Jason Pearce

This week I received a great care package from David Pittman, a second-cousin (e.g. my dad’s cousin). It was a great surprise, for it contained some of the following goodies, all of which would be great to receive from anyone else at any time (hint, hint, nudge, nudge):

• Solar Powered Mosquito Repellant
• Lonely Planet travel guide for Brazil
• A few magazines about computers and gadgets
• A copy of the Wall Street Journal
• And several photographs of family and friends

So thanks David for all of the great goodies. They were all well received and appreciated.

Should you decide to send me a care package of your own, please consider the following. For starters, sending packages via USPS air mail is the fastest and cheapest method that I’ve discovered so far. Second, the US Embassy opens and searches all of my mail prior to giving it to me. This naturally increases the amount of time it takes for me to receive my mail. But when a package or mail does reach me, I’ve found that it is always worth the wait.

Thanks David. Hope all is well in Charlotte.

It was nice having all 23 of us back together for training this past week. We all had much to share with each other for we just switched host families on Sunday, July 14, and were visiting other volunteers the previous week. In general, many of us had a great volunteer visit but were having some anxiety for switching to new host families and neighborhoods.

On Tuesday, July 16, the six information technology volunteers spent their morning at Central High School in Georgetown. This was our second visit and last to work on the computers in their computer lab. They had six Pentium machines, some of which had only 540 MB hard drives. The lab had no network or Internet access, so much of our efforts were spent cleaning up software, reinstalling the OS, and swapping out some RAM between machines. We also brought two 286s back to life by pulling spare parts from various other machines that were stacked up as junk in the far corner. It was some great hands-on hardware experience. I feel quite comfortable taking apart a computer and putting it back together now.

The latter part of the week we had agriculture lessons. Much of it was for large-scale farming purposes, so I didn’t find much of the information useful. But it was good for me to get a few blisters working out in a field.

It is rumored that we all learn what we will be doing and where we will be stationed on Wednesday. I can’t tell you how relieved most of us will feel once we finally learn what we will be doing and exactly where we will be living.

Lastly, I wanted to share a few of my favorite photos. The first one is a photo of us visiting Baracara Resort on the Essiquibo river. The second photo is me taking a shower. This photo is indicative of how dirty most Guyanese get each day and how they bathe. Just kidding. I got this muddy playing ultimate Frisbee one Sunday afternoon. And the third photo is me relaxing in a hammock after a hard day of training. It’s tough being a volunteer.

On Sunday, I said goodbye to Gale, Anthony, and Zowie as I packed up my stuff and moved to my new host family in Grove. We all had to switch host families so that those who have been living in the country get to experience city life, and vice versa.

While my new host family is great and has hosted eight other volunteers, I’m still adjusting to the change. For starters, I now have a hell of a commute to make it into Georgetown each morning for training. I have to walk about 10 minutes to get to the main road so that I can catch a mini-bus.

The mini-bus rides are horrible. The seats are two small, they cram too many people into them (up to 23 at one point, though they have seats for only 15 people), and just about every other uncomfortable amenity you can think of. Plus, they drive on all sides of the road and off.

My new host family’s home is about the same size as my last one. Only this time, there are six members of their family and the host is packed with two sets of furniture. So I’m feeling a bit cramped.

We also don’t have running water, so I have to “shower” out of a bucket, fill the toilet after flushing, and carry water up stairs.

But as expected, the people are great and do all they can to make me feel welcomed and comfortable. I’ll write more about my experiences in Grove later.

I also want to let you know about a fellow volunteer’s website. Hans Anderson is an education volunteer in training but has a computer science degree. I believe that he has forgotten more about information technology than I have ever learned. Without question, he will be a great resource for us.

Well, Hans has his own server and website that I hope you will visit. It is likely that I’ll also start using his server to post photos, but we’ll see. I hope you enjoy his site: https://www.thebestthing.org/.

I’ve posted some more great photos taken by other volunteers during the first five weeks of training. Click here to see them. This one is a great group shot.

The health and safety of the Peace Corps volunteers remains of high importance to the staff here in Guyana. And for good reason, for it is easy for us to get ill or have some kind of security concern.

For starters, we have received a host of vaccinations and still have another round to go. Here’s a list of the immunizations I’ve received to date, as well as the upcoming ones:

June 5:
MMR (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella
Yellow Fever
Rabies #1

June 12:
Rabies #2
Hepatitis A #1
Hepatitis B #1

July 3:
Rabies #3
Diphtheria
Typhoid

July 12:
Polio
Hepatitis B #2

January 2003:
Hepatitis A #2
Hepatitis B #3

Despite these precautions, several members of our group of 23 have already fallen ill. The most serious illness that one of us caught was Dengue fever, which has taken him out of training for two weeks so far. Thankfully, the Peace Corps put him up in a hotel with air conditioning.

The bad news is that according to a recent Newsweek cover story, mosquito-transmitted dengue is on the rise. Tahiti had tens of thousands of cases last year, several people died on Fiji of the severest form of dengue, and Hawaii had its first epidemic (more than 100 cases) in 50 years. And just this week, while visiting Dean in Essiquibo, I visited with another volunteer who just recently had dengue. I suppose the loss of my toenail is much better than some of the alternatives.