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.

once again, i've made the 400 km trip from annai to georgetown in a mere 17 hours. sweet. and all because i had to get my flights figured out with air canada, and they refused to deal with me through anything other than the phone (which we most certainly do not have at bina hill - so strange, that we have high-speed satellite internet and no telephones) (also, if yer hip with technology and gonna try to suggest skype: don't. i tried, i got disconnected every time).

we had to stop midway through the trip at a kind of truck-stop place, because our battery needed to charge for 4 hours because it didn't have enough current to power our headlights. so i watched "the lords of dogtown" or whatever on t.v. i was saddened to realize that it's not really appropriate for me to have crushes on teenage skateboarders anymore.

in g-town... i talked to my ma-jah and fa-jah. i ate some fried chicken and mashed potatoes and a strawberry smoothie. i (blasphemously?) read voltaire on the steps of st. george's cathedral. i beaded.

while i was reading, this man came up to me and started out with the whole, "oh miss, you're beautiful" etc. etc.... which you KNOW means that he wants something. he went on to show me some sores on his foot, and told me about how he's getting surgery and needs just a little bit of money to buy soap and toothpaste. i had a few hundred dollars (guyanese, which means, like, $3 CDN), but i turned him down. and the biggest emotion i felt was not compassion, but guilt. so self-centred. so ugly. i hope i can learn to change that sometime soon.

mashramani

okay...
on thursday and friday YLP helped the annai secondary school host a fundraiser/mashramani celebrations. mash is a national holiday: basically, it's the guyanese version of carnivale. i had considered spending mash in georgetown, but i'm really glad i didn't.

YLP prepared two carnival games to have alongside the games the teachers had planned. they were not the highlight of the celebration, so i'm not gonna waste time writing about them, mmkay?

there were "cultural presentations" both nights (think: summer camp talent shows). i hate them, to be honest. they are usually pretty painful to watch. mostly it was just people dancing on the stage to pépe. there was one 12-year-old girl who did a strip tease both nights. fan-friggin-tastic. it makes me really sick to think about it. i hope she smartens up soon before something bad happens.

the stage itself was really cute, with some kokerite palm spires used for decoration.

we had football and volleyball competitions, but i didn't watch them.

they held a big bonfire on thursday night, but i spent most of the time both days selling food and drinks, so i wasn't really a part of that. i didn't really want to be anyways.

we paid our cooks to prepare food for us to sell. we sold drinks both days. on thursday we sold bbq'd chicken shishkebobs, and on friday we sold fried rice and baked chicken. so good. it was amazing to have cold drinks and tons of food readily available. that's just not something that happens regularly at bina hill. mostly the best thing ever was just sitting in the sun (or later, in the warm dark), eating chicken and fried rice and listening to sean paul. i am really really ridiculously into sean paul now.

so... i'm not into martial arts, and i never have been, and i never will be. but... the schoolboys around here have been so cute lately. they are so into it (it = the kung fu hao taught them while he was here), and they practice diligently. one of the boys even did a performance of it for mashramani yesterday (which i will write more about later). it's just amazing to walk around and see them in groups of 6 or 7, spinning their sticks and taking pride in themselves. i really hate the school here because it is so residential-school-esque, and the kids don't really have any adult figures that pay a whole lot of attention to them. but i think they really felt, i don't know, cared for in that class. because really, how many teenage boys are up at the crack of dawn to do exercises? besides NHL hopefuls? awesomeness. i hope ghost river gets a male to work here as an intern next year. grown-up boys just bring a different energy to things. i just can't relate with teenage boys. and they can't relate with how awesome crocheting and crafting are. jerks.

up until about a month ago, i didn't really realize just how poor people living in the rupununi are. i was trying to figure out if i could fundraise some money to fund a salary for one person to take over coordinating my after-school program after i leave. i asked rawle what the average salary for people working in the rupununi was. he said that very few people actually have steady jobs, and for those who do have jobs, the yearly salary is about $2000 CDN. holé. i'm not really sensitive to issues like poverty, but i think that's because if i let myself be vulnerable to them, i'd totally just cry all the time and be depressed and hopeless. as it is, i'm only like that some of the time.

a lot of the trees have wood ants (i think that's what they are) who make these little tunnels on the underside of tree branches and buildings. i like it so much. it makes it look like everything has seams on it. i like seams. maybe because i sew a lot. maybe because i like to think about cutting things open and laying them flat and 2-dimensional and seeing what shapes they take (and then re-using those shapes in crafts). maybe because it's a "velveteen rabbit"/pinnochio-esque reminder that things need to be loved to be real - trees and buildings included.

post script: i really like the name "wood ants." at elk island park, they have "wood bison" on the south side of the highway, and "plains bison" on the north side (which seems strange to me, because i associate the woodland cree with the north and the plains cree with the south). i wish i had a word like that to put in front of my name, to describe who i am and where i'm from and what influences me. "highway 16 caylie." nope. "plain caylie"? crystal sometimes calls me "prairiedawn." maybe...

this is something that has been bothering me for a long time: i don't know how to say this correctly:

"a friend of a friend's"? "a friend of a friend"? is the "apostrophe 's'" redundant because of the "of"?

similarly:
"the attention span of the children's"? "the attention span of the children"?

panic attack. somebody let me know.

i have a mazillion things to write about, and i am in the middle of writing a massive report for ghost river. so i'll be on the computer all day, and writing on this intermittently as time and energy allow. i'll put each entry under a separate post, because i know how daunting big posts can be. sound good?

for starters...
there's this boy at the secondary school who everyone calls "grandpa." he's about 15. i don't even know his real name. but they call him grandpa because he acts and dresses like an old man. i wished i had a cute nickname like that, and then i realized my sisters call me "grandma caylie" all the time, on account of my tea-drinking, crocheting, early-bedtime ways.

buds know better than books don't grow

ylp went to lethem yesterday. i love going to lethem. really, i like going anywhere, especially when i don't have to talk to anyone. there were 10 of us who went in the bina hill truck, but most of us were in the back/on top of the cab, and the wind was so loud that conversation was pretty much useless. debbie and i sat on top of the cab (sorry mom and dad) both ways, which was wicked awesome. i just like thinking and moving. i thought a lot about kelseydawn. man, i love that girl. we are thinking about driving to washington this summer for something to do. i am so excited. i like that we can drive for miles and miles and not talk, and that she lets me listen to all sufjan when she would rather listen to a broader range of musicians. i hope i hang out with her lots when i get back.

back to lethem. we had to buy some groceries for the mashramani event we are putting on on friday. the entire trip lasted 12 hours. 12 hours for groceries. if this had happened during my first three months in guyana, i probably would have raged out and set something on fire. but i am considerably more patient now, or something. i just had fun. i bought some cake mix and orange tang mix and some supplies for stencilling, which i am going to teach my youth to do next week. i had to substitute real stencil brushes with toothbrushes. i hope they work.

at one of the stores we were at, a group of 4 white boys got out of a truck and walked by, and we kind of watched each other, because, hey, we're white, and nobody else is. then they left or something and crystal and larisa and i were talking, and one of them came back out of nowhere and gave me a business card. then he reached for my hand and i tried to shake his, but he tried to kiss mine. yikes. i am so awkward. then he walked away. the business card had some portuguese writing and an e-mail address on it. so funny. i was so flustered by it.

one of the dogs here is looking totally gross this morning. i thought that maybe he had rabies (he's all drool-ey, and his jaw looks like it's broken or something), but some of the boys say he ate a big frog yesterday and that's why he's sick. dumb dog. i feel really bad for him, though. he just looks totally miserable.

a few of us watched the longest yard last night. strangely, i am hopelessly attracted to nelly in it.

the other morning, i was eating some bake with cinnamon and sugar, and i was thinking about my grandparents, because my grandma used to always make donuts and serve them with cinnamon and sugar. i thought about easter at my grandparents', and the rice krispy bunnies we used to have every year with the little construction paper ears and feet added on, and the walks we'd all take down to the pond after eating. and i think i realized something.

maybe the reason i feel so deeply about the prairies is that every year for the first, what, 17 year of my life, we spent the most "special" days (ie. christmas and easter) heading out to the farm. the "holiness" i experienced each year on those days had more to do with the land, the rural drive, and my family than it ever had to do with church or Jesus.

(some know; some don't: i don't really self-identify as "christian" anymore. i still am deeply, desperately, and eternally in love with my creator, who i know best as "God." i still really dig Jesus, and believe he lived 2000 years ago, and was a social revolutionary, teacher, prophet, healer, etc. i don't know if he was divine, or if he knew he was divine. i think the bible is true; i think all the other cultural stories and in the world are true too, just maybe in different ways.)

anyway. a million more things are running through my head regarding both these issues (connection between land and "sacred" holidays; my state of post-christianity), but i don't feel like writing anything else right now. i just wanted to get it down somewhere.

yesterday our new friend hao taught our youth this wicked awesome class on neurology. it was amazing. it was just a one-hour class, where he taught them (us) the parts of the brain and what each part does. he also taught them how to actually teach back the class. so today our youth taught it back to the group of boys who have been coming to hao's kung-fu classes. awesome. it was so interesting and neat.

one of the books i got from hao is "the yellow wallpaper" (by charlotte perkins gilman). strange, because i was just thinking about it last week. it's not really a book i think about a whole lot. nice to re-read, though. but the book has an illustration of some yellow wallpaper on the cover. i don't think they should have done that. it kind of ruins the story.

i finished reading "the hours" a while ago. now i miss kaylin. for some reason i've always associated her with virginia woolf. so now that i'm done my book, i miss virginia woolf, and, by extension, kaylin.

on monday we played macushi bingo with the schoolkids for our after school program. i think it went well. some of them speak macushi fluently, but a lot don't. hopefully we can teach them some words in a fun way.

on tuesday we played handball with the schoolkids. we rotate every week, playing handball, kickball, and soccer. a lot of kids come out. it's wicked.

50 more sleeps until i come home. i've been accused of always looking ahead and not living in the moment. it's true, though. i am so excited about coming home. i am excited about eating food that i like and playing sports that i like and travelling to neat places in alberta and b.c. and maybe washington. i am excited to see people i love lots and to make lots of crafts. i am excited about maybe finding a new place to live and about starting school. i hope i find a good summer job and a good school-year job. i want to volunteer at the royal alberta museum, and maybe some more places.

i am excited about the rest of my time here too, though. we held our valentine's day dinner at rockview lodge, and the guy in charge there was so impressed with us that he asked us to hold another event like that sometime in the near future. lovely! i enjoy doing things like that so much. i don't need to socialize with anyone at all at them; i just like running around and making sure things that need to get done get done. i think we're going to run a few soccer camps. we might go fishing this weekend. we will be doing first aid/CPR training in march. i might go to a cricket world cup game just before i leave in april (the west indies are hosting it then. i don't even really know how cricket is played, but it's pretty huge here, and it's world cup). pépe might be playing a concert in boa vista next weekend! we might go! so i guess he's not the pépe moreno that died. whew.

i realize now that i may have hyped up my red dress too much. i like it, but it's definitely nothing spectacular. anyway, here it is:



in case you were concerned, crazy charles didn't show up last night. whew. and i had a really good time. i seriously love putting on events. do they have university programs for that?

one of my favorite things about the rupununi is when people try to fit lots of things into little spaces. yesterday, we fit 15 tables, 32 chairs (none of these were the folding kind), and 7 people in/on a pickup truck to take over to rockview lodge. before christmas, we took 90 people in three pickup trucks to go swimming about 10 miles away. fun times.

today is our valentine's day dinner. i am grumpy because rawle said we aren't supposed to wear red because crazy charles is back in town and he'll rage out on anyone wearing red if he happens to come by. apparently he will "destroy" any red he sees. but what about my dress!? i'm just going to wear it anyway. i will take an extra shirt, just in case.

my grumpiness got a little better because this guevarian boy (man) crystal and i met last week in georgetown is visiting here for a week before he goes home to australia, and he gave me a stack of books (tied up with a shoelace) for v-day. so nice. i'm a little disappointed he didn't write in the books; i really really like it when people write in books before they give them as gifts. or if they write their own marginalia in their own copies, and then give away those copies. special.

so. i hope it doesn't rain tonight. i hope no one rages out on my dress. i hope my legs don't hurt so much that i have to stop dancing (hao, the boy mentioned above, is leading some kung fu classes for ylp and the schoolkids while he's here, and my legs hurt like mad because of last night's class).

come on now.

to those responsible for the list of 2007's grammy nominees:

how did james blunt rack up so many nominations? y'all are saps. saps.

sincerely,
cayliedawn

over christmas, the computer at my apartment (in edgemonton) got super fried somehow, and now it's total garbage. which means all 4000 of the untransferable songs on my ipod are lost (some were from my cds. a lot were from friends' cds, some of whom i am no longer friends with.). they're still on my ipod, but i can't transfer them off there onto another computer, and i can't add any more to the ipod without deleting those ones. so, if yer keen on it, i would wholeheartedly welcome any music cds/dvds you might be able to burn for me. preferably few disks with lots of songs on them, in whatever format works best. i hope i don't get taken to jail for saying that. quite honestly, all i really really need are pre-avalanche sufjan stevens albums. i could live with just that. sorry for being such an musically uncultured embarrassment.

in georgetown

so, as i said earlier, we were in georgetown last weekend. it's a pretty sketchy place. there's a lot of poverty, a lot of racial tension (mostly between the africans and the east indians), and a lot of violence and crime. when i was there over christmas, staying in a hotel waiting for my flights to/from canada, i only left my hotel once in 4 days. this time was different. it was really nice. crystal was there, so we went for some walks and got comfortable with the downtown area. i even walked around a bit by myself!
highlights:
-church's chicken. apparently, there are church's chicken restaurants in canada, but i ain't neva' been to one. there was one just three blocks from where we stayed. i ate there twice a day, every day. the first time i went, i asked for a plain chicken burger. they gave me one with everything on it. i took it back. they gave me one with cheese. i took it back. they gave me another one with everything on it. i took it back. finally, they gave me a plain one. whew. i'm such a north american brat. they're amazing, though. i kind of wish there was one that i could go to in edmonton, but i also kind of like that church's chicken will always = guyana for me. like how in & out burger can never exist outside of vegas/california for me. also, they had mashed potatoes. you just can't argue with that kind of menu at a fast food place.
-fried chicken in general. i complain about the monotony of the food, but at the end of the day, i've gotta admit: i love fried chicken. apparently, caribbeaners (caribs? caribbeanites?) have a love affair with fried chicken. i read an article about it in a trinidadian magazine a few months ago. all truth. jenni-girl, i wish you would confirm or disprove this myth. yo' momma: she like fried chicken? hmm?
-watching the super bowl. what!? i know, that's a weird one. i really don't like football all that much. but, i don't know. maybe it was the cultural familiarity. maybe it's that major sporting events are interesting social phenomena. maybe it was the english guy (who was like a cross between chris sims and the boss guy on the british "the office") who just talked incessantly through the whole game about prince and "purple rain." maybe because it made me think of how much i love the grey cup parties my family goes to every year with all those ukrainian farm families around innisfree. odd that i equate football with ukrainian farmers.
-talking to my ma-jah and fa-jah on the phone. we don't have a phone at bina hill. only high-speed, satellite internet. so strange. anyways, it was nice to talk to them and even nicer that they accepted the collect charges.

affirming lotion

i realized why i love school so much. i am in constant need of validation and affirmation.

there's a simpsons episode where the teachers are on strike and lisa begs her mom, "grade me!" marge hurridly scribbles an A. that's my life. is it because my mom is a teacher? i don't know.

so red the recon of caylie

we (YLP) might be hosting a valentine's day dinner next week, where we would have to be servers and stuff like that and therefore dress in red or white. i have no red or white clothes here, so when i was in g-town on the weekend, i bought a 4XL "air jordan" t-shirt (i know, lame, but it was the nicest shade of red i could find) to recon into a cute dress. i cut it up and sewed it yesterday - by hand! - and i'm really excited about it. but... apparently, there's this guy around here named charles who goes crazy every february (yeah, i don't know...), and apparently he gets really mad if people wear red. i hope he's not around next week so i can wear my shirt-dress. i will try to post a picture soon. try to ignore the lameness of the air jorden-ness. that's the charm of reconned clothes, i guess. turning lameness into cuteness.

friday, february 2

last friday, the NRDDB (north rupununi district development board) bus had to take a trip to georgetown to get some paperwork or mechanic work or something done, so crystal and i caught a ride.


the trip through the rainforest to the coast normally takes about 12 hours. we did it in 17. it wasn't too bad, though, because there were only 8 of us on the 48-seater bus. and we had pépe and 80's non-top-40 pop to listen to all the way. shortly after the river crossing at kurupukari, we tried to drive through a massive, foot-and-a-half deep puddle. the engine flooded. some of the guys tinkered around with the engine, and then we pushed the bus most of the way out of the puddle, and then there were three and a half more hours of tinkering before the engine started up again. we drove for about half an hour, and then came across two more giant, muddy puddles. we had to wait for a big truck to come by to tow us through both of them. it was all really neat though, because that night there was a full moon. how many people can say they've been in the middle of the rainforest in the middle of the night under a full moon?

no segway...

the forest has these funny pods that hang from some of the trees. they make the whole forest seem like it is decorated for a high school graduation or something. i like it.

ugh, i have some pictures of the bus being stuck and of the moon-pods, but i can't upload them right now. i will try to post them later. alternatively, you can check out my pictures on facebook. i know, it's a pain in the ass because you have to register for it (go to www.facebook.com to register), but it lets me put on more pictures than flickr did. mmmkay?

wednesday, january 31

last wednesday, crystal and i went to lethem to go to the bank and buy chocolate and fruit and escape bina hill for a bit. i was in one of the grocery stores when a boy's (boy = approximately 25 years old. not young boy, but not really man-ish either) voice behind me says, "hey, haven't seen you for a while." i thought there was only one boy in lethem who would recognize me, but when i turned around, it wasn't him. i recognized the boy, but i couldn't remember from where. so i asked, "how... do i know you?" and right as i asked it i remembered i had a crush on him the first week i was in guyana, at amerindian heritage days in annai. we had never ever spoken before and i don't even know his name. he must have just noticed me checking him out then. yikes. i got really sweaty and nervous and pretended to be VERY interested in the shelves of powdered milk in front of me, and after i had fumbled through some small talk, i think he recognized how awkwarded out i was and he went away. yeesh. i need to learn to be more discreet in my crushing. but it made me excited for more all the awkwardness i hope to encounter when i come back to edmonton.

cayliedawn street team

wanna join the cayliedawn street team? here's the deal:
1. YOU send me a blank e-mail
2. I'LL send my resume as an attachment to the e-mail you've provided
3. YOU scour the streets of edmonton/calgary/anywhere neat, looking for kick-ass jobs for me and applying, where appropriate, with my resume.
4. YOU send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to ME.
5. in approximately 8-12 weeks, I may or may not send you some cayliedawn stickers, t-shirts, unreleased EPs, posters, DNA.

sound good?

monster

i killed a centipede today. i think one of the girls in my room had tried to squish it earlier, but they didn't kill it completely. the centipedes here are big, scaly creatures, about 10-12 cm long, and apparently they can give a painful bite. they move really quickly and they are just generally creepy. anyway, this centipede was squished on one end, and kind of squiggling around his other end. i didn't want him in our room any more, so i picked him up on a piece of cardboard and threw him outside. then i thought really hard about if i wanted to kill it. i hate, hate, hate killing animals, even yucky ones, but i didn't like the idea of him being all dead and squished on one end. i don't know if centipedes feel pain, but i decided the best thing to do would be a mercy killing. the tough thing is that i wasn't very confident that it was the right thing to do. anyway, i found a little board and i put it on top of him and i stomped down. afterwards i felt kind of shaky. a little extreme, huh? PETA's got nothin' on me.

i think i'm going to lethem tomorrow, and i'm probably going to georgetown for a few days after that. so don't expect any posts until around monday, mmkay? feel free to post comments, though!

prairie fire that wanders about

i've written of fires before; i'll write of them again.

today there were four savannah fires burning within a 1/2 mile radius of bina hill. you know the fires are around because of the smell: you can smell the sweet smoke of burning foliage before you can see the flames. then the ash gets carried in on the wind. finally, wondering if the fire will engulf your surroundings, you get up and take a look around for the flames.

i watched some birds fly around the fire, presumably abandoning their homes. i liked watching that. i mean, i didn't like the fact that they were suffering or losing their homes, but i liked feeling the energy behind the panic. one of the most amazing experiences i've ever had was a few years ago, at the canadian finals rodeo, when one of the bullriders was knocked unconscious. his hand was still strapped to the bull, and his almost-lifeless body was flung around mercilessly for about 10 seconds. the energy in the coliseum (/skyreach/rexall place) was incredible. thousands of people were just completely panicked and terrified. women were screaming and crying. everyone was totally shocked. every second it was happening, i was praying for him (he ended up being in a coma for a few weeks, and then recovered), but also trying to stay acutely aware of the intense energy in the building. so. i digress. but the point is that i like feeling intense energies sometimes, and the fire brought out a panicked energy in the animals who were fleeing it. kay?

i like fires a lot. there's this sufjan stevens song called "prairie fire that wanders about." i don't really like the song, but i like the title; i identify with it. i sometimes feel like i have the same energy as fires: really intense energy that becomes passion if it's channelled well, and depression/anger if it's not. i also sometimes feel like i have this overwhelming destructive energy. i've always thought of it as a negative thing. but then, this summer, while i was at ghost river's training camp, our coordinator julian asked me if i knew what my name means. i said, yeah, it's a scottish dance. he said, yeah, but there's a more ancient form of the name. kali (long "a," long "i") is apparently a hindu goddess of transformation, destruction, and rebirth. i liked hearing that. i know that the whole thing about Jesus includes transformation, destruction, and rebirth, but i feel like i've been taught to mostly focus on the rebirth part. i like valuing destruction's place. i like how fires seem so destructive, how they transform an entire landscape, but also how they create new life. always on my way up north to sucker creek/grouard, i loved driving past the big forests near slave lake that had been ravaged by fires. their small new trees and little marshes seemed so much healthier than the ones that hadn't been touched by fires relatively recently.

i also like sufjan's title for the "wandering" part (and, of course, the "prairie" part). i feel like a wanderer. i stole a line from the hymn "come, thou fount of every blessing" - "prone to wander" - and sewed it on a t-shirt for myself a few years ago. i like wandering. physical wandering, mental wandering, and to a lesser extent, spiritual wandering. i've always had a hard time making goals for myself. i like making plans, but i don't like making goals. and i don't mind when my plans fall through or change. wandering feels like a solitary exercise. i like solitary exercises. and although i like wandering, i like coming home more.

buying the flowers myself

i pushed myself to get through "mrs. dalloway" this week, because i wanted to move onto "the hours" (my seesar alyssa bought me both for christmas). what i said earlier about female writers, let me rephrase: i do like female writers, some of them. i think virginia woolf was pretty neat-o. i like the story of her life. i like the things she did to transform literature. and she says some pretty neat things in some pretty neat ways. i just don't really like reading the novels that women write. i don't know why. maybe my intense hatred towards margaret atwood just affects how i see all fiction by women.

chris sims wrote me an e-mail last week, saying he stayed up into the wee hours of the night, reading my entire blog in chronological order. he said he liked that i wrote about all the details; that i talked about the mundane as well as the big, exciting things. so thanks, virginia, for paving the way so i could talk about punctuation and fried chicken and other such trivialities on my online journal.

i need to pace myself with "the hours." after this, the only books i have left are 2 anthropology textbooks and a couple of sudoku books.


i've really been missing hawrelak park lately for some reason. but i've been missing it more in summertime mode: feeding the ducks, trying to convince the geese to get up so we can see their eggs, playing soccer and kickball, going for walks in the trees, sneaking off from our friends so kaylin could smoke.... fun times. somebody go enjoy the park for me, please, even if it is still in winter mode. i think we should have a kickball party there in april as soon as the snow melts.

culture shock

when i was home over christmas, the only real "reverse culture shock" i experienced was when i went to get some sugar from the sugarbowl to add to my tea, and was genuinely surprised that a sea of ants was NOT inhabiting said sugar. but now i'm back in guyana, and ants are everywhere. yesterday, an army of them bore a hole through a ziplock bag, invading and effectively claiming my granola. i had to sift my granola, throwing the small bits and the ants out. then i tied up by ziplock bag of granola and hung it, bear-bag style, from an extra hammock string suspended from a clothesline. yeesh. then, today, the ants annexed one of my quaker instant oats packages. they seem really hard to get into (if you're an ant)! they're kind of paper-y. for some reason i thought papery packaging could stand up to ants. i guess i should have known better - they burrow into WOOD, hello. nothing is safe from them! i had really put my faith into north american product packaging, thinking that ziploc bags could stand up to some little ants. nope.

yesterday i ripped off a hemp bracelet that i've had on my right wrist for about a year and a half. i made it for myself when i started working for darcy. i'm glad it is gone, because of what it symbolized to me, but now my arm feels all nekkid without it. so now i am on the lookout for some new long-term apparel to clothe my wrist/define this time in my life. in other wrist apparel news, for those who are interested, the thin piece of black leather i've had wrapped around my left wrist since cornerstone 2003 is still keepin' on, and serving as a gauge of my real whiteness vs. rupununi savannah tan.

why do i speak!?

this morning, rawle and some of the boys were working on the volleyball court before breakfast. i came over and asked if i could help. rawle said, "well, we could use the hose" (he meant "hoes," i heard "hose"). i said, "oh, the blue one in our building?" he said, "no, the other kind of hoes." so, to clarify the spelling of "hoes," i said, "oh, like 'bitches and hoes'?" it was the first thing that came to my mind for the correct spelling of the garden-type of hoe (somehow the words "garden-type of hoe" escaped me at the moment) (and in the heat of the moment, i mis-pluralized "ho" anyway). how do i manage to keep jobs? no one rivals my foot-in-mouth-on-the-job syndrome, except maybe kelseydawn. and sometimes becky mcclelland. it's nice to have company in that respect, though.


for most of this morning, the bina hill staff has been cleaning up around the new benab ("gathering place" - kind of like a teepee; conical, with a thatched roof). there were about 30 of us moving boards and cleaning up garbage. a bunch of us girls were moving shingles from a huge pile into neat rows, and i guess a lot of frogs had liked to live under the shingles where it was cool. first we saw a a frog about the size of my palm, which was pretty exciting because it was the biggest live wild frog i've ever seen. but over the next hour, we came across about 7 other frogs (one as big as my whole hand!) and some lizards and roaches and centipedes, all who slithered/hopped very speedily around in any direction and elicited screams from most of us girls. usually i am not really creeped out by animals: i can totally handle the roaches or the spiders in our room, but all those frogs hopping around so quickly and unexpectedly was a little... i don't know. not scary. not creepy. but it made me jump. two big frogs even crawled across my feet.

smarty

msn'ing with my mom, regarding religion/faith/life:

"the right stuff is what is right and true across almost all time and cultures, and that is usually about caring for each other and the earth" - my mom. so smart.

500 pounds and a room of one's own

what do joel kelly, jesus, and virginia woolf have in common? probably a lot of things, but one is for sure: their words have been on my mind lately.

i recently received a letter from joel, saying, "i can see how one might want to take an adventure, not so much to explore a specific place but to allow time to have a life, experience personal growth, have bad haircuts and eat spicy food etc etc etc." that's exactly what my time in guyana is all about. i was hired as an intern to work in youth leadership, but i am finding that my professional life is taking a backseat to my personal experience. and the personal exterior experience is taking a backseat to the personal interior experience.

i'm having this fantastic chance to step outside my life for a brief window of time, and take a look at it from the sidelines. "losing my life to gain it," to paraphrase j.c. my life is still kind of existing in edmonton: my apartment is there, and will be there when i get back; my family and friends continue being and growing; my u of a applications and registrations wait patiently in registrars' inboxes. my tubes of paint have not dried up; the pages in my books have not become aged and brittle; my clothes (hopefully) still fit and are still (somewhat) in style. i will go back to a life that is, for the most part, familiar. but i will have had some much-needed time to think about who i am and what i want.

v.w. posited that, given a dependable source of income and a personal physical space in which to work, aspiring female writers could create fiction on par with shakespeare. guyana has given me my equivalent of "500 pounds and a room of [my] own." i have a steady income; i don't have to worry about finding work or getting specific tasks done (thanks to a non-existent job description). i don't have a lot of personal space, but the rupununi savannahs lend more than enough physical space to serve all my intents and purposes.

this short-term international journey has become the vision quest of the middle-class white westerner*. of course, the last couple centuries have been marked by adventurous young travellers, finding their way around the world. but it seems that, thanks to government grants and the physical/financial ease of travel today, more young people than ever are taking these short adventures as rites of passage after high school or university. i've kind of felt pressured, ever since high school, to do something like this (ie. an internship, a DTS with YWAM, etc.). i don't know if i have a point to this post. i've just been reading about rites of passage in my anthro text, and this seems to be one of contemporary north america's broadly-defined culture.

in conclusion: if 500 pounds and a room of your own presents itself to you, in whatever form, be sure to take it and see what is has to teach you about yourself. even if you're not a recent graduate.



*when i say middle-class white westerner, i don't mean only people from that demographic. i know non-white, non-middle-class, non-westerners travel. mmkay? but most of the people in my circle who have done trips like this are middle-class white westerners, so i only feel comfortable talking about us/them.

shake it like a polaroid picture

yesterday i got an e-mail from a friend, telling me about a summer job that would be right up my alley. i wrote him back, saying i appreciated the forward and the job seemed amazing, but i had already worked for the organization, dated the boss, and been told my work had been unsatisfactory. life is funny.

we went fishing today. my face is sunburned. i didn't catch any fish; i feel really yucky about catching and killing animals (i'm not a vegan, but i DO catch-and-release mosquitos i find in my mosquito net). i didn't eat any fish; i ate some trail mix and granola bars and gatorade. i liked to see how people catch fish, though, because i have never been fishing in canada. today, the boys set out big nets and then shook the bushes nearby so the fish would swim into the nets. they also shot some of the fish with a bow and arrow! the most exciting thing, though, was seeing another caimen right up close! it was less than 10 metres away from us! don't worry, mom and dad. we were in a motorboat. we slowed down to see the caimen as we passed it, but as we got closer, he sunk down under the water. then we sped away. i like seeing caimen. it is like the equivalent of seeing a bear when i am in alberta. neat and kind of scary.

green paper packages tied up with tape

dear joel and dr. e.,

thanks for the fantastic care packages! they (finally) arrived, and it seems like such a perfect time! it's nice to have a little surprise after christmas, and also nice to have some time to enjoy the contents (i'm rationing the granola bars to one every two days). crazy that they took over 3 months to get to me.


dear everyone,

go watch my seesar emily ukrainian dance at the jube on the 20th! you've never seen such perogy-fueled fury, i swear.



we played handball and soccer with the annai secondary school kids last night. it was sweet. i miss soccer. i think i will play again next year (if i can fit it in between rowing, dance lessons, school, crafts, art/french/editing/writing classes, a part-time job...). it is nice to play barefoot. i don't like playing barefoot in canada because all i can think about is this one time we were playing at camp and joel ellard was playing barefoot and he ran through a patch of prickly weeds and a bunch of prickles all got stuck between his toes. there are no prickly weeds on our pitch here. just hard, hard dirt.

we are building a volleyball court outside here. hopefully it will be done by the end of the week. they have to dig six inches into the aforementioned hard, hard dirt using two shovels and a small rototiller. good luck, boys. it should be fun to use once it's done, though.

we helped our youth revise their "social issues" presentations. one was on nature/culture, and another was on gender. i felt really good because i was able to help out with the content on those presentations (special props to dr. long's sociology courses). i'm not so helpful with the other presentations, like "effective communication" (i'm passive and antisocial) or "trafficking in persons."

also, i've been reading alyssa's first-year anthropology textbook (so i can skip the introductory courses next year at the u of a) and i'm totally loving it. i feel like i will really love anthropology. i can't wait for school.

dear dad,

it's us!

brought to you in part by ALT-1-3-0

first things first:
rumors have been circulating that pépe moréno was stabbed and killed a few weeks ago. now, there are about a million pépe morénos (morénoes?) in south america, so no one here is really sure if it was everybody's-celebrity-crush-pépe or someone else. i hope it was not our pépe.

my sister bought me Mrs. Dalloway for christmas, and i've been reading it over the past couple of days. i've never really liked female writers, and v.w. is no exception. at least in this book. i do, however, admire her use of punctuation, especially semicolons. if the bad news about pépe is true, then virginia and her semicolons take pépe's place on my celebrity crush list.

this summer, i began to realize that my lifelong attraction to socially awkward situations is most likely due to the fact that i am mildly addicted to adrenaline, and too safe/scared to do anything physical that, for most people, would induce adrenaline rushes. being socially awkward in guyana is difficult, because everyone either things i am just being flat out rude, or that it is just a "cultural difference." maybe that's why i loved places like high school and nakamun and university: so many places and situations to be awkward.

write-offs

i am back in guyana. here's an update on my last 2 weeks in canada:

1. i had a ridiculously good time with some ridiculously good people. highlights, in no particular order, are as follows:
-painting with kelseydawn
-making a million crafts by myself
-driving to edmonton and back by myself and kickin' it, in stereo, with sufjan stevens
-making masks, going shopping, hanging out, and partying down with kaylin
-lunch with dr. e and kelseydawn
-low-key visits with courtney, jen, joel, and kev
-sleigh ride with king's/vermilion friends and family
-hanging out with joel's family even though he wasn't there
-eating blueberry crumble/anything my mom made
-hanging out with my crazy grandparents
-hanging out with our new dog
-hanging out with my family

2. i was doing really, really well until the last friday i was in alberta, when i went to see darcy for ten minutes to tell him i'm really not crazy and that he should hire me this summer because i am fairly certain i will not freak out at him or blackmail him or do anything crazy. and he basically told me he wouldn't hire me, but only because i did a shit job when i worked for him last time and not because of any "personal issues" i think there might be between us. but i don't get it, because they gave me really good references. so, awesome. so i feel like garbage about the work i'm doing in guyana, because it's pretty much exactly the same thing i did when i worked for him before. i am so, so mad.

3. after seeing darcy and consequently feeling like total garbage, i wanted to talk or hang out with ANYONE. but all my girl friends in edmonton were not picking up their phones. but there was a message on my phone from dustan, who i have refused to speak to for the last two years. and he was in edmonton and wanted to hang out. crazy. under any other circumstances, i would have ignored the message, but i felt like total crap and wanted to talk to someone, so i called him. he came over and we drove around for an hour and just talked, and it was really low-key and nice. it was just neat how one relationship that i had counted as a total write-off was rebuilt, almost exactly as another relationship became a total write-off.

our dog is so smart! one of our cats has been catching and eating the birds who come into our yard. so today, the cat and the dog were both outside near the tree where the birds feed, and the dog wouldn't let the cat sneak up to the tree! he kept walking in front of the cat and sitting down, blocking the cat in a really non-agressive way. it was funny and cute, because the cat kept trying to slink down and be really flat against the sidewalk, but the dog wasn't having any of that. so smart.

i's a damn shopper!

i drove home from edmonton with emiline on friday. we shamelessly indulged in listening to hanson for the last 15 minutes of our trip, and let me say, it was awesome. it instantly took me back to grade 8 - back to the first summer i played soccer; back to the last year i was in catholic school; back to a time in my pre-kelsey history, when i was still afraid of her (she was, and is, unassailably cool. how can you contend with a girl who is dating a boy with a green mohawk? you can't.).

since i've been home, i've been spending most of my time crafting and sewing. i usually wake up around 5 or 6 (which is when i've been getting up in guyana), and get so excited about my craft projects that i can't fall back asleep. so far i've made a corduroy messenger bag with a bear appliqué on it, and reconstructed an old t-shirt. more recons and appliqués are on the way. i will post pictures soon.

in love with the place, in my mind

yesterday was a really cute day. i just love being in edmonton.

i woke up at 4 a.m. and couldn't fall back asleep, because i get so excited about all the crafts that i want to make and all the things i want to see/do while i'm here. at 8:30, i went to MEC to pick up a backpack for a girl in guyana, and then i went to kaylin's. i love hanging out with kaylin. we went to safeway to pick up some food, and then we drove around downtown looking for richard seine. we both miss him like mad. unfortunately, we couldn't find him. we talked about working in the inner city and how much we loved the people and hated the organizations that employed us. i'm so glad we're both out of there now. those jobs were seriously so destructive for us. then we went to second cup and had a really good conversation. my favorite conversations lately have been with my post-christian female friends. it's comforting to know there are other people out there who are dealing with the same issues as me: guilt, loss of identity, believing that "satan has a hold on [me]." yikes. then we went to the legislature and talked about missing colin powles and how we've both always believed that the other was too cool to be friends with us. ah, insecure middle-class christian white girls. so predictable. i still feel that way about her though, as i do with a lot of my friends. i was so confident in high school! i guess junior high is catching up with me now. anyway, kaylin and i had a super cute time at the leg. we walked around the pedway and talked about loons going extinct and about how we are all doomed because the earth's magnetic field is shrinking. then i wanted to show her the "magic spot" at the leg. because she had never seen it. so this cute lady named maggie took us on a tour of the legislature. she was so excited! she couldn't stop talking and smiling! i want to see if i can volunteer to do tours there next year. the whole leg. was so interesting. i forgot all the neat stories about it, which i must have learned in elementary school when we visited the place on field trips. we especially liked the mace. alberta's first mace used in parliament was made out of garbage like those floaty toilet-tank balls and plastic pipe and broken teacup handles, and spraypainted gold! and they used it for FIFTY years! our province is so cute and neat. i am in love. we also really liked the magic spot (the "acoustic anomaly" where you can hear the fountain). i always like hanging out outside the leg., but i think i am going to start spending more time INSIDE. we also found out that on canada day, they bring out the red carpet and all visitors are allowed to walk up it and then into that room where all the government business is done (sorry, i forget the name. i was always TERRIBLE at remembering political science stuff) (and this is the ONLY time of year visitors are allowed in the room, and the ONLY parliament building in canada that EVER allows visitors in) and then out the back. so kaylin and i are planning to go next canada day. the day made us even more excited about our province than we already are, so we decided that sometime in the next couple of years we are going to go on a vacation to small towns and notable cute places in canada. exciting.

after hanging out with k-lin i hung out with kev. i haven't really talked to him much since the summer because i knew i would be tempted to ask him questions about darcy that i don't want to know the answers to. but hanging out with him was so fun! i really missed all his constant, lame jokes. i like that he doesn't mind going shopping with me (we went to whyte ave and i bought a sufjan album and some american apparel clothes. so predictable.). he is fun, and i am glad that he will be in edmonton next year.

finally, i hung out with joel kelly. i feel like joel must spend all his free time reading books entitled "how to be a great friend." he is just always the right amount of fun, and supportiveness, and concern, and silliness, and intelligence, and conversation. and he is my most reliable source for new music! we just went for supper, but it was really nice. i am excited that joel will be going to school in edmonton next year too. so many fun friends in such close proximity! life doesn't get much better!

new dog

with kelseydawn having relocated herself to the depths of the 403, i've had to find myself a new (if only temporary) bf. done and done.



"stets," honorably monikered after the neighbour who found him abandoned in a ditch last summer, has apparently adopted himself into my family and my parents' home. i am in love! stets is so friendly and cute, and he loves to go for walks. he likes tummy rubs and eating snow. he wags his tail furiously, and has a bad (but cute) habit of getting so excited that he will jump up all over us and try to lick our faces. having been mothered by an animal rights passivist (and by this i mean "peacefully resistant in response to injustice," and not merely "inactive toward injustice"), and then having taken that to an extreme, i have a solid conviction that animals shouldn't be taken as pets for humans unless the animals themselves choose us. and that's what stets did. i guess after wayne stetson found the dog, he tied the dog up in his yard. but whenever the dog was unleashed, he came over to our house. it was perfect timing, too, because my parents needed some company and youthful energy around the house now that all of us girls have moved out.

i am considering trying to find a job in vermilion for the summer just so i can hang out with stets. i like being with him, because i feel safe going for walks with him, but there is no need for verbal conversation when we are together.

somehow i'll find my way home; celebrity crush list

a briefing on my trip from annai to edmonton:

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.

room to make her big mistakes

i hitched an unexpected ride to lethem and back yesterday with some of the red cross staff who were in annai, putting on a camp that my program was helping out with. one of my favorite things ever is going for long drives, because it gives me time to think. and thanks to this trip, i think i've discovered why i am so drawn to prairies and savannahs and wide open spaces.
1. i grew up on the prairies, and so did my dad and his dad, etc.
2. my own body shape is like the prairies: flat
3. 13 years of ukrainian dancing taught me to use all the space available on stage
4. in the same vein as #3, years of playing soccer (especially with claire paterson) taught me to identify and then move into space
5. thanks to yearbook camp in high school (yes, i did go to yearbook camp, and it was sweet, even though the organizers hated everything kelseydawn and i did) and years of editing yearbooks, creative arts publications, and various newsletters, i have been conditioned to find and fill "white space."
6. i am a girl. "blank page" and all that. wanna know more? take dr. hales' "women's writing" course.

i can't help it. it's like a killer instinct. except no killing. my soul finds space, and goes there.





also... i am developing a profound appreciation for enrique iglacias' music. well, maybe not so much a "profound appreciation" as an "irrational addiction." don't tell anyone.

three cheers and a non-alcoholic toast to g-hugh

gareth, famed oxford/cambridge ph.d. candidate and stellar dominoes player, walked out of my and crystal's lives forever on sunday night when he boarded the bus to georgetown to return to the u.k. this post is a tribute to him.

thanks, gareth, for:
-heightening my perceived level of security when walking after dark by accompanying me and crystal on:
-late-night and early-morning walks in the rupununi savannahs while the moon is shining
-being easygoing enough to endure our teasing
-being a fountain of silly entertainment, despite your incredible credentials on paper (describing a flying arrow moving "literally, as straight as an arrow!"; being able to catch only vegetation on our fishing trip...)
-renewing my faith in the male gender by being sensitive and strong and not making me believe i was crazy because of the things i thought or felt
-giving life to my passive-agressive revenge on an unnamed person by making crystal and me your preferred companions for the duration of your stay
-sharing your computer... against norma's wishes!!!

thanks, friend. be well.

dasher, dancer, prancer, vixen

last night, bina hill institute had its christmas party. there were about 100 people, and we had delicious food: baked chicken, cook-up rice, curried beef, mashed potatoes, beans, cucumbers, cake.... afterwards, we had a dance party. i haven't danced for a long time, probably not since lane's wedding in the summer. it was tons of fun. i seriously love dancing so much. i have blisters on both my feet now. the normal thing was that i spent much of the evening rocking out by myself (it was more like fo-ho-ing (i don't know how to spell it. faux-hoe?), with a little bit of shakira-ing and sean paul-ing). the anomalous thing was that i actually danced with some people. i think boys/men see that, to some extent, i have rhythm, and think i would be good to dance with. what a mistake. i get really awkward and stiff and i trip over my feet and their feet and it is all just a disaster. i tell myself this happens for two reasons:
1. i am a prairie girl. i need my space. i like being by myself, and i like dancing by myself.
2. when i used to go to church, i would hardly ever sing. i am not a singer. but i would dance. and i still like to dance as worship/a celebration of all that is good/an expression of myself/because it feels good to move every part of me. and therefore it is somewhat spiritual for me. and i don't like having testosterone and toes and hips standing (or dancing) in between me and my commune with everything i am excited about/in love with.

i need to start clubbin' or something.

"mango season will save your life"

mangoes are in season in guyana, and just in time to battle impending scurvy. thousands of mangoes just fall to the ground and rot because there are so many. i had only ever had ONE mango before i came to guyana, and i didn't really like it. when i lived with lee this summer, she came into my room the first week i was there, holding a mango, and said, "i was saving this. i wanted to share it with you." cutest thing ever! so she cut it up and put it on a plate, and i really wanted to like it because the whole situation was so adorable, but i thought it was kind of yucky. but now that they are one of my only options for fruit here (guyana's interior has a terrible distribution system), i find them delicious.

on an unrelated topic...
last night i was lying in my bed, and i felt a bug crawling on my leg. i went to brush it off, but when i touched it, it was bigger than i expected it to be (sometimes ants and spiders get into my bed). i shined my headlamp onto it, and i saw that it was a baby centipede! yuck!!! they are so, so gross. and apparently they bite, but thankfully, this one did not bite me. i coaxed it onto a piece of paper and then threw the paper outside (it wouldn't get off on its own).

live a normal life with me

when gesa interviewed me for this position in late july, she asked me to describe what i thought living/working here might be like. i had only learned that guyana is a country the day before, so i didn't have much to go on, except for the word "wild." and when you're sitting in the middle of alberta, the whole prospect of this place and my position here does seem a little wild. i mean, a 12-hour bus ride through the rainforest, just to get to the interior where i'm living now? my work involving fishing trips, where we see monkeys and caimen up close? but to be honest, since i've been here, i haven't been struck by how "wild" everything seems, as much as i've been struck by how normal everything feels. i mean, having high-speed internet certainly taints that, but even when we do community visits to remote villages, it still all seems normal. crystal and i still have a hard time believing we're in south america, probably because nothing seems very strange.

omnivore

so... after a morning of movie-watching, i am confronted with these images just outside our "office." apparently, a cow had died, so some of the youth (not from my program, although they live here) were cutting it up and preparing it and selling it. i guess the cow had died from drinking cassava water. cassava is one of the main foods of the amerindians here: they eat farine and cassava bread, and they also have a drink (i forget what it's called), all made from cassava. it kind of creeps me out a bit that they are going to eat some cow that they just found dead, but i guess it's not like the cow drank mercury or anything. i don't know. i just like to think of my meat as happy and healthy before it's slaughtered.

on the table in the bottom picture is a watermelon, picked freshly from the garden, like one i enjoyed for breakfast this morning!

on the table in one of the other pictures is the cow's head. sick. for a girl who grew up in rural alberta, it seems a little strange that i haven't been confronted with this sight more often (as in, ever). i like this picture, though, because gilbert's facial expression is so classically kelseydawn.

no plans

most staff from bina hill are in lethem at the rupununi expo. i didn't have the cash to go (money is SO difficult to get around here), and i've been feeling sick anyway, so i stuck around here for the weekend. yesterday i holed myself up in the office and watched three movies by myself: the notebook, reality bites, and amelie. surprisingly, it's the first i've seen any of them. anyway, strangely, TWO of the movies (the notebook and amelie) featured the following:
1. one half of of a blossoming relationship uses arrows on the ground to create a trail for the other half to follow and find a surprise (sometimes i wish i had a few more arrows-then-surprises in my life, instead of just surprises or chaos-then-surprises).
2. a thick stack of still-in-the-envelope mail. in amelie, the envelopes had been opened and the letters read (but still saved); in the notebook, none had been opened (i am hopelessly in love with the idea of a stack of unopened, posted mail. so much so that i am tempted to save all the future packages i may receive while i am in guyana and not open them until 10 years from now. i hope, somewhere, there's a boy with an attic full of letters he's intended to send me but hasn't had the courage (wait, do i want an uncourageous boy? hmm...) to do yet. or maybe he just knows it's not the right time. yeah, that's better than being "uncourageous." and one day i'll find them, wrapped in a piece of brown twine, and i'll sit on my bed and read and re-read them. sigh. a more realistic version of that story will be that the most romantic piece of literature i will ever receive will be a post-it, stuck on a fridge, saying, "went to buy bread. love you, _______." i will still sit on my bed and read and re-read it. but it might feel a little bit different.).

--

when we were younger, my mom had this awesome countdown-to-christmas kind of thing for us girls. we each had this cardboard chimney, which had a santa on top and was filled with 24 numbered boxes, which my mom would fill with treats and little presents for every day of december before christmas. sweet. so i don't have that right now, but i AM counting down my days to edmonton by eating one package of cookies a day. i bought 2 12-packs (each pack has 6 cookies) a week ago, and i am using them to keep track of how much time i have left here. only 17 more sleeps!

fury and love

it's my week off (we work 3 weeks on, one week off), and i've been kinda sick lately, so i've been spending a lot of time reading in my room. today while reading in my room, i heard a group of teachers, who are doing a week of training here, singing christmas carols as a choir. it's always so strange for me to combine tropical climates and christmas together. i've spent 2 christmases in tropical countries, and i am spending this advent in a tropical country, and it just feels... wrong. to echo bri's sentiments, i miss all familiarities of a north american christmas. to be perfectly honest, i really LIKE a lot of the things that most people hate about north american christmases: i LIKE going to the malls and seeing them all decorated, blasting Christmas carols (in small-town malls) and christmas songs (in big-city malls where mentioning the name of Christ is apparently offensive); i like bundling up in all my winter clothing and taking edmonton transit through the dark, snowy winter to said malls; i like receiving presents just as much as i like giving them; i LOVE wrapping presents (so much so that i try to convince anyone less keen on wrapping to let me do theirs for them); i like the lethargy of post-christmas dinner. i like watching movies with kelseydawn and knowing that she will inevitably fall asleep before the movie is half over. there are really only two things about christmas that i DON'T like:
1. real Christmas trees. some people would call a Christmas without a freshly-cut tree blasphemous. they say Christmas just isn't Christmas without the smell of a freshly-cut spruce (or is it pine? i don't even know). hmm. to this i say: save the tree, go buy an artificial one that'll last you 20+ years (like ours has), and just go outside and smell a still-living one. or just decorate one that lives outside, instead of cutting one down and bringing it inside. hmm?
2. i feel like i have to say this quietly: i don't know a whole lot about Jesus, but what i think i DO know about Him tells me that i don't know if He'd be down with all this obsession with Him and His birth. i know a lot of people think He'd be disgusted with all the materialism and stuff. but i think it goes further than that. i just feel like He'd feel a little, i don't know, embarrassed? who knows. maybe i've just been reading too much david james duncan.