Friday, September 20, 2013

Katie's story, part 3: Returning to Guyana

Katie Watkins in Guyana
By Katie Watkins, Guyana, 2006-2008

     It wasn’t the memory, but the ache of what I had already forgotten that tugged me back there. They were details that had at first seemed insignificant. The bread recipe I could throw together without a recipe or measuring cups. The name of the waterfalls where we had spent Christmas, the first time a place had literally taken my breath away. The days and times of “Big Belly Clinic,” the Maternal and Child Health Center where I had spent so many mornings weighing miserable swollen-toed mothers, and later, their gorgeous, naked, peeing babies. Every now and then though, I’d get a tiny glimpse, a quick flash I just couldn’t place. They weren’t exactly memories; they were incomplete scenes, blurred smears of color. Just enough to bring me back for a second, but not long enough to really remember. The triggers were random and simple. The smell of minced garlic sizzling in hot oil. The sound of giggling children. The tiny splat of blood left from a mosquito swatted an instant too late. Brief, unexpected surges from the past, fleeting as quickly as they came. I grew to appreciate them as gifts, little reminders of a place where I knew had been, but that now felt so distant. And then I wanted more.      I wanted to feel all that I had not been able to take in before. Dissociation, I learned, is not a selective skill. In the process of numbing myself to all the pain I saw in Guyana, I had also muted the pleasure. I felt pick-pocketed of innocent, untainted, simple joy. And I wanted it back. I wanted to see for myself that while the horror I had witnessed was part of my experience in Guyana, it was not all of Guyana, and I did not have to let it define my experience. I wanted to make some new memories, and fill in the blanks of those that seemed so fuzzy. And I knew I could only do this by going back.

     There was one major rule I set for myself when planning my trip: I would go as a visitor. This was my watered-down word for what I really was: a tourist. I shuddered when I pictured the bright orange, moisture-wicking, SPF-polyester-clad “churchies” I remembered seeing outside of the bank one day. We had been thoroughly entertained by their fanny packs and battery-powered misting fans, convinced that we would never look so out of place. But this time needed to be different, for my safety and my sanity. This time I would not “fight up” or “take on stress.” I would let our Georgetown host family pick me up at the airport, even though my flight would arrive late at night, long after Jeannette would normally send Buddy downstairs to dead bolt the door. I would not bicker with the speed boat man who would raise my fare because “da fuel cost more,” even though I knew I was falling for the “white girl price hike.” I would do all the things I had obstinately refused to do before, when I had believed so strongly that these were luxuries of a vacationer, not habits of someone who belonged. I would let the pushy bus touts carry my backpack in exchange for a couple bucks. I would give in when Jeannette insisted that she hand wash my clothes when I stayed with her family, knowing I was needlessly adding to her endless pile of laundry. I would accept the offers to be escorted to the internet café so that I would not have to brave the walk alone. I would guiltlessly accept every carbohydrate offered me, though I cringed at the imbalance of chow-mein noodles served with white potatoes, atop a bed of white rice. I would stay only with families, and would follow their rules, however confining and silly it seemed for a grown woman to be home by the 6 p.m. sunset. This time, I was not going with the intention to volunteer, to serve, to educate, to motivate, mobilize, empower, organize, or any of those ridiculous buzz words that had littered my resume post-Peace Corps. This time I was going, as they say in Guyana, “for a walk.” I was going to witness. I wanted to see, hear, taste and feel everything. For five and a half weeks, I would take in as much Guyana as I could bear, until I couldn’t eat another bite of channah, until the sound of braying donkeys no longer made me laugh, until I forgot what it was like to feel cold. I wanted to be sick of Guyana. And then I could go home, my mind crammed with images so vivid they would be indelible.  This time I would not forget.

Photo by Katie Watkins
     Paul,
     The whole fam came late at night to pick me up from the airport-7 in a car for 5, and it felt like we could fit a couple more. Jeanette made pizza, a midnight snack, if you will. You might remember Jeanette's pizza--ketchup, carrot, hot dog (chicken sausage), bbq sauce...no canned tuna, this time. She said she wished you were here because she knows her pizza is your favorite. I didn’t have the heart to tell her it actually made you gag. We’ll have to brainstorm a way to dissuade Jeannette from packing more pizza and fish in my luggage for you. “Kay-tee, we guh ting it up nice nice so it nah’ spile, you’ll see!” Once recovered from the specialty pizza, I've eaten amazing things I forgot I missed so much: dahl and roti, fry fish, bora, calaloo and shrimp...and you know about the rice. This morning, Jeanette woke me up at 4:30 to go to the market "before the place get bright n' sell out, you know." You could probably imagine the look she gave me when I suggested maybe we delay the trip an hour so we could "get a little exercisin' before the sun get hot, en?" The same look I get when I try to pay for things or wash my own wares. It was fun to see the market again. Starbroek is so much less scary now with someone to "make sure dem boys ain' trouble she." I'm excited for pumpkin n' roti. And I keep smiling when I think of Jeanette telling the young Indian boy with a flirty smile, "Give me a nice piece, now. Me wan' one like you."
     It took me all of an hour to adjust to Guyanese life. Eat, rest in hammock, bathe to cool off and jus’ for fun, read, eat, hammock, play Memory and Connect 4 with chirren, eat, bathe, gaff, bed. It feels good to have Jeanette for an extra boost of protection. Today a man wandered up to the house selling mango (50 cents for a bag of 7) and got nosy and asked my name. Jeanette says, "Man, you ain' need to know nothin'. You come for sell mango, and not for nuttin’ else. Guh long, bai!" She bought the mangoes then, saying, "Here, Subrina, take these for Kaytee now." Then the man walked off, mumbling, "me make a great husband you know…could make nuf' chirren fuh you." Jeanette sucked her teeth, shooed him away and said, "You ain gettin nothin bai, but a good lash!" I told Jeanette I wished she could be with me all the time to ward off harassers. She said in her soft, soothing voice, "Yes, Katty. I would come with you. Good."
     Before I left for the internet cafe, Jeanette reminded me, "Kay-tee when you come back, I guh fix da bora fuh you now. I get the roti kneadin’ already." I told her she doesn't give me a chance to get hungry before feeding me again. And of course I contradict my statements, bragging on her to Buddy, "mus' carry Jeanette for compete in cookin' contest. She could win nuf' money, man." Buddy blushes, of course. "Only last week, he tell me my rice taste dry, Kaytee. I tell he, ‘well then trow some watah pon' it!’"
Photo by Katie Watkins
     I’d be lying if I said the entire trip has been packed with all the whimsical pleasures I’ve been daydreaming about for the past three years. Maybe it’s the dissonance of Guyana that makes me feel such conflict. Guyana is a place of two worlds: unparalleled joy and incomprehensible horror. The beauty is almost unbearable sometimes. And then I get my ass kicked with the reality of the other part. The paradox is most acute now that I am back in Bartica. Everyone I see says, “Bartica get built up since you been here, white gyal, en?” On the surface, they are right. With gold prices at a record high, Bartica is booming. The roads are finally paved, the need to accommodate the influx of new (and dangerously inexperienced) drivers likely the impetus. Owning a car is not quite so extraordinary, but still worth flaunting, at least a little bit. Our old neighbor, Dotsie, drives her shiny Camry to her job in the malaria department, though she lives around the corner in the hospital compound. Smart phones have made their way to the hands of the teenage hipsters.      A sign towers outside of Dino’s Supermarket, reading, “Times Square,” the new nickname brought back with Dino from his recent trip to the U.S. It seems that almost everyone has a hand in gold mining in some capacity, and there is no better time to have a stake in the business. But behind the fancy cars and the flashy jeans and the new oversized cement mansions, the strife imbedded in this place is still palpable. Yes, there is beauty and love and a genuine peace that I can feel, but cannot describe. And there is violence and crime and corruption and pain. And this time, without making excuses, or justifying, minimizing, romanticizing, or pretending, I am taking a long hard look. I am seeing Guyana for all that it is. Truth is exhilarating.      

     The rain comes hard and sudden. I rush to close the windows and the door to the veranda, the wind fighting my efforts, pushing against my palms. A little more time here and I would have sensed it coming, an affinity people here must learn from birth. It is a certain feeling, a way the palm branches sway, a steady change in temperature, the heat rising to such a level that something has to give. The sky steams and then simmers, a pressure cooker finally releasing its frustration all at once. These are not thunderstorms really, although a rumble of thunder might be heard in the background. I always think it strange to hear thunder without lightning, almost bracing myself for a flash to paint the sky. Instead it is just water, clear and fierce and abundant.
     I love these showers, safe and sheltered, the thrill of making it home just in time to watch it fall from my spot by the window. To me, the rain never becomes routine, always a relief, a gift. This might happen several times in one day, especially in the May-June rainy season. This year it seems that July has been added to the season; I'm not sure there has been one day without rain. But then again, even in "dry" months "yuh get rain." After all, this is the rain forest we are in, despite the efforts of many to replace the lush green canopy with roughly paved roads and cell phone satellites and stilted wooden houses. After all, rain is what this forest does best.
     At last it subsides, having dumped more in 30 minutes than would trickle in an entire day elsewhere. The breeze gentle again, the sky whispers a quiet sigh. The roosters get back to their crowing and squawking, burying themselves in the wet saw dust. Truck engines re-ignite and continue their business, their drivers thankful that anything of importance was inside the vehicle. The high pitch of Hindi music re-enters the atmosphere and school uniforms can be re-pinned on the line between the house and the mango tree.
     It is this rain that I cherish. A rain that sends a chill through my bones and washes clean any resentment and rage that has built itself in my thoughts. A rain that reminds me no matter how hot and wrenching this place may feel, jus' now yuh get rain.

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