Hippy Shows Concerning Symptoms - Sometimes You Feel A Long Way From Home - 8 August 2003
Jupiterís Child
Hippy goes wobbly
Old friends (more of them)
Wobbly reprise and the bag saga
Up at Mansoor and Faziaís house I was reunited with the catalyst of our journey. Back in the mid eighties I read Ted Simonís classic ìJupiterís Travelsî and got to thinking about going around the world on a motorbike just as he had done. It lodged in the back of my mind for years until just before our return to England from Guyana when I chanced upon another copy of it and re-read it. At the time, it was coming up to the 25th anniversary of the original Triumph odyssey and I got to thinking about getting a new bike from the all new Triumph Company to repeat the route. It turned out that their range of bikes did not really include anything suitable for this two up trip and so Bertha was purchased. To cap it all and stealing our thunder, Ted Simon himself set off to rerun his trip. .
Almost as soon as we passed over the threshold, Mansoor produced the tome - it turns out that Iíd donated it to him when we left our old house. It is really odd to read now that we have passed over so much of the same ground. So many experiences are incredibly similar and he manages to capture many of the moods so much better than we do. He is a professional writer, after all. His energy levels varied to the extremes with no obvious reasons at times. One of those low level energy phases came over me as we hit Georgetown. Everywhere else we have been, we have just been passing through. Maybe only in Capetown has there been such a clearly defined break point in the journey. There we were all full of excitement as we were taking a break back to England. Here we were going to come to a near standstill for a month in a place where we know so many people and places that it is truly a second home to us. This time, we donít have to work and so the oppressive heat does not seem so much of a trial. When the going gets tough, swing in a hammock. If it were not for arrangements to meet Helenís sister in Mexico in a few months time, I could really see us vegging here for a while. As Helen has pointed out, so many of the old frustrations of poor transport, water and telephone systems have been sorted that life is an awful lot easier. It is almost as if I have to start looking deliberately for the downside to justify our moving on. Fazi also went rummaging in the wardrobe and produced a bunch of clothes that we had left behind in better condition than the ones we are travelling with. It was all a bit off a memory lane for us.
They could not manage up our old dog, though. Mandy (rechristened from Mangy) had been inherited with our house when we moved in as she was dying on the door step. After a fair bit of nit picking and general skin therapy she turned out to be a wonderful companion for us for two years. She had passed away about a year after we left despite the best care that Fazi and Mansoor could provide. Their dog, Gerry, was also absent. There were new animals brightening the place up, though. Tooky, the overtame Toucan, delighted in knocking on the door and attacking; sandals left on the steps, Helenís hair, cake and, in fact, anything Toucan beak sized that was left within reach. The feisty little bugger was in no way intimidated by huge humans and was not averse to giving a friendly nip and peck here and there. Canine company was provided by Lassie who eventually warmed to us though we at first believed that she had been trained as the reverse of those in South Africa which were trained to go for black folk
Meanwhile, we get to see lots of old friends. Faziaís mother and father, Bella and Feroze, are the loveliest of couples. He was born on the coast and trained as a teacher before heading to the Savana in the interior. At the teacher training college, he had met Bella, a local of the Rupununi Savana who returned with him. They moved through a variety of careers including a bit of cattle ranching (they still have the herd to prove it!) before settling to market gardening back at Furrozeís point of origin. Now they are the undisputed king and queen of ìEnglishî tomatoes on the coast. Bellaís pepperpot is legendary and having heard that we were on our way she had been out buying heaps of prime beef to prepare for us. Helen managed to arrive on the Saturday afternoon and so got several helpings - I, only the one for breakfast the next morning.
Not only pepperpot, but a bar-b-q, too. Faziís sister Fi-Fi was back from the Bahamas and it was her birthday and so a trip was planned to one of our old favourite haunts, the Hot and Cold Lake. As is customary with Guyanese functions, a couple of cheese sandwiches and a bag of crisps will simply not suffice. Chicken, rice, salad, cake, snacks, sweets, pop. We were given no chance to relax between offerings. Escaping to bathe in the clear amber waters of the lake was the only chance to keep our figures intact and so we spent hours splashing merrily with the kids. Helen got involved in giving swimming lessons to Javed, Naveed and Safeya The kids had seen me floating and were determined to be able to by the end of the afternoon. This meant repeated demands in turn from the three of them ìItís my turnî I retired to a hammock and thereby avoided the sunburn. Later, while Helen was still bathing, I took a walk with Feroze to visit an old friend of his with a place in the bush near to the lake. It was the most fascinating half hour Iíve known in a long time. Only two of the interesting facts will I relate. The guy we met made his living cutting planking out of the local trees (mostly pretty hard wood - bullet wood, greenheart and purpleheart for example) Not so fascinating, really, but for the fact that he cuts down trees and makes perfectly straight 3/4 inch planking up to 16feet long and a foot wide using only a chain saw. You had to see the planks to believe it. Incredible skill, but he also bore the scars of a chainsaw accident reminding us that even in the hands of the most skilled lumberjack these things can be a bit nasty.
The other interesting thing about the Amerindians in this locale is that on first meeting one they turn their backs. It took me a while to twig that he was not hiding some disfigurement or some such and once I had sat down with my back to him just as Furroze had done, we all got on swimmingly. Though heíd lived amongst these guys in his childhood and again in his adulthood, Furroze was unable to explain the social significance of this behaviour but pointed out that no offence was meant by it.
One of our former students managed to find us. Avinash had been in our science classes and always a good lad. Heíd we were back and scoured the coast to find where we were staying with little success. He even tried ringing the VSO office in Georgetown but they were unaware of where we had got to. Eventually the grapevine came together and he pinned us down to next door to our old house. We were so pleased to see him but at first did not know who it was. I think the period between 16/17 and 22/23 must be when the greatest changes take place in a young man. From the rather stringy, slightly pale youth weíd known, a hearty young man had flowered. The only recognisable feature left was his rather endearing chuckle. Now he is a computer and hi fi assembler and repairer and seemingly doing very well. Unlike so many of his countrymen, he professes to rather enjoy the simple relaxed life of coastal Guyana and swears that heíll never be drawn away by the dubious luxuries available state side. Good man, Guyana needs more of you. Nafeeza, his wife was unbelievably friendly. They invited us to join them at a new nearby resort as Mainstay lake. Now we know from past experience that when a Guyanese invites you to something they will provide everything from rum to trans-p (transport). It was a lovely day, and the resort is quite developed compared to the sandy beach on the lake that was all that was there before. Pool tables, peddlos and over water bar complete with a skinny snake or two. Avieís father, Bunny joined us and chatted of his dream to go round the world in a balloon with a dinghy for a basket to land in the ocean. And you thought we were mad!
Others had been less successful in tracking us down. Gerald had been a student teacher in the year that we left and his mother, Wilma, an administrator at the department of education. Now he has just left his post as acting head of English to go off with his wife to university in Georgetown. Wilma has retired, left for New York and nannies for a Greek couple. Sheíd been back in Guyana, though, to attend Geraldís wedding and for some medical treatment. Judging by the wedding photos from a few months ago, her recovery had been remarkable Messages got mixed up about our arrival and theyíd prepared something of a banquet for us on the Saturday we arrived from the capital. Weíd been totally unaware and driven past. The only reason we called round on this occasion was that Wilma was standing in the road waiting for a bus as we passed. Funny old world.
Weíd debated long and hard about whether to go and see the headmaster from the school that weíd taught at. Maydha Persaud is something of an institution on the Essequibo coast and is held in high regard by a large proportion of the population. Our relationship with him had always been a little frosty to say the least. Helen seemed to have developed a rare unforgiving streak and was keen to avoid all contact. There was also the fact that we only had 2 weeks on the coast and had lots of people to visit, so we had to be selective. I knew that everyone would be asking us, ìHave you called by Sir Maydha, yet?î and so thought that weíd better call in just to stops tongues from wagging. Helen calls me hypocritical; I just try to avoid awkward questions. Convenience somewhat took the discussion out of our hands. Going to see everyone was proving to be a mammoth task and so when we discovered that weíd be here for pay day and that the whole staff would be arriving to ìupliftî (sic) their salary we went along to gaff.
Weíd been told the wrong day for salaries and so Maydha, alone, was at the school. He filled us in on what had been happening in the interim and I confess to a certain sympathy for him what with the turn over of unqualified staff and the reluctance of the authorities to improve the facilities at the school. Although we made it clear that our budget was pretty tight and that we try to sleep in hammock or the tent when we can to reduce costs, he could not restrain himself from the odd oblique request for cash from us. This from the man who won the equivalent of two years salary for being the ìbestî teacher in Guyana. Tout ca change.
We excused ourselves as soon as we politely could and bailed out to go and see one of our favourite former teachers from Abram Zuil, Pauline Davies. I had always liked Pauline, she was very straight forward, friendly and witty. We gaffed, and laughed about mutual acquaintances. In usual Guyanese style we could not possibly leave the house without something to eat, so we left with a humungous avocado pear and some cashew fruit (not related to the nut. It is a mystery why they share the same name).
When we came back the next day, the staff was all gathered completing their registers for the coming year and patiently waiting for their hard earned. Watching them filling in their registers with the precision of a sign writer brought back all the memories of hours of trying to balance the register at the end of the term. I never understood why having neat records was more important than having accurate ones. I vividly remember a staff meeting where I had a long argument about the fact that if you made a mistake on the register it was better to leave it wrong than run the risk of ëmessing upí the register. We had also unwittingly got into trouble when we were working here by using blue lines to divide sections on our schemes of work rather than red. This was apparently a heinous crime. The fact that the contents of the scheme of work was less important than the colour of lines, only seemed to strike us as a little bizarre. As we chatted to Afmat about our travels, he meticulously followed his pencil lines to ensure that all his letters on the register were perfectly in line: this was an aspect of our time in Guyana I do not miss.
Only half of the staff that we had known, if that, remains at the school and the boots of the leavers have been filled with youngsters who have graduated the previous year (often untrained or only marginally qualified). At least four of the teachers were students that we had taught.
Of the old guard, a couple were looking less than totally fit. Baghesh, another former drinking champion of the coast and with an entry in the Guyana Hall of Drinking Fame for lifetime achievement, has spent some time in hospital and undergone surgery of some sort for alcohol related illness. His young understudy Sir Wesley has developed diabetes that has also been blamed on the local rum. By all accounts he hasnít slowed up too much. He disappeared early from the proceedings - probably expecting me to be yet another do-gooder trying to point him in the right direction. I would almost certainly have done a bit of nagging and so, if that was his reason for leaving it was well judged. I really do hope that he comes through, though, as he was one of the most reliable teachers at the school in all other respect.
I was hugely surprised to come across another blast from the past. Boleram had been transferred to a junior school after molesting one of the students in the school canteen. (This is a bizarre disciplinary measure in Guyana commonly used for teachers. Interfering with the kids usually receives a transfer to a more junior school or to a school in an inconvenient location. The problem for the authorities is that there is such a shortage of teachers that they canít sack them but only try to limit damage. Kids at schools in out of the way places are, sadly, sometimes overlooked.) His return to the school was due, in part, or so he claimed, to the demolition of the old school canteen leaving him without a theatre of operations. True to form, the money did not arrive and the staff were asked to return to collect their cash on the following Monday. Crestfallen young staff, who had clearly not learnt to accept this as standard, pleaded for their money. Clearly, their plans for the weekend were in jeopardy.
Mansoorís organisation was having a barby to raise money for a library. It seemed only fair that we should turn up to turn the odd chicken piece. I confess that I did absolutely nothing for the afternoon while Hippy braved the sun and grilled herself along with the food. In fairness when we arrived mid morning Fazi had been working single handed over the and looked like she desperately needed a break. After I relieved Fazi others came to help, so I had it relatively easy. I could not take the heat. The town of Charity is at the very end of the minimal road network in Guyana and situated about 5 miles inland up the Pomeroon river. The distance from the sea means that it does not catch the same breeze as other places and the stifling heat builds up relentlessly. I found the best shaded corners with any semblance of breeze while Hips sweated for England.
Not surprisingly, come the end of the day, Hips was reeling with a nasty headache. Quantities of soft drinks failed to dint the dehydration level and she retired too bed with a dose of aspirin. Morning brought more of the same and she painkilled her way through the day while feeling weak and generally a bit pathetic - her own opinion I might point out. Nightfall and the ailment brought new symptoms; chest pain and nausea. Maybe she had the disease that a VSO had had some years ago that was diagnosed as ìvomitingî by a Guyanese doctor. (in fact the lass had huge kidney stones). Rather than rush to the doc in a panic we decided to hang fire and see what developed.
So, the next day we were ìmoved up the queueî to see Lillian, the Cuban doctor at Suddie hospital. It was all very embarrassing. We were delighted that people were making wonderful efforts for us to get the fastest and best treatment but being whisked past the queues of other folk seemed a bit unfair. Everyone warned us that we were in for an all day session but we were in and out in four hours including Xray, ECG and blood test. Try getting a referral for those things in the NHS never mind the completed work in four hours and youíd be struggling. Verdict was that the curve in Hipís spine is playing havoc with the nerves and with rest, vitamins and some other tabs, things should come right. We must confess that although everything had been so professionally carried out we had our doubts over the diagnosis. Two things concerned me, if it was a back problem then without physio it was not going to get better, and secondly there had been no examination of what I was actually capable of with my left side.
We had a date with Gupti for a bit of a guided tour out by the back dam. ìGoing out to the back damî is something of a local euphemism for going on the lash with the lads involving rum of the legal or illegal nature (or both). Owing to hospital visiting, we were spared the full session and Hips rather sensibly opted to take a rest at home. Even with the ëturn left at the third tree..í type directions I managed to find the place straight away. The participants were oiled but still within the scope of reasonable conversation. Kapil, one of our old students, has managed to; train as a teacher, marry, start a farm and have three kids in the six years since we left. Good effort.
The highlight of the afternoon was a visit to one of the illicit stills that hide in the bush behind the back canal. (The coast of Guyana is mostly reclaimed land and has a complex system of canals and trenches to irrigate and drain it.) About a half mile back from where the farming ends, we took an unmarked turn off the track into thin forest and brushed our way through for a couple of hundred yards to a small clearing where there were a collection of old oil drums lying around. Kapil seemed suspiciously knowledgeable about the noble art of bush rum production which proceeds as follows:
Oil drum is filled with sugar and water and left lying around for a week or so.
Alcoholic sludge is transferred to a horizontal drum over a fire with a pipe out of the top of it.
Pipe passes through another oil drum full of cold water to condense the alcohol.
Simple, innit. I once tasted the product and now know why it tasted so grim. A little cleanliness would not go amiss. The cooling barrel was still hot when we arrived and it was suggested that the spirit producers had probably heard us coming and bolted into the bush. Sensible chaps.
We had made an arrangement to meet up with some VSOs up at Anna Regina who would be flying home soon. I knew that Pat would be under a lot of pressure to ignore prior arrangements and a sick wife and go on a bender with the boys. When he was late returning Fazi and Mansoor left me at the house while they went to visit their relatives looking dubious about Patís return. Who would suggest that I am so impressionable that I would end up in a bender? He made it in plenty of time to ëreachí with the others. I regretted not meeting up with Kapil he was always a good lad. The evening was lovely, back to one of our old haunts ëJeanísí where the staff recognised us of course. The returning VSOís were feeling that all too familiar feeling of how little they had managed to achieve in the 2 years that they were there. We had felt much the same, but coming back here, is a bonus. Many of those we taught have stayed in Guyana, and are doing well, with a large number choosing education for a career.
We had nipped in to see Meenawattie, who is now a pharmacist on the coast. She was so surprised and delighted to see us and remembered that Sir Patrick (thatís me) had always wanted to go around the world by motorbike.
Wobbly reprise and the bag saga
Not entirely convinced by my examination, Pat decided to email our friend Esther with a list of symptoms etc. Her timing was very unlucky as she managed to phone 3 times while I had decided to go for a stroll, to get circulation going again. In the end she instructed Pat by mobile phone to give a full neurological examination. She is a star! She was also unconvinced by the diagnosis and instructed me to see a neurologist and get a CAT scan. I have to confess that I burst into tears. It seemed as though we may have to call the trip to a premature ending. Somehow, I was not prepared for this kind of reason to end the trip. Mansoor and Fazi interpreted my upset as being homesick, which could not have been further from the truth, it was more the thought of having to go home rather than wanting to that upset me.
Investigations into the chances of finding a half decent neurologist in Guyana were not promising and so we set off to the capital prepared, if necessary, to take a trip to Trinidad. It was all a very confused day. Weíd asked for our stuff that weíd left down in the south to be sent up to the coast so that we would have the option of going straight to Venezuela, back to Britain or even still returning through the south of Guyana (not my favourite option). Communicating with Colin down at Annai involves calling the radio operator in Georgetown to try and get a link if the other party is on air at the time or simply to send a message. After a few days of haphazard message sending, we were told that our stuff would be arriving on the Sunday night bus at 8 p.m. Great, apart from the fact that no one seemed to know where the bus from Lethem arrived in town.
At the bus park we asked of the minibus drivers where the big bus came in from Lethem and they instantly responded, ìRockiesî. Fair enough. We went in search of Rockies and found a bar with a convincing horde of Brazilians outside. They all seemed to be waiting for something and we figured weíd got the right place. The lass behind the bar pointed out of the door when we asked where the bus arrived and so all was well. It was all too easy. After a couple of hours of standing around in the Brazilian fashion, we thought weíd ask for confirmation. Par for the course, the bus had arrived and departed before we had got there.
Now furnished with the ultimate destination for the bus, we headed of to the Correia gold mining office. The guards at the door looked puzzled when we asked where the bus was. ìOgle, of courseî. Ogle is the small plane airport near Georgetown and it seems that the bus parks up there after dropping everyone off. No bags at the Correia office. Strike two. We were advised to call in the morning.
Monday morning found us in the VSO office and being helped out by the nice chaps there. They had a list of advisable doctors in Georgetown supplied by some Canadian organisation and it included a neurologist ñ Mr Ramsahoye. Calls about the bags yielded no information at all. We could only wait for contact with Colin at Annai to see if the bags had been forgotten. All we could assume other than that was that theyíd been stolen somewhere along the way. Oh joy.
Walter Ramsahoye, though, was a joy. We discovered later that he is something of an anti government protesting icon in Guyana and regularly has articles published in the papers. His English could only be described as pretty far back. Lovely tones of someone from a well educated colonial background who had been educated at Cambridge. He laughed at the Guyanese bastardisation of English, particularly setting off on a Fawltyesque rant on the use of the word ìBiliousî. Seemingly this is a catch all expression for unknown stomach ailments and can even extend to non stomach related general ailments. He explained the lengths he had been to to find the true meaning of the word with extensive dictionary searches both medical and literary. He reckons that a huge amount of Guyanese vocabulary derives from obscure Victorian expressions that have stuck here while the rest of the world has moved on.
His examination was just the same as the one that I had carried out with instruction from Esther with a lot more besides; eyes, smell and other stuff. Here was a man who knew what he was doing. We were much relieved. Even his diagnosis was very convincing ñ hemiplegic migraine, if you donít mind. This is a condition where the blood vessels in the brain constrict and the poor nerves canít cope. As this is located in a limited area, only certain functions are affected, appearing like a small stroke. We hope he is right and that full service will be resumed shortly.
Waiting for the bags in town turned into a predictable saga. It turned out that the bags had not been sent on the Sunday which was something of a relief. At least we knew they hadnít been nicked. A promise was made to put them on the bus on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Hippy was back with the good doctor having had a fresh numbness episode. I felt pretty dreadful leaving her to deal with this by herself, but the idea of the bags going walkies with some pretty important stuff in them, none the least cash and insurance documents was overpoweringly important. Same saga again ñ loads of waiting, but this time I did meet the bus, only to be told that George down at Annai had put nothing on the bus that morning.
Thursday found us at the radio office in Georgetown ñ we figured that a two way conversation might get us a bit further. Poor Annie who works in the radio office earned our respect and sympathy. The radio system seems to need constant changing of frequencies and a highly trained ear to work it. After a good bit of crackling and hissing and about an hour of calling ìAnnai, Annai, Georgetownî she managed to get Colin on the air. Seems heíd left baggage handling to his son who had failed in his duties. Now that we may be heading of to Trinidad to get a scan for Hips (for that was the upshot of the second consultation) we need the bags pronto. When he told us there was a plane leaving in the afternoon we told him to put the stuff on pronto and hang the expense.
Expensive it was but it got here.
Other than the medical and baggage stuff in town, we did get to meet up with more students of ours who seem to be doing quite well for themselves. A medic, a lawyer and a radiologist. On the street I bumped into another old student by chance who is off to Cuba to study physiotherapy. More impressive than most of the youffs I taught in England. Very satisfying.
Now we wait for news from the insurers which will decide our next move ñ do we go to Trinidad for a brain scan that involves a flight (not recommended if there is a blood vessel problem) or do we ignore it all and carry on at sea level to Venezuela.
Tune in for the next thrilling instalment.