Teaching went more smoothly today. We finally figured out the problem with the computers, but were able to buddy people up on working computers. My office generally believes in doing workshops with a partner. It builds class cohesion. It forms governmental networks. It requires fewer instructors and the students work through problems together. It is just pedagogically superior to each person working alone. But the Guyanese were proud of securing each person their own machine so we did not buck that…but after all of the computers were working again, I was glad to see many of the partner groups remained.
It was probably my hardest day of lecture, with 2 very technical lectures in the program I don’t write. But it went pretty well. Mark lost power during his lecture. This is something that happens teaching overseas. Fortunately it happened during a lecture (and not a workshop) and the generator kicked in quickly.
After class we decided to start walking around immediately in the hopes of getting to a restaurant[1] and planning the impromptu workshop for the next day. We ended up within sight of the floodwall and decided to see how far we could walk along it. We ended up walking about a mile west on the sea wall all the way to where it ended at the mouth of the river.
This was definitely a highlight of my time here so far. The water may be laden with Amazon mud, but the cool ocean breeze blowing in, families playing in the ocean, the sun setting on the horizon, all work together to make the flood wall a really fun place.
Most of the sea wall is deceptively wide. We had heard that it is the best place to run in Guyana. Since it essentially looks like concrete Jersey barrier from the side, we greeted this assertion with skepticism. But it is several feet wide, allowing two way pedestrian traffic. If I wasn’t staying up late every night working I would totally be getting up early to run on it.
Towards the end Mark did notice an empty discarded wallet that gave us pause, but we ended up walking out to the end of the pier (see picture below).
There were three fishermen out there and what appeared to be a make shift shack with a small wind generator. This was pretty cool.
While we were walking Mark mentioned that today was his 40th birthday. He said he didn’t even realize he would be traveling on his 40th until last weekend, he was in work, and sent a friend an e-mail on the occasion of her 40th, realized his was immanent, did the math and found that he would be in Guyana.
Just before the floodwall transitioned into the pier is what I will call Guyana’s diplomatic center. The American and Canadian embassy are on the same block as the Pegasus hotel, all within a block of the ocean. It seems like a pretty nice spot. We had heard that the Pegasus hotel used to be the nicest hotel in town. It seemed appropriate that dinner should be a bit of an event tonight given the occasion. So we wandered in looking for a restaurant. It had been my belief that we were not staying at the Pegasus hotel because its day had passed…that it was now an old hotel that was not as nice as the newish one that we were staying in. It became clear that this was not the case. We were not staying at the Pegasus, it appeared, because it was too nice. But dinner was still very reasonable and very good. When we were done, things had really picked up in the lobby. There was a steel drum band and, pretty much, a party going on. It would have been fun to stay, but we still had to write a work shop.
We took a taxi back to our hotel since it was late, dark, and we had walked for about an hour. We felt like we had been taken on taxi rides earlier in the trip (no one has or uses meters) but not this one. It was ~$2.
We set up our computers on the second floor covered porch and worked until ~11:30. The bar was open, so I went to get beers. I thought, Mark should at least have someone to drink with while he works on his birthday. Unfortunately, I was not successful in the objective. Mark got a Banks premium. It is the local beer that we have been drinking. I like it. But they had another type (that came in several brands) called the Malta. I was feeling adventurous and asked for the Banks Malta. My comment when I tasted it was, ‘That’s interesting.’ Mark tried it and generated the same response. Upon closer inspection, I had ordered a non-alcoholic beer. Mark said it tasted like the pre-fermented grain malt that beer is made out of. There was some general comedy in the fact that I was trying to be a ‘drinking buddy’ and failed. But I would have preferred the beer.
Here are a few additional pictures from the flood wall walk and the embassy area.
A statue of the local endangered turtle. Mark’s comment: “It has got to be hard to be a turtle these days. They are slow and tasty. Not a helpful combination.”
___________________[1] I never spell restaurant close enough to get word to spell check it. It is because I pronounce it rest-raunt. I was talking with one of the students about this and he said, ‘yeah, that is how we pronounce it too.’
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