Cultural Adaptation

The other night another volunteer and I were bicycling back from the pool in the silky dusk, trying hard to get home to our flats before dark or as we have heard it called “the bandit hour”. I had my head lamp on and confidently pulled out onto a busy street and starting pedaling fast when all of a sudden from behind me she screamed “Oh my god we are on the wrong side of the road”, I panicked and pulled over because of course we were on the wrong side of the road for both of our home countries, but it was the right side for Guyana. So after two months of acclimatization the WRONG side of the road now feels like the right side of the road and apparently I have adapted. We had a good laugh at ourselves. This episode got me to thinking about how quickly and in what ways we do assimilate and what things remain strong cultural challenges.
So how have I adapted in two months of living in a very foreign culture as a highly visible minority? First and foremost I have adapted to customs of dress and greeting. I know to always greet people with the formal “good marning”, “good aftanoon”, or “good evenin”. It’s amazing to me how hard it is has been to turn off the automatic “hello” I am so used to offering. I now know that dress codes are taken seriously, any manner of dress that shows my legs or shoulders will solicit comments, and that wearing my hear down is tantamount to “take me now”.
I also have learned that if I don’t respond verbally to the thousands of offers of goods being sold, taxis offered, bus drivers stopping for me and the constant cries of “ya shoppin baby” I’m not being rude. And that to transverse through the streets successfully you must be aggressive, you must cycle with confidence and use your hands, feet, bicycle bell and voice. The alarming level of noise and the crazy jungle traffic I found so intimidating now just seems normal and I have learned the maze of side streets, which roads to avoid at all costs, and not to underestimate the speed of horses. Despite constant repairs issues and two minor bike accidents (avoiding horses and a street side machete sharpening) cycling is still the best method of transport by far and I have learned to carry all manner of things by watching the locals. By the way I have affectionately named my bike “Deathtrap”. In a moment of hilarity I recently lent it to another VSO who without knowing my bikes name, was on her for less than five minutes before she called out “my God this things a death trap”… So she is aptly named.
For safety I know to tie my bags inside my basket in case it gets grabbed, and link my purse over the handle bars for the same reason. I don’t walk and talk on the cel phone, I always take taxis at night and I carry my keys, some cash and my ID card in a separate pocket just in case my bag gets cut right off my arm and stolen. I have gotten used to locking and unlocking the five padlocks gates to my flat and know that every time I lock up my bike that I may well come back and she will be gone… although this might be a blessing in disguise.
I also know that along with the ubiquitous water, flashlight, sunscreen and bug spray that you need to carry an umbrella with you at all times, and have even found myself popping it open to shade myself from the hottest days just like a local even though I still feel little ridiculous doing so. I also carry flip flops in case of torrential downpours. They don’t wear boots, but it is perfectly acceptable to wear a shower cap on your head to protect your hair from rain, yes while walking around out in public! I also carry a book everywhere I go as just you never know when you might have to wait an hour or two. Speaking of waiting I have learned that a trip to the bank or post office necessitates taking half a day off work and I am slowly making my way through Tolstoy’s masterpiece “War and Peace’ (TRULY!) while I wait patiently in the behemoth line ups and through the officious yet rather hilarious procedures that always seem to involve Santa Claus size ledgers and two or three clerks to be completed. I have learned what day is the best for topping up my cel phone to get “free time in the free zone” (insert annoying jingle music here) and laugh to think I am paying more to NOT use my cel phone in Canada than I do to use one here. I know nothing much will be open Sunday except church and not to expect anything to start at the stated time, and that “jest now” can mean something will take five minutes or… never. Power outages are to be expected at work or home anytime and “War and Peace” and the flashlight then both come in handy.
I know what subjects to avoid discussing with locals, which ones will be of interest and can follow some fast Creole conversations now if I pay great attention. I love the accent and it’s an odd experience to be the one who is apparently difficult to understand, an example being I recently asked a co-worker who had brought her adorable daughter to work how long it took to plait her daughter’s hair in the morning, I even consciously used the Guyanese term “plait” instead of “braid”…and she answered “I just have the 3 girls”… I repeated my question, this time much slower…and then she answered “no just girls, not boys, just the 3 girls”. I decided to let it go at that point and said “how nice 3 girls”! I have learned to really appreciate how direct the Guyanese are in conversation. I was sharing a minor concern with a Guyanese friend and she got exasperated with me and said..”damn it gal just come out and say it...you are just too damn polite and diplomatic..I’m Guyanese..we are direct..so just say it” This kind of directness makes some of the street commentary you overhear more understandable and even culturally acceptable. They just calls it as they sees it, so hence terms such as “fat boy” “white girl” “blondie”…etc. The best example of this is of a lovely redhead Australian VSO who was infamously called “white man belly sweat” on his first day in country.
I am slowly adapting to living and working in a very different culture. The unfamiliar experience of being a minority, a foreigner, the one whose ways are wrong and are suspect is at times overwhelming. I have had people tell me to put a slip on, put my hair up, to cycle on the other side of the road, and grab for my bag, and offer all kinds of sincere and kind drive by advice. I have had children gingerly touch my skin apparently in awe at how pale it is and one woman was so shocked to find out that I wasn’t wearing a wig she had to pull my hair repeatedly to believe it was real. I have been called all manner of things and have come to realize that when people call me names they don’t mean to be racist when they yell out “hey whitey” or sexist when they call out “hey baby”..I now know it is just normal behavior here, and well I do stand out. I have also learned which comments are the truly derogatory ones and thankfully they are heard very infrequently. So now instead of being intimidated I often will just wave or smile back no matter what I’m called as what do we all do when we see someone different – we stare right? Most Guyanese I have met besides being direct are curious, fun loving, open, gracious and if asked will offer you good frank advice. Most have treated this foreigner well and I have experienced them making allowances, being understanding and reaching out to me….at work now they are even beginning to tease me – ask me things like have I tried the BBQ’d rat, after my semi hysterical display of fear when a rat was found in the garbage at work.
I think to advance global understanding everyone should live as a minority at some point in their lives to understand just how hard and humbling it can be, how unfamiliar a life can be to what you are used to, how values so different from your own can be discussed in front of you and you know you have to shut the f up…as your values are not better, they are just different. When we can let go of that judgment we will be rewarded when we find each other’s common ground, break down through the stereotypes we have been taught about another culture and understand our shared humanity.

Lots to be thankful for….

A few weeks before Thanksgiving my fellow Canadian VSO and I decide we will host a big party so we can celebrate our national holiday while here in Guyana. We soon have 12 people from six continents, including two vegetarians and one vegan coming for dinner. So how many “live and pluck” chickens will we need? How many pies should we bake?… How will it all turn out?… Well things go like this…
Thursday – I realize I better start cooking pies in advance as my oven is so small. I bike to “Nigels” the elite supermarket that carries expensive imported goods and sure enough they sell canned pumpkin and cream.. for a price!. 8 thousand GD dollars later I have my ingredients, including the makings for vegan tofu pumpkin pie. Whoops I overbought and now am challenged to transport it all home on a bicycle…much maneuvering and swearing later I do successfully tie six cans of pumpkin and six cans of cream to the sides of my bike and balance eight Chinese take out foil containers that I plan to convert to pie pans, in my basket on top of flour, shortening, sugar, and tofu. I spend the night making pie crust.
Friday - Noooo!….My fellow Canadian is sick with the flu and won’t make it to G-Town for the weekend, so I have lost my co-host and am on my own. I am very sad at this news and will miss her company. I must steal up the courage to purchase two “live and pluck” chickens all alone. I have researched where I think the cleanest “shop” is to place my order. So after work I boldly step inside the chosen store and ask for two chickens. It smells strongly like poultry and wet straw (not a particularly nice smell combination)…and oh sweet Jesus I can hear the birds in the back. Welcome to the food chain I think as I nervously await my orders completion. An alarmingly short time later, two large bags are placed in front of me, oh God did one just move…no haha just my imagination; it seems I am a bit jumpy. I am charged 4 thousand GD dollars for two large fat recently alive and freshly plucked chickens, which after the cost of my pie ingredients seems like a bargain. I get them wrapped in newspaper and stuff them in my basket and quickly cycle home in the blazing sun to my salmonella free refrigerator. I wash them in the sink and notice they need a bit more …ahem...plucking. So I set to it and think of my grandmother homesteading on the prairies as I remove a hundred or so quills one by one. Finally I am satisfied and pat them dry, rub on salt and herbs and place them covered with a towel in the fridge awaiting their big day tomorrow. I bake four pies and have to ask my neighbor to store two in her fridge as I am already out of space. It’s Friday night and fellow VSOs are in town for the party and we all go out till late drinking and dancing to celebrate “Thanksgiving Eve”…yay!
Saturday – Party Day!
I get up at six slightly hung over, and notice I have a terrible heat rash, the worst since coming here spreading from chin to knee. I look like a plucked chicken with angry red welts all over…is this “live and plucks” revenge? Itchy and painful rash aside I must start party preparations and quickly bake four more pies including two vegan ones and I’m very thankful for my 11 thousand dollar blender. A friend has spent the night and over coffee she and I make up party games, create giant turkey decorations and write a wall plaque asking “what are you thankful for?” She leaves at noon and there is still much to do for I must haul containers of drinking water upstairs, and then damn it I run out of propane mid pie cooking so must go buy gas and re-hook it up the tank to my stove. Much swearing and maneuvering later I successfully complete a job that is usually more in the male realm of responsibility. Water and gas secured I then hike in the heat over to Sheriff St. to buy adult beverages, my rash burning in the sun. I over-buy and need to take a taxi home, the driver does not offer me any help to unload my ten bags of groceries and sits idly by in his A/C’d cab smoking as I make three trip up to the flat…doesn’t he know its Thanksgiving? The afternoon flies by as I clean the flat, peel potatoes, prepare the live and plucks and on a whim also make a dozen chocolate cupcakes. By 4 pm I am all set with my cupcakes decorated in candy to look like turkeys, 8 pies cooked (vegan and regular), beverages cooling, 2 stuffed chickens set to go in oven, and the flat spotlessly clean, but decide I also need flowers and ice to make things party perfect. With no flower shops within a thousand miles I cycle up to the canal with scissors in hand to “harvest” a few wild lotus flowers. I park my bike with the kickstand and climb down the bank to a wooden board that crosses the canal so I can reach in and cut flowers. This goes really well and I collect a nice bouquet, but then hear a funny noise and look up to see my bike topple over and slide into the canal…F****!!! I rush back across the board and wade into the muddy, slimy, weedy canal water to fish out my bike which has sunk up to the handle bars. A few more seconds and I might never have known what happened to it, I would likely have walked back with my flowers and presumed it stolen. Much swearing and maneuvering later, I am slimy to the knees and my bike is gross but at least I have it. I cycle back slowly with flowers in one hand and my flip flops and bike streaming a muddy trail behind me. I wash my bike off by throwing buckets of water on it and this method gets it pretty clean actually and it even dries quickly in the hot sun. So canal sinking trauma over I then set off once again on the bike this time to buy ice with the goal of getting it back to my freezer before it melts. My basket drips icy water onto my knees as I blast homeward pedaling hard. I am required to do an entire fridge/freezer re-org in order to fit in all the damn ice in as it seems I over bought again. Despite the attrition of how much melted on the return trip, I still have to chop the bags down to make them fit inside the door. Whew…I didn’t plan for ice and flowers to take more than ten minutes so I am now running late and must rush to get my chickens in the oven and shower and clean myself and my ugly rash up. I come out from the shower to discover that the damn lotus flowers have tipped over their juice jar vases and water has spilled everywhere and I must re-do the entire table setting and mop up a huge flood…hmmm…maybe the message here is you shouldn’t steal lotus flowers…they also smell kind of bad.
The party finally starts and we drink, socialize, and have a fabulous feast of channa, curried eggplant, corn fritters, stuffed squash, baked peppers, rice and black beans, fresh fruit and lots more, all on top of my complete traditional thanksgiving dinner featuring the roasted live and pluck chickens. Which turned out very well if I do say so myself, other than the side effect of the oven increasing the mean temperature in the flat to about 50 degrees. The chocolate cupcakes from a mix prove to be much more popular than my home made pie and words are exchanged over who gets the last one. I end up with at least six whole pies un-eaten, apparently in the battle between chocolate and pumpkin there is no contest.
Throughout the night my international party guests fill out the poster sharing what they are thankful for, and besides the ubiquitous loved ones, health, world peace etc. we are thankful in no particular order for: “frozen towels, ice, insecticides, rat poison, karaoke, moth balls, cheap limes, cheap beer, cheap rum, cheap vodka, the swimming pool, umbrellas, plastic bags, mosquito nets, blenders, the VSO library, the spice shop, bus conductors, clean bathrooms (when located), hammocks, cameras, Skype and for each other’s company… And what great company it must be for the last guests leave at 5am… It's a party complete with too much food, inappropriate Christmas and rap music popping out of my iTunes all night, hilarious Dutch party games at 11pm that showcase our cultural deficiencies, second helpings of dessert at midnight, a 3 inch cockroach sighting and it's subsequent squealing slaughter at 1am, drunken dishes at 2am, musical horror movies at 3 am, stinky lotus flowers thrown out at 4am and lots and lots of leftover pumpkin pie for breakfast….. Happy Thanksgiving everyone, there is lots to be thankful for wherever you may be living.

A Morning Jog in the Park

I wake up to the rooster’s crow; it is just before five am and still dark outside. As soon as the roosters start it is open season for all the birds, lizards, monkeys and dogs in the neighborhoods to join in. A cacophony of sound explodes and no alarm clock is necessary. I roll over and slide out from under the mosquito net, use my cold water bathroom facilities and get dressed in my running clothes. As I head down my block I see my neighbor loading water into a truck, and few folks out on bicycles carrying tools, baskets, food and vending carts heading off to work, some recognize me and wave, other simply stare at my differentness. If I am lucky when I get to the end of my block I will see the goat herder bringing down his flock of at least 200 goats and kids, right down the middle of the four lane road that is usually snarled with traffic. They are a spectacle of bleating happy animals all bumping and grinding into each other some still hopefully try to mount the other as they are gently herded with what appears to be nothing more than a swatch of branches by a teen herder who looks very confident in his massive gumboots. This early in the morning the roads are still quiet enough for livestock to pass and the opportunity to move the herds to grazing grounds for the day is taken. The air is cool, sweet and it feels like running in a hot house, breathing in and out a moist warm air that would be perfect for growing tomatoes in. I get up to the main intersection, turn left and start to run along the canal past the army barracks, every other day they are out doing calisthenics on the road side in their full heavy fatigues, berets, boots and weapons and look so overheated. They call out as I run by…”go whitey”…”nice legs auntie”…”faster” etc.I wave which makes them laugh and keep going. The canal is active with jumping catfish, bouncing red dragon flies and alert predatory birds. There are three different kinds of herons and beautiful red lily walkers, all fishing for breakfast while overhead the falcons swoop for the rats. The giant lotus flowers open up to the first morning light and astound me each and every time with their size and beauty, the canal is full of them. Most mornings a group of organized cycling aficionados, storm past on their way out to the long road out of town, they even have helmets and spandex on and appear to sneer smugly at me a mere runner as they fly by in perfect unison. I turn past a boarded up old dance hall and pass through the rusty once grand gates into the entrance of the national park and wave to the security guard who has just unlocked the park sharply at 530am. On my left there is an albino horse that is almost unicorn like in presence that grazes near the entrance and ignores my hellos and continues to eat with a regal stance. Whose magical looking horse is this I wonder or does he just live there free range, a magic apparition for all to enjoy. I see the few others that are out this early, up and active in the park, some doing stretches on the ancient metal rings and bars and others walking or running. I turn right and head past the soccer fields and some mornings there is already a practice going on with several people out yelling, playing loud music, eating and drinking. I keep right and head past the deserted family picnic area towards the mangrove swamps and lagoon. I pass over the wooden bridge, wind down to the lagoon and stop to feed the wild manatees. It is the half way point in my run and I am drenched in sweat. I sit by the lagoon and whistle to the manatees, most days they come to the shore with their primitive leather faces questioningly looking up at you for some fresh grass, which they then eat out of your hand as gently as being tickled by a whisker. I can tell some of them apart now as I stroke their massive gentle faces. I get a thrill to the marrow at these creatures and their peaceful presence and seeming desire for human interaction. In Guyana there is a myth that if you fall into the sea a Manatee will save you by bringing you to the surface which feels totally believable when I sit beside them. I say goodbye and welcome the beauty of the sunrise through the trees as I feel the temperature increase and watch the sky get brighter. More people are out in the park now as I pick up the pace and head towards the centre of the park. I pass people and get passed in turn, some say hello or “gad marning” some do not, I simply nod to everyone and continue to run. I round the bend and see the sprinters out at work in the middle track. The Guyana national team practices here and it is amazing to see their long lean legs blasting forward from each whistle prompt. I round the corner and run back towards the road along the inner canal beneath the beautiful overhanging shade tress that are alive with birds and insects. Sometimes there are palomino horses grazing near here and always there are parrots up in the trees welcoming the day with loud squawking shrieks. Occasionally a giant frog will eagerly cross my path on his way to the canal. The water lilies here are smaller and more like Monet’s garden, heavily laden with picture perfect white flowers that cover the entire surface of the water. As I get back to the entrance gates a few hopeful snack vendors are now vying for position as they set up with their wares of candy, juice, sweets and beer. The sun is now out in full strength and it is going to be another warm day. I run down Albert Street past the private schools and see grazing horses tied to their work carts, and several wild dogs eating food that has been kindly left out for them in old foam containers. I get back to the busy four lane street I started out at; it’s an hour later and it's now full of traffic, blaring horns and care needs to be taken to cross safely. The goats and cattle are long gone, the beautiful pink quiet of the morning is lost, the heat is back and the smells of diesel, garbage and fried food start to fill the air as I make my way back to my flat to start another day in Guyana.