Liew's Views

VSO Guyana took us on a mini trip to get away from the office for one day. We headed to Madewini Gardens for a swim in a pool and the blackwater creek (a very literal name). It wasn’t all play – we had to do some learning first on the status of disability in Guyana. VSO programs dedicated to improving the status, and about common vegetables. I know, that last topic doesn’t seem like it belongs but it was a necessary lesson!

Because they don’t call an eggplant an eggplant…they don’t even call it an aubergine. They actually call it a “Boulanger” or a “Baigan”. huh.

A Guyanese saying is that if you eat labba and drink black water while visiting Guyana, you are bound to return.

• Labba is a small agouti or South American rodent that can be eaten in a dark stew called “pepper pot”
• “Black water” is the water of muddy streams…it’s self-explanatory, really.

No, I did not drink black water, but I guess I don’t need to since I’ll be living in Guyana for at least a year. I’ll let you know if/when I try labba.

My friend Jai recently forwarded me an email containing an article that I feel I have to share.
It’s a long-ish story, but it’s worth the read.
According to the publishing date, it’s an oldie. To me, it’s a newbie. And it’s definitely a goodie.

My family and other globalisers

By SWAMINOMICS/SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR
Apr 2, 2005
Published in the Times of India

In 1992, I wrote a book titled Towards Globalisation. I did not realise at the time that this was going to be the history of my family.

Last week, we celebrated the wedding of my daughter, Pallavi. A brilliant student, she had won scholarships to Oxford University and the London School of Economics. In London, she met Julio, a young man from Spain. The two decided to take up jobs in Beijing, China. Last week, they came over from Beijing to Delhi to get married. The wedding guests included 70 friends from North America, Europe and China.

That may sound totally global, but arguably my elder son Shekhar has gone further. He too won a scholarship to Oxford University, and then taught for a year at a school in Colombo. Next he went to Toronto, Canada, for higher studies. There he met a German girl, Franziska.

They both got jobs with the International Monetary Fund in Washington DC, USA. This meant that they constantly travelled on IMF business to disparate countries. Shekhar advised and went on missions to Sierra Leone, Seychelles, Kyrgyzstan and Laos. Franziska went to Rwanda, Tajikistan, and Russia. They interrupted these perambulations to get married in late 2003.

My younger son, Rustam, is only 15. Presumably he will study in Australia, marry a Nigerian girl, and settle in Peru.

Readers might think that my family was born and bred in a jet plane. The truth is more prosaic. Our ancestral home is Kargudi, a humble, obscure village in Tanjore district, Tamil Nadu. My earliest memories of it are as a house with no toilets, running water, or pukka road.

When we visited, we disembarked from the train at Tanjore, and then travelled 45 minutes by bullock cart to reach the ancestral home. My father was one of six children, all of whom produced many children (I myself had three siblings). So, two generations later, the size of the Kargudi extended family (including spouses) is over 200. Of these, only three still live in the village. The rest have moved across India and across the whole world, from China to Arabia to Europe to America.

This one Kargudi house has already produced 50 American citizens. So, dismiss the mutterings of those who claim that globalisation means westernisation. It looks more like Aiyarisation, viewed from Kargudi.

What does this imply for our sense of identity? I cannot speak for the whole Kargudi clan, which ranges from rigid Tamil Brahmins to beef-eating, pizza-guzzling, hip-hop dancers. But for me, the Aiyarisation of the world does not mean Aiyar domination. Nor does it mean Aiyar submergence in a global sea. It means acquiring multiple identities, and moving closer to the ideal of a brotherhood of all humanity. I remain quite at home sitting on the floor of the Kargudi house on a mat of reeds, eating from a banana leaf with my hands. I feel just as much at home eating noodles in China, steak in Spain, teriyaki in Japan and cous-cous in Morocco. I am a Kargudi villager, a Tamilian, a Delhi-wallah, an Indian, a Washington Redskins fan, and a citizen of the world, all at the same time and with no sense of tension or contradiction.

When I see the Brihadeeswara Temple in Tanjore, my heart swells and I say to myself “This is mine.” I feel exactly the same way when I see the Church of Bom Jesus in Goa, or the Jewish synagogue in Cochin, or the Siddi Sayed mosque in Ahmedabad: these too are mine. I have strolled so often through the Parks at Oxford University and along the canal in Washington, DC, that they feel part of me. As my family multiplies and intermarries, I hope one day to look at the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona and Rhine river in Germany and think, “These too are mine.”

We Aiyars have a taken a step toward the vision of John Lennon. Imagine there’s no country, It isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, And no religion too.

My father’s generation was the first to leave the village, and loosen its regional shackles. My father became a chartered accountant in Lahore, an uncle became a hotel manager in Karachi, and we had an aunt in Rangoon.

My generation loosened the shackles of religion. My elder brother married a Sikh, my younger brother married a Christian, and I married a Parsi. The next generation has gone a step further, marrying across the globe. Globalisation for me is not just the movement of goods and capital, or even of Aiyars. It is a step towards Lennon’s vision of no country.

You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope one day you’ll join us. And the world will be one.

Original link: My family and other globalisers (Times of India)

On Friday I experienced information overload during in-country orientation, but I did learn a lot about my placement in the Interior (I’ll save the details for another blog post). I also got the chance to meet those I’d be in contact with while in Region 9. Lucky for me the organization I am working for (South Central People Development Organization aka SCPDA) was in GT during the week and I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Faye Fredericks, who I will be working directly with. She is a sweetheart who has graciously offered to teach me to cook (a great feat!) and is super excited to have me in Shulinab. I’m not sure how she’ll feel once she realizes I suck at cooking…let’s worry about that in March when I actually go into the region.

Other things I (and the other volunteers) learned:

Cabs

• Use them at night instead of walking. There are some parts you shouldn’t walk through at night; there are also parts you shouldn’t walk through at all (e.g. South of Hadfield).
• You feel incredibly stupid cabbing the distance of a 5 minute walk – but better safe than sorry I guess (right, ma?)
• Everywhere you go you’ll be offered a taxi ride. Just say no.
• Call a cab vs flagging one down for security reasons. We use Cyril’s.
• A cab ride is about $1.50 CDN (G$300) within the city – flat rate.

Minibuses

• They are abundant at Stabroek Market which is like a main terminal.
• They are cramped little things.
• You can ask to be dropped off anywhere en route. (what bus stops?)
• The cost is $0.30 CDN (G$60) within the city. Don’t pay more.

Tidbits

• St. George’s Anglican Cathedral is one of the tallest wooden churches in the world



• People are super helpful in the markets. In Stabroek, we wanted limes and didn’t know that there were so many different types of limes (duh). The vendor helped us out by indicating which ones were best for rum punch ;)
• People love to suck their teeth (flashback of a school principal telling a kid off: “Don’t suck your teeth – brush them!”)
• Georgetown is small, so it’s very walkable though you might not want to do it that blistering heat.

There are a lot more observations, but I don’t wanna bore you. Maybe you should come visit and observe/experience first-hand instead :)

It’s hot. Humid hot. You-wanna-take-a-cold-shower-5-times-a-day hot.
For the most part, I’m permanently sticky. I’ve already got 5 mosquito bites – this isn’t too bad considering I was expecting 20 on my first day. Let’s call that a win, shall we?

4 volunteers, including myself, arrived in Georgetown yesterday (Thursday). 1 volunteer arrived on Wednesday. 1 is to arrive tomorrow on Saturday. Everyone so far is great – they got to enjoy drinks at The Hibiscus yesterday (located across the street from Rima Guest House, where we’re staying) while I tried to troubleshoot my damn Goal Zero Sherpa 50 Adventure Kit <-- I'd normally link that to the product, but I'm not happy with Goal Zero right now so let's save the link and the whys for another day and blog post.

Anyway, most of us spent all day unpacking and resting since we got little to no sleep on our flight into GT, but we did manage to make it to the Seawall. The Seawall is where people go to lime (hang out), swim (in brown water…ew) and some even run along it, if not on it. I’m not a runner, so you know I opted to walk on it :)
The Seawall is where it’s cool in Georgetown…I don’t mean hip-cool, I mean breezy-cool, refreshing-cool; that walk was the best part of yesterday.
One thing you gotta watch for is people walking in the opposite direction you’re going…as in you gotta try to avoid bumping into them without losing your balance off the wall. It’s not a big drop to the ground, but it will probably be painful no matter which side of the Seawall you fall off (rocks vs pavement).

And now…off to our first day of In-Country training and back to hating my solar technology purchase (shut up, Chet!)

Okay, so I haven’t updated this blog in awhile; and it’s not because I haven’t had spectacular things happen to me. It’s because I’m a bit busy and lazy. So here’s a quick recap:

1. In the dead of winter (Feb 2011), I changed jobs. It was an exciting and much needed change and I met some great people and learned a lot because of it (I am no longer at this position).
2. In the summer, I travelled to London for an amazing Indian wedding with people I’d consider family. I went to Paris to explore and hang out with a girl-friend. I fell in love with Copenhagen and their bike lanes while visiting a family-friend studying there.
3. In the fall, I got to help plan and execute the TEDxToronto After Party. I met some inspiring artists and performers and had a lot of fun doing it.
4. Around the end of 2011, I got together with two brilliant girl-friends and launched helloberry bracelets. Through the stresses of brainstorming, set-up, long meetings, and many late nights, we always had fun. I never thought I could do anything entrepreneurial, but I can’t say that any more. We’ve been well-received and our fans are fan-tastic! (see what I did there?)

And now….

I am moving to Guyana.

I will be there starting on February 9, 2012 for a one year placement in Shulinab, Guyana (located about 2 hours south of Lethem in the Interior) as a Women’s Enterprise Development Advisor. I applied to Cuso International and was selected by them along with VSO Guyana to work with the South Central People Development Organization (SCPDA <---no, the A is not a typo...the acronym actually includes the A instead of an O, but don't ask me why).

I will be dedicated to working with and among various communities in the Rupununi region to assist with finance, accounting, and a bit of marketing and product development. I will mostly be working with Amerindian women who have enterprises in agriculture and craft-making. Although it seems that I will be teaching them business skills, I know I will learn lots from them as well.

A big question is

Now to answer the “Where exactly…?” questions, here’s a map to help you visualize where I’ll be located (click to enlarge):

By clicking that map I bet some of you just learned that Guyana isn’t an island (although it’s associated with the West Indies which include island nations), and that it’s situated in South America, above Brazil and to the east of Venezuela.

Guyana was colonized by the Brits (so they speak English). To the east, there is Suriname (colonized by the Dutch) and French Guiana (colonized by the French). These three countries are the only ones in South America that don’t speak either Spanish or Portuguese as first languages.

Okay, that’s enough geography and history for now.

Here’s where I ask you to support me and Cuso International.
Cuso International sends volunteers abroad to work on collaborative development projects in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. They are one of North America’s largest international development non-profits that works through volunteers like me.

Here’s the great thing about donating – every dollar you donate is multiplied by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to help fund Cuso International’s efforts to support global development, environmental sustainability and social justice.

Convinced?

Donate now!

Thank you in advance for your donations; without your generosity, Cuso International wouldn’t be able to send volunteers overseas to pass on their knowledge and expertise.