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DawnO and I have just returned from our five day ‘trek’ through the rainforest. It was the best thing we have done in Guyana and will probably make the short list of my all-time best trips. It was that good.

Our journey began on Saturday morning when DawnO, myself, and seven of our friends boarded a minibus that drove us into the interior of Guyana. After a 6 hour journey, we transferred to two 4X4 trucks which took us along a pretty rough road to the edge of the Potaro River. Once at the river, we travelled by motor boat for 3 more hours until we reached Amatuk Falls, our first camp.

The next two days were quite similar. We would wake from our travel hammocks, usually around 6:30 or 7:00, then pack them up. Breakfast would be ready at around 8:00 and then we would wait for the rain to stop. It rained quite a lot on those 2 days, but it occured to me that if it didn’t rain all the time, it wouldn’t be called ‘the rainforest’. At noon we would either start hiking or travelling up the river by boat. The cloud cover helped us stay cool and allowed for some pretty beautiful scenery. Once we reached the next camp, we would hang our hammocks up and settle down to a nice meal that was prepared by our guides.

We saw a lot of cool things in those two days, including wild spider monkeys, various insects and diamond miners. We also got our first glimpse of Kaieteur Falls from a distance.

Watch the walking stick video Hi | Lo

i had mentioned before that I wanted to post some pictures of the seawall and the Dutch architecture here, so i spent some time riding around taking shots yesterday.

i know that it sounds very exciting and exotic to be living along the coast, especially for us land-locked albertans, but in actuality most people avoid the seawall ‘beach’ area. At the right angle, I could fool you into thinking that it’s kind of a nice area, but the reality is that it’s not. it tends to be a bit of a dodgy place to be (we often read sensational stories in the paper about people being chopped or hacked up at the seawall) and it’s filled with garbage, dead animals, and homeless people.

the sea is a really muddy brown, which they say is from all of the sediment that is stirred up from the mouth of the amazon river. at the beginning of our time here i had difficulty believing that a river so far away would affect our waters here, but since seeing how massive the rivers are here, i have a new appreciation for the power of south american rivers.

prior to being a british colony, guyana was run by the dutch so there is a lot of dutch influence in the architecture. around the countryside there are dutch style dams and dutch named towns. here in georgetown, the stabroek market is one of the famous landmarks.

side note: i made my first (and likely only) guyanese television debut on the weekend! i was interviewed by the local news about the renovation project that i did at the palms geriatric home. check out the clip here! Hi | Lo

I thought I’d write a little update on my placement since the last posting was about how I left GTU. Currently I have a couple of projects on the go. I’ve turned into a bit of a freelance volunteer, if there is such a thing. Basically I have asked fellow volunteers if they can use my help at the places they work and the general response has been, “when can you start?”

I’m working with CBR (Community Based Rehabilitation) to help them recover and update their website. It’s already quite a different atmosphere than what I’m used to. People here are eager to work with me and have been quite welcoming. It also helps that I’m working with other VSO volunteers (Meg, Rachel, Miranda and Sarah) instead of locked away in a room somewhere. I’m also putting my newly acquired sign-language skills to use working with staff members who are hearing impaired.

I’m also hoping to help out at NCERD (National Centre for Educational Resource Development and VSO Guyana. I know I don’t have a lot of time left, but I’m trying to do small things that will help me end my placement on a positive note.

This weekend we’re going to kick it Irish style on St. Patrick’s Day. I understand our fellow Irish volunteers have quite a party in store for us. There will be an abundance of singing, dancing and green liquids to be had on Saturday night.

On Sunday, we’re hosting a movie marathon. We’ve rented a projector and are going to be showing movies all day on our big white wall. Lazing around on a couch will be just what the doctor ordered after St. Patty’s night.

Hello everyone,
It has been a hectic last couple of days with my placement and as a result I am no longer working at the GTU.

My placement’s main objective was to build the GTU a website, on Wednesday i found out the website was already created by another organization.

After talking to VSO Guyana about what my course of action should be, we decided that my efforts would be better used elsewhere. So on Friday afternoon I said so long to the GTU and will begin working with other volunteers on Monday.

I have mixed feelings about this recent turn of events, but I believe that I will be much happier doing whatever comes next.
Enough of that, let’s get to some pictures of our trip to Bartica last weekend.

Last weekend we took a couple of days off and headed to a small town called Bartica to stay with a fellow volunteer. It was the second holiday weekend in a row. This time the occasion was a Hindu spring festival called Phagwah. On Sunday Guyanese we throwing water and coloured powder at anyone who dared show their face in public. Even DawnO couldn’t get up early enough for her morning jog to avoid the festivities.

Most of our time in Bartica was spent relaxing and creating great meals with our friend Christine. It doesn’t sound too exciting but it was a much needed break from Georgetown.

On Monday we found a beach on the river and spent the day soaking up the sun. I spent a lot of my time there taking pictures. Take a look.

Finally, the Mash (pronounced ‘Mosh’ – as in mosh pit) blog. As I stated in a previous blog, Mashramani is Guyana’s Independence Day. I think. There seems to be a bit of confusion on this point because there’s an Independence Day and a Republic Day. Which one Mash is, I’m not too certain. Regardless, it’s always a huge party.

The day begins with people finding a prime spot on the parade route. Vendors line the streets as well, selling local food including cook-up rice, curry, and my favorite, eggball. One by one the floats slowly make their way along the parade route and finally end up at the grand stand in the National Park where they are greeted by over a thousand people and the float judges. This process takes the entire day. Sometimes there is quite a waiting time between floats as they are coming ‘just now’.

No one seemed to mind as they waited for the next display to drift by. There was plenty of visiting, eating and dancing to be had. Every city block had it’s own wall of speakers that belted out the soca and dance hits.

For the most part, Dawn and I hung out with our friends. We watched the parade for a bit and then sought out shelter from the rain and loud music. We had another BBQ dinner and went to the grandstand to watch the final float make it’s entrance.

Hello everyone. I am sorry we have been neglecting you for a week now. I am finding it hard to motivate myself to write blogs lately. I’m sure that will change once we’re on the home stretch. Hang on a second… we are on the home stretch.

Dawn has 15 working days left, which means I have 18 (apparently I require 3 more days to get things done). So the question is, how’s the GTU website coming along? It’s coming, not completed as of yet, but coming. There are still barriers in my way but I will leave them with a working site. It just might not be on the internet. Hmmmm.

We have our tickets to Canada booked. So we are coming home. First, we’re going to see the sites of Tobago, Trinidad, Venezuela, Peru, Ecuador and Chicago. We have a stop over in the windy city so we decided to stay a couple of days and visit with Nick and Meg, who will be done their placement as well.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I was supposed to write about Mashramani, but I forgot the pictures at home. Blogs look so bland without pictures… here’s a few random ones. Try pretending they’re of Dawn and I.

On the weekend DawnO and I cut eachother’s hair. As usual, mine was done to perfection. Hers? Though cutting your wife’s hair sounds like it should be avoided at all costs, I was looking forward to it. I may have cut off a little more than was originally requested, but, it looked good!

Last night I was busy telling our friends about what a fantastic job I did, while across the room Dawn was busy telling them about how she had a surprise for me.

Today at lunch I heard her come in the door and say, ‘ROBO! I’ve got a surprise for you!’ I was certainly surprised. I was absolutely speachless. I suddenly realized I was approaching a critical moment. The next thing out of my mouth needed to be the perfect thing to say.

‘Wow…’ That wasn’t it… ‘What happened?’ Shit… say something else… ‘It certainly IS different.’

It was her turn to say something, ‘Ya, I got it done for Mash (Mashramani – Guyana’s Independance Day – Feb 23rd) so I figured, braids for 3 days won’t kill me.’

This is where I saw the humour in the situation and started to laugh. Probably a little too hard. ‘I feel you’re laughing at me… I think you should say something nice.’

That’s exactly what I had been trying to come up with. After careful consideration, I decided to go with the truth.

‘I can’t take my eyes off of you.’

hello again!

i thought it would be cool to post a blog of some of the things that we see around Georgetown.

last night for superdate rob took me to the top of the working lighthouse in town to watch the sunset. it was nice to get a different perspective on the city, especially because i’m getting a bit of Georgetown rage lately (noise, lewd comments, etc.). i think now that it feels like we’re leaving so soon it’s more challenging to stay focused here. that being said, it’s been a great weekend so far, so hopefully the positivity keeps up.

from our vantage point, we could see most of the city, which is completely flat (and actually below sea level). we could also look out to where the demerara river meets the atlantic ocean.
one of the other big tourist sights here is the cathedral, which is supposed to be the world’s largest free standing wooden structure.

i’ve said before that along the sides of the roads run canals of water (and sewage). one of the streets that we ride down every day has a bigger canal than most (lovingly dubbed ‘shit creek’) and makeshift houses on the other side. the people have constructed bridges complete with front doors that they lock to prevent people from crossing.
that’s it for now, but i’ll try to get some good pictures of the seawall and the dutch architecture for a later posting.
take care!
dawnO

Five of us went ‘camping’ to Hot and Cold Lake last weekend, and I think it was one of the most peaceful and relaxing weekends that I’ve had since we’ve been in Guyana.
It was about a three hour trip to get there by minibus-speedboat-minibus. The speedboat ride took us across the mighty Essequibo river, which is 20km wide. There are around 365 islands in the river and I kept having to remind myself that we were actually on a river because it is so huge. I can’t imagine what the Amazon would be like. We were a bit concerned because it rained for the whole boat ride, but that was the only rain that fell on the weekend.

We set up our hammocks in the benabs and spent the day swimming, reading, and relaxing. We gathered wood in preparation for the evening campfire. I think it was the first time ever that I sat around the campfire and had to move away because it was so hot outside! Surprisingly there were very few mosquitoes – Nick even slept in his hammock without using his mosquito net. What there were a lot of was ants. We interrupted ant highways and tunnels all over the ground, the benabs, the chairs, tables, everywhere!

I’ve never slept in a hammock before and, though it was reasonably comfortable at the time, my low back was sore for a couple of days afterwards.

We were disappointed to come back to the hussle of Georgetown, but made good time on the trip home. Our minibus (15 passenger van) was packed to the nuts with 21 passengers and a live chicken!

We’ve officially decided to do a 5 day trek in March to see Kaiteur Falls, the tourism highlight of Guyana, so we’re excited to be organizing that. 7 weeks to go in Guyana!

Love DawnO

Hello everyone. As promised here is my birthday blog. Saturday started in a normal fashion. We did our shopping and spent the majority of the day in the kitchen. Dawn was busy making salads and my cake. I purchased a gigantic 1.5lb sirloin steak for only $340 which works out to about $1.75 CDN.

The party started at 4pm at Nick and Meg’s. Nick was in Miami so Meg took charge of the grill. People arrived, rum was poured and food was grilled. Unfortunately my steak wasn’t the best thing I’ve ever had (not due to cooking, due to cow). It seems Alberta beef has spoiled me. The rest of the food was fantastic, and the cake was no exception. Well done, DawnO.

At 9:30 people started to disperse. The ones that were in for the long haul accompanied me to “Nuclear”, the karaoke bar. When we got there we discovered that it wasn’t karaoke night, so we persuaded them to break out the hardware anyway. DawnO rallied the female troops together for a rendition of “Girls just wanna have fun”, and I tried my luck at a Beatles tune.

Afterwards we headed back to Meg’s for a late night Chinese food order. At 3am, I fell into a cab and headed home.

Here are some more pics.