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.