A PC Day

If I had to describe a perfect PC day, this was it. I wouldn’t have been able to describe it to you yesterday, but today was it. A little bit of everything thrown in there at once – examples of successful integration, progress at work, observation of cultural differences, small tests of will, something to drink, and a few US comforts thrown in there. I found myself using the word “rich” in description of some of the day’s humble gifts.

I breakfasted on instant coffee and peanut butter toast, and then was visited by Cindy, Delene, Wendy and Sasha. Cindy brought me oranges and rolls she had baked the day before. Pleasant gaff with them, then I went to work.

Set out 4 computers in the library and got Lorrie to work on making a poster for our upcoming movie nights. She got some girls to help her. We had the kids that came in draw for awhile, then I took them downstairs and we did stations on the computers with Mavis Beacon, simple machines and other games – great!

Sylvester invited me to take some beers by he for lunch, and Shamir came, too. We lime, gaff and drink pleasantly for more than an hour. We are joined by Toshao and then Felix and Combrencent, and I am wondering how much I should drink and how long I should stay. “Lunch break” back home is 1 hour long, and I should have been back to the library by 1 p.m., theoretically. No one follows time so rigidly here, though. It was the middle of the day; should I keep drinking even though I need to return to work? How much do I let go of American standards and try to blend in with the flow here? Not to mention, I was the only lady there. I was entirely comfortable being there, laughing and gaffing about things of interest to me. The men joke and I don’t mind it, they encourage me to drink more, they try to get me to smoke a cigarette with them. I could have. But I stopped myself after so many beers and did not take the cigarette. Best not to push the boundaries, I figure. I DID stay almost two hours, though.

When I had joked I was drinking “so much” on an empty stomach, Sylvester whips out some fried cow liver and farine – it was delicious. I was slightly buzzed going back to work, and I knew my visit was kept for just the right amount of time (no boundaries were overstepped, US or Guyanese), which put me in an amused, good mood. I get back and more kids – some of the same and a few new ones – are at the computers, doing the same stations work. Lorrie pulled up some of the educational sites she knows, so some kids were working on math problems, others were playing checkers with other people halfway around the world. They continued to do so until the library closed at 4 and then we had a good amount of kids linger, checking out books.

I had finally asked about getting some small scraps of wood to replace the pieces that hold my screen windows closed. Oswin was working in the Termite House today with Kenneth, they were making more cow-hide chairs, and so I went to the house and he cut me two pieces. I carried them home and attempted to nail them in myself, but the wood split when I hammered the nails through the wood. Slightly red-faced, I carried them back, and Kenneth told me a hole should have been drilled in them first. Oswin cuts me another pair and Kenneth drills the holes. I carry them back and am successful this time. Small little thing, but I was beaming with pride, the wind would no longer blow the screens open when I open up the shutters to the windows.

I go to wash the dishes and Melvina shows up to gaff, with her youngest, Baby Myra. I haven’t seen her since I got back and it was good to see her. She brought me some oranges, too! I bring up the idea of creating some stories to go along with the phonics I teach to her nursery students and she seems willing to collaborate. I make a mental note to go lime by she with some ideas on hand. I ask how farming is going and she says she’d been making some cari by her mother’s farm; if she goes up there, she’ll bring me some; mmmmm.

She leaves and I go back to washing dishes, when Desmond Park bicycles by, calling hi to me through my screened windows and asks if I want to buy bananas – you bet I do! I buy 4 pounds - which is probably more than I can eat before they go bad, but oh well. When I look at my abundance of bananas, oranges and the two mangoes I had, I think, “I am rich.” I take an orange, open one of the screens and sit in the open window, watching Shamir and others play football. Melvina comes up on the back of Mark’s motobike, carrying me almost a full mug (a pitcher) of cari. As I open the container and pour it into my own, I breathe in the yeasty, sweet and sour smell of the cari and wither away a little. Being in Town and out of the Rupununi, I haven’t had cari in weeks! And now I have a mug of my very own to drink and share out with whomever! I finish the dishes, put away the cari for the next time a friend stops by and fall into my hammock, eating a roll that Cindy brought over, listening to my current favorite Goo Goo Dolls song as some Super Hit incense wafts its scent my way.

Thank you, O Magnanimous gods of the Peace Corps persuasion, for shining down on me today.