...and then, at last --- Karanambo! Part One: Arrival

There was a little hiccup over the flight booking. I left it too late and it seemed that while I couild get a flight out, all the return flights were booked out. Sent an emergency email to Andrea. Next thing I knew, I got a call from someone at Wilderness Exlorers saying they had a reservation for me, Saturday to Tuesday. Andrea had Skyped them and placed the order... So, Saturday morning, there I was at Ogle airport. I had sent a message asking if I should bring anything with me, and the return message was that all they needed was a few hinges and that someone would meet me at Ogle to hand them over. Turns out that this was all handled through Jocelyn Dow -- I had visited her Friday morning; she had contacted Salvador with the message HEY! Sharon's Here! and he had said, Yes, We Know, She's Coming, and can you hand over such-and-such. So, I got the hinges safely and boarded the aircraft. The rest is video, ending with my triumphany arrival at Karanambo Airstrip, and Salvador's welcome dance. And wow, I never knew that it really was just that: an airstrip, in the middle of nowhere.

Interview with Eileen

Remember the post about my mother, Eileen Cox? Well, about ten days into my Guyana visit someone came around from the Guyana Times to interview her on her retirement as President of the Consumers Association. It was an interview for the newspaper as well as for TV; that is, a TV cameraman filmed it. And so did I. The print version can be found here. And here is my own (shortened) version of the video interview. In the course of the interview it came out that I was a published writer, so immediately afterwards they interviewed me, as well; that interview was also published in the Guyana Times, here. And one evening they showed the TV interview. I didn't see it. But a couple days later I was riding through GT on my bicycle (yes, I bought a bike!) and someone on the street called out: "Hello writer!" And following that several random people, most of them strangers to me, told me they had seen it. Rather surreal; to think how as a European writer it's so difficult to get exposure; how every other writer seems to be self-promoting the life out of their books, and I, being by nature a non-self-promoter, tend to get left behind; and here, in my home country, it all falls into my lap.

Do you know this bird?

A brief intermission: can anyone identify this bird?
I filmed him on the frangipani tree in my mother's garden, from her gallery window.
He sits on this tree all day and does this: all day. I would come and go throughout the day and he would still be
squeaking and hopping around. Maybe some kind of a mating ritual, but it was really cute.

And listen for the kiskadee at 0:53!

Out to the Amerinidian Reservation: Wakapao

Sunday afternoon: Aunt Zena arranged for Patsy and me to take a trip to the Amerindian reservation at Wakapao.

Shirley, who works as a cook at Adel's, came with us; her family lives at Wakapao.
Amazing trip! and I don't know what was better, the fantastic boat ride out there, down the Pomeroon river and then into a narrow creek through the rainforest; out again into the savannah.
We landed the boat and then walked to the first cottage, where Shirley's children live.
The two girls ran out to meet us, delighted with their mother's visit. Shirley hosted us with drinks
of freshly harvested coconut water, after which my camera's batter ran out.

We walked on through the reservation -- all the houses are spaced widely apart, with a ten to twenty-minute walk to each home -- looking for cassava bread for Aunt Zena. Unfortunately, nobody had any.
But the story is best told with a film, so here goes:

Goodbye Jinky

Jinky, the Phillipinian VSO volunteer, has a Master's degree in Aquaculture and was assigned to AUnt Zena for six months. Aunt Zena was delighted with her work; she could not have managed the passionfruit plantation without Jinky's hands-on application. Jinky wanted to stay on for a further six months and AUnt Zena was desperate to keep her; but the Guyana Government had to process the application and failed to do so. "You see," said Aunt Zena, "This is how we lose qualified people. Pure slackness!" By the time the Government got around to Jinky's application, VSO had already re-assigned her: to East Timor! It was a sad day for all when Jinky left Adel's -- though everyone, most of all she herself, managed to smile!

The Passionfruit Field

The afternoon after we arrived, Aunt Zena took us (that is, myself and Patsy) to see her passionfruit plantation. It was great to meet Jinky (hope I spelled that right!) who is a Voluntary Service Oversees volunteer from the Phillipines. Jinky spent six months at Adel's building up the passionfruit plantation form scratch -- that meant clearing the land, putting up the trellisses along which they would grow, supervising the care and the weeking of the plants, and so on. It takes seven months for a plant to grow and bear fruit, so Jinky just made it to her first harvest. We were all excited by the big fat fruit growing along the vines, and spent a couple hours walking up and down picking up the fallen ones! Passionefruit fall to the ground when they are ripe for the plucking, so it was easy to know which ones we could carry home -- the main problem being that we had nowhere to put them! So Jinky went back to Adel's and came back with several plastic bags -- all of which went back filled to bursting.
After that there was passionfruit juice, passionfruit jam, passionfruit everything for a few days.
Aunt Zena wants to go into passionfruit production commercially, so it will be intersting to see how this develops.
Here's a video of the visit to the passionfruit field:


And if you'd like to grow passionfruit at home yourself, here are some instructions: http://www.homelife.com.au/gardening/projects/how+to+grow+passionfruit,5389

From Parika to the Pomeroon