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.

Guyanese Things: Money

In Guyana, the currency is in dollars.  Guyanese dollars, naturally.  The exchange rate is about $200 Guy = $1 US.  Things are generally cheaper here, but not dramatically so.  I'd say on average things are about half as expensive, though it is pretty variable.  I've gotten a decent feel for how much things cost in Guyanese dollars, so I don't have to convert everything back to USD, but I'm also getting pretty quick at doing that.

The most interesting/frustrating thing about the money here is the denomination of the bills.  There are $20, $100, $500 and $1,000 bills.  (There are also coins - $1, $2, $5, $10 but usually stores will properly round prices or wont even bother with change.  I've been given a $5 or $10 piece of candy instead of change on a few occasions.)  So the largest denomination is about $5 US.  This means when you're buying something expensive with cash, the physical stack of cash gets pretty large pretty quick.  A bicycle for example costs about $20,000 ($100 US), so if I do end up buying one, its going to be an interesting trip to the ATM.

So on top of the general weirdness of hearing that your dinner cost $2,000, teachers are paid in cash.  I'm receiving a stipend that is paid through the school of about $49,000 per month.  Due to paperwork delays (I'm told only missing one month is quite remarkable), this past month I received my stipend for both September and October, which totaled to about $98,000.  So I go into the office and one of the secretaries takes out massive stack of thousand dollar bills and counts out 98 of them.  I don't think I've ever seen that many bills in one place.  It was quite  a wad of cash, especially when you think that it is basically about $500 US.  So it would be like having $500 in $5 bills back home.

 Ballin so hard.

Guyanese Things: A Brief Dispatch on Karaoke

Karaoke seems to be pretty popular in Guyana. You can be hanging out at a seemingly normal bar, minding your own business on the patio, and then within 30 seconds a screen has been erected and a projector has been fired up.

Now I've never actually been to karaoke in the US (shameful, I know), but I think I have a pretty good feel for the point of it. Get really drunk, sing some embarassing stuff that is either enjoyed ironically or for mild amusement. That doesn't seem to be the way things work in Guyana. Cheesy 80's ballads are extremely popular in this country, and large, grown-ass men have no qualms about belting out all sorts of stuff with complete seriousness. It also helps that most of the performers are pretty talented, but even those that don't just really get after it. You won't find any embarassed mumbling into the mic in Guyana. Instead that guy is going 110% on "Flying without wings," or "Rocketman." Once you get over the weirdness of it, its pretty impressive. We've also been told that Guyanese culture in general is not very accepting towards homosexuality, yet no one raises an eye when you bust a lung to some Celine Dion. Everyone is usually pretty supportive as well, no heckling, booing or laughing. There's even some applause for the really talented folks. Altogether a positive experience.

Having entered a karaoke establishment for the first time just this month* (see, cultural growth already!), I've gained a newfound appreciation for the music videos that accompany some of these songs. It's not like the "Total Eclipse of the Heart" wasn't weird enough on its own, but when its been replaced by some woman in lacy stockings wandering around an empty house through a hazy filter, the bar has really been raised. I also love the lame shots of slow-motion pigeons, crashing waves and mountains. Maybe that's what I should look into if this teaching thing doesn't really work out. Karaoke videographer.

*sang some super lame Backstreet Boys song. "I'll Never Break Your Heart" maybe? Would have much preferred some N*Sync or even a BB song I knew better, but you take what you can get I guess.