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Sunday, September 20, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Twenty
Day Twenty – Theologically Speaking
Friday 18 Sep 09
We had two meetings today. The first was titled, ‘Pastoral and Theological Issues.’ My understanding of it was that there was going to be a bit of a roundtable conversation about particular issues in the church. Well that was true in a sense…Keith invited me into the lounge and the two of us sat and talked together – not much different to any number of conversations we have had since I have been here. In this instance we talked about Baptism. He quizzed me about how we practice Baptism in NZ and we worked our way through the practical aspects, some of the theological questions and issues that are current and examined some of the thinking that is prevalent here in Guyana as well. I think the main differences that were highlighted for me were two. First was that there appears to be no real connection between baptism and membership, there is no requirement for one to precede the other. We spent a little time on that.
The other, and this took a bit longer, was the idea that if a child is baptised and the parents are not believers then the baptism doesn’t count. There is a strong line of thought here about the importance of the human element in the process (also indicated in the thinking about the marriage process). In fact I would almost go so far as to say that God’s part in these ceremonies is effectively relegated to observer in the minds of the participants. When I challenged this thinking the justifications were quite esoteric and seemed to have little or no relationship to a clearly thought through Biblical stance. It made for an interesting 90 minutes.
The second meeting was the weekly leaders meeting. This was held at the church office, a room lent to the church by an interested 3rd party. The strange thing here was that we all (me, Keith, Patrick, who is the volunteer pastor) piled into a taxi for a 10 minute to a home that was nowhere near the parish. It was nice from my point of view simply to see a different part of the city, but I couldn’t see the purpose of being there apart from the fact that it was different, and someone had offered it.
I had been asked to talk about strategic planning. We had just on an hour and so we spent some time talking about hopes and dreams and some ways of processing these as a congregation and as leadership. Then we looked at different forms and styles of leadership. I built that around the five aspects of leadership mentioned in Ephesians, and then, just because I could, added in administration as another aspect. We talked about identifying leaders, training leaders, being leaders. I talked with them about involving the whole congregation in different forms of leadership and mentioned some of the strengths and weaknesses of apostles, prophets, pastors,… It all seemed to go well.
One of the things that I find amazing here is that no-one seems to understand what is really going on at Sophia Mission Church. It has all happened rather by accident and yet God is doing something highly significant among the people. And this is at a number of levels. The most obvious is that people are coming to trust in Jesus by the bucket load. One of the conversations we had in the morning was about the practical aspects of baptising 40 people at one go. With that of course is how you educate people in the Word and in practices of worship without simply coming in over the top of who they are and their experiences. Of course there is a balance here that is best highlighted by the concept of being in the world but not of the world. In a community where spiritual practices are common the need to cut off certain practices is important. The problem that you seem to face at that point is where cultural practice ends and spiritual practice begins. In fact it seems to me that they are intricately interwoven and in some instances the only place to cut is at the root. In others there is some leeway for negotiation. And this is all a thousand times harder when you see it up close and personal than it is when you are reading about it in a book!!!
We finished up and caught a bus back to Kitty where I grabbed my laptop and headed off to the internet café so I could call Ruth and Alisha before Alisha left for Japan. Skype is great! The sound quality at my end was a bit rubbish but we talked and typed for about 45 minutes and then I had another 15 minutes on the internet for $G200 – that’s about $NZ1.40! The other day when I called on my cell phone it cost slightly less than that per MINUTE. I know which I prefer!!!!! If all else had failed I would have just gone with the per minute cost, but having the option is certainly a good thing in my estimation.
Had a bit of an early night – my sleep was quite broken the night before but I slept really well this time around.
Travel Diary - Day Nineteen
Day Nineteen – Going with the flow
Thursday 17 Sep 09
The main event for the day was an evening meeting at Sophia so the rest of the day was free. I got up and had a shower – there’s only one temperature, but then there only needs to be one temperature anything above the naturally heated lukewarm would be crazy! Actually I could quite happily have several showers a day just to get rid of the constant sticky feeling from the heat. I certainly wash my hands much more frequently for exactly that reason.
Breakfast was a combination of toast, eggs and sausages. It seems to be what I am being given every morning. I haven’t quite managed to work out what is a normal breakfast here – I’m sure it’s not what I am given, but everyone eats breakfast at different times. Between that, the ladies mostly eating upstairs, and Keith being rather different in his approach to eating I have no idea what is normal.
I spent a couple of hours reading my Bible, meditating, thinking - that was good. Then Keith appeared and we started talking. He was due to go and take a French class, he gets part of his income from teaching. After we had been talking for about 40 minutes he got up and went upstairs for a couple of minutes. He reappeared to say that he had rung to say he wasn’t going into work. It seems to me that lots of things here in Guyana kind of flow with the moment. Of course, on one level that’s not a bad thing, but it seems to me that the balance has tipped a little too far toward the laissez faire end of things. Anyway, we continued our conversation and covered some interesting topics that helped me continue to broaden my understanding of what is happening here in Guyana generally and in the church in particular.
Later in the afternoon I found out that there was a planned blackout for the Sophia area in the evening. As a result the evening meeting had been called off, not just because it would be dark, but for safety reasons – I can go with that. So I caught a bus into town to find a bookshop. As best I can work out there is one true bookshop in Guyana and one second hand bookshop. And I haven’t yet had an opportunity to visit the library so I can’t comment on that. I think I would feel as though one arm had been chopped off if that was all you could get. Of course the other side of things is that even the cheap novels – about $NZ6 – form an incredible proportion of an average Guyanese salary. The information I looked up before I came to Guyana suggested an average income of about $US10 000. It seems to me there are very few people getting anywhere close to that. People seem to be living on around $G40-50 000 a month. Translated that’s about $NZ300 a month or about $US2500 a year. The family I am staying with is on substantially less than that. They are able to host me because CWM is paying my board – hopefully significantly more than I am costing!! So when you are on $75 a week, a $6 book is EXPENSIVE! To give another example, the flip chart and pens that I bought the other day cost more than 10% of a monthly salary here. For me it was slightly more than pocket money. It makes me embarrassed to think that CWM are giving us $G20 000 a week as pocket money. So I’m spending significant quantities of it on things that will help the church. Just small stuff, but hopefully useful for all that.
Just before dinner a lady Keith described as a friend of the church came around to meet me. An IndoGuyanese she converted from Hinduism a few years ago. We sat and talked and I learnt about all the kinds of food I needed to try and some places I should visit. It was a pleasant interlude. I went and connected with the internet before dinner and the evening went quite quickly.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Eighteen
Wednesday 16 Sep 09
Most of today just kind of faded away. I spent some time in prayer and thinking. I did some prep for the youth training thing tonight. I began to rearrange some of my thinking about practice of mission and maintenance of mission. And then I went out for a while – enough thinking already!!
I set out to go to the zoo. We’ve been past it a few times and I decided it might be my best chance to get to see an anaconda and boa constrictor since it has become very clear that we won’t be venturing into the hinterland at all L. Anyway I got on the bus and by the time we had been through three stops I was in the far back corner. To explain…the minivans mostly have four rows of seats. The back one is standard and then the next three rows have one of those fold-up seats on the end so that they can fit the prescribed 15 people (3 in the front), keeping in mind that there are often up to 20 in these buses. Anyway, as you can imagine people get on and off, you often have to get out of the bus to allow someone else to get off and everyone shuffles around. By the third shuffle I was as far from the door as you can get. To add to my woes (not really, but it sounds good in the story) I had no idea the name of the street where I wanted to get off the bus. I wasn’t too worried when someone sitting nearer the front indicated they wanted to get off. I thought it would be close to where I wanted to go. Unfortunately I was about 2km out in my guesstimate.
The good thing was that we were right outside a hardware store, so after getting half the bus to alight so I could get off (these rides cost $G60 = NZ42c to pretty much anywhere in the city) I wandered into the store to do some shopping. I wanted to get some wire that I could make into hooks to hold up my giant pad that I would be using for my talk. Now shopping in Guyana is not what we are used to. With few exceptions, most of the shops you go into have this bizarre system at work. First you tell an assistant what you want. They then go off to find it, or at least what they think you meant – Guyanese might speak English, but the accent just about does me in on occasion. In this case the wire she brought back was the right sort but not heavy enough for my needs and apparently they didn’t have anything heavier – add that to the fact that she would only sell me 5m of the stuff when I only wanted about 1m and, well, she took it back. Instead I opted for a long bungy cord with hooks, it cost me a whole $NZ2.10c. She then rang up the sale on her computer. But no! I cannot give her the money. I take the money to the cashier along with the tiny piece of paper that has the amount I am supposed to hand over. I go to the cashier and hand over the money and my ticket where I am handed a receipt. I turn to go, but I am not finished yet. I have to go to another counter where I hand over my receipt where it is stamped and handed back to me. Finally I retrieve the bungy cord from the original counter (I think I could probably have had it with me the whole time) and leave. So there were at least three people involved in the encounter, two of whom appeared to fulfil no real purpose beyond receiving a wage.
Outside the shop I proceeded to catch another bus back to the zoo and went to look at the animals. It was kind of a sad experience to be honest. They had several giant Harpy eagles sitting on perches with no more space than our lounge to move around in. There was a lioness in a cage that including the lair out the back would have been no more than 4m x 5m. A couple of weasels in round cages about 1.2m in diameter and about 1.8m high. Anyway, you get the picture. About the only animal that appeared to have any reasonable space was the manatee – I only saw the snout and a short glimpse of its tail. So yeah…cool to see a giant anaconda – the thing was huge, and a boa constrictor – not so huge. I saw a jaguar and an ocelot and a bunch of other animals but mostly it was just sad.
I got back to the house in time to get ready to go to church to do my thing on running a youth programme. At the moment the church doesn’t have a youth programme and so I am trying to give them some ideas to play with. I talked about how we run a programme in NZ and some of the things that work for us. We played Pictionary to their delight – they had never heard of it before and thoroughly enjoyed it. I told them about ‘One good, one bad,’ and a TSP of prayer. And I gave them an example of how they could run a Bible study for themselves, even with limited literacy and help from others. Everyone seemed to connect with something, so that was cool.
It took 2 buses to get back to the house and then Keith, Felicia and I sat around the table eating some dinner (at about 10pm) and talking about all sorts of things. A good way to finish the evening!
Travel Diary - Day Seventeen
Day Seventeen
Tuesday 15 Sep 09 - Wandering
The morning is not a busy time here. It has taken me a few days to get used to that. Actually, I’m not sure I’m used to it yet. Breakfast is all good though. Aunt Patsy – Keith’s sister-in-law – is up and cooking me breakfast every morning. At this stage breakfast is a diet of toast, sausages, eggs and fruit along with copious quantities of water and fruit juice. I find it a little embarrassing to be looked after like this, but it is rather nice too.
Tuesday is my day off on my timetable – actually pretty much every day feels like a day off with a little bit of a wander each evening, remarkably similar to India in many ways. Anyway, I found my way into the market – I wanted a few props for my talk on Wednesday and spent a couple of hours wandering around just looking.
Starbroek market is quite large – imagine a Mega Mitre 10 size store – but it contains literally hundreds of small stalls. They sell most things you can think of, from handbags to toiletries, shoes to mangoes, pork to cellphones, jewellery to underwear…you get my drift. The other side of the coin is that there might be 15 vendors selling the exact same things. And then you go outside and the area covered by stalls and shops is about the same as that inside.
The music sellers are something else. A lot of them walk around with a large box on wheels – kind of like an icecream man, umbrella and all. The box has a large set of speakers – mostly 10 or 12 inch – and they are wound up loud with the particular music they are selling. It gets most weird when 3 or 4 of them converge on the same corner and there is a kind of informal play off. Eventually the loudest one gets to stay – at least I guess that’s the measure – and the others turn theirs down for a while and head for another spot. As best I can tell none of the music for sale is legal. Same goes for the dozens of DVD vendors – everything has been ripped. I was invited into one stall to have a look at a whole pile of ripped software. The funny thing was that the installation instructions came with a description of how to crack the software printed on the case. I guess it represents something of a dilemma for the various distributors – they could come in and clamp down, but no-one could afford to pay for the real thing so the clamp down would only last for as long as someone had sufficient enthusiasm, and it would only push the vendors off the street corners – they probably wouldn’t go far. So the distributors expend large amounts of effort for little if any real gain.
I stopped off and bought myself a mango smoothie at a fast food place – NZ just doesn’t do mango like its done here! Then I picked up my supplies and headed for home. When I got back Keith took me down to the National Art Museum. There are some wonderful sculptures – they had a large Amerindian display as part of Heritage Month but a lot of the paintings were, I thought, pretty average, artistic Neanderthal that I am. When you added to that the fact that much of the work was situated so that direct sunlight was shining on it for at least part of the day, and with the windows wide open they were being blown around, in some cases quite a lot, you have to wonder how long much of it will last. A pity. Still, I enjoyed the experience and for all that the artwork is not awe-inspiring it still gives some insights into the culture of the people who created it.
When we got back to the house I went down to the internet café and organised some of my emails. Came back for dinner, we talked for a while, and then I headed for bed – an early night – I was in bed by 10pm after having a cold shower. Actually cold is the only kind I can get here. Which is a little disconcerting until you realise that hot water would be a waste when what you really want to do is cool down anyway.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Sixteen
Day Sixteen – Slow Start
Monday. I was up and ready to go about 7:30am. I had thought that we were going out to Sophia to visit people and that to avoid the heat of the day we would leave relatively early. My bad! I had breakfast with Keith and we sat and talked about various issues and about opportunities for me while I am here. Then we both went to do a few things and about 9:30am I was ready to go. Then I was told that the heat of the day began to pass about 4-5pm. We sat and talked for a couple of hours about the Presbyterian Church of Guyana, and Keith’s experience in ministry. It was really good. I was sitting trying to figure why so much of what he said seemed familiar and all of a sudden I realised that he is remarkably similar to Michael, my father-in-law. Prophecy is very significant to his ministry, he is absolutely dedicated to being obedient to God’s call on his life, and his style of preaching bears too many resemblances to go into, including a particular way of bending over at the waist to emphasise a point. OK – I am officially weirded out here :0!!
The PCG is a very small church – I already mentioned it has only 7 ministers including the retired ones – and even if you allow for each of those ministers taking responsibility for 4-5 churches that’s not many churches. A rough estimate of numbers would guess at maybe 1200 adult members across the country. As a side note there are two Presbyterian groupings in Guyana, one the Guyana Presbyterian Church works mainly with Indo-Guyanese. The PCG works mainly with Afro-Guyanese but does have some small mission work to the AmerIndians. Anyway, as a result of its size the ministers are quite isolated by geography and simply by numbers. I have become a bit of a sounding board, even confessional – although that’s probably too strong a word. The opportunity to talk about hurts and dreams is clearly not one that comes often so it is good to be able to minister in that way.
Eventually we go under way, taking a very roundabout detour to go into town to drop off my hotel key that I had forgotten to hand in on Saturday, and to collect the gift from the Youth Leaders from Friday night – a rather nice knit shirt with their badge on it. Then it was out to Sophia to visit some people.
We stopped along the way as we wandered around the area. It’s not a particularly large area and the predominantly small, poor housing is broken every so often by relatively large, posh houses. It’s kind of weird really. The series of photos on my blog shows some of what we walked past along with photos from Sunday.
As we walked we met people, stopped and talked outside their small businesses. Every second person has a small business selling something. It might be sweets and chips, or clothing, or fruit, general junk, bread, kerosene, chickens, ice, water, you name it, you can probably find someone to sell it to you. Most of the ‘shops’ are little wooden sheds on the edge of a property with someone sitting waiting patiently for a buyer to happen by. I have no idea how they make any money but it must be worth the effort or there wouldn’t be anywhere near as many people doing it.
Lots of the children in the area only attend school occasionally. That is often due to parents being unable to afford uniforms, school books, transport, and/or food for the children to eat before and during school. As a result there were lots of youngsters wandering around while we were there even though the school kids had only just begun to arrive home.
We visited the home of one couple, Rudolph and Ramona. He suffered a stroke some time ago and is unable to work. They live in a little shack that surprises most in the fact that it is still standing. From the outside it is a tiny box, maybe 2m by 3m, maybe less. To avoid flooding it is on small stilts and I hesitate to think about what would happen in a strong wind. Outside they have a squash plant carefully shielded from marauding goats with a good number of squash growing on it. We were invited in to their home. I have to confess to some surprise to see that, although it was so small that by the time they had squashed a bed, a couch and two armchairs – I’m guessing the kids slept on the couch and armchairs – there was less than a square metre of moving space – and that wasn’t all in one square – it was clean and well kept. The walls had been painted inside, there were pictures and knickknacks hanging on the walls and there was clearly a place for everything and everything was in its place.
They were a lovely couple and as we sat and chatted he sent her off on an errand. A couple of minutes later she reappeared with a 600ml bottle of Coca Cola. She cleaned out three mugs carefully measured out the Coke and gave Keith, Patrick and myself a mug each. Trusting to the chemical properties of Coke – I doubt that anything can survive in that stuff – I drank it all up and said thank you very much. I can’t get over how costly that kind of gift can be to people in these circumstances and yet how willingly they share anyway. It is most humbling. Before we left we prayed for them, particularly for Rudolph. It is fascinating how much of the charismatic and Pentecostal streams have penetrated into the lives of people here – listening to Keith and Patrick pray I could have sworn I was back in the ‘80s.
We met a few other people as we wandered around the area. One of the things that stood out was the problem of getting clean water. The city has recently put a new water main pipe through the area but most homes are not directly connected and people still have to travel significant distances to get water – up to half a kilometre in some cases. What this means is that some simply collect water that is sitting in the trenches next to their homes and that can only mean disease and distress.
Caught a bus back to the house. Buses are a phenomenon here in Georgetown. I reckon they are a far better system than what we have in Dunedin. There are literally hundreds of minivans driving specific routes around the city. They have a central point in Starbroek and if you aren’t entirely sure where you are all you have to do is catch a bus going in the right direction and you can guarantee that you will end up there. Anyway, there is always a driver and a conductor, both of whom lean out the window calling people to see if they want a ride. You can indicate as well or wait at the bus stops that are quite literally marked about every 30m in places. Once the bus is as full as the driver thinks it is likely to get at his starting point he gets going. You simply say where you want to get off and he stops there. Buses arrive every couple of minutes and they are rarely less than half full. By the same token I have counted a fifteen seater with 20+people in it – not too great for someone my size!. All good fun and very efficient.
Had dinner, read for a while and then an early night – I’m happy with the heat but it is definitely tiring. It’s actually slowing me down quite naturally without having to work at it. I like that J.
Travel Diary - Day Fifteen
Day Fifteen – Mission Church
An early start, not because I needed to be anywhere – we didn't need to leave until 10:30am, but everyone else was up and about early. Each week the family makes up 65-70 bread rolls with a cheese spread for the children who come to the service as a part of their helping the community with nutritional needs. Felicia, one of Keith’s daughters, and Patsy, his sister-in-law were busy on the task. I came out and sat and talked with Felicia. She is 23, has completed a law degree and is working as a teacher trying to save to go to England to do her Masters in Human Rights law.
Anyway, we all had breakfast at one point or another – the women don’t seem to eat with the men in this household, something I find somewhat strange. I went to have a shower and get ready and when I came out the women had already left since they run the Sunday School which starts before church. Keith and I sat and talked for a while and eventually a taxi arrived with Brother Patrick, the volunteer pastor I mentioned earlier. We piled in and were off to Sophia Mission Church.
I had been warned about getting to the church and as we got closer I could see why – some of the potholes seemed large enough to lose an entire car and where there was no seal the lumps and bumps were barely navigable. Today was a dry day – we are in the dry season, but it seems to rain on and off reasonably frequently – and so there was no problem getting to the church. The church is a small concrete building with a tin roof. It easily seats 50 people with a reasonable sized stage up the front. At a pinch I would think you could get 80-90 if you really worked at it but it would be tight.
The caretaker lives in a hut next to the church and there is a very ramshackle concoction of corrugated iron surrounding a long-drop on the other side of the church. A small wooden bridge crosses the trench that lies between the road and the church. Airconditioning is via lots of slits in the walls and three large doorways, two of which have doors attached, the other has an iron gate. The floor is concrete and the ceiling is not lined so I can only imagine what it must be like attempting to communicate in there when it is raining. Everything is tidy and well kept and you can tell the people take pride in their place.
The service was built around a couple who were renewing their vows of marriage. From what I could gather it amounted to a wedding service folded into a Sunday service. It was interesting that there were few differences between what we do in a marriage service here in NZ and what seems to be done in Guyana if this was anything to go by. (No there was no bacon and eggs or pb&j sandwich – I said few differences, not none!) The service does raise something very interesting about this congregation. Unlike most congregations in Guyana – at least as far as I can work out – this congregation has a healthy mix of Afro-Guyanese, Indo-Guyanese and AmerIndians – most unusual and another sign that this congregation is most definitely a work of the Holy Spirit.
The service ended with the couple being presented with a cake which they duly cut and a bottle of sparkling grape juice, which once opened – no easy task it seemed – they shared together. The mix of ceremony from around the world was intriguing to watch and it was great to be there. Following that there was a mini-meal served up to everyone that included chickpeas, some Indian bread things, some peas and rice, and some wedding cake. There was also a juice distributed that had heavy lashings of ginger in it. Not bad, and although there wasn’t much on the plate it was definitely filling. That said, I have been eating less and less in the heat so who knows what I would have thought on a cold day J.
Following the meal everyone stood around and talked. As we were talking a young girl, at least she looked young, brought her baby forward to be prayed for by the Pastor. Rev Keith finished praying for the child and then the girl indicated very firmly although I couldn’t understand what she was saying, that she wanted me to pray for the child too. That was nice. As with everywhere else we’ve been in Guyana there was plenty of handshaking all around as people came up to say hello and gradually everything quietened down as people left to go home. A taxi arrived for us and we were off back to Kitty, the area where I am staying.
The afternoon was quiet, just some conversation with Keith and then I went into my room, lay down to read for a while and promptly fell asleep. When I awoke I came out and started naming my photos. That took a couple of hours and about half-way through Felicia came down and told me she was going to the bank and then to night church. I figured it might be my only chance to have a look and asked if I could go. She made a few excuses and I promptly felt bad for putting her on the spot and then she was off. I finished my photos and then sat down to read for a while.
All of a sudden Keith called to me and told me that Felicia had rung him, she had finished with the bank and was coming back to pick me up and take me to night church. Cool! I got changed back into some vaguely decent clothes and when she arrived we called a taxi and we were off. We were heading to an AOG congregation in the middle of town and just before we got there we came across what appeared to be a street demonstration of some kind. All the cars were backing out of the street and looking for another way around. We did three sides of the block and got out to find that the church was empty. Turned out the street demonstration was the church having its service on the street. We wandered along the road to see what was going on and stood and watched for a while. Mostly it was eerily similar to Petecostal services around the world. And then the ‘Evangelist’ stood up to speak and I’m telling you, everything you’ve seen on the movies is true. This guy was so like what they show on TV that I have no words for it. I tried to record some of it but I’m not sure yet how it came out. Amazing!
We both got bored after a while – you can only take so much of that sort of thing if you’re not used to it – and decided to go for a walk. We headed in the general direction of the centre of the city. As we went we talked about all sorts of aspects of Guyana, church, teaching and whatever. We stopped off and bought some fish and chips at what is apparently the best f&c shop in Georgetown. The fish was excellent, can’t say the same for the chips.
We then caught two busses, one to Starbroek Market and from there to the Seawall. There we sat and ate the fish and talked – well mostly I listened – about teaching. For someone who wants to be a lawyer she is one of the best teachers I have ever met and I haven’t even seen her teach. She has a heart for the kids that doesn’t come along very often. It would be a real pity if she goes off to do law. But that has nothing to do with me so there we go.
Of course the real irony of the evening was that we did pretty much all the things I have been told not to do – walking around Georgetown after dark, going to the Seawall with only one other person, and after dark as well. Goodness!! I’m lucky to be alive J. That said, it was a most pleasant evening and I learnt a lot about Guyana that would have been most difficult to pick up otherwise. When we got back to the house we sat and talked with Keith for another hour or so about all sorts of things. A thoroughly good way to end the day.
Travel Diary - Day Fourteen
An early start for some of us. We were asked if 5 or 6 of us would be prepared to appear on a TV programme run by the GCU. I said that I was happy to take part and then left for the Youth Training, leaving the others to decide who would go and who wouldn’t. In the end I think it was a bit of a struggle to get 5 who were willing to do it, but we did.
We had been told that we would be picked up by taxi at 7:30am for an 8am start at the studio. We arrived at the studio at 7:45 and were eventually let into the building about 8:10am where we waited another 20min for the producer to arrive. He was quite a young guy working with not very much and doing, I think, a pretty good job with what he had. They had an old VHS camera they were feeding straight into an Apple Mac running Final Cut Pro. Apparently they use that to record the material but do a lot of the editing in Premiere Pro. Intriguing!
Anyway, we were eventually seated in the studio, something of a squash I have to say, given mics – 4 between the six of us including Rev Stuart who was the presenter. He gave a brief intro and then in turn we each spoke about an issue facing the church in our country and something of what we were doing about it. I spoke about the greying of our congregations and the work of Presbyterian Youth Ministries to help reverse that trend. We only had 5min each so I didn’t get much in, but that was OK. Others spoke about losses through brain drain and emigration, working with immigrant communities, HIV/AIDS, and youth crime. The programme was supposed to be on TV that afternoon but I wasn’t on when I looked. We might manage to get a copy before we leave Guyana.
Back at the hotel we grabbed our bags and come down for our placement pickups. The family I am staying with lives in a part of town that is supposedly a little more dangerous than some of the others. Can’t say that I’m terribly worried at this point in time. Rev Keith Haynes is a Presbyterian minister who is running, as best I can tell, the only mainline church plant in Guyana. The whole story is quite sad in some ways. It is only there by accident really, and the willingness of one man to risk picking up a vision that made no sense to anyone.
To put it simply, Sophia is a very poor outlying suburb of Georgetown, only recently integrated into the city. The few paved roads in the area have been put in since the beginning of 2009. Before that there were only dirt roads, taxis wouldn’t go to the church and even the buses would stop half a kilometre away. Even now it can be difficult to get a taxi that is prepared to make the journey as it remains a dirty, very potholed piece of road. In the rainy season I am told the mud often came nearly to people’s knees in places.
It was incredibly hot today, and by the time we had discussed my timetable – a very relaxed time (large sigh of relief) that will give me plenty of opportunity to be involved while still having lots of time to think and just be – and my dietary needs (required by CWM. I said as long as it doesn’t involve shellfish I’ll try anything once) I was beginning to wilt. I went into the room I had been given, and despite it being unbelievably hot, promptly fell asleep. I emerged about 4:30pm and we sat and talked a little while before going for a walk around the area, finding internet, phones, laundry, supermarket before stopping for dinner at a local restaurant. (We had Pizza Hut for lunch – was uncomfortably like what we have in NZ).
On getting back it was back to bed for me – although it’s nice to be warm this day was somewhat over the top!
Travel Diary - Day Thirteen part II
Day Thirteen – Out and About part 2
The Sugar Mill. This one is where they make the base for Demarara Sugar – we can get that in NZ. My goodness, there is a certain irony in seeing such a place plastered all over with signs saying, ‘This is a food factory, keep everything clean.’ The place was unbelievably dirty – partly just the factory environment but mostly I think because they used huge wood furnaces to provide the heat for boiling the sugar juice to concentrate it and there was a coating of ash everywhere. The person who took us around was the manager of the factory – he didn’t flick the job off to anyone else – and he clearly loved what he did. There was a real sense of pride as he took us through the process, everything from showing us the machetes and water bags provided to the harvesters, to the final sugar products ready to be shipped out.
The factory was quite compact and it produces about 35 000 tons of sugar annually, not a huge amount in the great scheme of things apparently. In fact the whole sugar industry here seems to be quite small scale and relatively inefficient, especially when compared with some of the larger sugar producers globally. I guess the most surprising thing to me about the whole process is how relaxed everyone appears to be, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. Yes, in the heat you need to move slowly and thoughtfully, but there were only a handful of people who appeared to get around with real purpose. But then, when you find out how much they all get paid I guess there is little incentive to move much faster. It was incredibly noisy in the factory itself. I found it interesting that everyone had to wear hard hats, and did, but there was no ear or eye protection visible anywhere. I don’t think it would take very long at all to lose a significant level of hearing if you worked in that environment for very long.
All in all it was a most interesting tour and we were all pleased when we got to the bus and were ready to leave.
We then visited a rice mill. It was kind of interesting, much smaller operation than the sugar factory, we couldn’t understand a word the managers were saying. For me the best thing about it was that it was a collective and was beholden to itself and its farmers, a local enterprise for a local market. That’s something that we need to rediscover in NZ – the local enterprise for the local market. There is a certain amount going on already with people in small business, Somehow we need to encourage people to become more self-reliant and less government reliant. And that has nothing to do with any concern over the national economy or anything like that and everything to do with wresting control of people’s lives away from bureaucrats and politicians and giving them real power over their own lives. Some more on that is likely to appear in my musings on the blog.
The next stop, after an amount of toing and froing, was an Amerindian exhibition. To most people’s relief it was closed – it had been a long day and most of us were pretty tired. So we went off to see the Sea Wall, a must-see attraction, haha. It is a concrete wall about 1500mm high that separates Guyana from the Atlantic Ocean. It has some small similarities to walking along Tamaki Drive, only the houses are much less swish, the people have way less money, and you are not supposed to visit after dark and certainly not on your own…you get the picture. Anyway, the sun went down while we were there, I think we walked about 2km of it on a quite pleasant evening. No big deal, but then there were 10 of us walking together.
In the meantime my offer to speak at a youth leader training event was coming back to bite me. I thought it had been forgotten since no-one had mentioned it since Sunday but it turns out it hadn’t been forgotten at all. And we were running out of time to get back, have a shower (an essential after the day we had), have dinner, and get to the training. In the end we were late but they had just rearranged some things. There were about 25 young leaders and a couple of ministers.
I started by getting them to have a go at getting a pole to the ground using just their index fingers. If you want to know more talk to anyone in the youthgroup and they will explain it in more detail. Anyway, I only gave each group one go and none of them got close. It worked out really well because I managed to get all the junior leaders in the first two groups and then got the organising committee to go last – they looked like they might make it and then it went all haywire for them as well. I talked briefly about trust off the back of that and then read the Matthew version of Jesus calling the first disciples. I zeroed in on the use of the word, ‘Immediately,’ and suggested that two of the qualities they needed to have in their lives if they were going to be able to respond to Jesus’ call, ‘Immediately,’ were humility and looking after themselves – spiritually, physically and emotionally. A bit of expansion on that, then I prayed for them and I was done. I was a bit cheeky when I told them that the self-care bit was something that their ministers were pretty bad at and it was an opportunity for them to take a leadership role in for the church. One of the ministers who was there was the Deputy Secretary of the GCU and he came to speak to me afterwards. I was half expecting a shot across the bows, but he thanked me and said that self-care was an issue that they really needed to attend to in Guyana. So that was good.
After that it was a taxi back to the hotel, write up a few things, get some packing done and then I was into bed ready to get up early to be recorded for Guyanese TV. But more on that in the next missive.
Travel Diary - Day Thirteen
A few things I have observed over the last week. The background noise level is quite amazing. I’ll try to figure out a way to let you hear some of that. All I can say is that this is a very noisy place! For example at the moment I am sitting listening to an enormous amount of squeaking – imagine a wheel that desperately needs oil just turning slowly and squeaking. Then multiply that sound by 10 or twenty wheels. As far as I can work out it is the sound of airconditioning units. Most times I can block it out, but it can become pretty annoying after a while.
And then there is the litter. There is a garbage collectors strike on at the moment – probably over pay, it seems to be a common issue here. So that is part of the reason for the rubbish. But even if it weren’t for that there is a tremendous amount of rubbish just sitting around. The place is dirty and rubbish seems to just pile up. What is worse is all the trenches or drains, nearly all of which are wide, open ditches. Not only is the water a nasty shade of green and clearly infested with all manner of bugs, but the quantity of rubbish floating in the water in various stages of decay is just disgusting. It’s kind of sad really because just getting rid of the litter would make the whole place so much nicer to be.
On another note, I mentioned the motorcyclists in BA. Maybe it’s a South American thing but helmets seem to almost be an optional extra. Here most people seem to have a helmet and for the most part wear them but there seems to be little inclination to do up the chin strap – in NZ as far as the law is concerned if the strap isn’t done up you’re not wearing your helmet. And it is common to see the rider of a bike wearing a helmet while carrying a passenger without one. To make matters worse it is surprising how often you see a couple riding a scooter, both with helmets on, with a child sitting in the well, or standing at the handle bars with no helmet at all. Not Good!! Oh, and the other thing is the style of helmet – they are all the old WW2 German war helmets – like bikies sometimes wear, only these are all sorts of colours, some black, lots of maroon, metallic blue, I even saw a pink one today.
So the day began with another Bible study. No comment except that the sigh of relief was almost audible when it was suggested that we lead our own Bible studies when we get back together for the last week.
Then it was off on our day trip. The first stop was a fruit stall. It was raining at the time, the first rain since we arrived, and the others opted to stay on the bus while Marlon and Rev Stuart bought us some fruit. I decided I wanted to go and have a look and was rewarded with all sorts of fruit that I haven’t ever seen before. I can’t tell you the names of them – I’m not even sure if I heard right – but if I pointed one out and asked what it was the vendor promptly offered to give me one to try, which I did. There were all sorts of passionfruit – none of them looking anything like ours and none of them actually called passionfruit as I recall. There was one fruit – about the size of a midsized feijoa, bright orange on the inside and with a very large pip – there actually wasn’t much fruit to it. It was kind of like biting into soap L. There were huge pineapples and pawpaw the size of a rugby ball. The weirdest thing of all was that all the apples were imported from the US. Go figure! There were very small fruit that at first glance looked like grapes but were very hard and had a large pip. You rolled them in your fingers until they were soft and then sucked the juice off. They were rather nice. There were bitter fruit and stringy fruit and melons of different varieties. It was great.
After a brief stop to get some lunch we were off to the Demarara Floating bridge. The bridge is about 1.2 miles long (that’s just under 2km) and sits on a series of floating pontoons. The whole thing is steel and the noise of the vehicles travelling over it makes for a tremendous racket. I know because we walked the whole way – once you start you are committed. It was actually quite a pleasant walk that would have been better if it hadn’t started to rain again when we were only half way across. We could see the rain coming from miles away and there was nothing we could do about it. None of us had brought umbrellas and they would have been of limited use anyway. I got a few photos and some video so I will try to make that available as I go. I was bringing up the back of the group behind Kelly. She was having a tough time of it because every time a vehicle went past and make the bridge sway she freaked out, and then when the handrails disappeared to be replaced by chains for a couple of metres every 40 metres that was a trial too. It wasn’t helped by the fact that her shoes were completely inappropriate for the task. So I jollied her along and we had a good laugh as we went.
By the time we got to the other side and the bus all of us were completely soaked through. BUT that didn’t matter because we were warm and we just dried out as the day progressed. I like that in a country J!!!
Friday, September 11, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Nine
What can I say? Today we spent several hours talking, well, listening to other people talking mostly. There was a Bible study that was supposed to last for 40 minutes that went for 90, personal introductions supposed to go for 90 that went for 120 and basic expectations and planning that went for 60 instead of the planned 30. One of the tasks was to tell us where we were going to be on placement and with whom. That was all a bit of a waste of time as none of us have any idea where any of these places are and mostly only a vague idea of who the people are.
It turns out we will each get an urban placement of two weeks and a rural placement of two weeks. The last week is spent writing a report about our experience. The disappointing thing is that with one exception we are all going to be within shouting range of Georgetown and none of us will get anywhere near the hinterland. I have begun to develop a very strong impression that the church group we are with is more interested in its own survival than it is in mission to the indigenous people. Never mind, we survived the morning amid muttered grumblings and after lunch we went visiting.
The first visit was to a drug rehabilitation centre run by the Salvation Army. The Captain in charge was a formidable woman from Haiti who spoke extremely well, but she was scary. I sure wouldn’t want to get her upset! There were about 30 men at the centre and quite a number of them told us their stories and answered our questions. They ranged from poor and uneducated to highly educated and every one of their stories spoke of things lost – families, friends, hopes and dreams. It costs $US250 to put a man through a programme lasting 6 months and the centre can deal with 300 in a year. They have a 70% success rate after 3 years out of the programme – I’m no expert but that sounds pretty good! The men have to have a sponsor to come on the programme but there is nothing keeping them there but their own desire to get clean. There is no front gate, and no locks on the doors. Quite a number of the workers there are former clients. I was really impressed with what I saw there. One of the successful clients writes poetry and has some of his work on YouTube. Well worth a look - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WhFGGjVHzY
From the rehab centre we went on to see the tallest wooden building in the world – St George’s Cathedral. It is beautifully kept and it was a most pleasant interlude. Having wandered around there and taken a few photos we then took a speedboat ride across the Demerara River. The ferry ride – that’s what it really is – takes about 10 minutes. There are seats for 30 people and the ferry doesn’t leave until it’s full. Everyone gets a life jacket and you have to put it on and buckle it – they check, and yell at people who don’t comply. The river is a dirty brown – very tidal and it empties directly into the Atlantic Ocean. If you look at a map we were maybe 1-2km from the mouth of the river. I think the thing that stuck me most was how run down everything looked. The best word for it is ‘tired.’ I’ll post the photos tomorrow. We wandered around on the other side of the river, called the West Bank, for a little while before catching the ferry back and heading back to the hotel.
The evening was our own but everyone was so tired that we rapidly dispersed to our rooms to sleep.
Travel Diary - Day Ten
Day Ten – Still Yawning
I have to confess, I thought I was over the worst of my weariness. Turns out I was wrong. We had more class time today. The Bible study didn’t go on as long thankfully, and wasn’t as laboured either, but then we had an intro to the history of the church in Guyana that I thought would never end. The lecturer gave us a wad of notes and proceeded to read them to us. The notes were quite interesting but he was impossible to listen to for more the five minutes without falling asleep. We had been given a magazine about Guyana the day before and once I had finished reading the notes I managed to read through several articles before he had finished about an hour after he was supposed to.
After morning tea – it was closer to lunchtime by now we had a lecture on comparative religion. The speaker was much more interesting, having become a Christian from a Hindu background. Unfortunately he also liked the sound of his own voice and went for well over an hour longer than he was supposed to. By now I was pretty upset with the whole thing and immediately following lunch went to my room to calm down. I got to the next lecture a little late. It was on HIV/AIDS and the speaker spoke to us like we were 12 year olds. I managed 45 minutes before I left, came up to my room and lay down, promptly falling asleep and not waking until nearly dinner time. Turns out I am not the only one feeling annoyed about what is going on, but so far I am the only one who has voted with their feet. Apparently the communications guy has rearranged the next couple of days so we are not so heavy on the talk. Phew!!! It wouldn’t be so bad if we were treated as colleagues, but there seems to be an unspoken assumption that we’re stupid or something. If this is the way they speak to their church members it is no wonder the young people are leaving in droves to go to the Pentecostal churches.
After dinner I spent a bit of time talking with the minister from Tuvalu about the trials and tribulations of getting to Guyana – he went further than me – Sydney, Singapore, London, New York, Georgetown – and missed a flight in New York! Then I went for another swim and commiserated with Helen, a minister from the United Reformed Church in London, about the lectures and lecturers.
Then it was up to my room, catch up on the diary, and to sleep – the more I can get the better I’ll cope with the other stuff. As an aside, the food has been excellent so far – the only thing I haven’t enjoyed has been the salted fish – it was not good. Plenty of rice and similar flavours to India but not as spicy. Going through gallons of liquid, both water and passionfruit juice. The juice is a bit sweet, but mixed with a bit of extra water it is superb. The most surprising thing has been the lack of fresh fruit – especially given the abundance of fruit at the market.
Travel Diary - Day Twelve
Day Twelve – The Last of the Lectures
The Bible Study – Aaarrgghh! This time we were given some questions that, quite apart from the fact that one of the questions given our group made neither grammatical, nor actual sense, were simply silly questions. In fact our response to our first question was that it was spurious and didn’t rate being given a serious answer. The second question we just made something up because we couldn’t work out what it meant. There would have been so much more value in simply allowing us as ministers to engage with a text and enjoy what we discovered as a group. What the process has taught us is that there is very little understanding here in Guyana of how adults can be engaged in the learning process. It might be something we can try and pass on in some small way while we are here.
The first lecture was on the life of the clergy in Guyana. The minister who shared told some amazing stories about God’s faithfulness during his ministry and at the same time highlighted some glaring deficiencies in care of ministers at every level. NZ most definitely has it all over Guyana in this regard, and as we discussed things further, over every church represented by our group – Scotland, England, Zambia, Botswana, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Jamaica. I should note here that I am the only Presbyterian in the group. All the others are Congregational of one shape or variety.
The second, and last lecture on this leg of the journey, was on the economy and its effects on the church. This was less interesting than I had hoped but still gave some useful insights into how the church here views itself and orders its affairs. One thing that it highlighted, something that had been growing out of the other lectures as well but became clear here, is that the Guyana Congregational Union is, to all intents and purposes, almost totally disengaged from the community of which it is a part. There are few if any connections that deliberately build relationship with the broader community and it seems to be a significant blind spot.
This blind spot was highlighted in the first of our afternoon visits, to Red Thread, a secular women’s organisation. As the women talked about their work in building community networks, working with abused women and children, running literacy programmes, and after-school care programmes, working with government and police on domestic violence issues and legislation it became clear that the church has almost nothing to do with any of this work in the community. In fact we were stunned to be told that the churches were planning to protest a clause in the new domestic violence legislation that outlawed rape in marriage. It was also interesting to hear how the women were struggling with the racial barriers I mentioned yesterday. They do seem to have developed some very hopeful possibilities for the way forward. As with so many organisations of this kind funding is an ongoing issue and one need highlighted was funding to have an administrator for the organisation – they could run a full time admin person for just $NZ8400 annually. Amazing eh!
We then visited a home for children that caters for unwanted children, children who have been victims of abuse and others for various reasons. It is a government funded institution that appears to be doing an excellent job.
From there we went and spent some time in one of two botanic gardens in Georgetown. But don’t get your hopes up, it was small, thinly planted and in need of a lot of work. We came back to the hotel and hung around for a little while before going out to what was ostensibly a live jazz club for dinner and to enjoy the music. The dinner menu came out and we were told there was no beef and no pork. I asked what the soup of the day was to be told there was none and when I chose another soup and asked for chicken wontons as well was told there were no wontons either. And we were early!! Ah well. The conversation was good, and the musicians finally began playing about 20min before we left – we hadn’t missed much!
And now I am back in my room, with matchsticks keeping my eyes open finishing off my missive for today. There is every chance that after tomorrow my emails will become much more spread out because I am unlikely to have such easy access to the internet. We’ll see how we go.
Travel Diary - Day Eleven
Day Eleven – Tetchy
It’s funny how easily it’s possible to lose people’s attention when you don’t attend to their felt needs. The lectures keep on keeping on, and we still feel as though we have very little idea of what is actually happening in Guyana, or in the church in Guyana.
First up we had the Bible study. The leader of the study seems to think that every comment we make must either be refuted or given a long-winded explanation. We were working with the story of Moses being put in the basket and I finally got fed up and put some context into the discussion because it was rambling through ideas that couldn’t be justified by the text. There were grins all around the room and it slowed our leader a little, but soon enough she was off on her own tangent again – ah well, you just can’t help some people. At least it only lasted the given hour rather than the 90 minutes of the first day.
Next up was an hour and a half on CWM in the Caribbean. The young woman taking it was good at what she did and worked to keep us interested and involved. Unfortunately the presentation again lacked details of what is really happening in Guyana. This was followed by a lecture on the social and political situation in Guyana – at last we started getting some of the nitty-gritty details of some of what is happening on the ground. The biggest point made was one that has since been emphasised several times and that is the political and social divide along racial lines with 45% of the population being of Indian extraction, 34% African extraction and the rest Amerindian and mixed race. The government in power is determined along racial lines and most government contracts go to the race of the political party in power. It’s a fairly disastrous setup and has been a major contributor to poor economic performance of the country as a whole.
Most of my lunch hour was taken up with getting my travel receipts in order for a refund from CWM and then we were into looking at how the GCU had engaged in a strategic planning process over the past 18 months. It was pretty standard stuff but I could see that a number of the others were getting some good stuff out of it. The woman who ran this section is clearly very good at what she does and ran a reasonably interesting session.
We finished off the day with a conversation about how we were going to plan for our placements in terms of what we wanted to look at, learn about while we are out doing our thing. Each of us gets to spend two weeks in an urban placement – I’m somewhere in Georgetown – I have no idea where – and then two weeks in a rural placement – again I have no idea where.
The problem with the conversation was that the person who was leading it had not thought through the process and it made no sense to any of us. We argued the point and tried to help him to understand what the problem was, but if there is one thing we have found so far, once people have settled on a course here there is no turning back. In the end, before anyone lost the plot I came in over the conversation and said that it was alright, we would do what we were being asked to do and we would meet at the agreed time to get through it all. In actual fact we all knew that it was going to be a waste of time, but there was no point in taking the conversation further and we were all happy to just leave it until tomorrow. Infuriating!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I set up with Ruth to call on Skype at 9pm NZ time so I could talk to everyone at the same time. That is 5am here and I had to get going a few minutes earlier to get the computer up and running so it was hit the sack time so I didn’t run out of steam too early the next day.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Photos from my first week in Georgetown
As promised... here are some of my photos from Georgetown. Click on the little speechbubble at the bottom left to get the captions.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Eight
Day Eight – Welcome to Guyana
Up, shaved, showered and ready for church in my Sunday best by 8:30am. I decided not to wear the tie I had bought in BA and was pleased with my choice – it was too hot and besides, only some of the people at the church were wearing them J.
The church we attended is a lovely wooden building that would seat about 250-300 depending on the temperature. It was two blocks away from where we are staying and we were picked up by taxi to get there – go figure. (we insisted on walking back) The service was a very traditional hymn sandwich with communion, with three main exceptions: the notices literally took over 30 minutes, the young people led a set of singing that included several choruses I know, arcapella and with a most unusual, but rather enjoyable rhythm, and there were something like 11 hymns sung – Good Grief! I thought a standard hymn sandwich was bad – this lasted 2½ hours in the heat and most of us were really struggling hard to stay awake.
The congregation would have been around 150 people with children and young people and after the service a good proportion of them wanted to shake our hands. The minister is a retired judge and he had a most interesting delivery. It was quite slow and rhythmic and I am quite sure contributed to our sleepiness, but at the same time it made it extraordinarily easy to listen to. After the service we were taken to the pavilion at the back of the church and given a drink – melon juice I think – a piece of pizza and a cupcake. Some of the elders came and shared the meal with us and we talked, at my table at least, about some of the history of the church in Guyana, a most interesting conversation.
Walking back to the hotel we had a small lunch (I had curried potatoes – too hot for meat dishes which were the alternative) having already had something to eat and then I headed for bed again – I slept for nearly 4 hours but when I woke up I was beginning to feel somewhat more human. In the meantime I had managed to figure out how to send international texts, I had the email working – we have wi-fi in our rooms – and life was coming right.
Dinner was a state affair with lots of church dignitaries, dressing up and interminable speeches. I sat at a table with two pastors and one of the pastor’s wives. I was quizzed within an inch of my life about what I do, what I think about the church, where I think the church in NZ is headed, etc. I’m sure you can imagine most of the rest. Along the way I learnt a fair bit about what they were doing as well. Dinner was chicken and rice followed by jelly and icecream. Quite nice icecream too. I got to meet the national youth director and he promptly booked me in to speak to a group of leaders on Friday. I’m not sure how that’s going to fit with the rest of our programme, but it would be cool if we can make it work. The rest of the dignitaries formed quite a bunch and included a former government minister of education, the retired judge who had preached in the morning and a number of other, equally formidable men and women. This might be a smallish church in a smallish country but they certainly aren’t lacking in smarts!! I would be happy to spend time learning from any of them.
After dinner we headed for bed. Before I shut down for the night I noticed David was on Skype and so I called him and we chatted for 20 minutes. He sagely told me the best way to deal with the heat was to turn off the airconditioning. That’s fine, but our class in the morning was in an airconditioned room – what can you do?? Ah well – I’ll turn mine off and put up with the rest.
Travel Diary - Day Seven
Day Seven – Day Off
Now that I’m here I don’t really have quite as much to say about things. Well, three days worth should fill a page or two. Apologies to those who like a daily dose – I have been slack. But you’ll get over it. I’ve divided it into three days so you can get your money’s worth…
Guyana is HOT!!! Very HOT!!! Not just hot hot, it’s humid hot. It’s easy to understand why everyone moves so slowly. I move so slowly in the heat. Not that I’m complaining mind, it’s just taking a little getting used to after the frigid climes of Dunedin, although I do notice that the temperatures aren’t so frigid in the south at the moment.
Soooo…Saturday, thinking that having had a long trip and late night I might get to sleep in a little, I was woken by a phone call from Marlon Fraser, the programme coordinator here in Guyana, at 7:45am to say that he would be there to see us in about 2½ hours. I mean, come on, what’s with that? And to top that off he didn’t actually arrive until about 2pm! Arrrggghhh! Still, live goes on and we had a reasonably relaxing morning before lunch. The lunch special was rice with peas. Didn’t sound particularly appetising but it was my first real meal in Guyana, breakfast was a funny sausage concoction with bread and best forgotten. It turned out to be quite delicious, a mixture of rice and peas with a little mince, some ham and some chicken spread through it and finished off with a delightful blend of spices. I’ll have that again any time.
Marlon eventually turned up and brought with him a cell phone for each of us to use while we are here and our CWM provided pocket-money – the princely sum of $G20 000. Which is a lot less than it sounds but is still a not bad $US100 or around $NZ150. On the back of that we went to the market. Mostly because Helen wanted a hat and I wanted some jeans and a shirt – I thought I might try and blend in with the locals (haha). So we visited the much mentioned in all the travel guides Starbroek Market. Fortunately we had a local guide so we didn’t get lost. It was an interesting experience, although if you’ve been to one market you’ve been to most, just this one was a little dirtier and smellier than most.
There are dozens of small stalls, all selling similar things – little knickknacks, unbelievable numbers of hats, belts, girls tops, jeans and, of all things, bras. Then as you move through you come to the vegetable stalls and the smell begins to assail you. Just as you are beginning to wonder if there is a public health risk being in the vicinity you come to the fish market, with all the fresh fish sitting in the sun, being pawed over by people looking to see if that is the particular fish they want to buy. Doesn’t do much for my desire to eat fish while I’m here! Anyway, Helen found her hat, but we were struggling to find my jeans. I have come down about 4 inches over the last 18 months but we still couldn’t find anything in my size. We took a taxi to Office Max – a clothes and general goods store, go figure – and found nothing there.
The taxi was a funny story all on its own. Fernanz, the GCU (Guyana Congregational Union) communications secretary has been acting as our guide. He found a taxi (minibus that seats about 14) that would take us to where we wanted to go. What the rest of us didn’t realise was that the taxi was stopped on a corner – kind of hard to tell. So everyone but Fernanz and I got on and then the taxi took off. The others were looking bewildered in the back as the taxi was followed by a policeman with his siren on. The taxi finally pulled over and everyone had to get out. Turns out it is illegal to park on a corner and if caught the driver has to drop off his passengers, drive to the local police station, sit there for 5 minutes and then carry on – kind of like a rugby style sinbin. Anyway, it made for an interesting few moments, Fernanz and I caught up with the others – they were only a 100m down the road – we caught another taxi and finally got to Office Max.
I found a shirt, but no jeans so from there we set out walking – it was very hot and humid and made for rather laboured journey, especially as we were stopping at every second clothing shop to look for jeans for me, much to the consternation of the others who were showing signs of having had enough. Actually I was nearly past it too. Anyway – at our very last option in the general area we found something! Yay! Bought two pairs for the grand sum of $4800. Phew! Expensive pants! Nah, that works out around $34.50. So I was happy enough, and we set out for base to everyone’s relief.
After unsuccessfully fiddling with my phone to make an international text I managed to figure out how to make an international call (I can be incredibly dense when I put my mind to it!) and then I spent the rest of the afternoon asleep – catching up on some of what I had missed before going down for dinner which was rice and a KFC style chicken that was WAY better than KFC (sorry AK). We hung around and talked until about 8:30pm before heading for bed.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Six
Days Six – I Think
How time flies when you’re having fun!!
The flight to Panama went well – managed to knock back a few zzzz’s as we flew along. I had a window seat by an exit so I had plenty of room to stretch my legs. The only problem was that the plane was cold – not just cool, it was downright chilly, and the wall that I was up against was a couple more notches of cold. When we boarded the plane there were not enough blankets to go around. The ladies sitting next to me asked the purser if they could have a blanket each and he got them one each, but when I asked he turned me down. So when he wasn’t looking I leant over the seat in front and grabbed one. I’m pleased I did or it would have been an uncomfortable flight. I have to admit that I cheated a little and took a sleeping pill to help me along – I couldn’t afford to not get at least some sleep. Between that and general exhaustion I think I managed about 5 hours sleep in the 8 hour journey to Panama.
That left a four hour wait in the airport at Panama before boarding the next flight. Fortunately my bag had been checked through to Trinidad so I didn’t have to make my way through immigration. I think the airport was quite comfortable – I seem to remember a nice little café and comfortable seats but to be honest everything is really quite blurry. I do remember that having been told that both flights had been fully booked it was interesting to note quite a lot of empty seats on both Copa Air flights. Hmmm…
The second flight was uneventful, I dropped in and out of a doze for most of it. We were fed what turned out to be a tasty croissant with turkey and other stuff in it. And then we landed in Trinidad and Tobago. I’m still trying to come to grips with my impressions of Trinidad airport (Port of Spain). On the whole the people were friendly but there was a sense of edginess, of not being entirely happy with something unnamed. It was kind of weird. Whenever I asked a question they were polite and answered clearly, but…and I’m not sure what to put next. Anyway, I managed to finally send my last update (the one I said I would send in Buenos Aires) while sitting in an airport café in Trinidad so that was good. And the terrible transit visa turned out to be completely unnecessary. I was waved through to get my bag, which wasn’t checked in any way, and then had to go out the door, down to the check-in counter and check it in for the next flight. And absolutely nothing stopping me from waltzing out the door and disappearing into the night.
I had no problems checking into Caribbean Airlines, and after wandering around the airport for a little while – nothing to see really – went through bag check and sat down. Only to realise I was really thirsty and a little hungry and there was absolutely nothing to eat. I had to go back through bag check to find a café. This I did without any problem and found the café where I sent my message and had a great vanilla bean smoothie that made me feel ill for ages – only because smoothies do that to me and I should know better. Then close down the laptop because the battery is getting short and I don’t have the right adapter with me to charge it, back through bag check and hang around for the next 90 minutes waiting for check-in.
At check-in we had the benefit of watching one group go through for another flight before ours. I say benefit because it allowed me to observe the fact that one person was conducting a baggage check on people as they went through the gate. While that person was occupied others could go through without being checked. By timing my run at the ticket counter I was able to avoid the bag check and go straight through to the plane – of a variety I have never flown in before – twin engine jet (I think) with two seats on each side of the aisle. Good leg room. And off to Guyana – At LASSTT!!
We arrived at Guyana which does have, I have to say a rather lovely entry to the airport, beautifully planted and with a small waterfall. Top score on first impressions. Having filled out the obligatory, ‘No I don’t have flu-like symptoms, no I am not attempting to import guns or diseased food or whatever,’ I suddenly realised that I didn’t have the address of the place we are staying out ready to hand – a must for getting into the country. Sitting down with my trusty laptop and praying that I would have enough battery I got as far as beginning to open my email when it ran out and shut down. And I still didn’t have the correct plug for the power sockets. So I asked a passing official if he could help. With a smile he asked me details of the problem, who was meeting me and wandered off for about 5 minutes. When he came back he was carrying a laptop power supply that fitted my laptop perfectly. We plugged in, fired up and had the details in just a minute or so. When I told him he was a miracle worker he just smiled and said that he liked to try and make sure that visitors to Guyana (pronounce gee-ahna here) feel welcome and enjoy their stay. Amazing huh!
I went up to the immigration counter – a ten minute wait with people ahead of me – had that done most pleasantly, although there was a moment of, ‘Now what?’ when the officer took my passport for a wander before returning, handing me my passport and wishing me a happy stay. While I was waiting there one of the other Face to Face participants who had arrived on a flight immediatey before mine came up, identified who I was and grabbed my arrival information so she could copy the address of where we were staying – I wasn’t the only one who didn’t have everything completely under control (wipes brow in relief). I collected my bag, whizzed through the bag check – they didn’t at all – and went out to find our ride patiently waiting for us. A thirty minute ride brought us to the Regency Suites/Hotel, a room with airconditioning, and best of all, a bed! 0015 and I was all curled up and gone to the rest of the world.
So that was only 13 hours in the air, 8 hours on the ground – not bad, until you take into account that between my mistake two days ago, the airline’s mistake yesterday, and all this, I have been on the go with no real break for three days. Enough already!!! J !!!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Travel Diary - Day Five
Day Five
To say I’m running on empty would be to put it mildly. Here’s why.
Last night I left for the airport at 2pm to be in plenty of time for the flight. Actually the taxi arrived 20min early and I had only just finished packing my stuff and moving it toward the door. Nothing like cutting things fine. The taxi trip was fine and then the story really begins. I went up to the counter to check in my bag and after a couple of minutes of playing around the person on the counter told me that I couldn’t travel because I didn’t have a visa for Trinidad. What!!! That’s not what any of my information had been. They were really friendly and helpful and spent quite a lot of time trying to confirm what they thought and looking for ways around it. In the end they refused to let me on the flight and thus began a day of phone calls – I have racked up in the vicinity of $NZ200 in phone calls today – just as well CWM have said they are paying!! But then I would have had to do it anyway.
The first thing was to go back into town, find somewhere to dump my bags, rest for a couple of hours and then get to the NZ Embassy. Found a youth hostel in the centre of the downtown area that had a room and got there just after 4am. Crashed for 3 hours before getting up, having breakfast and heading off to find the consulate. Breakfast was cornflakes and milk. Sounds innocuous enough until you realise that the cornflakes are coated in sugar and the milk is more like NZ farm milk, also with a liberal dose of sugar. One of the most sickly breakfasts I have ever had. I forced it down because I didn’t know how far I would be walking or when I would eat next.
Went to the subway and caught the wrong train – still confused by the signs – got on the right train and emerged in a part of the city I had seen briefly on the bus tour but was completely disoriented. Spent the next 20 minutes trying to figure out where I was, walking in an expanding circle. Finally found something I could identify on the map to realise that I was twice as far away as when I had come out of the subway. To make matters worse, just as I was nearing my objective, still looking completely confused with my map out a friendly and very helpful gentleman offered to help and gave me directions to the British Arts Centre, then took me there in person, in exactly the wrong direction. Fortunately the centre wasn’t far and so once I realised the mistake I only took a couple of minutes to retrace. From there it was about 200m to the target.
The people at the Embassy, Angela was who I was dealing with, were unfailingly helpful, although it was a little disconcerting to be left on my own in the lobby for nearly half an hour without explanation before she appeared with the information I needed. We went through everything and she went off and got several more bits of info before sending me on my way. Getting back to the hostel was easy and soon I was heading for the phones. By the time I have called the travel company multiple times – about 6 all up I think, Ruth twice, once to moan, once to give her a much more positive update, 4 to CWM numbers in London and several to local numbers I had certainly racked up the phone time, and the bill.
In the end I returned to the airport and spoke to the people in the airline office. They began work and after a conference that lasted for nearly half an hour they came out and told me that everything was under control, that they would put me on the next flight and there would be no cost to me. They gave me window seats and paid for my taxi back into town and the return to the airport and have organised a chit to pay for my airport tax. And in every way they were unfailingly polite and friendly.
I got back to town, more phone calls to sort out the next stage of my trip from Port of Spain to Georgetown, something for lunch that I didn’t really feel like eating – a huge and very nice but completely unwanted omelette (actually I think that was before I went to the airport the second time), something for dinner I didn’t really feel like eating – this time a ham and tomato roll with ham that was unlike any ham I have ever eaten and I’m not that keen on trying it again either.
Somewhere in there I organised to withdraw lots of pesos and change them into $US, a quite bizarre process that required using two different banks – go figure. I needed the $US to show that I was not going to cost the Trinidad government anything for my stay (of a whole 10 hours). Now that everything is organised properly I have a little under 4 hours at the Port of Spain airport and the whole conversation has been rendered completely unnecessary. Never would have picked that one eh!
So the taxi driver picks me up for the airport – 20 minutes early again – just as I am about try to track down where my final ticket arrangements from Trinidad to Guyana (which is pronounced here as Weeana). Since I am leaving early I’ll get to the airport with time to spare and I can use the communications centre to chase up the ticket and print out the result. No problem J.
The plane is packed and the queue is miles long when I get to it, so I decide to write some of this while I’m waiting (notice the change in tense). Unfortunately the queue is only getting longer so I decide that I’m going to wait in the business queue. They have someone checking people’s credentials to make sure they don’t cheat. Turns out I’m special – not business class L but special for all that. So I get to go nearly to the front of the queue, which makes me feel a little embarrassed for all those who are waiting patiently in line, but then I justify it with the thought that I’ve waited a whole lot longer than they have. Actually that doesn’t work for me very well but it’s as good as I’ve got. Anyway, the girl at the counter makes the comment that they’ve all be briefed about me and she does a fine job of sorting me out, evening putting my bags in the priority queue so they come off the plane quicker – a subtle benefit when I just have to wait another 4 hours for my next flight but there we go. And I got my leg space too – major bonus on a packed flight!!
The rest is pretty uneventful really. Wander through seeming miles of empty space to get to each of the various immigration and bag checks, through seeming further miles of perfume, makeup, expensive (majorly) bags, clothes and chocolates to sit and wait in a lounge that isn’t actually too bad. In fact I would rate it rather well. And the café does an ace hot chocolate!
So I think I’ve had about 6 or 7 hours sleep in the last 60, but I’m feeling OK. Looking forward to arriving in Guyana. I don’t think I’ll be overly sociable when I get there, but actually despite the frustrations, and upsets there have been a bunch of good points too. When I was feeling quite down about everything earlier in the day I kind of mentioned to God that it would be quite cool to have a decent conversation in English. On the way to the airport in the afternoon I was with two Australian guys from WA and we had a great conversation about travel, cricket and life in general. Then on the way back from the airport my driver was a brand new Christian. When he found out that I was a Christian he excitedly told he was too and put on a CD with a whole bunch of Hillsong United songs in Spanish that he wanted to sing with me, he in Spanish and me in English. Nice. And the taxi driver on my final trip back to the airport couldn’t speak English but promptly offered me some sweets, and when we arrived at the airport insisted that I take the rest of the bag. He hardly said anything but he was really good to just be around. I’d like to be like that some day.
Well, I’m about done for now. I’ll fire this off and I expect by the time that’s done we’ll be boarding.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Musings - on war, violence, capitalism - little things
Musings
I’ve been thinking about war and stuff. What got me started was the way so many of Buenos Aires streets and monuments and parks and… are named for generals or battles or revolution, you get my drift. I’m not sure I’ve seen anything quite like it. But it’s not just that the roads and parks are named this way. The tour I went on spend more time pointing out statues to war heroes and martyrs than any other one thing.
Then take the national obsession with Tango. It is ostensibly a dance about love, but much of the dance is built around control, and the history of Tango carries a sense of unresolved violence in the way people treat each other, particularly the men of the women. Then you look at how Tango grew out of grinding poverty and you are reminded of the violence done by the rich to the poor, even as they claim to offer a hand up with the right hand while stealing any hope of real freedom that would allow equality with those who consider themselves ‘better’ with the left.
And what about the violence we do to each other in attempting to speak and be heard. Those who are not heard feel they need to fight to be taken notice of. Those in power feel they need to fight lest there be seen an alternative pathway that would diminish or remove their power. The demonstration I saw in BA was a fine example of this, protestors on the one side representing a deeply felt need to be heard while riot police stood on the other on the grounds that those who should be listening felt unsafe. How can that be unless violence is perpetrated in the simple act of ignoring the cares and needs of those less well off.
Then I read a quite unrelated article about how Britain remains deeply affected by the events of the two world wars and that it colours the thinking even of those for whom the wars exist only in history books. And that took me to another article about Russia and Europe’s relationship with Poland and the bizarre celebration of the invasion of Poland by Germany in 1939. What I fail to comprehend in all of this is why you would celebrate the ultimate monument to violence of one person toward another unless you have every intention of having another go at some point, perhaps not in exactly the same way, but certainly with the same underlying intentions of imposing your will on another without their consent or desire.
That led to thinking about how the media at least portrays American thinking about war and the way that it almost seems all-pervasive. Then before I got too wrapped up in my own goodness of being I thought about the growing scenes in NZ around ANZAC day and the desperate will with which we hang on to a defence force that we know to be utterly defenceless should push come to shove. And what about the constant talk about the ‘Nanny State’ we see in the media? Is this a way of deadening our senses to something deeply offensive to true freedom by hiding it in the open? If we talk about it enough with just the right amount of seriousness and tongue in cheek mixed together does it break down our resistance to the point that when things become really serious and the state begins dictating not minor things but the very essence of what and why we believe what we do about life, faith and the future, that we simply shrug our shoulders and allow it to happen with little more than a broken shrug of our shoulders?
Taking all of that together, and I don’t claim to be original on this, it’s just what is running through my mind at the moment, as a human race we seem to be intent on defining ourselves through violence. And lest some of us try to back out of this one, how about the violence we do to each other through what we so politely call the ‘Free Market.’ Never mind the few, and it is a few in the greater scheme of things, cases of physical abuse that we so loudly decry when they are flashed across our television screens. And leaving aside the murders and rapes, the car accidents and occasional student riots. The deepest violence we do to each other is in basic denial of the freedom to exist from day to day, month to month, year to year with sufficient to supply our needs. We loudly trumpet the capitalist mantra that demands that the strong grow stronger and the weak band together to support the elite in their excess. And we do violence to each other in the process.
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