Sept - March World Travels

A Little Late But the Final Blog Entry

2010-03-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

Alright friends, even though I have returned already for 11 days I did not officially complete the travel blog so here it goes...the final 5 days.

Our last full day in Marrakesh included a trip to yet another palace...they all kind of start blending together despite the fact that they are pretty. Following that we went to the Majorelle Gardens a far more appealing gardens than the ones we went to the previous days. The only problem was as we were standing in line we noticed we no longer had the button for the camera that allows you to take picture so we had to use a pen to push down on the tiny button within the big button that actually takes a picture. Pretty ghetto but at that point we really didn't care that much.

The afternoon was spent doing some shopping, getting hit on by a man (told me I was a very handsome man and made no comment to Nadine), and bargaining some of the ludicrous prices they were asking. One of the friends we met joined us for some dinner and drinks on our final night in Marrakesh.

The following morning we got up and took a "first class" ticket to Casablanca via the train. It was like $7 extra dollars and it was a six person couchette, hardly first class. The drive was really quite nice scenery-wise. We arrived in Casablanca mid afternoon and just walked along the coast line towards the main Mosque (Hassan II) in Casablanca which is the third largest Mosque in the world behind Mecca and Medina and one of the few that actually allow people inside. We didn't go in on that day (we went in on our last day) as it had closed for prayers.

The next morning we decided to take a city tour after going to the tourist office. We were expecting some professional looking guy with a car of his own but it was a really nice older gentleman with one tooth and who had to order cabs everywhere we went. Not the most professional seeming but the guy was great and the tour was interesting (by the way the guy's name was Lucky). The tour took us to the new medina (we were staying in the old one), city hall, royal palace, through the European part of town, and again to the Mosque. We then went to Rick's Cafe which is designed like it is in the movie Casablanca. They have it playing all day long and we sat and had a crazy expensive drink in the room.

Our last day we took the tour of the Mosque which is really amazing inside. It took 6 years to build which is quite something given it's size and intricate nature of the design. All the products are Moroccan except for some Italian marble which is pretty neat as well.

After we headed to the lighthouse along the coast and then walked around the souks in the old medina in the afternoon. We just packed up after dinner and had our last sleep before our return.

The route home was pretty clear sailing except for the 5 babies all around us on the flight from Paris to Toronto who didn't stop wailing for 8 hours. Really didn't make me want to have kids but anyways that's besides the point.

That is all for this blog. Hope it wasn't too boring to read those of you who read most or all of it. Maybe one day I'll get to do this again.

Victoria Falls to Marrakech

2010-03-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Here is my massive blog since I owe everyone about 2.5 weeks worth so get ready!

Nadine and I arose at 4am from Cape Town to catch our 2 flights that eventually took us to Livingstone, Zambia, host of Victoria Falls. After being back in the developed world for almost 3 weeks we returned to the land of the developing.

We checked into our hostel which was full of British teenagers enjoying their gap years between high school and university. Let’s just say we felt slightly old despite our young age. We decided to take the Booze Cruise on the Zambezi river our first night and to our surprise and delight these British teens joined us for the adventure. Not quite at the stage where they can hold their liquor, the lot of them got pretty inebriated which culminated with one of them smacking their head on the ceiling walking down a flight of stairs and nearly falling all the way down.

The next morning we headed over to Victoria Falls which are twice Niagara in height and about five times in width. They are quite something but because they are so huge when you go to see them you get completely drenched and most people, including us, are forced to rent ponchos. Also due to their size it’s hard to see the whole thing at once unless you take a helicopter or microflight and those are wildly expensive. Either way they are still worth it.

In the afternoon we decided to simply walk around Livingstone and try to get involved with the people a bit. Nothing really exciting happened so I won’t dwell on it.

The next day we were scheduled to fly out of Zimbabwe so we took two cabs to get to the border because they have special cabs that zip back and forth over the bridge, a rather annoying feature. The view of the falls from the bridge though is really amazing and is almost better than within the park. We got to immigration in Zimbabwe and had to get a visa just to go to the airport to fly out of there. We were told all along that it would be $30 but upon arrival we were told that is was a ridiculous $75. Basically we were paying $75 to travel 15 minutes to the airport and fly out. We argued for awhile but felt that if we (and by “we” I mean “I”) continued to fight there would be a good chance we’d end up in a Zimbabwe prison, which is not exactly on my bucket list. Anyways we paid, the flight was delayed an hour and we eventually made it to Jo’burg.

Jo’Burg was really just a stopover but it was the night of Canada’s gold medal win over the US with Crosby scoring in OT which lead me to be really happy and angry at the same time…happy of course because they won, but upset because I missed it.

The following midday we left for Dar Es Salaam. Upon arrival to the airport in Dar we apparently walked into an attack of locusts filling out our entry forms as did everyone else on the plane. It was quite the scene people filling out their forms and flailing around getting rid of these flies. We went to our hotel for the night and woke up early to get to the airport for 720am to leave at 920am. Upon arrival the lady behind the desk said your plane has been cancelled until 530pm. She says and I quote “We told the locals about the time delay, are you a local?” To which I had to restrain myself maybe more than I ever have in my whole life from saying to her “Do I look like a local to you being that I am white and EVERYONE else is black.” We went back to the hotel where they let us stay til the flight at 530pm which we got on and I kid you not the flight was 15 minutes gate to gate!!

We got to Zanzibar and had our hotel in Stone Town which is a really interesting part of Zanzibar with really narrow roads and buildings that have that Middle East feel to them. Our first full day we took a spice tour which is when they take you to a forested area and you walk around smelling and tasting all the different spices that come from trees and leaves and roots. At the end there is a full tasting of all the edible spices and fruits. After we headed to what Zanzibar is known for…the beaches!! They are the typical white sand beaches with tons of bungalows all along for accommodation all with restaurants and bars. Pretty nice! Our GAP trip provided nice rooms though the electricity in Zanzibar has been gone for 3 months so they are all running on expensive generators so at 2am they shut off the fans and I have never sweated like that in my life….seriously.

The next day we went on a snorkeling trip where a rickety boat takes you to the reef which is 2 hours away. The trip their sucked, but the snorkeling was unreal, really unbelievable fish. On that trip I was wearing my Habs hat and this guy started asking me if I was from Montreal. Turned out he was from Vancouver and was travelling Africa. But he also told me that he had been travelling in Guyana for 4 months the year before. He’s probably the first white person I’ve ever met who simply travelled to Guyana not working. We had a fish cookout on one of the beaches before heading back to our lodge.

At night we went to a restaurant called Cinnamon in which as one of their meals you could get a Cinnamon Club Sandwich. I made a bet with one of the girls on the tour that the club would have a hint of cinnamon which to me made perfect sense. Unfortunately I was wrong and lost $10 but the meal was good none the less. We went to another bar afterwards and paid the local Massai people to perform one of their crazy jump dances. Kinda cool and also kinda terrifying. Went for a little slightly inebriated late night dip in the pool at one of the fancy lodges and promptly got kicked out which pretty much ended that night.

The next day we relaxed on the beach and headed back to Stone Town to sleep for the night before heading on the overland part of the journey. We went to a market for dinner which is just hundreds of little stands selling all different types of food. It’s all lit up and is pretty cool to see.

The next morning we took the two hour ferry ride to Dar. They showed movies which was sweet except they started off with the second Fantastic Four movie from the halfway point finished that one and put in Spiderman from the beginning so basically we watched two halves of two separate movies. And there were subtitles in really terrible English from movies that were playing in English. Couldn’t quite figure that one out. After the ferry we embarked on a 10.5 hour overland journey to Moshi in the GAP truck which I’m pretty sure has no shock absorbers so needless to say you are bumping up and down pretty hard. It’s actually kinda funny. We made it to the campsite around 830 and pretty much passed out immediately after dinner.

The next day we made it to Arusha around midday which is where they signed the “Peace Accords” for Rwanda in 1993 prior to the genocide. The campsite was pretty cool as there was a Massai museum which is the local culture there and there is a snake and amphibian/reptile park within and I got to hold a snake for a little while. So did Nadine but I don’t think she thought it was as cool as I did.

The following morning we were picked up in 4x4s and we made our way to the Serengeti. We passed by the Ngorogoro Crater Rim which we would return to the following evening. The Serengeti may have been my favourite part of the travelling portion of our time away. We were able to see all of the Big 5 which includes Elephants, Lions, Leopards, Buffaloes, and Rhinos (every time I see a Rhino I think of Bebop from the Ninja Turtles…anyone?!?). We saw Simba’s Rock from the Lion King though I think they made that up after the movie, but regardless. The end of the first day our leader, who was in the truck with us, decided he wanted to start having a few drinks. So we “uncorked” his box wine, fashioned a glass out of the bottom of a water bottle, and Nadine made a straw out of an old pen because it was very bumpy and you would cut your lip of you tried to drink from the glass directly (as I can attest to). Needless to say that night got a little out of hand.

The crater rim was actually as cool as Serengeti because it’s just this massive land mass that is literally a crater from an exploded volcano millions of years ago. It has tons of the animals as well and it’s the only place you can find the rhinos.

We headed back to Arusha for our last evening before departing for Kenya the following day. After spending a whopping 2 hours at the border with our group as they handwrote each and every visa (ridiculous!) we made our way to Nairobi. That drive was 7 hours, followed by an 8 hour wait for the overnight flight to London, then an hour drive across town to a different London airport, than a five hour wait for our three hour flight to Marrakech, Morocco (36 hours in total from Arusha to Morocco!).

Marrakech is an interesting city as there is a massive market in the Medina part of the town which is really quite something. Hundreds upon hundreds of shops, restaurants, etc. line this biblical looking city. We had dinner there our first night and then fell asleep due to complete exhaustion.

Saturday we went to the Saadien Tombs which were pretty neat. However we found this shop that sold hop on hop off bus tours tickets. We bought a 48 hour pass from this woman and went to the stop after the tomb. We waited for 35 minutes for the bus to come before we returned to find out what was going on. After some arguing (obviously coming mostly from me) she told me that the bus didn’t run on Saturdays to which I replied why the hell didn’t you tell me that in the first place and why would you sell me this ticket!! Needless to say we got our money back. (oh and by the way turns out the tour company has been out of business since last week, I think they may have forgotten to tell that woman). We checked out the Royal Palace afterwards before heading back for some rest and then dinner.

Today we checked out the Marrakech Museum (lots of art), the large Koranic School followed by one of the baths. Then after a ludicrous search for another old palace we checked that out as well (nothing is labeled in Marrakech making it extremely frustrating to find anything and we all know how well I deal with frustration ). We then had lunch and walked for an hour to these gardens which have trees from the 7th century. Not overly pleasing on the eyes but a large local hangout.

Anyways that’s it for now and I’ll probably write one more blog entry from Casablanca before we return on Friday!!

The Rest of Barcelona and all of Cape Town

2010-02-26T05:25:00.000-08:00

Ok so I’ve slacked off big time over the past 8 days but it’s been a bit of a whirlwind and does not seem to be slowing down any time soon (though we do return in 3 weeks).

So a team consisting of me, Nadine, and two other Canadians ended up winning quiz night and in the process winning 125 Euros to be split between the 4 of us. Not bad considering most teams had 8-10 people (it helped that there were three questions concerning Canada including “In which country can you find the township of Dildo”…answer, Newfoundland, Canada)

Nadine and I took our share (which were really 5 Euro tickets to be used at designated areas) and spent the next day doing a bike tour around Barcelona with the guy who ran quiz night (an Australian guy who was supposed to come to Barcelona for 10 days and stayed 9 ½ years). The bike tour was great and I got to ride what looked like a chopper bike in the sense that I was sitting like I was on a Harley. Stopped for some 1 Euro wine and tapas during the tour which wasn’t too bad either. We did the Picasso museum as well which was a little better than the one in Paris that I did the last time I was in France. At night we went for a Spanish cooking lesson and made Sangrias and Pailella.

Friday we went up to one of the hillside areas of Barcelona mainly so I could see the Olympic stadium and everything that was built around it to spruce Barcelona up in 1992. Most locals will tell you that the place had not been restored since Franco destroyed in during the Spanish Civil War in 1936, and the Olympics was the catalyst for it. The National Palace and other monuments surrounds the stadium and the swimming pool and it sits in a great setting on top of the hillside.

Saturday our day was basically dedicated to Antoni Gaudi the famous Spanish architect as we first went to his unbelievable park that sits on the other mountain-side area of Barcelona. We then went to two of his buildings in the city which stand out immensely and we went in one of them. The architecture is very unique and is heavily influenced by his absinthe drinking. We topped it off with the Sagrada Familia church which we had seen the outside during the bike tour but did not go inside the first time. We went in this time and unfortunately they still have not completed it even though Gaudi died in 1926. It will be massive but is strange in the sense that the new architects have made their own redesigns so it looks a little funny from the outside.

We left Barcelona Sunday evening and flew back to London only to fly 11.5 hours down to Cape Town. We arrived back in the “developing” world Monday morning (developing is in quotations because Cape Town hardly looks developing). We checked out the Waterfront once we had set our bags at Duncan’s place. We then decided on basically no rest to climb Lion’s Head mountain which is part of the Table Mountain National Park chain of mountains. Duncan and his two female roommates were on full rest as opposed to Nadine and I who were slightly exhausted. None the less it was one of the greatest scenery shots I have ever seen as Cape Town is surrounded by unbelievable oceans and mountains which might make it the prettiest city I have ever been to.

Tuesday Nadine and I took the hop on hop off tour bus and checked out the South Africa Museum, Jewish Museum, District 6 museum (which the movie District 9 is apparently loosely based on), and rode the bus the rest of the circuit seeing some of the other scenes in Cape Town.

Wednesday, after Duncan and I stayed up to watch Canada wallop Germany until 5am, him, me, Nadine, and his roommates hit the road to drive to Simon’s Town and Cape Point. Simon’s Town is the scene of penguins walking around and you can basically get up right beside them but do not touch them as they bite. The drive from Simon’s Town to Cape Point is the most spectacular drive I have ever taken and the scene at Cape Point might beat the one from Lion’s Head, though it is very close.

This morning, again after Duncan and I watched Canada hammer Russia until 5am, Nadine and I took the incredibly sea-sick inducing ferry ride to Robben Island which is the prison where Mandela and other political prisoners, along with common law prisoners, resided until the early eighties. It is quite the scene and 120 people actually still live there despite the fact that the prison has not been a prison since 1996. Mandela’s cell is the only one with stuff still in it as it is obviously a huge tourist attraction.

That is all for now as Nadine and I are headed to Zambia for Victoria Falls in the morning.

Barcelona

2010-02-17T10:02:00.001-08:00

We arrived in Barcelona early yesterday morning and made it to the hostel by noon. Hostels seem to have become a little more sophisticated since I was last in Europe but I think I might be getting a bit old for some of them. Nadine and I are sharing a room with a bunch of girls who are studying abroad I assume in their thirs years (20 of 21 years old). It makes us feel a bit old but whatcha gonna do.
We took a walk to La Ramblas and walked up to the Place de Catlauyna that has some pretty nice monuments and stuff like that. We also walked around the main outdoor market which looks like a more sophisticated version of the ones in Guyana.
We then walked to the Gothic Cathedral which is beside the fortress wall built 2000 years ago in which 2/3 of it is actually underground.
We then walked over to the parliament park with the buildings and their arc de triomphe which is a much smaller version of the one in Paris.
After we headed over to the Museum of Chocolate which is really quite something as it gives you the history of chocolate and then has a bunch of chocolate-made sculptures and your ticket for entry is a chocolate bar (which I may have eaten before I got in if it had not been for Nadine's astute observation that it was in fact the ticket).
Went to a bar called the Irish Rambler near our hostel at night because there was some huge soccer games on and it really is unreal how huge soccer is outside North America.
Today we took a walk down to the Christopher Columbus monument and walked around the pier. We then took a two hour walking tour which was great because I don't know much about Spanish history or what it is I'm looking at here but our guide explained it all. We went back to the cathedral, took a walk to the highest point in old Barcelona and saw the original roman columns, went to the art building and saw where Picasso got it on for the first time (not kidding!), went to some nice squares and not so nice squares (George Orwell Square has a weird monument in it that attracted drug addicts who trip out on it so around here that square is aptly named Trippy Square. Went to the Picasso museum afterwards. Very different from the one I went to in Paris the last time I went to Europe but impressive regardless.

Tonight we go to the Barcelona version of quiz night. I'll update later.

The Last Few Days in Paris

2010-02-15T08:20:00.001-08:00

Saturday we woke up and went to the Louvre. I'm pretty sure you could spend a year in Paris, hit up the Louvre every day and still not cover the whole thing. We were there for 3-4 hours and did about 2 floors. We did the Mona Lisa, which always fascinates me at its popularity because to someone who is not a trained artist (i know that comes to a shock to most of you) it doesn't look all that impressive and is quite small. Either way, the Louvre is still interesting for a while.
After the Louvre we went to the Notre Dame cathedral which is always pretty neat though we didn't get to climb it this time because of ice (i did it last time but for nadine that kind of sucked).
We then walked to Hotel de Ville which had a pretty cool ice rink on the outside though it looked like if you wanted to skate you had to rent figure skates and i'm pretty sure i would die if i tried to skate in those.
Took a walk over to the Centre Pompidou which is like the isor of paris and went it for a bit but it was more contemporary "art" so we didn't last that long. Went for a few drinks at night near us in Montmartre.
Sunday we went to the Catacombs which have these crazy underground passages of old skulls and bones that were moved from many of the cemetaries that were spreading disease in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Pretty creepy.
After the Catacombs we went to the Pantheon which had a lot of famous dead people like Voltaire, Braille, Hugo, Dumas, etc. (pretty morbid day I guess). Walked around the Latin Quarter til dinner and then we went to the Eiffel Tower at night (i'm pretty much screwed for all other Valentine's Day dates after this one!!). We waited in line but got up and the view there is unreal especially at night. Though on the way up the elevator kinda stopped for a bit to which the lady running it said, and I quote, "don't worry we are not going to die". Ummm, I don't remember asking or even thinking about dying but I'm pretty sure I am now.
Our last day we went to the Conciegerie in the morning which was/is the justice palace but it had some cool things from the Revolution such as Marie Antoinette's prison cell before she was executed.
In the afternoon we just walked around Champs Elysees for a while and then came back to relax and pack before our early flight.
Tomorrow morning we are off to Barcelona.

Speak soon.

PS one of the most underrated funny things in paris is the voices on the metro announcing the stops. it's a lady who, about 100m before the stop says the name of the stop in the form of a question like Ternes??, drawn out to get you all excited, and then 2 seconds later when you get there she says it again but this time like you've finally arrived, Ternes. Hard to explain but funny none the less.

our last night out and return to the developed world

2010-02-10T01:20:00.000-08:00

so we had our last night out in Georgetown last Friday night and had some people over to our "palace". our landlord lives next door and he made a point of telling me after we had some people over at christmas that this house was not a "frat house" (we had like 8 people over, the night was done by 1130 and i'm pretty sure there were maybe 2 bottles of alcohol total). we had done a pretty good job of not breaking anything while in this house over the last 6 weeks but in the span of 15 minutes, a woman opened the window pane and it fell 20 feet out of the window, a guy broke a glass, and some girl decided she thought the side table was a chair and it broke (her exact comment after the chair broke was in fact "I thought this was a chair. I did like this girl however). Despite that it was a nice last night out.
On our last morning in Guyana, our maid startled us at 9am (it was a sunday so she had no business being there), and proceeded to tell us that "me have to make urine before church". God I love Creole.

we departed Guyana at 3pm on Sunday for a 3 flight adventure to get to London. We got into London Monday at 9am London time and made our was through the developed world to see Noah, our first contact with anyone back home for 4 months. It was kind of different to not be the only white person walking around which was nice.

we stayed on London until Thursday. In that time, for my own records, we did the following things.
1) Piccadily Circus
2) Buckingham Palace
3) St. James Park
4) Westminster Abbey
5) Big Ben and Parliament
6) London Eye (though didn't go on it because it was kinda pricey)
7) Tate Modern Art Museum (I will discuss my feelings on modern art in a bit)
8) St. Paul's Cathedral
9) Trafalgar Square
10) National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery (real art!)
11) Tower of London and Tower Bridge (again couldn't go in Tower London, too bad!)
12) London Bridge
13) British Museum
And of course we ate at Noah's restaurant. Not knowingly because the menu was tricky to understand I had the liver of the lamb and pig's feet. Interesting indeed.

We left Thursday morning for Paris.
Upon arriving we did Moulin Rouge and Sacre Coeur. I have a lot more dejavu moments here in paris than I did in london. The view from Sacre Coeur is probably the best in Paris, outside the Eiffel Tower.
Today, we did Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees and the Musee Invalides (unbelievable war musem, with Napolean's tomb in it). We walked to the Eiffel Tower but deicded to go up it at night one of the next couple nights.
Unfortunately we also did the Grande Palais. I say this because it had one modern art exhibit and that was it! And that exhibit was a massive pyramid shaped pile of clothes with a crane dropping from the ceiling, picking up a handful, going about 15 feet in the air and dropping the handful on the pile. How does this crap make it into museums!!! Rule of thumb, if Jeremy Kronick can make the piece of art, it is not art!!!!!!!!!

That is all for my rant on modern art. I apologize to people that like it, kind of :)

our last full weekend

2010-02-02T15:02:00.000-08:00

So this past weekend was our last full weekend in Guyana as next weekend we leave on Sunday for our 6 week galavant around Europe and Africa.
Friday night we decided to go to a Boxing match here at the local "sports center" which kinda looks like a glorified school gym. Anyways, the night is split between amateurs and professionals with the amateurs fighting for the first half and the pros taking over after. We walked in to find two 11 year olds going at it (top 5 most ridiculous sports scenes I've ever seen live...#1 was two Buffalo Bills fans fighting with each other over what the Bills should do on their next play and getting kicked out of the stadium). After a couple more amateur fights the pros took over. Most fights had one Guyanese person verus an out of towner. Every time the Guyanese fighter would start doing well, the fans would all rush the ring like they did in the 30s when there was no security (slightly terrifying for the four white kids in the front row...that would be us). The undercard was actually a really good fight between two heavyweights. Then the main draw was two women heavyweights duking it out. One was the former heavyweight "champion of the world" (I put that in quotes because she had two heavyweight championship belts from organizations I have never heard of which lead to the following quote by me to Nadine: "when I get home I'm gonna kick the shit out of Ryan when he least expects it and declare my self the WCA heavyweight champion of the world"..sorry Ry you just came to mind first). The "champion" won the fight which lead a woman in the stands to enter the ring, take the microphone (the fight was televised) and proceed to challenge this woman to a fight while stomping around the stage....this quickly took its spot as #2 on the most ridiculous sports scenes I have ever seen.

Saturday we went to a lodge called Rockstone in Region 10 here in Guyana. Peaceful place where you can canoe and swim at the "beach" (sand that streches about 100m). It was nice that it was peaceful because the trip there involved us on the mini bus going so fast that we passed a sports car. That may not be that impressive but there were 18 PEOPLE in the bus, including a guy we picked up on the way who climbed through the window to get in!!

Sunday we came back from the lodge and went to the Sea Wall here in Georgetown at night. This is quite the phenomenon as basically the entire city goes to the sea wall over a 10km distance and just sits on the wall and drinks all night. We felt the need to experience this once while we were here.

Anyways that is all for now I will update you the day we leave for London on what we did the rest of the week.

A Day at the Falls

2010-01-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

After we first went to Mabaruma I can honestly tell you I never thought I would ride in a smaller plane that that one (a 12 seater). Well, I was wrong!
We met our group to go to Kaieteur Falls at 1115 with the plan to leave at 1200. Given that "this is Guyana" as the locals put it, we left around 1330 (sorry for the military time that's all they use here and it's kinda stuck with me). When we went out to the plan I noticed that it was in fact an 8 seater with basically 4 mini-benches holding 2 people each (definitely the most chlosterphobic place I've ever been in).
We arrived at the Falls and did 2 of 3 fly arounds which consisted of the plane basically being on its side over and over again. Talk about stomach in mouth! Anyways, the falls are really unbelievable. They are 5 times higher than Niagara and are the largest single drop falls in the world. Apparently one of the wonders of the world. Not bad for Guyana!
It's funny, you spend about 3 or 4 hours all told in travel time and spend only about 2 hours at the Falls. Either way, very much worth it.
That is all. Not as many posts here in G-Town because it's a very routined life here.
We leave in 2 weeks to head for our travels so I'm sure there will be a fair amount of blogs for those readers that are still actually reading this :)

Speak to everyone soon.

PS Not sure if I mentioned this in my blog about the ridiculous names of the communities but we passed one on the way home called Mc Doom which may be the funniest of them all (Pat, this definitely made me think of you!!)

PPS That expressions "this is Guyana" is actually abbreviated TIG by locals and manifests it very often in your life. For example, the other day I was told to go by the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs because if I showed up in person I could get an interview slot with the secretary. The secretary was an hour late and when I showed up she told me she'd call me to set up the appointment which I could've just done by the phone. Than I went to work where I was supposed to have a meeting an 1200 with another Minister (after being rescheduled from 1100) only to find out at 1140 that the meeting needed to be postponed for a week!! I had been preparing all morning. So basically my entire morning had been wasted. The response by any local?? You guessed it...TIG!

Partying with the Pres

2010-01-12T17:15:00.000-08:00

So Friday night some of the other VSOs and Nadine and I went out to a few bars/clubs here in Georgetown. Around midnight we went to our final stop of the night, a bar/club called Mojos. As we get out of the cab I looked over to the side of the club and saw a man standing there with a couple of his friends having a chat. I said to one of the VSOs "is that the president?" and she said "no way". She, being very forward, went over to him and asked and it turned out he was.
We all went in and drank (seperately). He basically stood at the bar the whole nigh just kind of looking around, with no real security around him. My friend took a picture with him.
All I kept thinking was Obama needs hundreds of secret service just to leave the White House, and this guy comes out and parties with his citizens. Wild stuff!

On Sunday we went to these black creeks which are relatively famous here in G-Town. But what was more funny was passing the huge signs on the way there representing the different communities. They include, Good Success, Supply, Land of Canaan, Garden of Eden, New Hope and more.

Anyways we are really winding down here and leave in less than 4 weeks! It's gone by very fast.

See ya.

New Year's and other

2010-01-07T18:34:00.000-08:00

So after Christmas things slowed down a bit. We had a week off until returning to work so we just relaxed, hit up the pool and wound down from a whirlwind two months away from Georgetown.
That being said, stuff still did happen. The other Deloitte guy had a couple of his friends here and so we went out for drinks and somehow ended up at the Guyanese version of a strip club. This entailed one woman on stage in the hour we were there, porno on the 5 televisions around us (all different episodes), a couple going at it at the corner, all the while us sitting on perverts row. (mom really sorry for going through that it was just too funny).
New Year's saw us get invited to a part at an American diplomat's house. The guy probably has the most important job in Guyana to Guyanese citizens. His job is to give these Guyanese citizens green cards (those who qualify of course). He lives in a "posh" area of Georgetown called, I shit you not, Bel-Air, and yes he frequently gets called the Fresh Prince of Georgetown Belair.
After ringing in the new decade we had a few more days to relax before work began again.
And in typical Guyanese fashion we have been without internet for the firs four days. At first it was the technicians fault, than the phone companies, than VSO ITs, now we're not sure. But as they say here, TIG (this is Guyana).
Anyways that's all for now.
Take it easy.

Our triumphant return to Georgetown

2009-12-28T15:37:00.000-08:00

On XMas eve Nadine and I departed the peaceful nature of Surama to the hectic world that is Georgetown. The weather was not great which made for an interesting hour and a half plane ride on those "spacious" 12 seater planes (you can't exactly go over the clouds as there is no pressurized cabins in those planes).
Upon our return we made our way to our new place. There is a good chance this place we are living in is the biggest and nicest house I will ever live in. It's a huge victorian/colonial house with a massive living room, two "smoking" rooms, and two kitchens (one the landlord referred to as the Breakfast Room, my apologies). The upstairs has 4 bedrooms, 3 of which have king sized beds, one has a living room, one has a seperate bathroom. Ridiculous, all of it, if you compare to other VSO places including some of the ones we lived in. The landlord to this place wants us to put no less than 8 lights on at night for security purposes. He also pays security guards across the street to look after the place. He also invited us over for XMas eve dinner which his daughter cooked. Big ham dinner (sorry fellow Jews), with potatoes, stuffing, etc. Quite a good dinner however I'm pretty sure he was drunk prior to dinner starting.
XMas day we had a bunch of the VSOs over for a XMas lunch/dinner (in the UK they do a lunch.) The party was supposed to be at another ladie's places but she had seen ours the night before and made the switch. This lunch was a chicken and duck dinner and had a ludicrous amount of food.

Not much else to report for now.

A week's worth of events

2009-12-23T10:57:00.000-08:00

So our last day in Manaus didn't go exactly as planned. The weather did not cooperate at all so the beach and big zoo were out of the question. We decided to go to the Natural Science Museum. We hopped on the 519 bus north and told the lady in broken Portuguese where we were going. She told us to get off at a stop and go back and turn left. We did so arriving at INPA which is not what we were looking for at all. So we asked where the museum was and were told to walk that way until we saw a sign. We walked for probably 2km until we hit the sign. Turned left walked to the end of the street and saw no other signs. Asking again for more directions we kept getting told to go to INPA. In the end we did not find the museum and ended up in another mall, than took the bus the wrong way. Not a great day as a last day in Manaus but the trip overall was a great success.
We left Manaus the last day barely escaping the death cab ride to the airport. We got into Boa Vista and took a two hour bus to Bonfim before cabbing to Lethem and getting picked up on the side of a road by a random who dropped us off at our house (that's what it's like around here).
Our last weeked in Lethem was relatively uneventful except for a birthday party for the 6 year old who lives in the same compound as us and finding one of his friends running through our house.
We hit the road for Surama on Monday and in true Guyana fashion took off at 11am even though the bus was supposed to leave at 10am. We had to be 3 days in Surama for me to do some interviews so here is the difference between a 3 day conference for Deloitte versus VSO in Guyana. For Deloitte I would usually get a paid for cab to the airport, get on the plane, take a cab to a pretty nice hotel, and have all the meals paid for and transportation and everything arranged. For VSO, as I mentioned I hopped on a bus that was an hour late, went on some pretty awful roads for 4 hours, got left on the side of the road into Surama, my ride wasn't there, waited for someone (anyone) to show up, got picked up, put in the back of a pickup truck, drove half an hour to an eco-lodge (actually a really nice one), my interviews hadn't been scheduled, and I had to figure most of that out. It's definitely all in the experience and you get so used to it that you smile as it's happening but nonetheless that's a taste of the worklife difference here.
Surama however is a beautiful place with huge forested mountains and is the most peaceful place I think I've ever been to. We did a two hour hike in the forest and went to the animal sanctuary mixed in with the interviews (our tour guide is really quite unbelievable at spotting animals in the forest that I could barely see with binoculars. You kinda feel like you're in the army as you are walking in a straight line and he'll put up his hand for you to stop when he thinks he hears or sees something). Really quite a spectacular landscape.
The interviews went really well as well. The only thing is that I have decided that being on the back of a motorcycle here, on these roads, at these speeds is the most faith I have ever put into another human being.
Met a nice couple from Holland who are living in Suriname so if we have time (and money) we might try and make it there.
Tomorrow we are off for Georgetown for the final stretch of this placement.

Speak to you later.

PS I ate chicken hearts in Manaus, not bad!

Manaus (days 1-3 of 4.5)

2009-12-16T18:52:00.000-08:00

We hopped on the 12 hour overnight bus from Boa Vista to Manaus at 830pm Sunday night. The bus was pretty nice with seats that reclined to almost 180 degrees which is sweet for the lie back but not good for the legs when the person in front does the same. Also I think because developing countries are just getting used to A/C they don't understand temperature control and I'm pretty sure it was -5 degrees in that bus. Nonetheless we arrived none the worse for wear at around 900am. Our hostel is in a great location in the heart of downtown and Nadine and I got a private room with a double bed and bunk beds (which Nadine would not let us sleep on!!) and no windows. Again with A/C and no temperature control.
Our first day we went to San Sabastia square which has a great monument with the four big continents outside South America representing the ports of the rubber trade (Australia is not included, and don't even get me started on the Antarctica B/S). The square is also home to the Opera House which is an unbeliveble building both outside and in (Nadine and I took a tour). It also has a ballroom inside in which you must wear oversized slippers on top of your shoes to not muck up the floor.
After the Opera House we walked to the main cathedral (which as it turns out is not really the nicest one, it's not bad but not the best). We then went to the floating harbour and the municipal market which is build like the Halle market in Paris.
We went for dinner that night back in the square where there are a few restaurants. The square at night honestly looks like a fairy tale as it is all lit up, including the Opera House, for Xmas. We ate their and just hung out for the night (which we also did Tues night). We went to see a much nicer Cathedral in our opinion just on the outskirts of the square.
During the day Tues morning we went to the Indian Museum, Rio Negro Palace and Jefferson Park. All were pretty interesting but could've used some more English for us Portuguese-challenged individuals. We shopped around the main shopping district in the afternoon which is an absolute zoo. The strip is built on a hill and a rainstorm hit when we were at the bottom and we waited under an awning for 20 minutes hoping it would stop. It did not and when Nadine and I made our way back uphill, all the rain had made its way down making for puddles about a foot deep. My shoes and socks were drenched and they hitched themselves a one way ticket to the garbage as I immediately bought new sandles.
Today we did the city tour which takes you to the rich area (average house price US$1.4MN) and to the Ponte Negro Beach. We did not get a chance to go around the beach but we plan on doing that tomorrow. We walked around the mini-zoo at the rich hotel (the big zoo we also plan on doing tomorrow). Later on the tour we drove by the smallest church in Brazil (holds 15 people, opens once a year on St Anthony's day which is June 13). Couple interesting tidbits: The largest motorcyle producing city outside of Tokyo is Manaus (Honda shop) and the only Harley Davidson producing plant outside NA is in Manaus.
After the tour we went to the Provincial palace where they had some great exhibits including a coins exhibit that had coins from all over the world dating back as far as 575BC (that was a Roman coin). We then went to the most modern place we've been too since leaving for Guyana, a shopping mall. The reason we went was because it was supposed to contain come of the jungle in it but it wasn't that interesting and we just took to some of the shops instead (found a Subway and McDonalds, didn't eat at either).
Went for dinner at a nice meat place. Pretty much my dream as it was all you can eat salad bar folllowed by waiters coming by every 3 minutes asking if you want different meat (including a chicken's heart which I ate). Got a little ripped off since we thought the desert was free and it wasn't but that's okay (I guess Portuguese would help).
Tomorrow's our last full day with trips to the Zoo, Science Museum and the beach planned. We leave back to Lethem via Boa Vista Friday morning.

Speak to you all later.

Off to Brazil

2009-12-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Nadine and I began the first leg of our trip to Brazil. We got a lift from a friend into Bonfim (which is where we walked from last time). After signing out of Guyana and into Brazil we caught the bus to Boa Vista which is the biggest city we´ve been in since leaving Toronto (500,000 people). The bus made two stops on the way. First stop was to let the driver´s associate off at the other bus coming in the other direction and the second stop was to literally pick up a guy on the side of the highway who had appeared out of the corn fields a la Field of Dreams (seriously).
We arrived in Boa Vista where we took a taxi to a friend of ours who lives here. The cab driver had no idea where the house was and before we left he took out a map the size of his hood, got 5 of his taxi friends who huddled around for the better part of 10 minutes to figure out where it was and still got lost for 15 minutes.
After that we hit the town. We took a bus with a friend of our friends and went to the city center where we walked to the waterfront which was amazing, checked out the first church in Boa Vista which is on this walkway that looks like European city. We then checked out some of the shops which looked more North American.
We went for dinner at this place that makes Big Joe hotdogs which are made with hotdog, chicken, peas, cheese, corn~. It´s actually really good.
We all tried to go see New Moon for Nadine but alas it was in Portuguese so our friends went and we went to see some movie with Jamie Foxx.
We then walked around the city square of the waters which has a great archway that looks like the champs elysee and had a drink at one of the bars. They have this christmas tree that is lit up but is made entirely of old 2L plastic bottles. Pretty neat for all you environmentalists. This guy sold us a burnt copy of New Moon, said it was in English but this morning we checked it out and again it was in Portuguese, poor Nadine!
Today we are off to Manaus, a city the size of Toronto. We are taking an overnight 12 hour bus so good luck to us.
Speak to you all soon.

Awhile Since We Talked

2009-12-06T13:24:00.000-08:00

It's been awhile so here is what we've been up to of late.

Last weekend was the Rupununi Expo in which there are a ton of booths of people selling different things. Red Cross had a booth to advertise some of their work and so we went for the two days. There were some interesting events at this Expo such as the Miss Rupununi Pagent in which 16/17 year old girls from the surrounding area compete for the crown in events very similar to the Miss America pagent (though not quite as professional).

So on Friday, I'm sitting at the air strip here in Lethem waiting for my power chord for my computer to arrive (it has been sitting in customs in G-Town for 2 weeks now). As I'm waiting I see these two guys sitting awaiting to go on the arriving plane back to G-Town. They were wearing nice clothes and looked like two normal guys. It did appear however that they were holding hands which I found a bit strange here in Lethem (trust me on this). After about 10 minutes I realized they were in fact handcuffed to each other. They were about to enter a 12 seater plane back to G-Town with 10 other normal passenger handcuffed to each other by a single hand that is all. I can tell you what my reaction would've been if I was headed back there on that plane (AHHH I am not going on that plane I'll wait thanks!)

Yesterday Nadine and I decided we wanted to go to Brazil as we are right on the border. So we walked to immigration and took a cab across the bridge to Bonfim, Brazil. The town wasn't that exciting but it was still interesting to see the the differences in the two cities in two different countries seperated by a little bridge. To show you how close it is we actually WALKED back from Brazil to Guyana! We ducked through a little fence on the bridge and walked to our house in Lethem.

One last thing that I found funny, this is a conversation I had with a taxi here:
Jer: "Can I have a pick up to Middle St and Tabatinga St."
Taxi Guy: "Yeah sure, where is that?"
Jer: "It's near the school"
Taxi Guy: "OK see you soon"

20 minutes later
Taxi Guy: "Where is that house"
Jer: "Across from the Dental clinic"
Taxi Guy: "Is that where they fix the teeth?"
Jer: "AHHH yeah"
Taxi: "Oh ok why didn't you just say that?"
Jer: "Sorry"
Taxi guy shows up 10 seconds later.

That is all.
We are off to Brazil again to some of the bigger cities like Boa Vista and Manaus next Friday so if we don't blog before then we certainly will after.

Take care people.

Work

2009-11-27T12:05:00.000-08:00

I figured it was about time I described to all the onlookers exactly what it is I am doing here in Guyana (workwise).
So here it is for your viewing pleasure.

For the previous 2 months I have been working in Guyana on two different but related projects. The first of which is to interview Amerindian women in Georgetown (the capital) and Region 1 (a rural region). The purpose of the interview is to evaluate three different themes.
The first thems surrounds the challenges and opportuntiies to Amerindian women who want to participate in the workforce at any capacity: as entrepreneurs, nurses, teachers, or simply as employees of a business.
The second theme looks at women's groups (a staple of poor country culture) and what some of the challenges are for these groups, as lately many have been sputtering and losing members.
The final theme looks at the additional burden women who want to work but must also look after the household. This theme certainly relates to the first two themes.
What I have discovered in the process of my interviews is that women are constrained by many factors. Probably the larges one is the lack of opportunities for women, especially in the rural areas where more Amerindians are found. Many of the men here are not supportive and believe the women should be at home taking care of the household and the children. Those who try and fight them men will be beaten. Many of the men also believe the women will go off and meet other men and thus jealousy plays a large role. Educating the men is a vital process in the solutions we are looking at as is explaining to women their rights.
The women's groups here tend to be structured like co-ops where all the women just split whatever profits are made. We do not believe this is a successful structure as it does not provide any incentive to work hard and makes people frustrated when there is not a lot of profit coming in, which is often. We are working on structuring the groups more like a business where salaries are paid and profits are split like dividends quarterly. We are also looking at starting nurseries where women with children can drop their kids off for the day so they can work.
My other role, which I am currently doing for the next month or so, is to work directly with a women's group in Region 9 (another rual area) as they are in a financial crisis. Helping Hands is a peanut and cashew business but both prodicts are going to be in shortage this year and thus next year does not look promising. We are working on a cassava and farine business to complement the other two as they work countercyclical to the weather needed for peanuts and cashews and will work as a profitable safety net.
At the same time, I am expected to teach them some important characteristics of successful businesses and businesswomen. The biggest issues here are a lack of financial skills and confidence of personality to go around marketing their products. Some secondary problems are transportation and negotiating skills. However, we are working hard to improve on these issues and I hope to put the group in a position to be successful going forward before I leave.

Anyways for those that asked there is a snapshot.

Take care

A Night out in Lethem

2009-11-21T11:52:00.000-08:00

After saying goodbye to the little cousin of the family we are staying with, whose name is Enron (he was introduced to us as "Enron...like the company") we made our way to the Brazilian Restaurant and Bar for some dinner and some drinks. We were joined by a peace corps girl, two guys who run a trip called Bushmasters, where they take a dozen people into the bush for 10 days, train them to hunt and live on their own, and then leave them with nothing and tell them to survive for 2-3 days, and a couple locals. At the end of dinner and drinks we were handed our bill, written in pen, with what we ate, the amount, and the label of "2 White People" (I assume that's how she remembered). We then went across to an outdoor Karaoke Bar, where the transvestite "Roger" (who was a man dressed as a woman), serenaded us, quite well in fact, to many songs sung by women such as Celine Dion. This was followed by a trip to the Disco where we danced and drank rum. The dancing consists of pairing off and doing some interesting grinding moves.
Quite the evening.

That's all for now.

Lethem

2009-11-17T11:29:00.000-08:00

ss and a frSo after a few quick days in back in Georgetown we were off to the very south of Guyana to a town called Lethem. My boss, his friend and our big boss (along with Nadine and I) drove overnight (starting at midnight) to Lethem, which is about an 11 hour drive. We left in the middle of the night so we could hit the 6am ferry. After this exhausting, bumpy trip we arrived. Now Lethem, which looks like the Wild West and Texas mixed together is much different than Mabaruma. It's like a large savannah with huge mountains in the backdrop. Again the scenery is real nice. We all went out for some drinks and the local hangout before my boss got up and drove all the way back the next day. Nadine and I have our first house in this whole adventure with full kitchen (though the fridge took quite the scrubbing and cleaning to be working in our estimation). We bought a hammock for the front porch which is amazing!
My job here is to help this woman's group, Helping Hands, out of their current financial crisis. It will be a large challenge as the climate this year, along with their financial education, does not work in their favour. Nadine has some organized colleagues here in Lethem, more so than in Mabaruma, so she seems to be quite busy.
We bought a bike to get a round and it has broken twice in the first two days (you can imagine how happy that makes me). First day the pedal and the tire broke on my way to work and than this morning the new tire had a puncture. Some random "helped" me find a repair shop and after an hour and a half I finally got to work.

Anyways that's all for now folks. Speak to you soon.

Our Last Few Days in Mabaruma

2009-11-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

Last Friday we went to Shell Beach by speedz boat to where a group of vets had flown in from the States to basically stop the dogs from stealing all the marine turtle eggs from the beach. The beach is literally sand and some really crazy shells (don't worry mom we took some back for you). The water was really warm so we swam in there for awhile until the salt made it impossible to stay in any longer. We also tried our hand at cricket and as Nadine will attest her performance was better than mine!
We moved on to a community called Waini where we stayed over Friday night in a little room in a multi-purpose factory of the brother of the couple that was taking us around (kind of random).
Saturday night we gave a tutorial to the couple on how to use the computer. Made them promise that their first email would be to us. Guess we'll see.
Sunday we went to a community called Wauna. I actually saw a kid wearing a Brett Favre jersey with the Packers!! Made my day. We had a moment.
Monday we went to the Tiger Caves in Mabaruma. Now they failed to mention that there was no path and our guide had to find three Amerindian kids with machetes to trailblaze a path to the caves. After about an hour and a trek about as grueling as I've been through we made it. Caves were great but hard to enjoy as much after that experience.
And today we have returned to Georgetown. Just for a few days as we head to Lethem in Region 9 on Fri night/Sat morn (we leave at midnight and we get there around 11am).

Anyways that's all for now. Speak to you later.

A few interesting notes

2009-11-05T14:56:00.000-08:00

So on Monday we went to the Hosororo Falls, which is really just a nice downhill running stream but still pretty relaxing. Than we went to the Cocoa Plantation and we were trying to go take a tour and walked into the office only to see what we believe to be the owner and her husband fooling around on the desk chair and we quickly exited the room, thought about going back, and then heard some loud thuds and at that point figured that was enough for that little trip.
We went to a village called Kumwata today and my interview went really well with some interesting answers from the ladies and it was the first time that it made me upset that I won't stay to see all the implementation of my recommendations.
Back to another sexual story in nature. So at the place we are staying there are 4 channels that are controlled by one of the guys and basically what the channel is showing is at their mercy. So last night around midnight we turn on the tube and what's on....the Playboy channel! Really no good way for them to watch porn if we can all see it.

Anyways, thought I'd share those thing with you all.
We're off to the Beach here and a couple of other river communities.
Speak to you later.

Trip to Arukamai

2009-11-01T10:10:00.000-08:00

Today, we went to a little village within the little town we are staying in. The name of the village is Arukamai. To get there we took a 48 horse power speed boat on relatively calm waters which took about 45 minutes. The ride had some pretty spectacular views.
When you arrive, the fun begins, as basically everyone who lives there has their own tiny river bed that you have to take a dug out canoe to get to. The dug out canoes are made by the locals out of fallen trees that they use a chainsaw to create. It is pretty amazing that they can make these things.
I had a counterpart here in Region 1 that was taking me around and helping me out with the interviews as apparently my English is difficult to understand and even though I understand everything she repeats to my interviewees they still cannot always understand me. She is from Arukamai so she took me to her place which is this little cottage looking house that has a few rooms with tin roofs and a separate kitchen with husk rooks. The lifestyle is SLIGHTLY different than what we are accustomed to.
We went to the school to hold the interviews which is one room that has 9 grades split into 4 classes. Not sure how they can possibly learn there but I guess they manage.
After the interview we went to my counterparts house again for lunch and her husband (who is supportive of her working, they are not all) cooked us an amazing curry chicken lunch.
After lunch there was a huge BINGO game at the school with the grand prize being 10,000 Guyanese dollars which is about 50 Canadian. The best part was, the pieces you had to use to cover the spaces were pebbles (that you had to go pick up by the river). The third prize was 3,000 Guyanese dollars in which two people said BINGO at the same time and there was some pretty heated moments over who won the prize.
After that we returned to Mabaruma, which is the big city here in Region 1, there might be 800 people here.

Anyways that’s all for now.

The Trip to Mabaruma

2009-10-29T13:53:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

So on Sunday we left for Mabaruma which is in Region 1 in Guyana (Guyana is split into 10 regions by no organizational method whatsoever other than some dude who drew a line with what appears to be a bendable ruler).
We flew out of G-Town at 7am but I am going to take you through this experience. First we had ordered a cab through work for 530am that never came. Than we ordered from one company and another company showed up to take us (little sketchy). Than we show up and I think I almost wet myself when I saw the 12 seater plane we were taking. Your alternative for coming here if not by plane is to take a 24-hour steamer in the Atlantic Ocean that basically guarantees sea-sickness, not going to happen. As we were waiting in the line up to weigh the luggage and ourselves (yes ourselves!) a woman finished signing in her kid then turned around and asked some white guy she didn’t know if he minded taking the kid on the plane to our first stop in Port Kaiteur to drop the kid off with his grandma. (unreal!) Furthermore, half way through the flight I look up at the pilot and he is READING THE PAPER while having his coffee.
As a little side note there was no bathroom on the plane, and yours truly with about 15 minutes left all of a sudden had the worst sensation ever of having to pee and nearly passed out from pain awaiting to get off the plane. Anyways…
Mabaruma is a beautiful forest town and you can actually see into Venezuela from the top. We are staying at Broome’s Guest House which actually has TV and 4 channels that are controlled by one of the guys so if you want to watch a certain station you ask him to change the channel to the station you want. There is only power from 6-11 at night except some places that have generators so that takes some getting used to. But lucky for us at 6am the two guys who own the place get up, blare the radio and start yelling each other. Hilarious guys but 6am is a little too early for me and Nadine.
As for work today I was going out to a little village on the top of a hill called Tobago that used to be a river community but got flooded out and moved. To get there we had to take a mini-bus which takes a bunch of people by “road” each day a certain amount of times throughout. The man piled in 14 people and luggage into what at most could really carry 9 people. On the hill up we couldn’t go more than 5 miles/hour.
Anyways, that’s all my stories for now.
Speak to you soon

Some nicknames and a "wild" party

2009-10-18T10:27:00.000-07:00

Nadine and I were walking yesterday in one of the outdoor markets here in Georgetown and were called the following nickmaes any of which I will accept starting today:
1) Rosemary and Chuck (for Nadine and I)
2) Mel Gibson; or my favourite
3) Dick Johnson (if anyone knows who the hell Dick Johnson is I'm all ears).

Saturday night we went to a birthday party for one of the British women. Now I need to explain to you the way the people here are divided. There are basically British, other European and Canadian volunteers and American peace corps. The age divide is even more severe as it's half people my age and half retired people. So last night's party was a party for an older British lady. The invitation for the party told us to bring food and entertainment. We brough cards as we figured we'd start some drinking games. That did not work. The entertainment involved teaching us some songs and some line dancing. Given my love for line dancing let's just say we didn't participate all that much. Still though, maybe the funniest party I've been to in a long time.

Anyways I've figured out a way to still watch football on Sunday to Nadine's dismay.
Speak to you people later.

week in review

2009-10-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

So as I'm heading to one of my interviews with the CEO of the Institue for Private Enterprise Development I'm taking this cab with this rastafarian who turns to me in mid-drive and asks me if I like black women. So I think to myself I'm not really sure how to answer this so I say "Man I like all types of women" and apparently that was satisfactory as he laughed for the rest of the trip.
That night Nadine and I went out to a place in Georgetown called Kitty where one of the VSO landlords gave us a cooking lesson in Roti Curry Chicken. On her fridge was a giant sign for Sobey's in Toronto (just thought that was a bit strange). Anyways we had a mix of experienced and completely non-experienced cooks so it was an interesting blend. We got to eat all the food after which as most of you know made me extremely happy.
Tonight was Diwali which is the Hindu festival of lights so there was a pretty big party downtown with a bunch of floats that were full of crazy lights and Hindu women sitting in the floats waving to the crowd without moving their bodies at all. Really interesting but also slightly terrifying.

Well that is all for now.
You take care people.

The Beginning of Work

2009-10-13T16:59:00.000-07:00

Well I guess my first entry for this blog was so brilliantly written that we were able to get 4 new followers :)
Our first weekend in Guyana was certainly an interesting experience. We went out both evenings to "bars". I put the quotations there because they are not exactly what we imagine them to be back home. Let's just say there was not much fighting for seats. That being said it was still nice to get to know the other VSO volunteers and they were both patios which made it even better (kinda hard to be inside when the temperature is 45 degrees outside).
Saturday we walked around the outdoor markets at Stabroeck and Bourda which are an absolutely crazy experience on a Saturday morning when everyone is walking around shopping for groceries. We also passed by the only escalator in all of Guyana in one of the only malls.
Sunday we attempted to go to the botanical gardens and the zoo but it is COMPLETELY dead on Sundays and we got a little nervous walking around and ended up missing the really good stuff at these places and will thus have to go back.
On Thanksgiving we celebrated the festivities here by ordering Pizza Hut!! Delicious.
Nadine and I both started work on Monday and my desk is right beside the air conditioning which might be the greatest things that's ever happened to me. Today was the first time I've been cold in the 8 days we've been here.
I think my job is going to be a great learning experience and the interviews and report are going to be a real challenge.
Tomorrow we have a Guyanese cooking lesson so with that I will leave all of you.

Speak to y'all later.

Arrival to Guyana

2009-10-08T13:46:00.000-07:00

Alright followers (my mom and jess clark!) here is the initial blog of the long awaited world travels of Nadine and Jeremy.
It started with a unique flying experience courtesy of the world renowned Caribbean Airlines. Upon our arrival into Trininad and Tobago we expected to be taken off the plane to catch our connector to Georgetown, Guyana. To our surprise we were told it was the same plane taking us on to Georgetown and thus we did not have to disembark. So while the crew cleaned the plane, Nadine and I switched seats (yes we had different seats for the second flight) and slept for an hour and a half.
We then got off the plane to a stifling 32 degrees celcius at 8AM. We took an hour trip into the city and got our at our guesthouse. How do you know you're in a developing country? Here's how: the slogan for this guesthouse is "cleanest guesthouse in Guyana." It is a nice place all things considered however the lack of air conditioning is definitely gonna take some getting used to.
Nadine and I got a gym and pool membership at the 5 star resort in town which we utilized this morning as we needed a break from the violent sweating.
We've only had bits of training on the jobs we will be doing but it does sound exciting and we should be learning more soon.

Anyways, that's all for now.
You followers stay classy (Jess that is more for you! Mom you are already classy)

Jeremy and Nadine