Funky Georgetown

On our trip to Guyana, I had experienced some of the humor and joie de vive of the people. When I photographed these guys carrying a 100-lb forest log, they put it down and ran up to me saying, "NO PHOTOS! YOU HAVE TO PAY US!" which mortified me practically into a fetal position until they cracked up laughing, picked up the log and went on their way, waving.
In Georgetown, these girls gave me a solid gold performance, gyrating and undulating with unmistakable Afro-Caribbean verve. So cute.
I had marveled at how Guyanans accomplish so much with so very little. Every book in the open-air schools we visited was mottled with mildew. The humid climate is a cruel overlord. I would be unable to draw with pencil or paint in watercolors here. My drawings and paintings would curl, get moldy and succumb to fungus within weeks. I guess I'd paint in acrylics. I can't imagine painting with anything but watercolor, but then I don't have to. I feel blessed to live where the climate doesn't actively ruin many of the things I hold dear. I will overlook for the moment the frost threat that constantly hangs over my heirloom lilac and peach tree. 

And yet, along the seawall in G'town, there was art that stretched for miles.
As we whizzed by, I wished I could walk for hours, appreciating each panel.
A favorite:
Even our bush planes had depictions of giant otters and harpy eagles:

The advertising art on the seawall (the only thing that keeps Georgetown from being under five feet of ocean) was a thing unto itself. I loved it.
Because the population is largely Afro-Caribbean, there is a lot of attention to hair products:
I definitely could have used some root stimulator. My hair looked like a road-killed squirrel the whole trip. Today it looks like Chachi's from Joanie Loves Chachi. Cool.

On our TV at the grandiose Hotel Pegasus, which looked like a salt shaker, there was a guy selling a device you mount on your bathroom wall that actually dispenses toothpaste.
But wait, there's more. It also gives you a place to hang your toothbrushes. Which, he pointed out many times, is very healthy. The infomercial dude put a heavy health/hygiene spin on this gizmo. Basically you insert your tube of toothpaste, press a button and Presto! you get toothpaste on your toothbrush. It's got to be much easier than squeezing a tube and losing the cap every time. At least that was what he said.
After being in the back country for ten days, it was a hilariously refreshing way to spend ten minutes, watching an infomercial for something nobody wants because nobody needs, like Zizzer-zoof seeds.The view out our window. It was air-conditioned, and it felt heavenly, but not as heavenly as a hot shower in a cool room. Ahhhhh. The grime of ten days of cold showers fell away.

Erica and I wandered into a variety store that sold everything from bras to furniture. I loooved this set.
It was tropicalismo, way over the top. Elvis would have grabbed this for the Jungle Room. Our furniture is so drab by comparison, so tastefully lacking in texture and flair.

And then there's Smalta. We don't know what it is, but we should drink it. Why? Because it's good.
In case you think the thing under the Smalta swoosh will reveal the mystery, it doesn't. It's a sheaf of wheat. Which leads me to believe Smalta might be a kind of beer. Mmmm, good.

The mystery deepened with this ad for Cheekies. For Happy Cheeks.
I have got to think this is some kind of didey. But I don't know. Maybe there's a climate-related cheek issue in Guyana I know nothing about.

It kind of figures that the best bird pictures I'd take on the whole trip (unless you take into consideration the rarity of the bird, which favorably weights a lousy picture) were at our hotel in Georgetown. A roadside hawk (Buteo magnirostris) was hanging out in the courtyard, waiting for something. This little buteo lives almost everywhere, hanging out along roads and rivers, waiting for snakes, lizards, rodents, insects, whatever it can find and swoop down upon. It was a lovely farewell gift, to spend time with this little hawk, shooting him off a hotel balcony, in a place with adequate light. That's saying something when you've been trying to make photos in the darkest durn forest you've ever seen for ten days.You got a problem with my forest?

Too soon, we'd fly  home. But I was ready, I was ready to see my babies and my husband and my Charlie Miko and my no-good google-eyed licky licky dog.

Africa in South America

Sometimes I am very happy to have my 300 mm. telephoto lens; it's just as handy for taking candid portraits of people as it is for birds. I love taking pictures of people, but I don't like intruding into their thoughts and lives with my camera. The last thing I want is for them to stop what they're doing and look at me.

Nearly everyone I spoke to about this trip assumed I was going to Africa when I told them I was Guyana bound. Even the Ghanian shuttle bus driver at the Columbus airport misheard me, and thought I'd just come back from his home country. It's an honest mistake, ironically made even more understandable by the physical similarity between Guyana and Africa.

The African cultural influence in Guyana is so strong that sometimes I had a hard time remembering I was in the New World. This lady was cutting grass for her cattle in the marsh in the botanic garden.She acknowledges me with a slight smile and keeps at her work. Her cattle may have been blocking traffic at that moment; zebus and other African-blooded cattle wander freely through Georgetown's streets. You really have to see it to believe it. The East Indian (Hindu) influence causes traffic to stop for the cattle. People live their lives around them. It's interesting to see cattle living peaceably among people in a fence-free environment, nursing their calves on front lawns and grabbing a bite on a median strip. Around Whipple, if anyone's cattle get out of their pastures, they immediately mend the fence and drive around until they find them and get them back in confinement. In Guyana, the cattle seem to know exactly where they're going and where they want to be, and people just deal with it.And then there's the Caribbean influence, extremely strong around Georgetown. There are lots of people walking around Georgetown who would draw long stares in America. But then I'm sure we'd draw stares in Georgetown, since I noticed immediately that most Americans outweigh Guyanans by quite a margin. Everyone seemed to be skinny to me; the people, the cattle and the dogs. Prosperity is not necessarily good for our bodies. Rastafarians keep a strict vegetarian diet, and they tended to be even skinnier than other Guyanans I saw.This gentleman is transporting his singing finch (probably of the genus Oryzoborus) to a competition. People trap, keep and trade in wild male finches in order to enter them in singing competitions, which often take place on Sundays in city parks. They place the cages next to one another and see whose bird sings most lustily and most often. Needless to say, this is not a blood sport, but bets are placed, and money changes hands. It beats cockfighting, but does represent a significant drain on wild populations of these little birds.

Because I am a curious person, I ventured into a department store in downtown Georgetown during our one two-hour free period in town to have a look around. I offer you this living room set, which for me epitomized how far away I really had come from Ohio. I think I might have spotted Elvis slipping around the corner, doubtless shopping for furnishings for the Jungle Room.Georgetown lies a frightening seven feet below sea level. It owes its existence to a seawall that completely blocks its view of the (admittedly rather muddy) Caribbean. It's very odd to be able to sense that you're on the coast, but not to be able to see it at all, without climbing a big embankment and peering over a concrete wall. It's also disturbing to contemplate what will happen to Georgetown when global warming causes the inevitable (and possibly rapid) rise in sea level. The Dutch built a system of canals and dikes throughout Georgetown, but they've fallen into some disrepair. The seawall is a place to gather and walk, and it is also a fabulous advertising opportunity. Every weekend there is a rolling party along the seawall, with sporting events, reggae artists and vendors and food booths.

Parts of the wall have been beautifully decorated by schoolkids. I could do a series of posts on just the wall art itself, if we hadn't been whipping past it at such speed.This was a particularly nice passage, doubtless painted by a professional. There was some pretty good advertising art on the streets, too. My roots desperately needed stimulation; the soaking humidity rendered my normally bouncy 'do limp as a hot flapjack. It is nice to return from the land of Hair Problems.

Much of the allure of travel is mystery. I leave you with Smaltaand Cheekies.