A day at Bina Hill

Let me take you along on one of my days at Bina Hill. To understand the setting a bit better I first will explain more about Bina Hill. Bina Hill is situated on a hill (what a surprise) a little outside of the village of Annai. Bina Hill is the home to the NRDDB (North Rupununi District Development Baord – where I work), the Annai secondary school and the Bina Hill Institute (also a school). That means lots of kids (or maybe I should call them teenagers) running around. The NRDDB is set up by the Amerindians themselves and their main raison d’etre is to do basically any project that helps develop the villages that are located in the North Rupununi. Apart from the two schools there’s a main building (in which my room is situated) a kitchen, washrooms, a shop (with mainly products that cater the students – candies, cookies and really sweet drinks) student dorms and some small cottages. That’s it! That’s where I’ve been stuck the last let’s say maybe 7 weeks, I lost count.
So there we go… After a mostly okish night, one night involves more bug hunting than others. I get up early because my fellow Bina Hillers decide to get up early and start celebrating a new day with singing, cleaning, shouting etc. And when I say early I mean early, at sunrise, which is right after 5. I turn around in my bed a couple of times more and decide that all the noise is too loud and won’t be able to sleep anymore. I wrap my towel around me, get my soap, shampoo etc., get the key (that’s a nice story about my key. There’s only one key to my room, when it closes you can only open it with a key. Of course I forgot my key once. I was asking people for a credit card or bank card – because that’s what I have seen in movies – but forgot that I’m in an area without banks. A knife will do. The trick appeared to work but it’s not recommendable to do this on a daily basis) and walk over the compound to the washrooms. The washrooms – a concrete building, 2 toilets but 1 isn’t working, a shower curtain, wooden doors with again the peeking holes, no locks, a pipe and one knob (because there’s only cold water of course) – I hang up my towel, my keys and put down the soap and then is when it starts the hoping, praying and begging that it’s not student washing time. Because if the students take showers on the other side of the compound there is no pressure enough to also provide water in our showers. I turn the knob, yes water coming out strongly. I start my showering ritual and do everything as fast as possible. When I just put shampoo in my hair the water becomes less, it disappears. The waiting starts, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 20 and sometimes it doesn’t come back at all. In the mean time I am being accompanied by mosquitoes, some small frogs and the occasional cockroach. That is just great. I wrap my towel around me and go back to my room. Again I have to do my dressing rituals as fast as I can because the vicious mosquitoes keep attacking me whenever I’m not under my net.
I walk to the kitchen and see what’s for breakfast. I start with making myself a nice cup of (powder) milk with clumps. And see if we are having pancakes or bakes with peanut butter and jelly. Bakes is a typical Guyanese thing, it’s made with flour, baking powder, a pinch of salt and some sugar. They make it into a flat bun and then deep-fry it. The peanut butter comes from Aranaputa, a village a couple of miles down the road with their very own peanut butter factory and the jam is of Guyanese made as well, usually pineapple or mango.
Around 8 I walk to the tourism building with my laptop under my arm. And then ‘the battle with the Internet begins’. In the right corner the girl from Holland that always likes to be productive in the work place, in the left corner the internet connection that is so weak that it keeps cutting off every few seconds. Usually the left corner wins. It sometimes takes me a whole day to send 3 e-mails and then I didn’t even start talking about e-mails with attachments. In the meantime I am writing a strategic plan for the tourism division, write evaluation and recommendation reports of my visits to communities and I design trainings. And the liming of course, the work morale is a bit different to what I am used to. It is perfectly fine to just hang around and talk to people without being very productive. That’s not really my style but I have to integrate so reserve an half hour here and there for the occasional liming.
12.30 Lunch! Back to the kitchen, it can be chicken, beef, rice or mashed potatoes in all kinds of varieties. The afternoon is even less productive and the ‘working day’ stops around 16.00.
Time for some reading, hanging out with the students, talking to my fellow VSOs until dinner is ready at 18.30. Usually the same variations as during lunch, because that’s all that is available. Between 18-19 it’s mosquito rush hour. Even with a huge layer of Shoo (insect repellent) on I never had a quiet dinner up until now.
I have several options in the evening, watching a movie (due to the new VSO slogan that we have introduced: ‘Sharing movies, changing lives’, instead of the original ‘Sharing skills, changing lives’ I have about 300 movies now), going for a walk (just for the sake of walking or to one of the bars: Oasis – about 45 minutes walk one way, or Dakota – about 1 hour walk one way), slinging up my hammock and looking at the millions of stars, having drinks (at above mentioned bars) with Ryan and Jackie (an American couple that are here to do an Anthropological research). All of this became a lot more exiting since Sergio is here (another VSO) because doing something with company is always better than alone.
The compound is quiet, the kids go to bed early, I never really know what time I go to bed. I start losing the concept of time. I crawl into my bed, tuck the net under the mattress. Put my IPod in my ears so I won’t hear all the little creatures on their night hunt and fall asleep.

Motorcycle chronicles
Back home I was asked by VSO to take a couple of motorcycle lessons to get a hang of the basics. A certificate with the signature of Oscar (my instructor) was sufficient in order to get a Guyanese license. Wrong! Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.
In fact I have to go through all kinds of difficult procedures. I had to buy a package with theoretical learning books and it is obligatory to follow 4 classes before one can do the theoretical exam. Mind you that the classes and the exam are in Lethem (so that means leaving in the morning at 6.00 – the bus to Lethem only leaves once a day - on Tuesday the day of the class. The bus ride takes about 3 hours. Wait until 16.00 until the class starts, sleep overnight because the only bus to Annai goes back around 15.00 and wait until the next day 15.00 to take the bus back home). That 5 times just to do my theoretical exam. The funniest thing is that the booklet is full of signs, rules regarding traffic lights, lines on the road, while none of that can be found anywhere in this area.
Last Tuesday I went to Lethem for my first lesson. Sitting in the classroom the police officer walks in, full uniform and hat. He sees me and stops in front of my table. Where do you suddenly come from? Bina Hill… Why didn’t you attend any of the other classes? So I told the officer that I was told by the police officer in Annai that I only had to attend 2 classes. So I attend this class and next week. Well the police officer in Annai gave me the wrong information. The exam is already this Thursday and you have to attend all 4 classes. The next exam will be on November the 25th. Nooooo, I can’t wait another month. I pulled a very sad and hopeless look. So the police officer asked me if I could do the exam without following the classes. I told him I could and that I would be ready for the exam on Thursday. He registered me in the big black book so that was set.
My programme manager from VSO called me and told me that he just talked to Sergeant Fraser. I was supposed to meet the Sergeant in the morning and explain my situation. I was not allowed to talk to anyone else, it all sounded quite mysterious to me.
First thing in the morning Lethem Police Station. The same police officer that tried to impress me yesterday with his tough look, uniform and hat was now scrubbing the floor in his white undies. I asked for Sergeant Fraser but he wasn’t in yet. In the meantime the other police officers seemed to enjoy my company and were asking me the usual questions (how old are you, are you married, do you have a boyfriend, would you like to have a Guyanese husband). The phone rang, apparently the 911-line (which was just a regular phone on a desk). A prank call, some school kids. Again, the kids. One of the officers told me to pick it up if it would ring again, because that would be funny. Yes he really asked me to answer 911. Luckily Sergeant Fraser walked in and invited me into his office. He looked in the big black book and couldn’t find my name, by the look on his face I could tell that this was worrisome. I showed him that my name was in the back of the book and he told me to do the exam tomorrow. The visit to Sergeant Fraser didn’t get me any further. I still have to do the exam.
Next days: studying. I did the exam and found out that it will take another 1,5 week before the results are known, since they have to check it in Georgetown. That means that I still have to go back to Lethem again in 2 weeks. I didn’t feel like that so I thought of the famous saying ‘if you don’t shoot you won’t score’ so I talked to the officer with the white undies (who was now wearing his uniform over it by the way) and asked him if they could speed up the process and check my exam so they could give my provisional license (after passing the theoretical exam you’ll be given a provisional license for 3 months, you will be able to practice for those months and before the end of the 3 months you have to do your practical exam) before I would leave for Annai. Well that wasn’t possible because they are not authorized to grade the exams but after talking to him a bit more about our favourite music, husbands and boyfriends again he told me to come to the station tomorrow at 9.00 (he didn’t want me to come earlier and catch him in his undies again) and he would give me my provisional license. Next day I got it, I am finally good to go at least for the coming 3 months.
The motorcycles should have arrived this weekend, they are still stuck in Georgetown, of course… Patience patience patience my friend.

One day after writing this blog post the impossible became possible, our motorcycles have arrived. Now there only doesn’t seem to be any fuel available in the region. I can at least look at it and admire it and dream about the day that the fuel will be coming in.