Guyanese Things: Drinking

Drinking

Guyana is home to some of the world's best rum. El Dorado 5 Year has won a lot of awards, and you can get a .75 L bottle for about $5. Some rudimentary research online suggests that you can get it in the US for about $30 a bottle. However, all the guys I hang out with prefer to drink vodka. And that same $5 will get you a bottle of vodka here, the locally made Ivanoff. I don't think anyone has ever considered giving it a medal for anything. It is pretty terrible. But the guys, for some reason, love it. I reached my breaking point with the Ivanoff a while ago, so I've had to try alternative strategies. Buying rum for myself works ok, but usually ends up with me getting really drunk, so that's a method that can only be strategically deployed. Another alternative is to drink beer. There are two (well really three) problems with this. Firstly, the beer is, relatively speaking, expensive. $1.50 a beer doesn't sound like much, but when you can get 3 beers for the price of a bottle of liquor, its hard to justify the cost on my meager living allowance. Secondly, you get dirty looks if you're drinking beer while everyone else is drinking hard liquor (aside: for some reason Guyanese call all liquor "rum," like "we should drink some Smirnoff tonight, its really good rum.") But I have found that if I drink Guinness, I get some respect. Much to the detriment of my liquidity, I've been drinking more Guinness. Here's a quick rundown of the beers in Guyana and what I think about them.

Guinness - This isn't your run of the mill, bread-in-a-bottle Guinness. This is the Foreign Extra Stout breed, a 7.5% abv beast that actually has some flavor. The flavor isn't all that great, but you can taste some hops and toasted barley. Its definitely my favorite beer here, though it'll sneak up on you.

Banks - This is the national beer of Guyana. Its a pretty typical Caribbean lager - not much taste, but pretty good when cold. It's the Budweiser of Guyana.

  
Carib - Another lager, this one made in Trinidad. Less flavor than Banks. I don't really like it all that much. Unlike Banks, bottles are not recycled. I think the lack of hassle with deposits and the ability to throw your bottles anywhere when you're finished (which I think is a bit of a national pastime here) are reasons for its popularity.

Parbo - Surinamese beer. Nominally a pilsner. Does have a little pilsner-y bite, which is nice. Probably my second favorite beer.




Banks Light - ugh.

Banks Premium - Banks regular is made with rice. Banks Premium is made with surgar. Why? Sometimes a place will have Banks Premium drink specials, but that's pretty much it.

Mackeson - A stout from the Carib people. More like normal Guiness. Not much alcohol, kind of sweet. I usually don't bother, but its tolerable.

There's some other beer, but that's about all that I've had. The third problem with beer that I alluded to above is, as you can see, the options are pretty limited. One of the things I'm missing the most food/drink wise is real beer. Hops and flavor and all that stuff is in pretty short supply here. At least the rum is good.

March Newsletter

March Newsletter

Despite trying the opposite of my usual March Madness strategy
(painstaking research vs. watching 0 college basketball games), I
managed to whiff on all 4 of my Final 4 picks. Maybe I should have
gone by uniform color or mascot.  March (I can't believe its already
almost over) has been a busy month school-wise, and also life-wise.
Here's a little peek into some recent holiday activities.

Mashramani
I had planned on going to Georgetown for Mashramani, where I was
assured the festivities would be "more bright" than those in Anna
Regina. Unfortunately, most of coastal Guyana experienced heavy rains
and flooding during the week leading up to Mash. Mash was on
Wednesday, and we actually had to cancel school on Tuesday at ARMS
because water had entered the building. The water came within about
1/2 an inch from our front doorstep, but luckily receded. Because
Georgetown also experienced some flooding and isn't the cleanest city
even the best of times, I decided just to stay in Anna Regina. Keith
did go to town and had a great time. He was even on tv.

As I might have mentioned before, Mash is sort of a combined Republic
Day and Brazilian/Trinidadian Carnivale. In Anna Regina, there were
about 5 different groups representing government organizations,
private businesses, etc., all in various costumes. Through a friend in
the education office, I was able to "mash" with the Region 2
Department of Education. We had spray painted t-shirts and some
headgear. There was a parade that covered probably 3 miles in the
midday heat (I was exhausted and sunburned at the end), terminating at
the Anna Regina car park (the community cricket ground was unusuable
due to the rain). We marched and danced down the road, and everyone
came out of their houses to watch us. It was really cool to see my
students and a few other people from the community that I know. I
think some were pretty surprised to see me. After the parade and a
dance-off, a few fellow teachers and I went back to the education
office to escape from the heat. Events continued at the car park for
the rest of the afternoon and into the night. We returned to the car
park that evening for a few more drinks.

It was a pretty late night for a school night! For some reason the
school decided to have parent-teacher conferences the day after Mash.
This was good for me, because not many parents showed up, so it was a
low-key day. The parents that did show up were in for a surprise, as I
had dyed my hair red for the parade and didn't have a chance to get it
re-colored. One of the teachers has a friend who is a hairdreser, so
she gave us some nice hairstyles for the parade. None of the parents
said anything about my red stripe, but I did get some funny looks. The
headmaster quietly asked me to take care of the situation on Friday.
Not sure if anyone complained, but I guess as a teacher you're
expected to look professional for school. It was a fun week.

Phagwah
Phagwah is the Hindu celebration of colors. It also marks the
beginning of spring and the new year on the Hindu calendar. There are
some stories about how it came to be, but I wasn't able to get a clear
picture. Anyway, Phagwah is a big holiday, especially here on the
Essequibo Coast where there is a high Indo-Guyanese population.
Fortunately, the holiday fell on a weekend this year, so I was able to
invite some of the other WorldTeach teachers to come visit. 5 in all
came to say with Keith and me for the weekend. We had planned on
visiting the lake one day, but the weather didn't cooperate. We did
get to attend a temple that one of the teachers goes to for Phagwah
celebrations. There was a religious ceremony, everyone had a nice
lunch (pumpkin curry and potato curry, yum), and then the fun started.
The "celebration of colors" bit of Phagwah manifests itself with white
and colored powder. I'm not sure if the colored powder serves any
other purpose during the rest of the year, but for Phagwah, everyone
gets some and walks around throwing and rubbing it all over everyone
else. Its a really social experience. Everyone was really excited to
"play Phagwah" with us, I think mostly because they liked the way the
colors looked on our (mostly white) skin. Children also use squirt
guns and dye to escalate the color throwing. I think my shorts are
permanently stained. The powder got everywhere. That night we had a
proper housewarming party, which was really great.

Unfortunately everyone had to go home on Monday, the actual day off
from school, because they had to teach on Tuesday. There was a big
Phagwah event at the community cricket ground. More people, cultural
dances and singing and much much more powder. I'm still finding it in
between my toes and behind my ears. As great as it was to go to the
temple on Sunday, I had just as much fun at the bigger community
event. I've often wished that I could become more a part of the
community, not just the school and the school compound, and seeing all
my students and new friends and being able to just walk up to them and
smear color all over their faces (I didn't emphasize this enough, you
really rub your hands all over everyone's face) was really satisfying.
Afterward, a few of us went with the hairdresser and her sister (who's
actually one of my best students) to the outfall of one of the lakes,
where we did our best to get all the powder off. The past few weeks
have been really great here in Anna Regina, I feel like I'm starting
to fit in and make some real connections, and this Phagwah weekend was
definitely the highlight. I can't believe how fast the year has gone
by. Fortunately, the third term will be a little less demanding
teaching-wise, so I hope I can continue to enjoy my last few months
here in Guyana.

Easter Vacation
We get a 2 week break for Easter. A few other WorldTeah teachers and I
are going into the interior for most of it. We'll be going to Lethem,
a town on the Brazilian border, for the huge rodeo they have there
each year at Easter. We're also going to visit an eco-lodge and
Kaiteur Falls, the world's largest single drop waterfall. Should be a
lot of fun.

I'll be putting up some photos of the events throughout the week.