Primacy of the eye in the lost Eldorado…

Primacy of the eye in the lost Eldorado…

The winter sun rises above the horizon slowly as the temperature drops down to +32c …. The days are half hour shorter now then summer time and after my scheduled weekly burn at the public pool I shed some more skin in GTown! Maybe one day I won’t forget my sun lotion.

A lot has happened since I wrote last time, I wrote small notes that are haunted by passionate discovery and tender emotions, but I will only mention a few that I still remember.

One sunny Friday I went for fast food at KFC chicken and I had ordered a nice glass of draft beer with my menu .......sounds uneventful but really you do can have fun at a fast food restaurant here. Ten of us came down on a friday night for what I thought was just a regular quick meal before we go out. Little I knew we are already out and staying for the night so we sat outside as most fast food outlets have more like a cafe like atmosphere patio built around it, well except for the usual cheap plastic yellow seats... next thing we ordered 6 jugs of cold draft beer, yippi and to note this is the only place I see people put ice cubes into their glass of beer..... so next I realize they already set up two gigantic speakers outside that just happens to be taller than the restaurant…

Well have you seen slow dancing at Fast food restaurant?...hmmm well I just did... as the speakers blast away the foam from my beer I sit and enjoy as there is no way to talk anyways so near to the speakers.

OK let me see what were some of the highlight of the last few weeks…. oh yea... during one twisted night I partied with Miss Guyana before she left to her Miss World Pageant to China. Well it turns out to be she was dating one of my good friends brother here so naturally I was invited, I even got an interview with her for my video camera. Well you certainly end up here at some strange parties as there is plenty going around, like this last one I ended up at an American party at someone’s beautiful Villa ... That starry hot night I was mingling on the back patio and I ran into my American co-worker who I build internet café at the YWCA with. We ended up chatting as the music filled the clean white villa with soft music. Then this spanish lady dances up to us with a bright twinkle in her eyes as the alcohol content probably reached its upper limit in her pupils..... she went to the point offering some wild entertainment for us tonight because she loves to entertain the US Marines... so I politely tell her that look I was Canadian last time I checked and definitely not the US marine but I swear gold fish got longer memory as 2 minutes later just keeps asking about when do we sail out... So I decided to sail out to the patio bar where I figured maybe would meet other people, but then there I was confronted by her again. A bit later I was rescued by another sexy red dressed girl and let's just call her Andrea. She got more class tucked in and decided to rescue me from the cocktail mix Latina breath. That lasted until the latina confronting me as to “so what's this now? so do you like Andrea now?” Then she changed tactics as loudly offering a 3 way fun for us... wheeeeel talking about uncomfortable situations. Nevertheless she managed to get carried away enough and got nicely kicked out by the Yankees. To make things more bizarre for me after the party night I run into Andrea next day as she turn out to be living right beside my work and invited me to the state house fair that the leading political party puts on yearly. So I navigate through the crowds with her and her friends, and I see some important political figures and body guards takes a good look at me… I should be used to getting stared at by now, but still sometimes makes you feel maybe you are being watched…The next day while I sit at a café across my work Andrea comes in and as she chats with me she gets a phone call from a very important political figure about who was the tall white men with her the other night. Well I wasn’t happy over my new found fame as it dawned on me she probably has some sort of relationship with one high political figure so I scaled down our friendship so my life insurance doesn’t go up..

The other day I realized certain things you learn only when you are in the most need...like how to use the toilet system here...

During those days when you really have to run to the bathroom like at work, and soon you find out afterwards the water company decided to take away your water privileges... so how do you flush now?.... first you panic as you don't want to leave things behind... and that's when I stumbled upon the wonders of bucketing system. The 3 big different colored buckets outside one for filling up your tank... one for reserve and one for washing your hands with a measure cup... The kitchen maid actually gave me a crash course on the how to ...

Couple weekends ago our little group decided to crave some adventure getaway to one of the places called shanklands. It is truly a tropical paradise up on the Essequibo river which spans across 37 kilometers by the time it reaches the ocean and makes it the largest river in Guyana. When you look across of it many parts seems much smaller but that’s visual deception as it’s not the other side you see but one of the 365 islands that are in the river. So we packed up our necessaries which made our backpacks considerably heavier as those damn liqueur bottles are just heavy here. As there are no roads to most places here but plenty of river ways naturally you catch jet boats… They are very fast but the only scary thing is that a lot of them built from wood and no top but on the way there we got lucky and got the comfier bigger boat.

Shankland was beautiful and some of the pictures will be uploaded soon for that, but just imagine a gentle rolling hills looking down to the might river with sandy beaches and dense forest all around the compounds. As the night descended on us the incredible jungle sounds were calling me to the jungle… so I invited a few less intoxicated friends to check out the nearest forest around us. As we found a path into the deep moist but never sleeping darkness the amphibians greeted us with loud singing and the reptiles and birds all orchestrating a wonderfull concert for the Canadians. So we picked a quaint clearing where a little creek was making its way to a less dense field and the moon gave characteristics to the whole visual experience so it became our spot to sit and enjoy what the nightlife has to offer… the amazing thing was that after midnight I could see my breath just like during winter in Canada but here it was plus 24Celsius. I guess the only explanation to this is that the dew point is incredible high here. A little background Dew points indicate the amount moisture in the air. The higher the dew points, the higher the moisture content of the air at a given temperature. Dew point temperature is defined as the temperature to which the air would have to cool (at constant pressure and constant water vapor content) in order to reach saturation. A state of saturation exists when the air is holding the maximum amount of water vapor possible at the existing temperature and pressure. This is when you see water on your car windows, grass and feels quite bit cooler than it is.

Well I recorded some of the sounds with my camera and our pleasure ended as I wiggled my feet above the creek and I saw something twinkle as it slowly moved towards my feet in the faint blue moonlight. By the time I realized it was a cayman crocodile I almost become a part of the scene from the movie Crocodile Dundee… except I had no huge knife to put through its brain and I doubt a beer bottle would do the same trick so I jumped back as far as I could, turned our lights on and quickly headed back to our exploration snoring base camp. Heading back with a slight hangover the next day coupled with a less fortunate looking wooden jet boat didn’t make us happy. To make things worse it started raining and the rain started like pellets flying at our bodies hard feeling it will pierce my skin at any given moment as the captain of the boat chubakka switched to light speed and riding rather rough on the white waves. The next day naturally we all just slept hopefully recharging for another working week.

Guyana has a large hindu population as they were brought in by the English during 18th century to work on the sugar cane fields from a one of the province right after the slavery was abolished. My Landlord’s family is one of those families who don’t really speak hindi anymore but full fledged indo Guyanese. One Sunday I decided to go with them to this hindu function outside of Gtown into a small temple. I have to say I felt time traveling as my world got transferred from the west Indies into somewhere more of ancient India as here the migrants brought some of the old culture that lives on still here hidden in the jungle. I was able to enter the temple behind the altar as I didn’t eat any meats for the last 9 days and I got the white mark on my forehead as the symbol… well except for me not by religious choice but I could not afford the expensive meat until next allowance cheque. I took some interesting images with the smoke filled crowded small church churn out the beats of the religious drums and instruments. One of the best most interesting part was eating from the giant leaf that gives an extra taste to the different sorts of wonderful curry meats and rice dish/leaf and of course you eat with your hands.

Recently one of the largest hindu celebration ended called the Diwali, I was looking forward to it as my landlady told me so much of how they will decorate the house with full of lights. Every Year On the dark nights of Diwali the sound of firecrackers announces the celebration of the favourite festival of Indians. Homes are decorated, sweets are distributed by everyone and thousands of lamps lit to create a world of fantasy. Of all the festivals celebrated in Diwali is by far the most glamorous and important. Enthusiastically enjoyed by people of every religion, its magical and radiant touch creates an atmosphere of joy and festivity. If I would not known about the festive loudness already it would have seemed war just broke out. I woke up from my afternoon nap with a loud bang that made my Venetian window glass fall out. So naturally it was time to get up and went to join the industrious kids to help put out the hundreds of little terracotta cups field with oil and a fuse to light. It’s quite dangerous transporting 50 cups of explosives on a tray but hey this is my Diwali. Some reason like with everything here but this time the weather did not seem to cooperate as much as the gods started whispering loud and blew our candles out and only on my side of the street…. Getting angry at the winds my pyromaniac instinct kicked in and took a torch and tried other means to light the night up. I took to the night to see what the street has to offer for visual pleasure and soon my eyes were filled with the many wonders of the festive lights… There was a row of cars and trucks decorated with thousands of brilliant lights of the Indian culture has to offer and the parade has began. Music and dances shook the ground while the fire crackers and fireworks complement the many activities of the night.

One of the thing that struck me the so many swastikas painted on the grounds and on different things… For those of you who are unfamiliar with the swastika. It is an ancient symbol of peace and good luck, used extensively in the Indian subcontinent and throughout Asia (Japan, KoreaChina) for thousands years to this present day. The swastika can be found in many older cultures all over the world. From the Navajo native Americans, to the Goths, to runic Danish stones. All of which predates Nazism by hundreds and in other cultures by thousands of years. The symbol of the swastika is a part of the Hindu/Buddhist and

Culture.

In my picture section I will post some of the wonders of these festivities.

Also in my picture section you will also see some images of the Toucan Guest house where VSO took us for a weekend and the house was built by a Portuguese man who loves Guyana and rather interesting architecture incorporated filled with historical Guyanese artifacts from all around the world.

By the way everyone seems to learn new languages while away around the world so I decided to sign up for Spanish classes at the Venezuelan embassy that should make Jorge happy. I think I will stop here for now as most of you were waiting for some updates for a quite a while now.