Christmas Holiday, Part I

In the Guyanese school system, the Christmas holiday is long...three weeks long, to be precise, and it was an eventful three weeks!

The holiday season was kicked off by the “school party,” which is a tradition in the schools here. Kids pay upwards of $7 U.S. each to come to school dressed up in fancy clothes, stuff themselves with food and get some sort of toy as a gift. (To put that in perspective, that's about a full day's pay for a teacher here. I was surprised that almost all of my class paid!) The teachers and students work together to decorate the classrooms and the chalkboard dividers are removed so the school functions as one big hall. The morning of the school party was a whirlwind spent gathering together the various dishes made by parents and making homemade pizza for my whole class. The party itself felt like it was over as soon as it began—none of the kids liked the pizza (thought the teachers did!) and my attempt at Pin the Nose on Rudolph was largely ignored as the kids clamored for their gifts, but I was pulled aside by several parents who wanted to photograph me with their children in front of the Christmas tree! Most importantly the kids seemed to have a good time, even though almost all of them ran away before the dance party started. (That was fun to watch, too, especially the grade 6 students who you could tell wanted to dance but stood around awkwardly for ages before they actually did. Brought back fond memories of middle school dances. Well, maybe less than fond.)

The very next day was a Christmas concert, and by concert I mean talent show. I rehearsed my third graders to sing Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and 15 of them turned up to have their noses painted red and wear antlers that I spent far too many hours assembling. But it was worth it because they were adorable—wish I had a video but at least I was able to get a picture from a random guy in the audience. I don't think the audience appreciated them as much as I did, though—they preferred the second grade girl who danced “Bruk it Down” solo on stage. Maybe it's just me, but I think singing cute songs in costume is a more appropriate talent show activity for 7 year olds than humping the air on stage? Call it a cultural difference, I suppose.

After a few lazy days in St. Cuthbert's and a night of karaoke in a village near mine, I was off on my first trip, to Wakenam, a small island on the Essequibo River. It's less than two hours away from the capital, and one of my teacher friends is from there, so I decided to visit her for the holidays. Highlights from the trip: eating 3 Guyanese fruits I've never had before (coco, papoose and tamarind—Wakenam has tons of fruit trees!), eating custard made from fresh cows milk (the first time I've had fresh milk in Guyana—the norm here is powdered), meeting lots of Shabana's neighbors and her husband, and getting stung by a hairy worm while climbing a tree over the river (ok, maybe not a highlight but still noteworthy!) My stay in Wakenam was short, only a weekend, and I hope to go back before I leave Guyana!

I came back to St. Cuthbert's for Christmas, which was a pretty laid-back day. Guyanese clean their houses top to bottom for Christmas and some decorate with “fairy lights” or garlands, but overall Christmas is not nearly as huge in Guyana as it is in the U.S. Mainly it's about family and eating—fruitcake and pepperpot (a kind of stew) are the most common Christmas foods, and I got to sample lots of those two foods because I spent most of my day visiting neighbors who I'm close with. I tried to share my own traditional Christmas treat—cookies—but making them without an oven was...tricky. I also attended a wedding on Christmas day, believe it or not!

(to be continued...)

Now THIS is some freaky stuff.

There are many names for it: catching jumbie, antebanta, catching spirit...or, for the pseudo-intellectual who doesn't want to sound backwards, there are euphemisms like “sickness” or “the problem.” In American terms, teenagers at the high school in my village are believed to be possessed.

One girl jumped off a second-story balcony. (She was uninjured.) Others have tried to rip their clothes off, have said strange things, wriggled around on the floor like a snake, claimed to see or feel things that aren't there, or have become physically violent. Most withdraw, some into a completely nonresponsive state. Some cry or feel physically sick.

Bullshit, right? A Westerner might say that these students are simply faking it for attention. One case and it could be epilepsy, but with dozens of students affected, it must just be a ploy to get out of class.

Honestly, I don't know what to believe. The first girl to be affected, months ago, was a student I knew well, and I assumed that it was a psychological issue, perhaps the result of some trauma that no one knows about. When so many students were affected, part of me scoffed at the idea of a spirit controlling what a child does. I didn't take it very seriously. But then I was at the school when a student “got sick,” and I watched him as he laid down and gradually stopped responding to anything, finally arriving at a state where not even his eyes were moving. If he was acting, he needs to be nominated for an Academy Award, because it sure looked real to me.

I encountered it firsthand again today. The new thing now is “little people”...several children have claimed to see people a foot or two tall around the village. THAT I couldn't help but laugh at. Then today, two boys “saw a little man come out of the blackboard” (mind you, another teacher interrupted my class to bring this to my attention, because she didn't know what to do). Subsequently, the boys started acting strangely. They were sent home but came back after lunch, and one boy, about 11 years old, “relapsed.” The teacher came to me, exasperated and probably a little scared. She was supervising two classrooms, the boys' class teacher was absent, and she just didn't know what to do about it. I figured I couldn't just leave the kid freaking out, so I left my class and walked over to find him standing in the sand with tears running down his face while the rest of the class watched on. Uhhh. Peace Corps training didn't cover this.

So I shooed his classmates away, and, agnostic that I am, instructed the kid to bless himself and say the Our Father. I didn't really know what else to do. That's how the Ministry of Education handles it—they send in people to pray for the kids. (One woman suggested wiping the whole school down with garlic water. I'm not sure if that plan was actually executed.)

My proximity to this situation isn't making me believe in the supernatural. I wouldn't bet my life on the non-existence of spirits, but I think it's about a million times more likely that there's a scientific explanation for this phenomenon that we just don't understand. There's apparently something known as “teenage hysteria” that this completely fits into...unfortunately, psychologists aren't too sure about what exactly causes it. (Google for more information. It's pretty weird.)

Anyway, the one thing I am fairly certain about when it comes to kids catching jumbie is that it's all in their heads. So, to fix it, you need to work within their patterns of thought. If the kid believes he's possessed by a demon, make him pray. It worked, sort of—I couldn't get him to walk or talk before we prayed, but he whispered the prayer along with me and afterward I was able to walk him over to the side to sit down. Fifteen minutes later he was playing with his friends again. Kelly Cahill, Peace Corps Volunteer and Exorcist? I need to start carrying around a Bible and a vial of holy water.

It takes a lot of mental effort to not scream “I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AND IT'S WEIRD BUT IT'S NOT SPIRITS!” when people are talking about antebanta. I try my best to be culturally sensitive and only when asked do I share my opinion that it's baffling but, I'm certain, psychological. This afternoon the side of science/reason/logic got some points when the first set of boys who saw the little men (they weren't psychologically affected) were interrogated and admitted that they made the whole thing up. Almost makes me admire the 13-year-olds who managed to freak out a whole village full of adults. Hey, there's not much to do in the mission, they gotta get their laughs somehow...

Amerindians, speaking up!

As you probably know if you're reading this, I live in an Amerindian village in Guyana. Amerindians comprise something like 12% of Guyana's population and live mostly in the interior of the country. They are Guyana's indigenous people.

In the past 50 years modern development has significantly impacted the lives of Amerindians in villages like mine, those with relatively easy access to the more developed coastal areas. Here, houses are made of wood, cement, and zinc, no more roofs made of leaves. A few villagers follow the laborious process to make cassava bread and sell it around the community, but it's not a staple food for most families anymore. Arawak, the native language, is spoken fluently by only a few old people, although fly and bombali, the traditional alcoholic drinks, are still going relatively strong. The extent to which traditional ways of life have disappeared in Amerindian villages varies widely from community to community, and there are surely remote villages relatively untouched by modern development. There are Peace Corps volunteers in places like that, and their experiences in Guyana are vastly different from mine. But in St. Cuthbert's Mission , the idea of living in a “developing country” seems very literal, because I can see it all around me—this place is DEVELOPING, and often that means out with the old and in with the new.

The idea of a traditional culture fading away in the short span of a few generations has an unpleasant sound to it, though it's difficult to put your finger on exactly why. Culture should be preserved because...well, because it's in these people's history, it's part of their heritage, it's something to be proud of, and it's a travesty to see that slip away, isn't it? But if it's not useful anymore, is there really any reason to hold onto it, other than romanticism? The Arawak language may very well be dead in a few more generations, and a language dying sounds like such a bleak event, akin to a species becoming extinct. But if the people in question can still communicate, what's the loss, really?

Anyway, this is all a preface to a specific story I wanted to share...though I'm not there yet. More preface: Guyanese (Amerindian or otherwise) are not known for their political correctness, and for every ethnic group there exists a racial slur or three, often used in everyday conversation. Amerindians are buck people—buck man, buck girl, whatever—and supposedly the term came about because when Europeans first came to Guyana, Amerindians turned and ran like deer. Not the most inappropriate racial slur ever, and many Amerindians use it among themselves positively (as a volunteer, you know you're successfully integrated when an Amerindian calls you buck), but you can see how it could be used negatively, too.

***EDIT:  I had some wrong information!  A commenter informed me that "buck" actually comes from the Dutch word "bok," which means goat. It was a name given to Amerindians for their surefootedness and ability to live on any food and survive.  My apologies! ***

I bring up the term “buck” because, no matter how much the physical dressings of culture change, there are nuances that are more ingrained in the way people deal with the world around them. Associated with racial slurs are stereotypes, like buck people ignorant, buck people stupid, buck people timid. It's that last one I want to touch upon. Imagine the stereotypical Native American—reserved and stoic, doesn't talk much...there's some truth in that in what I see here, especially in people who haven't left the village much. Often you can tell who's lived out of the village for a few years and who hasn't by their demeanor. Once you crack the shell and start to get to know people, Amerindians are can be just as lively as anyone else, but in the public sphere there's a marked difference. For instance, at meetings, the vast majority of attendees come to sit and listen and nod. After the meeting is over, they'll talk and talk to someone they're close to, but at meetings they're like the kids in my class...they assume the role of passive audience, like the kids in my class often assume that their job is simply to copy whatever I write on the board into their exercise books.

The rabble rousers exist, though—and finally I arrive at my point! My school was redone over the summer. We were promised new paint, new floors, and overall a nicer-looking school. Sadly, the contractors, who were hired by our region's Ministry of Education office and came from outside of my village, did an astoundingly crappy job. Forget the messy paint and the doors that won't close cleanly (which means the school is now impossible to lock)--the cement cap on the floor was mixed wrong, and the whole floor is covered in a layer of cement dust that gets all over the kids' clothes and is probably quite unhealthy to be inhaling all day. It can't simply be swept away—new dust comes out of the floor as soon as you sweep.

The teachers complained to each other for a few weeks, and our HM complained to the regional office, whose response was “send a picture.” A picture...of dust? That wasn't going to get us anywhere, and at the rate that region gets stuff done, we were looking at a new floor in a year, maybe, if we went that route. So, as a staff, we decided to take a more drastic step. We sent home the kids one day, called in the parents and had a meeting to discuss the situation. The parents were pretty unhappy with how the school looked and it was discussed whether the parents should keep their kids home to avoid the health hazard and to make a point to region—as in, “You need to fix the school, now, because we can't go on like this.” Fortunately, all that was needed was a phone call to the ministry from an angry parent who threatened to “take the matter further” if something wasn't done immediately (i.e. contact the media)...and guess what? The contractor and someone from Region came in the very next day, with a promise to recap the floor, now! True, this means that for the next three weeks we have to deal with the inconvenience of holding classes in random buildings around the community. But the bigger point is this: outlying Amerindian communities often get screwed over, because they're out of the way and easy to ignore and the outside parties doing the screwing over assume that no Amerindian is going to complain to the higher authorities. But my village proved them wrong when they demanded a school that's not a health hazard—and they got it!

This isn't just an isolated incident. The village election that happened a few months ago was a close race, and the ballot counting happened publicly, which allowed community members to count ballots along with the officials. The official result was not in line with the number that the people were getting, and they caused a huge ruckus and demanded a recount, got it—and sure enough, turned out the people were right and the officials were wrong. There was even a small protest staged in the community concerning that election. Buck people timid, you sure about that?

As a Peace Corps volunteer, I'm not supposed to get involved in stuff like this, and despite my history with politics and my affinity for sticking it to the man, I try my best to comply. All I can do is sit on the sidelines and encourage people to stand up for themselves and what their village deserves, and share in the joy that they feel when they realize that a positive change is happening because, buck or not, they stood up together and demanded justice.   

Ready, set, school!

After two whirlwind weeks home, including a drag show bachelorette party and Ashley's beautiful, fun and in every other way awesome wedding...I'm back in Guyana! Wonder of wonders, our school is actually OVERSTAFFED this year (can't they ever get their numbers right??) which works out OK because one teacher is on maternity leave. So from now till Christmas, I'm teaching grade 3. 32 8-year-olds sounds crazy, but they're a good class to work with, excited to learn and well-behaved, and I'm enjoying teaching them so far.
My village's Amerindian Heritage celebration is coming up soon, which means hundreds of people will visit, get drunk on fly and bombali (potato and cassava wine) and party till the sun comes up. Last year lots of Peace Corps volunteers came in, and some are coming this year, too...should be a good time.

After that, it's Sports Day, which is a cross between an elementary school track meet and a field day. We spend the last hour of school in practice, holding tryouts and marching in formation, three days a week for a month. I suppose it compensates for the fact that otherwise, we have no phys ed...? Kids throughout the school who are not on my team are already trash talking me when they pass me in school.
What else, what else...I'm starting up after-school lessons at the secondary school for kids who are really poor readers (i.e. second grade reading level or below) and the HM is going to work with me on it...she's really interested in learning about phonics, apparently. Win! I've been doing diagnostics this week, so the lessons should start next week. When I talk to the kids one-on-one, they seem pretty interested in improving their reading, which was a surprise but maybe shouldn't have been. I can't imagine how hard it must be for them to go through even just a day of high school with the reading skills of a first grader. I'm a bit nervous that the “cool” teenage mindset is going to take over when I have them in a group, and they'll just goof off and won't take it seriously. I'll make it as engaging and non-babyish as I can, and having the HM on my side should be a help, too.
Having no internet in my village...kinda sucks. I miss talking to people from home. I mean, I'm surviving, and I can handle it much better now than I would've been able to in the beginning, but it's still annoying. It's completely derailed this craft selling project, and also makes applying to grad school difficult. Fortunately I live close to the capital, and I can use the internet on my monthly trip in.
Six months left. Nuts. Now, dear reader, you're just about up-to-date on my life, although this post WAS written on September 20th. Stay tuned for more!

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.