Baganara

We spent last weekend, which saw some fairly British-style rain, and fittingly commemorated our wedding anniversary (the only day it rained in the summer of 1976), at Baganara, an island resort on the Essequibo river, another big river running in from the coast (Georgetown is on the Demarara). Getting there was quite a trek - most travelling in Guyana is fairly complicated - involving a taxi ride to Parika, a crowded speedboat down the Essequibo to Bartica, and a smaller boat across to the island. The rivers are really enormous and muddy, like lakes, and quite reminiscent of the Finnish lakes we saw last autumn (apart from the temperature), with trees and mangroves down to the shore. We passed ourselves off as 'experienced' canoeists, and kayaked round Baganara island a couple of times, in between the showers, seeing lots of birds and a howler monkey, and avoiding the large groups of day-trippers brought in to celebrate Father's Day on Sunday. The food, to be fair, was pretty good, compared to what is on offer in the eco-resorts, but given this is considered luxurious living in Guyana, it didn't really represent value for money in western terms. We came back on the firm's boat, open to some fairly heavy rain, and saw Eddie Grant's (of 'Baby Come Back' fame) abandoned house in the middle of the river, where Mick Jagger stayed when he visited to see the cricket.

Penny's project is progressing slowly but in danger of hitting the buffers with the Catch 22 of reluctance to 'build capacity' ie get some decent training, because any skilled people leave for better salary and conditions abroad.
UK visits planned over next month, so hope to see some of you then.

Water, Water everywhere

A long gap as we spent the best part of May outside Guyana, mostly in the USA, for nephew, Martin's wedding and in Penny's case getting up to the snow in Yosemite. June has been pretty wet but not noticeably cooler. Luckily most of the rain, which can be very heavy, occurs at night and occasionally wakes us up, as it is also very noisy on the corrugated tin roof (the usual roofing material here). Georgetown was beautifully laid out by the Dutch, with plots (a few acres each) separated by canals and drainage channels. On the outskirts they have been colonised by enormous lilies (the pads are used as plates - like banana leaves - at Hindu celebrations), so defeating their purpose, but becoming rather beautiful. That, and the cows and goats grazing on the verges, gives the area around us a very countryfied feel, more so as there are some houses with chickens and cows in their back yards, in a mainly residential area, with posh villas besides shacks that look like allotment huts, nearly all on stilts, the traditional method of building to cope with the floods. They did dredge out some of the channels after the first bout of heavy rain in April, but the vegetation has grown back within weeks.

As with a lot of things in Guyana, there are some upsides to the inefficiencies and lack-lustre economy. In many ways the rainforest is safer with no pressure of population and near impossibility of getting to it, It's a pity that the Guyanese lose out in order to keep it that way

markets and economics in Guyana

Last weekend we went to Parika market. Parika is a port on the River Essequibo - which is huge, the third largest in South America and over twenty miles wide at its mouth. There are lots of islands in the estuary, mostly very fertile and on Sundays the farmers come over on speedboats to sell their fruit and veg in Parika. It's as busy and messy as you'd expect and we experimented a bit (with a little advice from Eddie, our taxi driver) buying some salted curi fish and some labba (a medium sized rodent like a small capybara). The fish was tasty but pretty bony and the labba was rather good, a cross between rabbit and beef and a welcome change from chicken and mince, so hope it's sustainable. They say that if you eat some labba and drink some creek water (which we've done in Iwokrama) you're bound to come back to Guyana so it looks as if our fates are sealed.

Anyway, it prompted some thoughts on Guyana's economy. Prices are much the same level here as in the UK but wages are much lower - which is tough for the average Guyanese and also a bit odd. Why aren't the low wages reflected in lower prices or a lower exchange rate? For what it's worth (comments from experienced development economists welcome) there seems to be a combination of reasons. First, Guyana's economy is very dependent on imports - the entire population is about that of a city like Sheffield and there are a lot of things it doesn't produce itself, including some fairly basic items. Prices therefore tend to be around world levels. Meanwhile the exchange rate is artificially sustained by remittances from overseas Guyanese (there are more Guyanese overseas than in Guyana itself); also by various forms of unrecorded economic activity, including illegal logging and mining, smuggling and the drugs trade (it's not a major transit route but for a small economy like this, the quantities that come through amount to a big number). What it adds up to is that around half the economy is illegal or externally generated, which makes life pretty tough for Guyanese working in the legal economy with no outside support no wonder so many don't stay.

Meanwhile, the rainy season is getting more settled in, which means it's also time for the World 20:20 cricket, which is the equivalent of Guyana's Wimbledon, though it only gets the first rounds (the finals are in Barbados). We get the weather about ten minutes before the cricket does(the opposite of our Wimbledon experience - it's ten minutes ahead of Lovelace Road) and we've been watching on TV rather than the stadium, I'm afraid. At least we can make a cup of tea when the rain starts.

Easter, kites and a haircut

One advantage of Georgetown is that it is quite easy to get out into the jungle, where we spent the Easter weekend at a resort called Arrowpoint connected with an Indian village. We managed to get in a variety of activities, kayaking, trekking, swimming, birdwatching etc - though all you really had to do was sit on the balcony and wait for dozens of macaws to fly past. Still, we did more walking than most of their visitors, I think - Penny needs to keep up her fitness levels for Yosemite in May. On one of the walks you encounter a crashed plane in the jungle - rather worrying as it looked like all the small planes we have been flying on in Guyana.

We were back in Georgetown for Easter Monday, when the custom is to fly kites from the sea-wall, with competitions for the biggest, highest etc. We even flew a small one ourselves (out of competition) which we'd got as a free gift one day at the shops.

But the boldest initiative was this weekend when Penny took the plunge and had a haircut, accompanied by our friend Margaret as her expert adviser - no photos of the result, I fear but you could call it a reasonable success!

a month later..

Another apology for being such unassiduous bloggers - put it down to our age (and Penny is a year nearer 60 since the last post). Malcolm made a trip to the UK in early March, and Penny practised single living in Georgetown and started a yoga class, which is run by an energetic Guyanese lady, in a circular wooden 'benab' in the grounds of the Pegasus hotel.

Penny went briefly to the Iwokrama forest field station to move the library under cover, and met a research team from Newcastle setting up river and weather monitoring equipment. She joined them for a night trip on the river, and saw snakes and caiman, and a fantastic array of stars, including the milky way.

Last weekend we were in Tobago - it's a bit of a change from Guyana; the sea is clear and blue and we went snorkelling with tropical fish, swimming with dolphins, and exploring the reefs. Everything is a bit more tourist friendly than in Guyana, including the food which is (slightly) more varied (though rather more expensive). We even did some sight-seeing - the island is dotted with beautiful little bays dominated by old forts built by the French or British depending on who was in charge at the time. But it's all very peaceful now and not yet too overrun by tourists despite the attractions, so we're likely to make it a regular weekend or holiday destination.

After Mash

hi - a short post as not much to say - we've taken out a monthly sub at Pegasus, which allows us to use their pool and gym - not badly equipped and air-conditioned, so no excuse for Penny to go to flab. It's also just up the road from the Iwokrama Georgetown offices.
We also got our shipping in last week, so good supplies of tea and marmite, and a ton of toiletries, that we could have easily bought here.. still, it was fun unpacking the boxes - which are going to recycled for Penny's archive storage - and Malcolm's appreciating a few more changes of clothes - he'd been on holiday rations until now.
Tuesday 23 February, was republic day or Mashramani, with a sort of carnival parade - not quite up to Trinidad standards but still pretty noisy and crowded. We took an old disposable camera, so photos to come, if we can get it developed. We saw some floats from government departments, which I don't think happens at Notting Hill.
We're beginning to get used to the heat; our location,on the East Coast sea-wall, means we are not too plagued by mosquitos, and we have got into the habit of walking along the sea-wall most evenings before the sundowner on the balcony, so not too bad really. And now Malcolm's making bread again - it's almost home from home... only 30 degrees hotter!

First trip to the Field Station

Sorry for lack of post last weekend - fairly quiet apart from a birdwatching tour in the Botanical Gardens with a young rasta and enthusiastic Guyanese birder, who located the 'signature' bird of the Guyanese coast, the blood-coloured woodpecker, but as it was towards 6pm by the time we saw it, it looked like a little dark blob to us non-(or in Malcolm's case, incipient)birders.
This week, we've had our first trip to the field station, on the northern edge of the Iwokrama reserve, quite an idyllic spot by the Essequibo river. It involved a fairly long and bumpy drive along a dirt road, with critical timings across the old railway bridge at Linden and a ferry across the river just before the lodge. Penny did some work including finding out about sustainable logging and monitoring activities, and reinstating a library in a 'benab', a circular structure, open to the elements and the birds, who regarded the shelves as an ideal nesting area. We managed a trip out to Turtle Mountain, 'climbing' 300m and sleeping in hammocks and eating a tasty catfish cooked over a camp-fire. Lots of macaw, toucan and some monkey sightings but no jaguar yet.