back to the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs, we were exhausted.  More free food, a bit of rest and gaffing, and then the party really started—free beer and liquor, more music, and we could dance without the constraint of lines.  Whatever reputation I had gained as a man-fearing white girl lessened, at least, because I’m much more open to dancing face-to-face with a guy than to “wining up” on one.  And, with a bit of drink and a lot of coaxing, I even opened up to that.  It took some time, but I had a turning point where I recognized that cultural differences of what’s lewd and what’s not do exist.  In Guyana people don’t swim in bathing suits—they swim in their clothes.  Bikinis are becoming more popular, especially among young people, but for the most part they aren’t socially acceptable, and they paint the wearer as lewd.  In Guyana, many people (granted, not everyone) will “wine up” on cousins, coworkers, anyone, and there’s not necessarily an assumption that it is anything more than dancing and having a good time.

I am reminded of a trip to a bar with my good friend Michelle a few months before I left the States. (Shout out to Michelle, if you’re reading!) Michelle and her family are Haitian, devout Christians—and they love to dance.  At one point, she and her brother were dancing in a way that was getting some sideways glances from others in this bar full of mostly white people.  I couldn’t resist but whisper to the guy I was dancing with, “That’s her brother!” I remember laughing as his eyes went wide.  No one would dance like that with their brother…no white person, at least.

I guess the moral of this story is, dancing is just that, dancing, unless someone wants it to mean more.  And I still have to be on my guard, since as the white girl I’m a hot commodity here.  (I watched as 4 different guys I danced with received thumbs ups or high fives from others dancing nearby.)  Obviously I don’t want to be taken advantage of.  Since I came to Guyana, upon the advice of Peace Corps I’ve been extremely cautious among guys, so much so that I’ve apparently earned the nickname “Little Miss Hard to Get” and have been accused of being sexist (neither of these to my face).  It’s hard not to snub men here when they often treat me in ways that I see as disrespectful, or ways that make me feel uncomfortable, like “sipping” (Guyanese version of a wolfwhistle, more or less), catcalling or commenting on my physical appearance in public.  I even had a guy I’d never met before tell me he loved me once (he was quite drunk).  I’ve come to realize, though, that it is the Guyanese way to be blunt about physical appearances, whether that means telling someone they got fat if it looks like they gained a few pounds, or making it known if you like the way a member of the opposite sex looks. 

I do not intend to lower my standards or respond positively to people who make me feel uncomfortable.  I am not entirely opposed to dating a Guyanese guy, but I would never date one who sipped at me, for reasons obvious to an American reader.  I am, however, trying to avoid automatically labeling a guy who sips at me as an asshole and a creep, and instead trying to view them as someone who was shaped by a different environment than I’m used to.  I’m also trying to appreciate the men I encounter who do treat me with respect, because it takes strength of character to adopt that sort of philosophy despite those around them doing otherwise.

Puppies and School

I came back to Guyana to bad news.  Like I mentioned in my last blog post, I was immensely looking forward to seeing my grandpuppies when I got back.  It was a little off-putting to see one of them sitting on the steps as my taxi pulled up to the house, because she was pretty scrawny looking.  No matter,  I thought, and greeted Wendy, my host mom, who had come to the car to give me a hug.  I couldn’t help but ask if they were all alive, and I got a worse answer than I could have imagined—“All but the mother.”

My Lady girl, born right around when I got to Guyana, my sole companion for my first tearful weeks as a volunteer, my running buddy, given up and reclaimed again because she just couldn’t stay away, was hit by a car on Christmas Eve.  She died a few hours later.  Her motherless puppies didn’t fare well after her death—they may have all been alive when I first returned, but the three scrawny ones all got sick and died within the week.  The final two, the handsome Lazarus and Harry, both have new homes and loving 10-year-old students for their new mothers.  For the first time in many months, I never return home to a wagging tail and never hear barking in my backyard at night.  Maybe one day I’ll have a dog again, but not in St. Cuthbert’s Mission.  Keeping a dog healthy and safe in the bush is not an easy task, and I have enough responsibility as it is as a Peace Corps Volunteer.

Speaking of which, onto happier things: teaching!  Our school was extremely short-staffed at the beginning of the term, so I was assigned my own class full-time, the fourth graders.  I love ‘em.  They’re well-behaved, bright, and best of all, so enthusiastic about learning and eager to work.  Aside from the fact that I have to cater to reading levels that range between first-grade level and sixth-grade level, they’re easier to handle than any class I’ve ever worked with in the U.S.  They are constantly brightening my day by trying their best, doing extra work that I don’t tell them to do, working together in the groups I’ve placed them in even though groupwork is a foreign concept to them, and laughing at my dumb jokes.  During a writing exercise I told them to write for a minute about teachers and one girl wrote “I like Miss Kelly and she like me too.”  And, on Friday, we talked about what we had done during the week and two kids independently told me, “Miss, you teach we good!” (Heh…maybe not so much with the grammar…)

Despite that, teaching was rough for my first week or so, because of the aformenetioned staffing problems.  There were several days when our school only had 3 teachers for about 180 kids (and I was one of the three).  Behavioral issues are bound to pop up when the teacher-student ratio is that bad, and pop up they did…but life at St. Cuthbert’s Primary has gotten easier.  Our headmistress, Ms. Bev, deferred her leave because we’re short teachers, so she’s back.  She also talked to a woman who applied to teach a good six months ago whose paperwork still has not been processed by the ministry, and she agreed to start teaching even though she probably won’t get paid for a while.  And finally, a set of volunteers from Canada, four of them, will be living in the mission for the next ten weeks!  They just arrived a few days ago, so I haven’t gotten to know them too well yet, but they’re planning on helping out in the school.  Looks like 2012 is going to be a good year for St. Cuthbert’s Primary School.

Home

I've spent the morning lounging around my good friend's apartment in Philly, chatting with her and her boyfriend about education, philosophy, and superpowers.  Our minds work similarly and I could not be more comfortable, and the part me that recognizes these facts dreads going to the airport in 36 hours.

In the past 10 months, I have missed the ease of living within the culture I was raised, the high probability that I will find many ways in which I can instantly relate with those around me. I've missed having the option to be invisible if I want to be, missed being able to walk down the street without anyone staring at me.  I've missed not constantly worrying about whether what I'm doing is culturally appropriate.  I almost forgot what it was like to not have to judge every plan of mine in terms of its potential for sustainability.  I've missed having clean feet, missed washing machines and hot showers, missed cheese and boneless chicken breasts.  I've missed bagels and pizza and the beach, just like the Long Island girl I claim not to be.    I've missed my adventurous, pretentious, brilliant, honest and funny friends. I've missed my loud, loving, bickering, wonderful family.

Will it be hard to go back? Maybe.  But a few minutes ago I looked out the window and commented on how early it gets dark here in the higher latitudes.  I said, "Back home, it never gets dark before six." And then I caught myself--back home.  Guyana is home.  St. Cuthbert's Mission is home, Wendy and Benji's house is home.  A part of me dreads getting on that plane, but a far bigger part of me can't wait to get home and surprise the people who have taken such good care of me over the past 10 months with American gifts.  I can't wait to see how big my puppies have gotten and find them homes.  I can't wait to start a few projects on my massive list of project ideas, fail though they may.  I can't wait to lay in my hammock on my veranda and watch the sun set, can't wait to have a Banks beer or two with friends and share with them how refreshing my trip to the U.S. was, and how happy I am to be back.