Escape from Georgetown

On Thursday, Gina and I went for all-you-can-eat pizza night (mmmmm....) and randomly met a man that I knew through CIDA who is working on a project in Guyana for Natural Resources Canada. He would be traveling to an Amerindian village for work on Saturday and had room in his vehicle for two if we were interested. Sure!

So yesterday we arose in the pre-dawn darkness (well, actually at 5:30am the sun is starting to come up) to meet him for 6:30am and start on our adventures. We were traveling to Rockstone, an Amerindian village south of Linden on the Essequibo River. The road from Georgetown to Linden is paved (80km=1 hour) and people aren't joking when they say the highway ends there. On the other side of Linden, we found a red dirt road, made bumpy by large holes. The 18km road took just as much time as the trip from Linden to Georgetown - our driver was very talented at driving around the holes and thankfully slowed down when he had to drive through one. When we reached the village, we were greeted by the Tashao (chief) and the CIDA contacts. Our first sights were of a long dirt red road heading north of the village, children playing, splashing in a nearby creek, and a white & blue GT&T phone booth that appeared not to be connected to any lines, but would ring randomly and be answered by whoever was passing by. Though Gina and I would have stayed at the outside patio/shop where they were going to be discussing plans for an ornamental fish holding tank in the village, we were given permission to walk in the village towards the river.

The main village is behind a fence - kind of like a gated community where no vehicle enters without somebody knowing about it. We were told that the river was high and we wouldn't be able to walk to the edge, and that we could ask at the shop further down to see how far we could go. We wandered aimlessly down the dirt road, enjoying the quiet, the birds, the breeze - just being out of Georgetown! When we reached the shop, we were greeted by a contingent of people who insisted on sending the children as our guide to the river. They were happy to have ears to listen to their problems of high waters and not receiving flood relief, and about the rising cost in food prices.

The water had risen high enough that both sides of the road had become like a wet swamp and we didn't make it close to the river's edge because of large puddles on the road. The children were semi-amused by us and curious - especially at our reaction to the sounds of a baboon! We missed seeing three jump the trees across the road a few minutes earlier, but there is no chance that we could have missed the loud noise - like a charging warthog, though I have never heard one of those either. Definitely scary sounding! And very thankful that we had calm children walking with us.

We had a little picnic lunch in the shade, protected from the rain showers that kept coming and going... It was interesting listening to the plans that were being made for the business, hearing about other village enterprises involving a middle man, and watching the social activities taking place at this common area in the village. We took one more walk to the river before heading back to Georgetown. The fresh air and exercise made the day just fly by - and made for an early night because we were exhausted!