OK

A summary of the last four days activities:

March 17 – Bicycled to neighboring village. Sat for 5 hours waiting for a vehicle. Arrived in Lethem. Proceeded to wish everyone and anyone a “Happy St. Paddy’s Day”. Cruised to the airtstrip with friends (some old, some new, some fleeting and transient) and proceeded to get trashed on Parbo and El Dorado. What? I’d have done the same thing in the US, and Peace Corps mission is to promote cultural understanding and exchange between American volunteers and host country nationals. If I hadn’t gotten drunk on Wednesday I would have failed to provide an accurate picture of American culture. Whatever, dont judge me.

March 18 – Bought a bus ticket. Checked my mail. Attended a meeting hosted by Remote Area Medical. Watched 6 episodes from season 1 of Burn Notice.

March 19 – Drank a few beers with my fellow ex-Pats…at 9:30 in the morning. One of my compatriots justified it by observing, “Hey, its noon somewhere.” Besides, I had a 12 hour bus ride ahead of me. Which brings me to the following: rode a bus for 12 hours on a dirt road. Yeah…its about as entertaining as it sounds.

March 20 – Slept in an air-conditioned hotel room. Took a hot shower. Ate at a burger joint. Took a nap in the middle of the day (outside air temperature 33C – inside air temperature 20C). Currentlty lounging at the G-town Peace Corps office pondering my next ultraposh move.

OK, so this isn’t exactly representative of my daily activities at my village. The problem is, my daily activities in the village are now my routine. And routine isnt interesting. At least, not to the person whose fallen into said routine. So in attemting to find material for this dying web log I end up overlooking some of the more outlandish things I’ve done out here. Like herding cattle from horseback. Or poker night.

OK, let’s talk about poker night. 3 volunteers + 2 trainees + cards and chips + 10 beers + 3 bottles of spirits = a whole lot of awesome. I don’t even care that I was eliminated. I played poker in an Amerindian village in Guyana.

As for the herding…well, I got to play cowboy for an afternoon. I wasn’t quite as inept as Billy Crystal and John Lovitz in City Slickers, but I certainly wan’t useful. At the end of it I was completely dehydrated and horribly sunburned. The icing on the cake, however, came with my post ride bath. It was pure bliss…until the water reached my crack. At that point all the dirt, grime, dead skin, and salt that had accumulated during the day’s ride came in contact with the large sores on each of my ass cheeks that five hours of saddle chaffing had produced. At that point I experienced excruciating pain, followed by hysterical laughter after realizing what had caused this intense burning sensation.

OK, I think that’s all I’ve got. I feel like this is a grab-asstic ramble of a post, but I’m in the Peace Corps and I can’t be bothered to care.

Usual disclaimer: this doesn’t represent Peace Corps or the U.S. Government. It’s simply the ramblings of a 20-something white dude living in Guyana.

Thanks for reading.

Year 1: check

I didn’t expect that I’d be able to keep my blog updated regularly, but 6 months between posts is just ridiculous.

The fact that I’ve had six months to procrastinate underscores a recurring thought: I can’t believe its been one year since home.

Maybe its because everything has been going so smoothly. I’ve settled into a routine, and with routine comes comfort and complacency. Its easy to stop marking time once you stop being a traveler and start becoming a resident.

Still, some things, like the predictable unpredictability of technology here, never change. I had typed up a summary of my experiences in Brazil for Carnaval but, due to various compatibility issues, I’ve been unable to upload it. Stupid unreadable Microsoft Works. In short, carnaval was amazing. Even though I didn’t make it to Rio or Sao Paulo, the spectacle in Boa Vista was impressive.

I promise I’ll get the full story up just now.

Upcoming events: Republic Week, hosting a new volunteer, assisting with training in region 2, Rodeo, mid-service, and (hopefully) a vacation home in May. I’m going to be quite busy for the next few months.

Right, time to go. Don’t want to be late for beer and home-made pizza. I promise I’ll get a proper article posted next month.

Until then, this page does not in any way represent the views of Peace Corps.

Thanks for reading.

Jus’ Now

I know, I’m really bad at keeping you up to date (especially YOU, Kari). But I’m in town now and here’s what’s new:

I’ve been unwittingly elected the secretary of the village sports club;

I own a bow and six arrows;

I moved into my house last month;

I have survived 4 months on 3 months salary.

I read way too much.

I don’t have any idea what’s going on in the world.

I’m in possession of a sattelite telephone.

I own a guitar.

I bicycle everywhere.

I haven’t cut my hair in over four months (see photo, assuming it uploaded properly).

That’s the short of it, and unfortunately its all i have time for.

As always, this isn’t a Peace Corps publication, any opinions expressed are my own, etc…

Thanks for reading

I get to use my degree? No way!

So, as you may have guessed I made it back into town. Despite a all the work I had to do to make it out of Lethem earlier in the week (which is a story for another time), I’m back in four days later. Why? Well I’m glad you asked. Pull up a chair children, its story time.

A local leader approached me the other day. He wanted to meet with myself and a few members of our village council concerning a workshop in Lethem to be held at the end of the week. It turns out that the government of Guyana is actively pursuing a Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) to allow the country to move forward in an economically rational yet environmentally friendly fashion. The government of Guyana, in partnership with the government of Norway, are working together to find a way to give economic value to the country’s standing rainforest that exceeds the value that could be generated from harvesting in an unsustainable manner. Essentially, the government of Norway is going to pay Guyana to not cut down trees.

The idea is to eliminate the carbon emissions needed to harvest the forested areas, as well as preserve the carbon capture capability of the standing trees. This in turn will reduce worldwide greenhouse gasses. If successful, this plan may even serve as an example to the rest of the world as a way for developed and developing countries to jointly move forward in combating global climate change.

This weekend’s conference is centred on a 57 page consultation draft of this proposal. The Office of the President is holding these workshops all over the country in order to get input from community leaders, as well as to answer any questions that may be put forth.

So why am I involved? As it happened, the document in question, which is full of dense legal and technical language, was only distributed to the villages on Sunday. In addition, only two copies were provided for our village, which means not everyone who needed to got a chance to see it. And finally, the document itself only mentions Amerindian communities in two paragraphs. Very little mention is given as to how this agreement will alter their traditional use of their lands. Basically the information was provided at too late of a date, in too complicated language, with too few copies to go around. The result is that many of the village leaders invited to this conference are going into it without having all the information and without being prepared with relevant questions.

Enter the political scientist.

As most of you know, I live for this kind of stuff. Having read and analyzed this document, I have here an opportunity to provide de facto legal advice to a group of people that potentially has a lot to lose in this agreement. As the proposal stands, lands under Amerindian title and jurisdiction are exempt from any regulations being put forth under this agreement. However, individual communities have the option of ‘opting-in’ to this agreement in order to receive financial and infrastructure benefits. The problem is these benefits and land restrictions are not specified in the current proposal. How this LCDS affects Amerindian communities is very vague at this stage, and this conference is one of the few opportunities community leaders will have to get these ambiguities clarified and give their input. This plan certainly would be beneficial to the world, and to Guyana as a whole. It remains to be seen how it will impact Amerindian communities, and weather they would be better off choosing not to opt-in.

Exciting times to be in Guyana.

Again, the opinions expressed herein are my own and do not reflect those of the Peace Corps or the US government.

Thanks for reading.

I’m alive. Yay.

OK. So I have internet access again. Perhaps now would be a good time to jot something down? What a novel idea.

I know I’ve been rather inconsistent with the information I’ve given from one person to the next, so I’ll try to get the whole story down here. For starters, I’ve been at my site for just over one month. It’s a small Amerindian village located in the vast savannahs of southern Guyana. For security reasons I’ve been asked not to post my address or exact whereabouts on anything public (i.e. this blog). However, if anyone is interested in sending me mail or care packages (hint hint) feel free to shoot me an email at dshimell@live.com and I’ll get you my -address (assuming I know you and you’re not some stalker. Unless you’re good-looking. Send pics, we’ll talk).

First, a word on transportation: it sucks. Pavement doesn’t exist out here. There’s a short stretch of paved road in Lethem, but for the most part its graded dirt all the way back to Georgetown. The main road is ok most of the time, but during the rainy season it can get pretty nasty. The side roads or back trails are even less developed and turn into quagmires during the rains.

The most common and reliable form of transportation comes in the form of Honda 125cc dirt bikes. But remember, I am working for the US government, so naturally this is the only mode of transportation which I’m prohibited from using. Fantastic. My other options are traveling by bicycle over long distances (35 miles in some cases) or begging for rides from vehicles that may be passing through. And then there’s always my legs which, I will admit, are usually my best option over shorter distances.

The only developed town in the region is Lethem, and it’s a good distance away from my village (surprise!). Given the transportation difficulties listed above, you can imagine that I don’t get into town that often. Once per month is about all I can guarantee. And usually I arrive tired, sweaty, and covered in dirt from the road. It is a chore to get out here, but the cold beers, internet, and other volunteers in town make the trip worthwhile.

As for the village itself, it pretty much defines what I had in mind when I thought of Peace Corps. The domicile of choice is the thatched-roof, adobe brick house. I’m temporarily staying in a guest house with brick walls and a zinc (sheet metal) roof. At first I was a little disappointed that my permanent house wasn’t finished when I got here. However this has given me the unique opportunity to assist in the construction of my own house, and I’m not homeless, so it all worked out. Plus I get a brand new pit latrine. So after two years I’ll have no one to thank for the smell but myself.

As I mentioned earlier, the people here are Amerindians. These are the native people of Guyana. They’ve lived on these lands since time immemorial. I’m a bit sketchy on the details, but from what I understand they didn’t start settling down into permanent villages until fairly recently, within the last 100 years.

The people themselves are fairly quiet, which has proven to be a double edged sword. At times it can be quite frustrating, especially when trying to get someone’s opinion or to check for understanding when I’m teaching. But at other times it’s rather nice to be able to sit down next to a friend or co-worker and just enjoy silence together. For better or for worse it’s something I never really ran into back home, and like all such things I try to appreciate it both for what it is and what it is not.

Village politics are pretty intense, surprisingly enough. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but I will say that I’m amazed at how many different factions and sub-factions are at work in such a small community.

I’m also intrigued with the operation of the village government. The Village Council is composed of the Toshao (roughly equivalent to the mayor), deputy Toshao, Secretary, Treasurer, and several councilors. More or less the same as a city council back in the states. What’s interesting and different is that everything operates around the principle of direct democracy. Anything of importance, from elections to community action and collective decision making, must be passed by a majority vote at the village public meeting, held quarterly. Every adult in the village has the right to vote. And because of the small size of the village (<1000 persons) it should be an ideal location for such a system to flourish according to most theories concerning democratic forms. At any rate it’s as close to the classic Athenian model as I’m ever likely to get, and I’m extremely excited to study this in depth over the next two years.

As far as my actual work goes…its been a bit slow. I’m assigned to the health post as a community health promoter, which probably deserves a bit of an explanation for anyone not in Peace Corps. Peace Corps Guyana currently has two active programs, health and education. My role as a health volunteer primarily consists of health education and community outreach. A large portion of our training focused on disease prevention, with a particular emphasis on Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI). In practice, a lot of my work has dealt with hygiene and nutrition. Many Guyanese simply don’t have access to a lot of information that would be common knowledge in the states. Things like bacterial infection, deficiency diseases, malnutrition, dehydration, and sanitation simply aren’t known or understood by people outside of the medical field, particularly in the hinterland. It’s a challenging problem to tackle, but it gives a volunteer without an extensive medical background (like me) an excellent way to make an impact within a community.

Also, I’m not strictly confined to the health field. Small villages like mine present the opportunity to be an “all village” volunteer, meaning I get to dabble in pretty much anything I want.  For example, I’ve been working in the school teaching 9^th grade level math. That’s a story in and of itself, but suffice to say that I had to try to teach a semester worth of material in about 3 weeks, with two sessions per week. Good times.

But back to my actual assignment. The majority of Health volunteers (like me) are assigned to work within or alongside the Guyana Ministry of Health, which oversees nearly all medical facilities in the country. Healthcare in Guyana is nationalized and most treatments and procedures are free to the public. That being said, MoH is sorely lacking in material resources, particularly in the hinterland areas (like my village). Structurally, the MoH is organized into five different types of facilities, which are distributed according to the country’s ten geographical regions. The largest and best developed of these is the National Hospital in Georgetown. Next to that are the Regional Hospitals, which act as the central medical facilities in each geographic region. Next are the district hospitals, with several of these distributed in each region. Following that are health centers, and finally health posts (where I am). Every community has at least a health post or health center. However these are the bottom tier of medical facilities, and as such are subject to both the most severe resource constraints as well as the most bureaucratic headaches to contend with. Good times. Anyway, that’s my office. On the plus side, I sometimes get to operate the High-Frequency Radio at the post. Looks like my booming announcer voice is finally being put to good use.

I’ve got quite a bit more to write, but as it is I’m over two full pages of single-spaced text, so I think I’ll close here. I should be able to post again just after July 4, assuming I’m not too busy giving the US a bad name by running through Lethem naked with a beer in one hand and an American flag in the other singing ‘Born in the USA’ at the top of my lungs. We shall see.

As always, this is my own opinion, not that of Peace Corps Guyana, blah blah…you get the idea.

And as always, thanks for reading.

Bauer, Jack?

Somehow I find myself stumbling upon the most random information in Guyana. Today I discovered the entomology of the name of that quintessential terrorist bane from 24.

Anyone familiar with the card game Uker (sp?) may already be privy to this information. In any event, without trying to explain the whole game (trust me, it would be next to impossible) it will suffice to say that in a given round of Uker one of the jacks is the highest card in the game. It simply beats everything. No questions asked.

Clearly this destroyer of worlds deserves a unique moniker to distinguish it from the common jack with which we are all familiar. The invisible hands which created this game so many decades ago must have realized this as well. They dubbed the uber card : Bauer.

To review : a Bauer (Jack) mercilessly beats anything it comes up against without a moment’s pause. Does this sound at all familiar?

Thanks for reading.

Week 1 in Guyana

This is my second full day with my host family and I couldn’t ask for a better one. My “mother” is very supportive, and is already teaching me to do things Guyanese style. Her younger son is very inquisitive, and his older brother is helping me get to know the area. They’re all wonderful.

The Creolese is something I’ll have to work on. Its frustrating at times. The language is basically english, but there are so many colloquialisms and its spoken so quickly that I often can’t understand it as such. Even so, I’m beginning to feel connected to this country and its people. I had a lot of reasons for coming here before I arrived, but its good to know I have another.

Health training starts on Monday. I’m sure I’ll be busy, but I’ll try to keep you updated.

As always, the opinions expressed in this website are my own and do not represent those of the Peace Corps or any branch of the US Government. Typing that on my blackberry is getting annoying.

Thanks for reading.

So I’m in Guyana. And posting from my blackberry. More will follow, but first I must sleep.

The internet, eh?

With my departure date approaching with unfaltering rapidity, there are a number of things I probably should be doing right now. Shopping for last minute necessities comes to mind. Further researching Guyanese culture or looking into the Peace Corps’ past and future involvement there would be another good idea. And with just over 60 hours separating me from my flight, it stands to reason that packing should be at or near the top of my “URGENT MATTERS DEMANDING IMMEDIATE ATTENTION” list.

With that in mind I find it somewhat disconcerting that the only thought weighing me down at the present is whether my above use of caps-lock succeeded in setting the cruise control of this blog to “Awesome”, or if it just made me look like a tool. Rereading now, my own vote is for the latter. But I’ll let it stand, regardless.

I’m quickly discovering that this whole  blogging thing is kind of hard. I feel like everything I’m writing here is inane, presumptuous drivel. Maybe it is. Maybe this is just a phase I’m going through since I’m new at this. However, I like to think that this post’s lack of substance is illustrative of the problems inherent in starting a web-log of my time in Guyana before I’m actually in Guyana. I’ll let you be the judge.

In any case, I promise future posts will have a bit more direction.

Thanks for reading,

-Daniel