i flew out of annai village (5 miles from bina hill) last friday, heading to georgetown, the capital of guyana. we stopped over in lethem to pick up some people, and a soldier at the airstrip kept trying to flirt with me. he kept asking if he could come visit me at bina hill. i am always too timid to say what i really mean. and what i really mean is this: i have taken dr. long's "marriage and the family" sociology course, and have learned that despite the fact that this may sound "bad," things like social class and geographic location and race/culture really DO play a big role in relationships. and so i just want to shout at guyanese boys, "quit flirting with me! it would never work! not in a million years! don't take it personally. but get out of my face, please." but instead of just saying what i want to say, i usually drift away from the conversation (physically). but i have to admit, having boys flirt with me is definitely a confidence-booster, because it certainly doesn't happen much in canada. anyway... it was neat to be able to see guyana from the air. i liked to see the dirt paths made by people and animals in the rural areas, and contrast them to the straight streets in georgetown. it was neat to be able to see which areas are travelled most, and think about why that is. in the rural areas, people dictate the paths and where they lead; in the city, the roads dictate the people.
it was also nice to see all the rainforest. thousands of acres of unspoiled green. neat-o.
i arrived in georgetown in the mid-afternoon on friday. i took a taxi to my hotel and basically just hid there for the next three days. i am pretty terrified of georgetown, because it's a pretty violent place. they say that the violence isn't directed at foreigners, but i'd rather not take my chances. i had pizza hut pizza delivered to my room, and i basically just watched movies on t.v. and swam in the pool all weekend. two trinidadian men invited me to have drinks with them (which i very politely declined) and a creepy man from alaska told me his life story while i was trying to do sudoku at the pool. aside from those minor interruptions, i enjoyed a nice vacation by myself. i've always known it, but i am realizing now more than ever how much i like being by myself. apparently the new trend in travelling is women vacationing/travelling solo. i can see why.
on monday morning i flew from georgetown to trinidad. i almost missed my plane because i was talking with a girl from toronto and her mom, who were supposedly on the same flight as me, but as it turned out, they were on flight "B" and i was on flight "A." one of the security guards had to shout my name into the crowd to remind me to get on the plane. i was impressed because i think he is the first person in history to pronounce BOTH my first and last names correctly on the first try. amazing. anyways, this girl and her mom were really neat: the mom was born in guyana, but now lives in toronto, and is teaching at york university and also finishing her ph.d. there. she is writing about the effect of emigration on guyana. i got their e-mails, and am excited to talk to her about that a little more, because it is definitely a concern with the program i am working with. as soon as north rupununi youth are qualified in the least, they move to the coast or to brazil or canada or somewhere else. no good. i understand why they do it, but it is hard for me to understand that not everyone is as attached to their home countries/regions/towns as i am to mine.
okay. flew trinidad to toronto, sitting next to the woman i mentioned in the above paragraph (we had been on different planes, but then in trinidad we all got on the same plane). waited around in toronto for 5 hours, bought a sudoku book, flirted with a boy flying to edmonton (and i think i was flirted WITH by same boy), flew to edmonton, feigned interest in the conversation the man sitting next to me tried to pursue with me (while feeling grumpy and exhausted and sudoku-obsessed), arrived in edgemonton at 1 in the morning, drove back to vermilion with my dad and arrived at 4 a.m. to surprise my mom. also, my dad brought some of the things i had ordered over the internet and had shipped to my sisters' while i was in guyana, including the sufjan stevens christmas box set! hip, hip, hooray! and he brought my ipod too! so good to hear my own music again. joel added all of his (ie. joel's) music to my ipod while i was gone, which included the "50 states" song, and i have decided that sufjan and i are kindred spirits. in that there is no one who loves our respective countries more than us. i need to contact him and arrange an exchange visit or something.
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