Independence Day

Food, fireworks, and flags are all hallmarks of Independence Day that I am familiar with as an American citizen. In rural Guyana Independence Day includes none of these.

It was May 26 and Catie, Savie, (missionaries in Mashabo) and I were all enjoying yet another day off from school in a country that takes every holiday imaginable off. We were slightly unsure of what to do to celebrate so we settled on using the day to do some outdoor work at the newly built mission house. Just as we were getting ready to go several school children came up the stairs to our kitchen. Sitting quietly at our table they watched us prepare to leave. Finally one of them asked in a quiet voice, “Can I have a mango?” A bit surprised we asked “Did you eat breakfast today. “Although it was midmorning, her answer was “no.” She explained that they were out of food and her mother had gone out to the coast to get more. The boat returning to town wouldn’t be in until 5pm, meaning that she and her smaller brother would not eat all day. After fixing them some breakfast we all set out for the mission house.

Although the land was cleared for building there are numerous stumps and roots sticking out of the sand that need to be removed and burned. By the time we completed our half mile walk to the house we had a small entourage of children eager to help. Setting to work with shovels, rakes, and cutlasses (machetes) we began to cut weeds and clear the area. The children put us to shame with their enthusiasm and energy. As the hot sun lulled us into lethargy the children happily wielded the cutlasses and worked together to remove small stumps. With lunchtime approaching the children stripped to their underwear and we all dove into the lake to cool off.


After lunch we again returned to the water: this time with the intent of decreasing the ratio of water vs. slime and algae in the little clear water creek where we bathe. Once more we were joined by a small train of children eager to help. As we pulled the algae and plant life off the bottom with rakes and pushed it down the creek, the children darted between us helping and catching fish in small bowls for our three kittens.

After several hours we admitted that the task was too great for one afternoon and settled down for some fun. And what is more fun than cooling off AND bathing at the same time. So we soaped up, swished around, and laughed until we were certain that it was the best Guyanese Independence Day we could possible have.

Taffeanna

Life is fragile; and how much more so in a country whose access to medical care is limited by the logistics of transportation. In those instants that determine life and death time is a luxury that few can access.

The coffin was wedged between the wheels of the banana yellow plane and a wall of legs. From the opposite side of the airstrip I could hear sobbing as a group of family surrounded the small aircraft and clutched each other while straining forward to peer towards the open door of the plane. The sound of ripping plastic sliced through the air and elicited a new wave of tears from the group who watched as the covering that surrounded the body of a 9 month old baby was removed.

The previous week the 9 month old had developed an abscess on is neck. His mother had watched her only child with growing concern. When the local clinic was of no further help she determined to have him flown to Georgetown. Although the abscess was lanced the infection had gone too far. Before the week was out, the he was gone.

As I watched the sobbing group load the casket into a waiting truck I was reminded of Taffeanna and how the story of her life could have had a similar ending.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The IV bag swung from the mental hanger I held above my head as we strode down the sandy trail towards the creek. Four year old Taffeanna eyed the plastic bucket Nurse Becky carried through feverish eyes as her mother toted her down the trail beside me.

Taffeanna had first shown symptoms of sickness that morning when her fever and diarrhea began. As her fever climbed her symptoms worsened until she began having fever induced seizures. When she arrived at the clinic in early afternoon she lay limp her mothers arms with a fever of approximately 105 degrees.

“Quick! We need someone who can start a child IV!” With several years of emergency room experience it was quickly decided that my sister Elizabeth would be the best choice. “Hold her arm,” I was instructed, “don’t let her move, we don’t want to have to poke her twice.” With her tiny hand in one of mine and my other clasping her arm above the elbow I could feel every buck her feverish body made against the needle. “No, no,” she cried, while fat tears streaked her hot cheeks. It was enough to make me feel like crying too.

Once the IV was inserted I relaxed my grip and stroked her hand while she continued to cry and several volunteers cooled her skin with alcohol drenched cotton balls. Eventually she fell into an exhausted sleep. I watched her while she slept and when she awoke I elicited her help in further cooling her skin with the soaked cotton balls. With her free hand she dipped her cotton in the solution and meticulously wiped down each leg and foot while eying me warily.

With her fever down to the still high number of 101.3, Taffeanna was feeling better. Sitting on her mothers lap she drank a flavored rehydration mixture while her IV continued to drip. With no warning, she had what can most tactfully be described as a case of explosive diarrhea. Her mother stood holding her shaking daughter while the front of her dress dripped down onto the widening mess on the floor. With no running water the problem of cleaning her up became a small dilemma.

And that is how I found my self with an IV bag swinging high above my head as our small procession made our way down the sandy trail with a wash tub and a bar of soap to towards the creek. While Taffeanna watched the rest of us laughed at the spectacle we made: Mom caring Taffeanna, others carrying buckets, soap and towels, and me attempting to keep the IV high enough so as to not allow blood to seep back into the plastic tubing.

After her bath Taffeanna continued to improve. When she returned the next day she was running along beside her mother and playing with the other children. “Without medical attention she could have easily died,” was Nurse Becky’s assessment. By the time a boat was found to take her across the lake, the mile and a half walk to the main road was completed, and a taxi had taken her to the emergency room where she would have had to wait for at least another hour, it would have been too late. Once again we had been reminded of the fragility of life, but this time, we were also thankfully that it had been possible to intervene.

Faces of Baramita

Impressions of Baramita

The jungle canopy spread out before me like an emerald sea. Millions of acres of jungle broken only by an occasional river or small piece of jungle cleared for a garden. And then we were upon it: a small clearing cradling a muddy airstrip. Shops and homes lined each side intermingled with jungle grasses and wild guava trees.

I’d arrived in the interior town of Baramita which can only be reached by air or a seven day trek through the jungle. Although the Baramita is located on an airstrip, the majority of its people live in outlying villages within a 3 to 5 mile radius. Interestingly the villages have no nucleus and each house is located 10 to 15 minutes apart on a web of trails that make it impossible to accurately determine where one village starts and another ends.

I soon learned that homes were extremely basic. Although those closest to the airstrip were actual buildings built on stilts, those in the jungle were often nothing more than a tarp on a stick frame, with hammocks strung underneath. A small cooking fire would be near by with a pot or two resting beside it. Any other belongings were tied under the tarp and onto the wooden frame.

Carib, a local dialect that’s indigenous to Brazil, Venezuela, and Guyana, was spoken by more than 50% of the people. Thus, making contact with the outside world difficult at best. These Amerindians are a shy people, with National Geographic-ish looks, who rarely meet your gaze. Communication is limited not only by the language barrier, but by cultural norms which dictate a reserve with the outside world.

The heat is sticky and intense so children often wear nothing but underwear or a skirt while at home. Children are not children long in the interior, however. I learned that it was not uncommon to hand out condoms to 12 year olds, treat 13 year olds for STD’s, and deliver the babies of 14 year olds. In an area where babies raise babies, family is important. Teenage mothers often live with their own parents and receive assistance in raising their children. Life is hard and most age prematurely or die leaving the youngest of their children to be raised by others.

Life is hard, but thats life. So with a string of batteries they power their jungle radios and listen to some music while they beat their cassava roots into bread and wait for the jungle breeze.

Mashabo School

The room was alive with laughing voices, crinkling paper, and the sound of desks being scraped across the floor. Children squeezed two or three to a desk hunched over their books copying their lessons while others chased each other or sat chatting and eating bright orange ajuara fruits. The room was divided into sections by movable chalk boards and the voice of a teacher could be heard from the far end of the room. How anyone could accomplish something in a school that loud was an amazing feat.

Due to teacher shortages, Mashabo Primary School has only three teachers for seven classes. The teachers divide their time between the classes, with 20 minute sessions followed by hour long periods of independent copying of lessons. In total the children get less than 2 hours of teacher student interaction each day.

Walking through the third grade classroom the children shyly peaked out at me from behind their books. “Can I see what your doing?” I asked. Eagerly they brought me their notebooks where they’d scribbled out an assignment about air and sound for science class. “What did you write?” I asked. “We don’t know,” they replied, “we just copied the part we’re supposed to.

I noticed that many of the children had no spacing between the words they’d written and others had not only misspelled things, but had switched sentences midline. “Do you know what the assignment is about?” “No, we haven’t talked about it yet,” was their answer.

“Can you read,” I asked Deborah, the little girl whose paper I held. “No, not really.” “Can you?” I asked another child. Once again the answer was “No.” One by one I asked each child and from each the answer was the same “No, I don’t know how to read.”

Throughout the week I continued my investigation and to my dismay I learned that not only could none of the first, second, or third graders read, but neither could the rest of the children through grade six. With the exception of two children…TWO! It seemed unfathomable that nearly 90 children who had been attending school since they were 4 years old could still not read.

That week I spent two days teaching the 3rd graders. We talked about phonics, science, art, and math. We did experiments, skits, and colored (something they had rarely done as none of them owned crayons). They loved it all.

Nearly three weeks have passed since then and I’ve often thought about the children of Mashabo. And so, when spring break ends next Monday and the children return to school, they’ll be returning to find one more teacher. And hopefully, with a lot of patient effort on my part as well as a lot of prayer, all thirteen 3rd graders in Mashabo will be reading by June.

*Anyone wishing to contribute to purchasing phonics materials and other school supplies here in Guyana for the Mashabo children, e-mail: alexisacs@hotmail.com.

Disappointment!

Isn't it always funny that the thing you most desire is often the least likely to happen? This past Saturday I visited the Georgetown Zoo. Although it was small, it promised a wide sampling of Guyana's indigineous animals. I was excited to see some of the strange animals I had only heard of, but there was one animal in particular I was really looking forward to.

The blue and gold macaw was beautiful, but not what I was looking for.

The squirrel monkey that raced across the top of the cages celebrating his freedom and ability to patrol the zoo was cute, but not what I really wanted to see.


The curious looking agouti, with little pig hoofs, a rodents body, and a red hind end was interesting, but not what I was looking for.


Elizabeth even got to meet her cousin...

... the red faced spider monkey. But still I didn't see what I'd come to see.

In a murky pond covered in slime I found a grossly obese manatee floating with its infant.

Once again, fascinating, and fun to pet, but not what I REALLY wanted to see.

At last I arrived at his cage. I scanned the scrubby grasses and muddy pits, but the cage was empty! What?! Did he die? Did he get moved? Where was he? Then far back in the corner, inside a fenced in shack I spotted a black blob. Looking closer I saw that the blob had legs and was sleeping on short platform. What? I come all this way and the beast didn't even have the decency to make an appearance. With the zoom lense on my camera I was able to capture him in open mouthed slumber. And that, sadly, was the closest I got to seeing a tapir.

An Afternoon in the Clinic

She was only 20. With a baby girl cradled between her knees she told me that she was pregnant again. This fact alone was not enough to surprise me, but when she added that her current pregnancy was her 5th child I couldn’t decide whether to be shocked or sympathetic first. As I completed her chart with questions on current and past pregnancies and watched while the baby’s heart rate was checked I considered how to most appropriately address the subject of family planning.

I soon learned that she was not alone as one teenage mother after another poured through the clinic doors with their infants and toddlers. Many were unwed and carried their infants while pulling their toddlers along by the arm. While the rest of us cringed, first time mom’s discussed home remedies they’d heard such as washing out their infants eyes with urine. The lack of general knowledge was astounding.

In each corner of the clinic a health worker or student met with the mothers, checked their babies, and answered questions. Sleepy babies screamed in protest when they were undressed and set on the scale and then settled down to watch from the safety of their mothers arms while their weight was charted. Simple questions about diet, eating habits, and development brought all sorts of answers. Breast feeding is the accepted norm and the mothers thought nothing of baring their breasts regardless of the gender of the person assisting them.

While the women held their babies and waited to be seen the laughter and talking could be heard from outside. Along the boat dock were twelve to fifteen boats. In each sat a brother, a boyfriend, or a husband. They had done their part by paddling the mother and child to the clinic and now they settled down to wait. Child care and family planning are not tasks deemed necessary by many Guyanese men, but rather they are left up to the woman. And so the women came: for healthy baby checks, for WIC vouchers, for prenatal exams, and for birth control tablets, injections, and condoms. And as they came, we met with each one and did our best to educate them or say something that will make a difference in their life, or the life of the child they held.