freedom from myself and from the land

i went for a long walk to the anaconda pond by myself today. it was maybe the last time i'll get to do it, because we'll be pretty busy tomorrow doing wildlife festival, and then i fly out to georgetown on monday. anyway, the walk was great because:
1. the rainy season has started, so the entire path was under about 2 inches of water. at first i walked along the side, on the mushy savannah grass, but then i just decided to walk in the water. good decision. the ground is usually very very hard and very very hot, but this time it was very very soft and the water was just nice and warm.
2. i saw two snakes! i've been wanting to see snakes my whole time in guyana, and i hadn't seen ANY wild ones until last week. in the last week, i've seen THREE! the first one i saw today was a little one, about 6 or 8 inches long, right close to my foot. it was black and yellow. the other one was bigger: about 3 or 4 feet long, and about 1.5 inches fat. it was the same color. it was about 2 metres away from me when i first saw it, and it slithered across the savannah grass and up a tree. neat.

it hit me today: the debilitating emotion that always comes when goodbyes are near. i hate it. i don't think that people understand that the reason i am reluctant to start friendships and hang out with people is not because i am an antisocial bitch; it's because i just end up loving people and places so much that i can't handle when relationships end or i have to leave places i've grown to love. my heart literally aches for days (i developed a persistent ache in my chest in second year university, and i think it's related to emotion/stress) and i just cry and cry and cry. ugh. i am excited to get back home. i am NOT excited to leave.

the long-haired amerindian boy mentioned a few posts earlier wrote me a couple of e-mails today. arg. firstly, he called me "cayl" - don't ever, ever do that. secondly, his spelling was atrocious. you just ruined any chances you might have possibly had there, boy. it's official: i refuse to date any boy who doesn't know the difference between "its" and "it's." same goes for "they're/their/there" and "your/you're/yore." in other boy news, i told the guy who invited me to a cricket world cup game in georgetown that i had flown back to canada early, and therefore couldn't make the game. he seemed nice enough, but i just a) didn't want to put myself in a potentially bad situation, and b) didn't want to have to stumble through conversation for SEVEN HOURS, which is apparently the length of the cricket world cup games. i hope i don't run into him when i'm in g-town. yikes.

sandkar








sandkar and me






like i wrote in my last post, ylp spent a couple of days at the iwokrama field station, just spending a bit of time hanging out together before crystal and i leave. it's an international research centre on the edge of the iwokrama rainforest, which is a 1-million acre conservation area. neat. highlights included: delicious food (despite the fact that it was just more chicken and white rice), swimming at the waterfalls at fairview (i would spend all day, every day swimming if i could), watching a movie at night! with electricity! (unfortunately, it was a terrible movie. "apocalyptica" or something), seeing "sandkar" the black caiman up close (he's a wild caiman but he spends a lot of time near the field station because they sometimes feed him), and being flirted with my a long-haired amerindian boy. i tell you, i am defenseless against long-haired boys.

ylp bussed to the iwokrama field station on thursday night. we had to wait at oasis restaurant until 2 a.m., when the bus arrived from lethem. we boarded the bus, but it was just full enough that i was the only one who didn't have a seat and therefore had to sit on the ground next to the driver. the very uncomfortable 3-hour ride didn't officially get underway until we passed the second bridge. we all had to get off the bus, because the bridge was in the process of being fixed and was basically nonexistent at that time. so we all walked in front of the bus, on the path next to komodybash (the "anaconda pond"), and waited for the bus to off-road through the muck next to the pond and climb up the bank on the other side. so: 3 in the morning; anaconda pond; rupununi savannah; pitch black; cranky/drunk passengers. of course, the bus got stuck. and this is guyana, so of course nobody really did anything except yell at each other. after about an hour of waiting around in the dark, somehow someone got the keys for the backhoe that was parked up near the bridge, and decided to try to pull the bus out with it. they attached the rope to the backhoe's claw, and actually managed to pull it out of the muck AND up the bank. i secretly hoped the claw would break off, but i am glad that the bus just got out of the mud.

the point of this story: i discovered i really want to become adept at using heavy machinery. i think i will get my dad to teach me, maybe when i am home this summer. once when i was at kelsey's, her dad was doing some work with the backhoe in the front yard. he saw us through the window and waved at us with the backhoe claw. i would like to do that. maybe i could learn to paint with the backhoe claw or something. i would be just like that elephant that paints with his trunk. if not painting, i would at least like to be able to dig a nice little hole, and make a nice little pile with that dirt. the fun just doesn't stop with ole' c.g.

i went for one of my savannah walks this afternoon, and when i got back, one of the annai secondary school girls was waiting for me. she had a little note for me, addressed to "miss kelly" (no one here can say my name correctly. i've been called "kelly," "kellex," "kelloggs," "kayla," and sometimes "kelly moses" or just "moses," after neil browne's cousin kelly). the students were supposed to go home next week for easter holidays, but the president of guyana has called off school a week early on account of cricket world cup. anyway, the note was a whole page long, with little flowers and hearts drawn around it in red. here it is:
"Hi Miss Kelly,
Special Good afternoon to you. I do hope you are having a wonderful time with you friends for the last time before you left this Bina Hill, well as for my Self Everything is fine with me and I'm very Glad to go home for my Easter Break.
Yes Kelly it's Me just decide to write you this few lines of note to you for the very first time. Because as you told us that you will no longer be staying here. And it is so sad. Yes Miss Kelly I want to tell you how Much I will Miss you After you left this place. You are such a good person. I will alway Remember you all the time Especially you sweet and bright Smile. And I will always remember you when I see that ASSPYR Member that you used to come and keep a form of Relaxation, which was really good. I did enjoy the days and I learn some new thing from you all. And it's so sad that you are leaving us here. Alway Remember the day you spend here, no matter how far you will be from us, we are gonna do the same too. So I wish you safe journey home, hope you come back any time. HAVE A WONDERFUL TIME.
FROM: VERONDA AUSTIN"
surrounded by:"I will always Remember you And I will Miss you SO Bad. And it is so sad that I will be going home tomorrow." "HAVE A NICE TIME Enjoy the Rest of YOUR life." "Please Reply Any Time." "I will Always Remember You =) =) =)"

my goodness. so wonderful. so special. i always feel so garbagey about my work and feel like i do a shit job. without this, i honestly would have left guyana thinking i hadn't accomplished anything. but it's so special, both just on its own and because it reminds me of all the kids i've worked with before who have expressed gratitude somehow. kids in youth group in vermilion, who i've counselled at camp and who have told me, "i'm so excited to be in your cabin! i've looked up to you for years!" other kids i've counselled who i still talk to, and who still look up to me. kids up north, at the high prairie stampede parade, who would recognize us from the field trips they went on to our museum, and who would wave, "caylie! meghan! remember me!?" so crazy. i wish i wouldn't forget those things so easily.

my most prized posessions, the first things i would grab in a fire, are these:
-my clothes. please don't think i'm shallow. i've made/stencilled a lot of my clothes, and they're the closest thing i have to my own art. i feel really personally involved with them. and...
-a small stack of letters. special words. a letter written in pencil on green paper from joel kelly, some print-outs of e-mails from kaylin, some print-outs from jenni's blog this summer, a haiku about me from my creative writing prof in second year university along with her year-end comments on my poetry, a poem from dr. e regarding the 18-page essay written entirely in iambic pentametre and rhyming couplets that i wrote for a lit. theory course, the orange book with the picture of riff raff (from rocky horror) on the cover that kelsey made me for my high school grad. and now, this letter. words that make me remember i'm valuable. so powerful.

the price of honesty: $243 USD

eek. the boy from the bar in georgetown (i wrote about it a few posts ago) wrote me an e-mail today, asking if i wanted to go to a cricket world cup with him. he left 2 phone numbers and 3 e-mail addresses at the bottom of the e-mail so i could get in touch with him. ugh. this is why i avoid talking to people. because i don't know how to respond to him. because i can't lie. ugh. i will just not respond at all and hope he forgets. how did i become such a hot babe? just jokes.

my other dilemma involving georgetown and honesty: i just checked my visa bill, and it looks like the tour company i went to kaieteur/orinduik with somehow messed up and only charged me $1.47 CDN for my trip. and they haven't contacted me or anything to get the rest of the money. so, although i'd prefer to do otherwise, i know that the painfully honest streak in me is going to march the rest of me up to dagron tours, bust in, and say, "um, hi. i think you undercharged me. here's my credit card, so you can put the rest onto it." thanks, self.

yesterday joel ellard e-mailed me to tell me he's getting married (to esther, i'd imagine). what does this potentially mean!?! a-lister dance party in vermilion within the next 2-24 months! all the big names from the vermilion dance scene should be there: angie wilson, jaylene ellard, cayley fisher, heidi schock, nicole smith, lane macfarlane, lauren i-don't-know-her-last-name, and kelseydawn, who i will invite to be my date if, in fact, i am even invited. maybe even becky mcclelland, and sarah dargatz (who i am not really friends with but whose dance moves i respect muchly), and maybe brett and barb if they are back! i guess i shouldn't be making up someone else's wedding guest list. but i know that when i get married, i am only going to invite good dancers to the party. mom, you will have to start working on your moves now if you expect to be invited.

brownies for breakfast and two hours on facebook. i am a waste of skin.

the other day i poked glibert in the back (he's one of the teenage garden/maintenance boys who lives in the front of our building), and he said, "don't, caylie! you're making me sexylucious." i was like, "what? what does that even mean? like, sexylicious?" and he said, "i wanting to sex." hahaha. oh, guyanese grammar and horny boys. best combination ever. also: gilbert's 15-year-old girlfriend and their baby were also in the room.

i just watched the motorcycle diaries with debbie and pearly. nice that i could do that here. brief comments on the movie: the thing i liked best was the portrayal of alberto. i think that was the only part that really outshone the book. the part i liked least was how heroic they made che. i mean, i know he was heroic. but the movie made it too easy to understand. like i said in an earlier post, the best part of the book for me was seeing che's devious side. i'm canadian: we like our heroes to have faults.

so, the rest of this post might be hard to follow because i have a hard time thinking linearly and thus have a hard time writing linearly. i prefer cyclical thinking (which is maybe why i use so many parentheses: it feels like they help me to say things more simultaneously). sorry.

sometimes i get really frustrated with being here because people get so upset that i am not learning the things they want/expect me to learn. i am not really trying new foods or learning how to cook (i hate cooking!!!) and i ditched hammock-sleeping after about a month. but the things i am learning are really huge. reading the motorcycle diaries, confessions of an economic hitman, and a thousand barrels a second, combined with just being here, in the amazon rainforest, living with the indigenous people of south america, i have been exposed to a lot of knowledge that i don't think i would have gained in the same way under other circumstances. ugh, this is going to be longer than i want to write. i will have to sum it up. basically, i am just learning to reconcile my sometimes-philanthropic leanings with my usually-self-centred-north-american-worldview. regarding my "condor and the eagle" post: i really believe that the right thing for me to be doing right now is learning about indigenous culture, so that alberta (canada, north america, the world) can be healed using some of that wisdom. i think i'm dedicated to that. i really care about alberta and middle-class white folk and i think we are destroying ourselves with our attitudes and our lifestyles. but at the same time, being here, i notice myself avoiding talking with the locals (i imagine this has a good deal to do with my antisocial nature, but does it have to do with perceived notions of class?), expecting that i should get to ride in the front of the vehicle (there's limited space: two or three sit in the cab, while the rest pile into the back.) or get the best cuts of meat at dinnertime. if, for example, there are three people left to eat and only one piece of chicken left, i can come up with any number of reasons that i should be the one to eat it (age, position, gender... skin color has not come up, but only because i have hundreds of years of history teaching me better). this has been huge in helping me understand the first europeans in canada. i sometimes tend to rage out at "white people" for the atrocities we've committed across the globe. living here, i am starting to understand that, even with the best of intentions, people do some crazy things and make some crazy rationalizations when they are hungry, helpless, and ignorant.
the summer i worked for AFL, i learned that in order to take care of others, i need to take care of myself: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. but sometimes the way that manifests itself is by me making sure i am fed at the cost of someone else going hungry. what do i do? rawle is one to always make sure everyone else is taken care of, but then, he goes without eating a lot of the time. what's the answer?

kelsey and i have been planning our end-of-summer trip to adventure city west coast (aka rural washington state), and, for various and sundry reasons, have been thinking about our high school selves. didn't know us before 2001? here's what you missed: christian ska bands, yearbook camps, students' union camps, badminton, soccer (for me)/hockey (for her), aisha,
"hello my future girlfriend", "the office", working at a&w with the Jehovah's Witnesses, the dayz wage message board, "i'm too cute to do onions", pickle porn, silkscreening in cts, gordo's shorts in cts (he'd wear the same pair EVERY DAY for two weeks, and then finally change into a new pair to wear for 2 weeks), YC, weekends in st. albert, mall-ratting at west ed, jug playing "adam's song" for 8 hours straight at a&w, youth group, cutting up our shirt sleeves in cts and safety pinning them back together (we took a lot of cts classes - they were the only ones we could take together because she's a year younger than me), the vermilion fair, the flying penguins/cottoncandy/rabbits at lloyd fair, mating coils, being jerks with oren and colin, dancing at vermilion fair/andrea's grad/church, the best new year's ever playing survivor all night at the church... what am i forgetting? she's the best. i can't wait for the summer.

in the meantime, i am waiting to hear back from the museum if they will re-hire me this summer. meghan and i are really counting on being able to work there, and if they don't hire us, i think we will just have to live in joussard and bum around/longboard/go to the beach every day. like living in california. only, far up north. more bears, less lindsay lohan. i am nervous because even though they told me i should re-apply and that i did a good job last year, places seem to have a tendency to tell me i did a good job and then not re-hire me. eff. i am totally effed if i don't get this job. totally effed meaning mildly inconvenienced by having to find another job in the three weeks between when i get back home and may, when i want to start working. ugh. i hate job searches. plus, i like it up north. i like living with my adopted kookum; walking in the boreal forest; crying at aquasizes; running up a $300 long distance phone bill; hanging out at the lake with megs; eating steak in high prairie; having multigrain bannock and vanilla earl grey tea every monday while watching old movies borrowed from the library; going to the high prairie stampede; crushing on the construction boys; going to powwows; going to family functions with lee and actually being treated like part of the family; setting up the tipis; learning about alberta history; the prairies and the endless sky; getting to know people in the area; having time alone to make crafts; meeting friendly injuns who offer to let me use their white cards to buy gas...

a broken canister, and four baby turtles!

today one of the parrots at rockview was walking around on the ground, and he reminded me of richard (the old homeless man kaylin and angie and i love). the parrot is mostly green and all pigeon-toed and cute, walking around nibbling on things. it made me think of my favorite visual memory of richard: he was walking around the shelter one night, wearing a big green trench coat stuffed with garbage (for insulation/for safekeeping). he kind of shuffles along. out of the right pocket of his coat hung a deflated blue balloon on a long green ribbon. adorable!!!


also, unrelatedly: a lot of the time when we are running ASPYR, i feel like i am splinter and my youth are the teenage mutant ninja turtles. or maybe i feel like i am april o'neil. i don't know why.

the most action i've had in a long time

so... no dance party last night. right after the dinner, i was going to leave with the red cross staff heading to lethem, so i went to pack up for that, but at the last minute, i decided not to go because i could feel myself getting sick and i didn't want to be sick on the bus on the way back from lethem.

before i went to bed, i went to use the outhouse. a big cockroach crawled onto my right thigh and i kind of jumped/tried to bump it off, and it somehow got onto my left thigh and then skittered down my left pant leg. ew! i don't really shriek over bugs, but i moved pretty frantically to try to get it out of my pants. i hope no one could see the outhouse from the outside, because they would just see my headlamp moving around really quickly. eek. so the cockroach finally fell out of my pants, but then he kept running across my feet. i didn't want to step on him, but i didn't want him crawling on me, so i kept trying to stomp to scare him away but not crush him. arg.

then, this morning, i got up to brush my teeth and then i went back to bed. and when i got back to my bed, there was a 4-inch long centipede right at the head of my bed. ew again! i hope it didn't sleep with me. i think it had probably been in the folds of my mosquito net (on the outside), and had fallen onto my bed when i tied up the net in the morning. i sure hope that's what happened. i picked him up with a piece of cardboard and threw him outside.

19 more sleeps.

yesterday YLP learned how to put on condoms using only our mouths. what kind of job do i have!?!

(it was part of our HIV/AIDS peer educator training. apparently sex trade workers need to know how to do that to secretly protect themselves from men who don't want to use condoms for oral sex. and we (well, the youth taking the program, and me, because i am in charge of my youth) needed to learn it so we can teach it to other youth in the rupununi, some of whom become sex trade workers out of necessity. which brings up a whole 'nother interesting discussion on job creation, economics, community development, etc., but i don't have time to write about it now because we are hosting an "appreciation night" in about an hour. it's a long discussion. i don't know if i'll ever have time to write about it. i will talk to you about it, though, if you are interested. just ask.)

mashed potatoes, baked chicken, and a dance party to sean paul and pépe moreno tonight. best night ever!

post #100!

dear interesting boys,
you should have a crush on emily. she is really funny and fun and from what i understand, she's a looker. she's so emilonely right now. we can go on double dates when i get back! and by double dates, i mean i can tag along as a third wheel.
send applications to:
cayliedawn
blogspot
world wide web


i am so so anxious to be back in edmonton. crystal's the exact opposite. she wants to stay here longer. i guess we're just at different points in our lives. i have a lot going on at home and not much going on here, whereas she has a boy here and no career/school/plans for when she goes back home. here are some things i am excited about:
-a summer job in alberta (i don't know exactly where, though, but i applied for some neat ones), and doing normal summery alberta-y things (like short road trips, camping, county fairs, river/lake swimming, rowing, soccer, volunteering somewhere)
-school! school! school!
-spending most of april sewing and visiting people i like
-going to calgary to spend much-anticipated time with kelseydawn
-going on a real live date (!) with my internet crush landon. it's going to be so awkward. i think he has a pretty high potential for awkwardness, and so do i. i'm sure i will say something inappropriate or spill or break something. i will have to come up with a list of conversation starters for lulls in the conversation, and write them on my palm in waterproof ink:
"so... (*check palm*) you like, um, soccer?"
"yeah."
"yeah... me too." (*clasp palms between knees, sip iced tea, look downwards and sideways to avoid eye contact*)
this is going to be a huge success, i just know it.
back to the list...
-listening to sean paul and lauryn hill on the way to powwows with my white friends/family.
-easter weekend in vermilion with my parents/sisters/grandparents/my mom's new kittycat/the dog/maybe kelsey and andrea
-going up north (if i don't work there) to visit lee and meghan and the lake, amongst others.
-having emily be my boyfriend for the summer, for most intents and purposes. actually, just one intent and purpose: hanging out while doing cute fun things. going for ice cream? going rollerblading/longboarding? going to the international airport to watch the arrivals? going to the museum/muttart conservatory/citadel/legislature? going for walks at hawrelak or along the river? we'll be there!
-driving along the highway in my car, by myself.
-eating food that makes my insides feel good: granola, fruit to my heart's content, fresh orange juice, vanilla earl grey tea... actually, right now, this is my main motivation for coming home. i am getting scurvy or something, i swear it.
-i nearly forgot: my favorite day of the year, canada day! hanging out with kelsey and hopefully kaylin at the legislature; watching my sister ukrainian dance; eating my traditional canada day burger (with ketchup and onions - it's all red and white, see?!); listening to the crazy-ass grass-people vs. bush-people chants on the legislature lawn just before fireworks... i love canada day. i love canada!!!

bye, blogspot!

this is a post about angie w. and candeo ministries. why? because: 1) y'all should check out www.candeoministries.org. if you live in edmonton, you should volunteer with them. it's a christian organization working to provide housing to low-income families in edmonton. and 2) i just read her blog for the first time, and remembered how much i like her. i like having friends who are as devoted to edmonton as i am. good on ya, angie w. i like how you love Jesus too. i think i could learn a lot from you. i'm excited to be friends again when i am back in the city. i hope you invite me to your rock and roll dance parties often. i would like to ride the bus with you (although i read that it makes you sick) and go to second cup with you and maybe you can meet my friend kaylin and we can all drive around downtown and look for richard and his carts and then hang out with him (p.s. do you see him ever now?).


this post is also a little bit about today: we've been doing HIV/AIDS peer educator training (it's a 4-day workshop). i saw a lot of really graphic video about STIs. I AM NEVER HAVING SEX!!! also, i think i am going to start volunteering for red cross when i get back home. i like them.

i've really taken a liking to ants lately, probably because they are everywhere. in my bed, in my sugar, in my juice, in the trees, on the ground.... yesterday when pearly taught the schoolgirls to do embroidery in ASPYR, i embroidered myself a little brown ant on a piece of pink fabric. i like it. anyway, fast forward to this morning. i was telling crystal about this one pair of shorts that i have, that i bought this summer during my depressed/borderline-anorexic stage and are therefore pretty small, and saying that i don't know what i am going to do with them because i really like them but i doubt i will ever fit them again (if i keep myself healthy). and she asked which pair of shorts i was talking about, and so i took them off the bottom of my pile of clothes on my shelf, and there were millions of ants on them!!! MILLIONS! and their eggs! yikes! i shook most of the ants off, and then i washed my shorts, but i felt really bad. all those ants had their home and their eggs there, and i didn't really need my shorts for anything, but i kind of ruined everything for the ants. that's not the first time i've committed an ant-related atrocity. when my family was in the dominican republic a few christmases ago, i brought a cup of tea up to my room. i finished the tea, and was reading a book when, out of the corner of my eye, i saw something dark moving in the corner. i got up, and saw that it was a mazillion ants, parading toward the sugar in the bottom of my teacup. how do they smell so well!?! anyway, i called the front desk to see if they had any raid or anything, but they were totally unhelpful. i didn't want the ants to take over my bedroom, so i put on the coffeepot in the room and boiled some water and massacred all the ants by drowning them. i realize now that i didn't have to actually BOIL the water to drown them. whatevs. anyway. i think ants are trying to tell me something. i've got to figure out what it is.

we played volleyball today. this is the first time i've played it since i've been here. i don't hate volleyball, but i don't really love it either. i was pretty pissy because a whole bunch of people showed up and were beaking off whenever we'd mess up. if they hadn't all been there, i think i would have really enjoyed it. i think i should get extra credit for playing, based on how skinny my pipes are.

cricket world cup kicked off today. the office has been taken over. three computers are tuned into the game, and everyone is crowded around the one streaming the visual coverage of the game. lots of shouting. i still don't really understand the game. super eight matches are being hosted in guyana at the end of march and beginning of april. a lot of improvements in infrastructure have been done in preparation. it's going to be CRAZY here (in g-town) then (that's right when i fly out of the country. yikes). i've heard that cricket world cup is the third largest sporting event in the world, after olympics and world cup soccer. crazy. oh, this just in: windies just won the game.


i really like coming across foreigners here who have adopted guyanese-speak. i do it once in a while, but not as much as some do. here's a sampling of guyanese sentences:
"he nah wan' fah sell he bike." (he doesn't want to sell his bike)
"son HOT, bai" (it's too hot to do anything, boy)
"she nah walk wit she wares" (she didn't bring her cutlery)
"he comin' jus' now" (he's coming, sometime in the near- to distant future)
"he takee long time fah fetch we transpee" (he's taking a long time to find some transporation for us)
"please for a cold drink?" (may i please have a cold (usually carbonated) drink?)
"you mash you fingers on they strings like so?" (this one happened today while kevin was teaching some kids to play guitar - you press down on all those strings with the same finger, like this?)
i had the hardest time understanding what people were saying when i first came here. now i usually get it.

pepe moreno played in boa vista last weekend, and two of the scottish girls teaching here got to meet him, dance on stage AND go to his hotel room. alone. and neight of the girls speaks portuguese. crazy. they're lucky nothing bad happened. oh, pepe. what a dreamboat. i'm so jealous.

the girls of ylp spent most of today beading bracelets for people, for an appreciation dinner we hope to have on saturday. then, in the afternoon, pearly taught some of the schoolgirls some embroidery, and crystal and i sat in for the session. i decided i was born in the wrong era. who needs women's rights? i just want to sit at home and weave or do embroidery all day. hello, 18th century. maybe secretly read milty and donne and swift by candlelight in my father's library. that's about all i need.

love song for a river

this post has been a long time a-comin'. i hope i'll get through it tonight.

5:00 a.m., january 8, 2007: my dad is driving me down highway 16 westbound so i can catch my 10 a.m. flight to guyana. we're in his white work half-ton, driving 40 km/hour through a fierce blizzard to avoid the fate nearly 20 vehicles had met, just in the 200 km stretch to edmonton. we creep along the yellowhead, passing many vehicles whose drivers had the sense (and the time) to stop and wait for the storm to pass. and i got to thinkin':

one of my friends had once told me a story about a lesson a river had taught him. he had taken some driftwood from a river in southern alberta, and had neglected to leave tobacco and give thanks to the river for the wood. then, he and another friend decided to go tubing down the river to relax for the afternoon. partway down the river, the current and some fallen trees created a dangerous situation, and my friend and his friend barely escaped drowning. the tubes the two were floating on, as well as my friend's friend's shoes, were taken by the river. my friend acknowledges the incident as a lesson in respecting the power of the river and the giving/taking relationship we have with all things.

so... some people don't like to think of man-made things as requiring the same respect or reverance as things in the natural world. but, i've heard an elder say that God created all the molecules and atoms and particles and stuff, so even man-made things are ultimately God-created. so i was thinking about the river lesson while driving on the slippery, snowy highway, and i realized how much the highway is like a river.

for most of my life, i've lived within about a 10-mile radius from highway 16. i've travelled the 300 kms between edmonton and lloydminster seemingly hundreds of times. my dad spends an hour on the highway every day with his commute to and from work. it's what connects me to my parents when i'm in edmonton and they're at home. it's how food is transported to my town. it's a strange reminder to me and perhaps my family of how tragedy and pain can create something beautiful. i'm in love with the prairies that line the road: their dull beige-y yellow color in the winter; their jubilant yellows and luscious greens in the summer. throughout history, humans have settled near bodies of water because that water is a life source. i've never known a body of water as intimately as i know highway 16.

if the yellowhead is my river, then shouldn't i treat it with the same respect and reverance as any other river? i don't mean to worship it, but i do mean respect the power it has. i think we tend to not do that a lot, which is maybe why there are so many vehicle accidents on the road. and the whole tobacco/giving thanks thing: you can ask me more about it later, but i think it's always a good idea to be aware of what you are using and to give thanks for it. we take a lot from those highways, or rather, the land those highways now inhabit. i heard something once that said something like any wild deer in north america can only go 40 miles at the longest until it has to cross a road. i can't remember the exact number or whatever, but it was a little ridiculous. we've built up roads across the continent, and we scarcely think about how that's affected the land or the animals that live on it. i think maybe a little "thank you" is the least we can do. yeah?

the condor and the eagle

i first heard about the condor and the eagle prophesy at ghost river's training camp last august. simply put, the south american indigenous prophesy goes, "when the eagle of the north and the condor of the south fly together, the earth will awaken." okay. neat.

reading one of the last chapters in confessions of an economic hitman, i came across this:
"'The Prophesy of the Condor and the Eagle'... states that back in the mists of history, human societies divided and took two different paths: that of the condor (representing the heart, intuitive and mystical) and that of the eagle (representing the brain, rational and material). In the 1490s, the prophesy said, the two paths would converge and the eagle would drive the condor to the verge of extinction. Then, five hundred years later, in the 1990s, a new epoch would begin, one in which the condor and the eagle will have the opportunity to reunite and fly together in the same sky, along the same path. If the condor and the eagle accept this opportunity, they will create a most remarkable offspring, unlike any ever seen before.
'The Prophesy of the Condor and the Eagle' can be taken at many levels--the standard interpretation is that it fortells the sharing of indigenous knowledge with the technologies of science, the balancing of yin and yang, and the bridging of northern and southern cultures. However, most powerful is the message it offers about consciousness; it says that we have entered a time when we can benefit from the many diverse ways of seeing ourselves and the world, and that we can use these as a springboard to higher levels of awareness."

ho-lah. it might not mean much to anyone else, but it sure means a lot to me. i've had a hard time justifying to people my decision to take an after-degree in native studies (which i'll start in september). i don't particularly want a career working specifically with native populations, and i'm not really very good with indigenous populations, but i've just felt myself inexplicably drawn to these teachings. i don't really believe i'm "fulfilling prophesy" or anything, but i like how these words and thoughts kind of make sense of the direction my life is taking right now.

interestingly, i just learned that thunderbird, who i know a little bit about from what i've learned about pacific northwest coast art, is apparently a condor. i didn't know that before. the cowichan i had made for myself last year has thunderbirds on it. neat. i'm feeling this intuitive and mystical influence. now i just have to be on the lookout for killer whales.

post script: i just came across this. it's part of a letter from benjamin franklin to his daughter:
"For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him."
hummm... maybe not such a bad choice as far as accurate representation...

i finally got back from georgetown on friday. this time, the truck ride was only 12 hours, shaving 5 hours off the length of my previous 3 trips. we stopped at a small gold mining operation in the middle of the jungle, detouring about 2 hours to drop off some gold miners. i kept my mouth shut on my opinions about mining for fear of these miners hurting me. if it weren't for the whole raping-the-earth part, i think i would really like the idea of mining in guyana. setting up camp in the middle of the jungle... i guess that's the only part i like about it. i walked around their camp a little, and on the camp kitchen table, there was a huge box of condoms and some extremist christian literature on the new world order. nice.

at the kurupukari crossing, we stopped at a shop and i played with a baby monkey there. he was super cute. i would think baby monkeys are the ultimate pet, except that i don't really like the idea of pets. anyway, this little monkey would bring me a leaf or a feather, and then let me take it away from him, and then he would jump all over and climb up me and try to get it. fun. more exciting than a baby kitty, and cuter and smarter than a baby human.

most of the drive home was littered with talk of religion. after we dropped of the miners, there were 4 of us left in the truck: rawle (my supervisor), mike (who works at bina hill), joey (whose family holds the barbecue we all go to every saturday, and who drives the NRDDB bus), and me. joey's family are all Jehovah's witnesses (a side note: i continue to find j.w.'s to be amongst the friendliest, neatest people i know. i don't want their religion, though.), and we ended up talking religion for about 6 hours. 6 hours of hearing that the devil has a hold on me. nice. yesterday joey's daughter gave me some j.w. literature to read. today at breakfast, crystal and i somehow got into another religion conversation with the two red cross staff who are training us in first aid right now. jason is the only one of the four of us who self-identifies as christian. kristin and i used to, and crystal never did. anyway, it was more of the same: hearing that satan has a hold on me because of what i do/do not believe. frick. it's really frustrating, because i really truly know in my head and my heart that my relationship with God is personal and is good, and that things are happening in their own time and that's okay. and people never say it to be hurtful, but it's pretty messed up to be told that you are controlled by the devil. especially because i can't understand how someone "controlled by the devil" can cry when she drives through the rainforest or across the prairies or on the #4 in edmonton because she is so in love with the world and its creator. but i realized that the problem is that all the shit that was being spouted is actually in me because of all the years i spent identifying as a christian, and that's where all the guilt and doubt comes from. i need to get rid of it somehow. i don't know how.

a few nights ago, i was sitting at windies sports bar (across the street from the rima, chosen because it is one of the few restaurants nearby which accept credit cards), reading a book, eating chicken kebabs and drinking fresh passionfruit juice, watching soccer on t.v., and listening to dance mix '96, and i realized that i could have a really good life here if i wanted it. i don't want it. but i hope my future includes little vacations that look something like this, and that then, i can be accompanied by people i really like, like emily or kelsey.

that was all kind of ruined when this guy across the bar snapped my picture. i looked up at the last second, right before he took it, and i made an ugly face to ruin his picture. you can't just go around, taking people's pictures, man. he came up to me at the end of my meal, and said, "excuse me. is this the best picture you can give me?" i said, "uh, i guess not..." and desperately looked for a way to end the conversation. i was unsuccessful. he continued pressing for information, and i told him i didn't have a phone number (i don't!) but that i did have an e-mail, and blah blah blah. i really hate it when men here try to talk to me, because for some reason i just can't lie to them. i am pretty sure i am going to be the victim of identity theft sometime in the near future, because when people ask me direct questions, i can't help but answer them honestly and completely. i staunchly refused to let him take me out anywhere, but he insisted on at least paying for my meal. i tried to decline, but again, i was unsuccessful. so... free meal. and he didn't even eat with me. i have my pasty white skin to thank for that free meal.

the grand canyon skywalk: what a disaster. http://www.grandcanyonskywalk.com/home.html


i think that one of the things i am going to miss most about bina hill is the boys there. crystal and i share a room with our two girls, and then about 6 teenage boys live just outside our room in the same building. two of the boys are in our program; the rest work in the garden or do maintenance at BHI. they are pretty much the closest thing i've ever had to brothers. sometimes i get really frustrated with them: they play their radios and guitars at 6 in the morning and late at night; one of them came home drunk and just peed next to his hammock instead of walking 3 steps outside.... i like that we can all kind of yell at each other and be temporarily angry, but still have good relationships. the best thing, though, is being privy to tender moments that i usually would never experience. on the night of mashramani, i heard the boys come in late, and they were talking softly in their hammocks. johnny, one of the garden boys, said quietly (and i'm certain with a smile on his face), "you know, i had a fun day today." that doesn't sound like much, but it was amazingly cute. on valentine's day, browne neil (we have two neils, and this one's last name is browne, hence, browne neil) said to me, shyly, "you know caylie, you lookin' pretty." usually i just feel like all boys are arrogant, tough jerks. i like seeing them like this. i like the shyness, the exhausted contentedness (is that a word?). i will miss those boys like mad.

that which we call a rose

yesterday i googled my last name, because, hey, i've been stuck in georgetown for over a week and i've kind of run out of options for occupying my time. and two neat things came up:
1. my last name is apparently an acronym for the Great New York Read Aloud program. funny. i wonder how they pronounce it.
2. my cousin darcy apparently won an award from the city of calgary for helping chase down a bad guy who tried to kidnap a woman and her child. my family is a family of heroes! top class.

also, i decided that maybe the reason i prefer relationships through osmosis as opposed to formal introductions is because i hate having to tell people my name. don't get me wrong, i really like my name and how unique it is. but people have the hardest time with it. trying to call my parents collect, the conversation with the operator usually goes something like this:
"operator. may i ask the name of the person calling?"
"caylie gnyr@."
"cally grin-ra?"
"no, caylie. c-a-y-l-i-e."
"c-a-l-i-e?"
"no. there's a y before the 'l'."
"c-a-y-l-i-e?"
"that's correct. my last name is gnyr@. g-n-y..."
"g-y-n...?"
"NO. g---n---y---r---@. gun-air-ah."
"gin-ra?"
"NO! cay-lee gun-air-ah."
"please hold while i connect your call... international operator with a call from carly ny-ra."
thankfully, my parents have dealt with this long enough to know that any indecipherable, unfamiliar name the operator says usally means it is me calling.

the taxi driver who i had arranged to pick me up from the airport when i arrived in guyana in january had a placard with my name on it, but he told me he had no idea what to look for. "african? latino? european? what exactly ARE you?" not expecting an english-speaking white girl, eh?

you know it's hot, don't forget what you've got

a few mornings ago, i woke up to lauryn hill playing on the radio outside my window. sweet. ever since i arrived in guyana in september, i've had lauryn hill songs running through my head, but i hardly ever actually hear her played. nice.

i came to georgetown last tuesday because i had to iron out some things with my air canada flights. we were supposed to drive back to bina hill on friday. friday became saturday, saturday became tuesday, and tuesday has become wednesday. so... we might leave today. maybe not. maybe now i'll be more patient waiting 15 minutes for the #4 in edmonton.

u of a courses are up on the internet, and although i can't register quite yet, i'm getting really excited about looking at all the possible classes. i don't have enough time in a 2-year after degree to take all the good ones! maybe i will take an extra year. i am considering squashing all 60 credits into a year and a half (including some spring and summer courses next year), and then starting a master's part-time in january 2009, and taking some undergrad courses part-time at the same time. taking an overload of courses at king's was manageable, but i don't know if it will be at the u of a. arg. i get so excited thinking about school.

i finished reading the motorcycle diaries a few days ago. i know, i'm totally behind the times but whatever. if you know me you know that's my style. (i still haven't seen the movie). anyways. it is freakin' amazing. i think my favorite part about the book is how che sometimes presents himself and alberto as scoundrels (hiding the wine in the river; the whole "anniversary" scheme; sneaking away to avoid paying for meals...). i think it's good for me to know that such a hero/icon/revolutionary/philanthropist can have such a devious side. maybe that's why i'm drawn to the first nations' coyote/raven/weysakijack trickster figures. i need to know that having bad intentions sometimes doesn't make me a terrible person.

after that book, i started reading confessions of an economic hitman. i read a thousand barrels a second before christmas, and it's really neat how those three books (these two and che's) complement each other. you should read them all. i will lend them out when i get home. book club!

yesterday rawle took me to this place called the roti hut for supper. i wasn't very excited, because i don't really like roti. pleasant surprise! this place was amazing. it was this cute, clean (which is a big deal here) bakery, which also served pizza, chicken, and cook-up. i need to learn how to cook myself good cook-up (it's a guyanese dish which is basically just rice, black-eyed peas, and whatever else is in the cupboard). i love it.

moon time.

a few years ago i started learning a lot about listening*, and decided to really focus on it in different ways. i've been told for years that christianity was special because it was all about a "personal relationship with Jesus," but i felt like i was just told what to believe and how to believe it by middle-class white men. i didn't want that. i think i'm sensitive and intelligent enough to figure out things on my own, in my own time. maybe that's what i like about medicine wheel teachings. i like being given time and space to do things in my own time, even if they could be done faster by someone else. and i like the recognition that each time is equally important. and i like having a personal relationship with my Creator, even if it doesn't look like what other people want it to look like.

so i've been teaching myself to listen in different ways. listening to my body, and my emotions, and my thoughts, and nature, and the people around me; and i think all of those are ways of listening to God/Creator/whatever you call Him. with that...

THIS SENTENCE SERVES AS A WARNING: the rest of this post is about menstruation. if you don't think you can handle it, don't read it. if you're going to think i am gross or something, don't read it. if you are going to post rude comments about "too much information," don't read it. i am writing about it because it has to do with listening. final warning.

so, i've been tracking my "moon time" diligently for the last 2 years, as an exercise in listening to myself better. and it's pretty regular, always between 22 and 28 days (i've heard birth control pills make it even more regular, but i am terrified of that shit. and... i don't need it. ha.). i just had it, like, a week and a half ago, and yesterday i got it again. strange. so i've just been trying to "listen" and figure out why it's happening irregularly. it might be because i am staying at the guesthouse here, and maybe some of the other girls here are making it all out of wack. maybe i am eating differently. maybe i am stressed out (money, airline tickets). my two more romantic views are that: a) it is affected by the full moon (the first time in february it started on the full moon, and now this irregular time started on the full moon too), or b) it was affected by the waterfalls i visited yesterday. i don't know if i'm that in tune with nature. but i know that some cultures believe that the moon and water can affect it. so i don't know what is causing it now: there are too many variables. but i am going to turn it into an experiment, i think. narrow down the variables and make note of what happens. move over, english degree. i am turning out to be a scientist.


*it was around the time that all the "listen [raven]" tags started showing up around edmonton (but i still maintain that the phrase and all its connotations became important to me independently of said tags, and therefore i have no qualms about putting the word on stuff that i make and "spreading the message," etc.). i hope that the "listen [raven]" person doesn't get upset. i don't think he/she would; it kind of defeats the purpose of the message.

kaieteur/orinduik

i went to kaieteur and orinduik falls today. it was lovely. it's too bad i like boys so much, because i think i could totally enjoy a life by myself, doing my own thing. when i got picked up from my hotel this morning, there were already two boys waiting in the cab i was to get into. i immediately asked if they were german. yeppers. they were so big and blonde and volleyball-ish - if not german, they had to be dutch. but germans seem to travel more than the dutch. anyway... at the airport, i saw a girl named catherine from toronto, who i had met on the bus last month. she was going on the tour too! nice to hang out and chat. it was really good to talk to someone who understood about needing space, and not liking to cook, and not liking being hassled in markets (she and i both prefer north american supermarket shopping).

kaieteur falls (the highest single-drop waterfall in the world, at 741 feet) was pretty amazing, but when we got right beside it (we had gone to a few spots further away to take pictures), i was more interested in a puddle with hundreds of tadpoles (who were all eating something egg-sac-looking) than the giant waterfall itself. there's a neat documentary featuring the waterfall, called "the white diamond." you should watch it. the falls are named after a patamona chief, "kai," who threw himself off the falls to appease a spirit, "makanaima." "teur" is just patamona for "falls."

we ate lunch, and then flew to orinduik falls. i got to sit right in front of the plane, next to the pilot! he even let me fly for a little bit! i know that sounds childish. but it was neat. and as if y'all aren't jealous.

orinduik was rad too. we got to swim in the falls and climb all over them! i love love love swimming and exploring. one of my most favorite things is when grown ups get to explore the world like they are kids. there's this cute image in my head from my ghost river rediscovery training, when some of the girls (my age) were all in this canyon-y thing that was usually host to a waterfall, but that part of the year it was dry. they were all crouched down and hushed, examining the rocks like little girls, and the rocks in the mountain (which we had been taught are our "grandmothers and grandfathers") were all watching. so neat. so anyway, i liked swimmin' around and climbin' on the rocks and hiding underneath a rock and watching the waterfall from behind. it seems like in north america we're not really allowed to play in waterfalls. they are all behind metal fences, with big signs that say "DO NOT LITTER" and "STAY BACK" and "SLIPPERY WHEN WET." there are souvenier shops nearby. not here. i like being trusted enough to enjoy nature, and given space enough to learn how to respect it. *pictures on facebook. go there.*

the bina hill truck won't get its licence/regisration until tuesday, which means i can either spend $9000 GUY on a bus back to the interior, or $9000 on a hotel room for two nights. i think i'm going to stay here, though, because "phagwah," a hindu holiday, is happening on monday. basically the holiday is all about running around wearing white, and everyone throws powdered paint and water on everybody else. they do it in georgetown, but there aren't a heck of a lot of hindus in the rupununi. fun times.