Gratitude

When you are thrown from one culture into another, you are offered these incredibly unique scenarios. You have your American upbringing, wherever and whatever that may be, in one hand and are being handed an image of an entirely different Guyanese upbringing in the other. I think, for me, I am capable of compartmentalizing well. So I put my American upbringing behind my back as this Guyanese outlook was falling into my hand. I pretended like my American life never existed as living in a village of about 360 Indigenous people, regularly seeing monkeys/macaws/parrots/baboons, watching grannies canoe boats to their farms or walk with straw baskets on their backs, witnessing small children run across the white sand playing sports with whatever materials they can find, listening to the incessant pounding of rain on my zinc roof, and gaffing with people using terms like, “me nah no” or “how much years yo de?” and hearing names like, “Mnemosyne” and “Kamuwell” became my new normal. I pretended like bucket showers with cold water and walking down to the landing to buy my vegetables from the greens boat was just everyday life; I let it all be a part of this adventure that I was on and as a result I didn’t have to compare my life back home to where I was. But recently, the realization has been sinking in, I live here. This is my home and I am not only on an adventure, but I am here for a job, for a deeper purpose, for the hearts that I would encounter. But with this realization of my new home, the hand holding my American life has come from behind my back and is now idling up to this other hand that has quickly been holding more and more of the Guyanese traditions, (it only took 5 months of actually living here). The labor intensive process of making cassava bread and roti, farming all fruits/vegetables, washing laundry by hand, and making brooms from old palm trees. Here I see, the, well, the ways in which I have been blessed and handicapped to grow up in a developed country. We all knew this post was coming eventually hahaha, well here it is.

I think the real motive in writing this post was not to make others feel the guilt that goes hand-in-hand with service in a developing country or even to express a guilt that I was feeling serving here; it wasn’t to drive people to go donate all their money, sell their possessions, or feel laden with guilt for buying an extra latte in the week; it wasn’t so that people would think, “wow, what an experience SHE’S having” either. My motive in writing this was…well…gratitude. People here have so many things to be grateful for: amazing communities of family-based villages, generosity of the land and the people, a slower pace to appreciate the small details in life, gorgeous rain forest scenes every day, and a more environmental/economically sound way of living off of the land. They have these things in the midst of their struggles of lack of resources, inconsistent project plans, and limited opportunities towards diverse career paths; in the States the gratitude and struggle is no different, but it becomes so convoluted in the noise of wealth and the “American dream”. We have things we ought to be grateful for oozing out of our ears, and so often we let those things become our expectation, our demand even.

Let me say something cheesy for a Peace Corps Volunteer’s blog: there will ALWAYS be a reason to be grateful. If you woke up breathing today you have something to be grateful for and that’s anywhere you live. Gratitude, true gratitude, doesn’t take the form of superiority or pity. It doesn’t have to be contingent on other’s living conditions or life trajectory’s. Gratitude is a choice that when truly experienced fills a void, an emptiness, leaving no more room to complain; it is this response, this demeanor towards the things and the people and the purpose and the hope that we have in life. It’s a response that allows us to appreciate life instead of anticipate or expect things in life; it is a response that allows us to feel touched, instead of entitled, to be present instead of searching, and to become encouraged instead of drained.

Gratitude can be found in the details that you may have never seen before in your daily life. Like your refrigerator, or all-day electricity, or warm showers, or running water, or a fully-resourced health facility or school. There will always be a reason to be grateful; we have the option to choose just how hard we are willing to seek it out. And I’m not talking about the “sweeping the issues under the rug” kind of gratitude. I am talking about the heartfelt, hope-inducing, inspirational form of gratitude that allows us to have resilience in the face of our struggles.

For me, as the adventure of living in this beautiful, slower-paced life wears into the hard, tough, and sometimes frustrating work of living in a developing country that is the thing that hits home. As my hands, carrying these two cultures are measured side-by-side, these are the things that I see. And as I live here, I will be grateful for the world that I get to witness and I will be resilient in the face of the hurdles placed in front of me.

Sincerely,

that American living in Guyana.

Dear Coffee Snobs, I Have Arrived

Today, I am chronicling the start of a process that I have only dreamed of in the past…harvesting my own coffee beans!

For those of you who know my level of coffee snobbery and addiction, you would understand the gravity of this proclamation! I stopped by my neighbor, Auntie Pearl's, house to ask if I could pick some coffee berries off of her tree that day and she decides to take me to her cousin’s house at the back end of the village so as to get MORE coffee berries. We get to the end and she points to the top of the tree showing the bright red and ripe berries on the branches and starts to ask for a ladder. But, this is my dream right folks, so I turned down the ladder and jumped into the tree. Now I’m pulling branches of ripe berries towards me and dropping them on the floor for the local kids (they follow me everywhere) to pick up and put in my bucket. With a full bucket of berries:

I walked back to my house and:

Sat underneath the raised foundation at my newly constructed work station of a board and an old glass bottle. 

At this point there were about 5 kids who showed up to see what I was doing and started to help. Sooner rather than later I was the manager of a child’s sweat shop … 

First we “panged” or pounded the berry, just enough to burst it open:

and then we pulled the cream colored slimy bean from inside:

and put it in a bucket full of water to soak. 

The kids had a full assembly line going and we finished in no time! Then the kids got bored and off they ran to play cricket or catch a monkey or something.  

Next, I soaked the beans until the slimy coating on the outside began to dissolve (about 3 days). Then I washed them out and put them in a pan to begin the most tedious, watching-paint-dry process of drying the beans. 

They have to be dried for about 2 weeks and cannot be rained on, which means when it starts to drizzle you are dashing out the door to bring in your beans (and washing if you can remember them/have enough hands for them, priorities people). As the beans dry there is a thin shell that cracks and this is where my child sweat shop managerial skills are impeccable. The kids magically reappeared of course and together we peeled the shell off of each and every single bean for hours. After that, there is a parchment that must be rubbed off or sifted off of the bean to result in the green, non-roasted product that you’ve seen in the real coffee snob’s coffeehouse as they prepare to roast the beans. 

I then walked with a container full of beans to a house across the village where we roasted the beans in a Cahari (type of pot) over an outdoor fire until they were browned aka roasted. 

We immediately pulled them off of the fire, sifted them one more time, and then we put them in a hand mill that was passed down through generations for over 200 years. 

I walked back across that village with a FINE smelling container of freshly ground/roasted beans with a smile and spring in my step, that truly marked an addict in anticipation of their next fix. =]. On my first morning enjoying the coffee, I used my travel French press to brew these celebrated Guyanese beans. 

Breakfast completely brought to you by the land of Waramuri.

I tell you I will never be the same and my snobbery will be 500% worse when I return to the states, of that I can guarantee. 

Voila, coffee made from start to finish!

Birthday, Take 24, Jungle Book Edition

My first birthday in Guyana. I didn't take too many pictures team, so sorry on that factoid, but the reasoning is because I had moved to my new community, Waramuri, 4 days prior to this celebration and truthfully, I felt a leetle awkward about taking any pictures. BUT I woke up and Auntie Norma (the 69-year-old, semi-British woman I live with) had made a big breakfast and coffee and we sat out on the porch to enjoy our coffee and took in the scenic jungle background with the sound of monkeys and macaws chattering about. 

WARNING: Pictures on my phone have very poor quality, but they get the job done and they look a bit like paintings, so it's super artsy. 

The neighbors at this point started up their generator and blasted Happy Birthday music for 20 minutes. And of course, “Go shawty, it’s your birthday” started playing and Auntie (69 remember) started danced to the whole song, dragging me in to dance as well. The neighbor kids made me the sweetest birthday card and we had a wonderful roast chicken lunch with some family members of Auntie Norma’s as well….and remember, I moved in 4 DAYS AGO, this community is positively wonderful.

That night, I hopped on a crowded bus to travel through the jungle to a town about 40 minutes away called Kumaka where a Pentecostal revival was going on. I got there and it was a huge field FILLED with Guyanese. They started to play worship music and all the youth went to the front to dance and celebrate. Just like that I was a part of a worship mosh pit of Guyanese jumping up and down in the middle of the jungle singing at the top of my lungs, steam rising from our heads, and sweat POURING. That went on for about an hour and then the pastor gave a talk and off we were. On the bus ride back, we were jostled every which way by the rough road through the jungle, but I couldn’t stop smiling as I thought, with sweat drying in my hair and my seat neighbor practically in my lap, “WHAT A BIRTHDAY!!” And just like that I turned 24 in Guyana, stay tuned for 25, I’m planning on hosting a jaguar-wrestling party. 

Site Pictures

This is the landing from the Moruca river into the mission. Across the river is all savannah and jungle, not another village to be seen.

More landing views from later down at the mission.

My calves will be legit after playing football in the sand for the next couple of years…hopefully. =]

This is the savannah view from the far side of the mission.

This is my Auntie Norma who I will be staying with in the village and her little niece Michelle. We took walks around the community after work and this was our little path across the village.

This is a group of the village kids including all my neighbor girls: Michella, Danielle, and Kavita on the left, Adena and Mary in front of me and Michelle, Eron, Lilliana, and Shakeel to the right. They are all adorable and frequently visit the house. We are at a bathing pool in the jungle that the community uses.

Just Words

Here I am back in Mainstay Village in Region 2 after an 11-day trip to meet my counterpart, Dr. Orin Lewis, whom I will be working alongside for the next 2 years. I also traveled to my new community, Waramuri in Region 1 to meet the rest of my colleagues, host family, and community members. After touching base with multiple other PCV’s one could say that the emotions raged for everyone just about as much as they did when that lovely stage of puberty graced our presence. It is interesting the wide range of emotions that we humans are capable of when thrown into an entirely new experience and surrounded by everything foreign. You grasp at anything that makes you feel comfortable and familiar; that feeling of being UNDERSTOOD becomes one of the most precious gifts that you could be given.

We all spent a week in our respective communities. Some of us were the only Americans in the area for hours, others were placed into the somewhat busy coastal regions. Some were placed in a house on a river without a canoe in complete isolation (one could say that they were up a creek without a paddle) and others closer to their neighbors than they care to experience (aka they could probably hear you fart…smh). I was among some of the more isolated volunteers in a village on the Moruca river. I did get to see a PCV from the year before me, Eneka, for about 30 minutes during a supply run for our health center at the district hospital. My heart nearly burst seeing another American and for someone who has taken pride in independence and a confidence in meeting people from different backgrounds (hello FreeZone!) that was a foreign feeling. I feel like it’s in those moments that you realize that you are never going to stop pushing against your comfort zone; it’s a continual choice that will consistently plunge you into the unknown, whether in the states or in a different continent.

As I walked around in the community, being watched and analyzed like a zoo animal, trying to get to know the traditionally shy and reserved Amerindian community, I felt the feeling of discouragement wash over me. Conversations were short and simple, people avoided eye-contact, relationships were proper and professional, and I, the eternal child, was melting away as it seemed. Of course this propelled me into the journaling and prayer (per usual), and as I prayed, this question slammed into me, “Am I just trying to make myself feel productive, useful, and liked or do I actually care about the people that I’m serving?” Service is a more complex thing than I had previously thought. It is tested in the face of challenge. Do you continue to serve the people around you, or do you retreat into your deservedly felt emotional distress? When in a position of service, do you choose to continually plead to God to open your eyes to see the needs of others or do you plead to God for him to open his eyes to see yours? I know that in this week I just wanted to feel seen in a community that only saw my skin color, my nationality, and the clothes that I wore; a community that only heard the oh so out of place American accent that I spoke in.

Whether you are choosing to love a difficult friend or family member, launching into a new stage of schooling/career/therapy, or trying to integrate into a new world, do not forget that you are already seen, loved, known, pursued, and desired. You have a God that is BIG and in control. You are held tighter and closer than you could ever know. This was the deeply needed message that I heard God whisper to me as I journaled and gave him that emotional distress. Not to say that I won’t feel those same feelings of failure, discouragement, and insecurity. This is simply to say that I will pray for remembrance of truths that have propelled me into service and that I will ask those who read this to partner with me in that, for their own lives and for mine.

Site Placement

Here’s another post simply to say: I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING TO BE FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS!!!! So the way that they revealed where we were going was through an insane game of Pictionary. There were 5 teams, one giant map of Guyana with post-it notes all over it, and a room full of emotionally amped “adults” coated in our accustomed South American sweat. Each time a team guessed the picture correctly the drawer got to go up to the map and reveal a site where one of us was going. I have never been dripping sweat so aggressively while sitting in one spot in my entire life! I was revealed pretty quickly into the game, someone pointed to the farthest post-it note to the west and sure enough there I was. I will be serving in Waramuri village in Mourca, Region 1. I will be the only one in my group (GUY 28) going to that region. 

From Georgetown (the capitol), I'll have to take a minibus for an hour to the Essequibo river and then across the 23 mile wide river on a speed boat, another hour long minibus ride to Charity, and then will have to take a boat up the Pomeroon river, out into the Atlantic to reach the river head for the Mourka River, which then runs through my village. Let’s just say that I have enough money to travel to the coast once a month haha. I work in a health center and will be living in a village with 432 members that are predominately Amerindian. I get to travel there next Saturday to see what the site is like, what the health center is like, and what projects my counterpart Dr. Lewis will have for me. The site doesn’t really have any running water, electricity, flushing toilets, or wifi capability. That being said though, I will have some limited cell access, because they have a tower, but I’m just not sure how reliable that signal will be. All that to say that I have grown accustomed to "gaffing" (creolese for chatting), liming (hanging out), and in general enjoying the silence since I've arrived. There is a simple beauty that comes with lack of amenities, that's for sure.

I am ridiculously pumped to be going somewhere new and with a lot to see, so it seems, but I am bummed that I will be 3 hours from my closest group member. The GUY 28 (30 of us) cohort has become family so quickly and the hugs, laughs, deep conversations, and random pranks/walks/secrets handshakes/squaaa poses are going to be desperately missed. It seems crazy to think that we’ll be so far apart after being together for the past 5 weeks here in Training, somehow when you force a group of 30 Americans to spend a ridiculous amount of time together in a foreign country they become instant soul mates, weird. Our sites range from the west coast to the east coast all the way down to the furthest point in Guyana known as Region 9, which is 18 hours away from me and of course 2 of the 5 of the Mainstay 5 are placed there...RIP Mainstay 5, RIP (Don't worry we've already made reunion plans); however, I get to come into town once a month to retrieve my monthly stipend which means that I get to see my host family once a month!! I’ve grown ridiculously attached to these kids and my host mom. The other day I was going to celebrate site placements with the Mainstay 5 volunteers at one of their houses and as I was leaving, Jaime, the 5-year-old, yells out after me, “I miss you every time you go Amber” as the rest of the family watched me walk down the street. Jerry, the 10-year-old, was getting ready to get in the shower (we all bathe in a line of youngest to oldest as we wait outside for each other) and he stopped and turned around, looked at me and said, “Amber, when you get to your new host family, you know that this is still your home right?” I just about melted in my spot, both times. They are such wonderful humans and it seems as if living with them is God's little message in the clouds saying, "I've got you kid, let's do this together". Okay I’ll leave this off with a few pictures of the family and the group. 

 This is one of the most classic Taylour and Amber pictures that could have ever been captured. =] 

We were invited to an East Indian wedding one weekend and were able to dress in traditional garb to witness the ceremony! 

Then we had a cultural day where we dressed in traditional Amerindian, African, and Indian garb and learned about norms and traditional practices done by each group.

This group is the OG Squaaa, we bonded on the first night in Miami chilling in a room as I played guitar and we exchanged jokes, and we have stuck together through the PST (Pre-Service Training) process. 

Guys, this one is my host siblings (Kimberle, Jerry, Kindle, and Jaime). I already love them more than I should considering the small amount of time that I have known them. Each one of them is so ridiculously unique and adds this wonderful dynamic to one incredible family to be a part of. 

Pre-Service Training Deets

Social Media World,

Hello, it’s been a while since I’ve touched base eh? I’ve been placed in my host family in Mainstay village, which is a modernized yet still somewhat remote Amerindian village. The village has about 500 inhabitants and there are SO many kids who live here. My family has 4 kids: Kimberle – 13, Jeremiah – 10, Kindle – 9, and Jaime – 5 and my host mom Naomi.

My host dad is in the interior, which means that he’s in the jungle mining for gold on months on end. I might get to meet him at some point in time before I leave, rumor has it. They are freaky awesome and remind me so much of my siblings back at home.

We don’t have any wifi and the internet data is pretty slow so I don’t get a chance to get on social media very often, but when I do, I promise I'll make it worthwhile.

I am one of 5 volunteers placed here in Mainstay, so of course we became the Mainstay 5 and actually spend quite a bit of time together considering it is very hard to get to the coast to meet up with the other volunteers. They are: Zach, Taylour, Gabrielle, and Kristina! Taylour is the other Health volunteer and the rest of the three are the education volunteers. Taylour and I have already done a health talk in the school and we got to listen to a fetal heartbeat during antenatal care clinic. Also, we were able to observe vaccinations, and dengue protocol. Not bad for the past 5 weeks. 

This was the first night that we were at Mainstay and the kids were displaying their cultural dance. I later learned that two of the kids in the dance troupe are in my family, Kindle and Jerry! 

 This is them playing red light green light, which later became a regular game they played at their school.

This is my backyard with the neighborhood kids, two of the Mainstay 5 (Zach and Gabrielle), and my host siblings!

This is another of the Mainstay 5, Taylour, and I at a cultural event where we all had to dress up as different cultures found in Guyana. If you can't tell, we're Amerindian. =]

My host mom celebrated her birthday with us on February 21st, so we all had cake and toasted! Jerry wants to make it clear that he is embarrassed that I am posting this and that he doesn't have a shirt on (he's the oldest boy, 10).

This is a group of neighborhood kids and my littlest sister Kindle (she's on the top far left).

So I have to start getting used to actually working hard at chores here. I do my laundry by hand and hang it out on the line and have to wash sheets once a week plus on Saturday we all have chores day. We deep clean the house, shower, pit latrine, and sweep inside and outside of the house. Also, this is my backyard! The rest of the green is jungle!

Arrival and Training

Okay social media people!

I know I promised to post pictures of things, but this one has to be a words only post because my cord that connects my camera to the computer is in my checked bag and the Peace Corps is holding it hostage until Saturday when we meet our Pre-Service Training host families. I know excuses, excuses.

Anyway, we made it to Guyana safe and sound and were cheering loudly when we landed, much to the surprise of the flight attendants and other passengers (social apology to those people). The humidity was for sure evident when we stepped off of the plane, but it was Guyana, and we all knew we would come to love that humidity sometime soon. If you turned around there was just pitch black rain forest, which was definitely a new and exciting sight!

The next day we took our trip to Lake Mainstay Resort from minibus to ferry to minibus through the jungle. The first minibus ride we crossed the “longest floating bridge in the world”, I’m thinking maybe it is, maybe it isn’t but hey! It sounds pretty cool. When we were on the ferry we saw all kinds of tropical forested islands and went 23 miles across the mouth of the Essequibo river, which is the widest river in Guyana.

Now we’re training at Lake Mainstay, enjoying Guyanese food, and learning all about what it’s going to look like to work as a Peace Corps Volunteer (PCV) here in Guyana. The group of 30 of us here have probably fallen in love with each other far too fast and far too strongly to be healthy, but they really are a wonderful group, I promise!

We just found out where we will be living for the next 10 weeks and I will be staying in a village in the hinterlands. The hinterlands are the inland parts of the country that is still rainforest and some can be mountainous as well. I will be working at the health center and will still be in training until swear-in, which is April 12^th!

THE FIRST GUYANA POST

Alright people of the palace. It is time for the final USA blog before heading out to the sweet sweet lands of Guyana! Here is the low down. Guyana, yes, that is a country, no, I am not saying Ghana wrong. It's in South America and is the third smallest country on the continent. One could equate it to the size of Idaho in the United States, but it only has about 800, 000 inhabitants. I will be there for 2 years and three months and I will be working as a Community Health Specialist, but I do not know what I will be doing there yet, nor what part of the country I'll wind up in, BUT I promise to update you on all of that on THIS NEW AND IMPROVED (but really just the old thing repurposed) blog!

I'll probably just be posting a lot of pictures and won't be posting all that frequently because of spotty internet connection, but I will take all of my wonderful social media peeps with me to the jungles and waters of Guyana.

The packing process has been quite the ordeal, but in the end I have one bag that weighs a total of 49 pounds, one guitar for the purpose of practice and play, and one carry-on backpack that has way too many things to handle. And now it is 11PM and I am writing this blog and getting ready to head to Miami to meet the rest of the Peace Corps cohort!

Okay, I'm heading out and to stay true to my word, here's a picture of my luggage: