(via ap.google.com)

Guyana is tackling the soaring price of food in markets by sending citizens to their gardens to grow their own.

President Bharrat Jagdeo said Thursday the government would give seeds — mostly rice — in rural communities, hoping that people will sow them on idle land and in gardens in the small South American nation.

“I don’t want to say that everyone should become a farmer because not everyone is cut out for that, but when the economics are right you can do anything,” said Jagdeo, who did not reveal the cost of the program.

Indian communities would get seeds for a special variety of rice suitable for the hilly communities where many life.

Isolated protests have broken out over rising food costs in Guyana, where chicken costs 50 percent more than it did last year. Rice prices have risen 80 percent. U.N. officials have expressed alarm about food price rises worldwide.

(via wdpusa.org)

On Friday, March 7, 2008, the worshipping community came together in large numbers to pray for and with the women of Guyana. Though late winter storms led to the postponement of some services, WDP 2008 was highly successful.

…

Guyana this year, 2008, is a country on the brink of chaos and anarchy as its inhabitants, especially the voiceless working poor, live in constant fear of violence from criminals who kill, maim and destroy with impunity as they walk and stalk the land at will. The institutional forces of law and order visibly appear incapable of dealing with heavily armed and highly trained criminals and bands of criminals who are intent on creating mayhem in the society.

Within the past three weeks, 20 civilians, one soldier and three policemen have been killed. In the early hours of the morning of January 26, a band of about 20 heavily armed gunmen in execution style slaughtered 11 residents, including five children, in their homes in therural coastal village of Lusignan on the East Coast of Demerara, and injured several others. A day or two earlier, a young soldier of the Guyana Defense Force (the Army) was killed in an encounter between the army and criminals in Buxton, the village that borders Lusignan. Then, on the evening of February 16, right across on the western side of the country in the interior mining township of Bartica in the County of Essequibo, a band, reportedly of about the same number and armed in the same way as in the previous slaughter at Lusignan, invaded and rampaged the township unhindered, and brutally slaughtered 13 persons including three policemen in the Police Station and injured several others.

“Living in a society of terrifying unknown,no one knows what will happen next or to whom it will happen or where it will happen,” was the saddened cry of someone writing to one of the national papers. The people pray silently and openly for relief from the violence and other misdeeds of “man’s inhumanity to man” and the resulting conditions that degrade the sanctity of human life and human living.

Please intensify your prayers with and for the traumatized people of these communities and of all Guyana for God’s wisdom to provide new understanding to those with the responsibility to find effective ways to urgently and quickly bring relief from the heavy burden of the current evils that beset the citizens of Guyana. Prayer has become more desperately needed not only on March 7th, World Day of Prayer, but ongoing, for as long as possible, until peace, harmony and security are restored to this once beautiful Guyana. “When all voices are joined together in one united voice, what a powerful voice it will be?” Please help the people of Guyana by raising your voices in prayer with them and for them in their pleas to the Most High for relief, even if such relief resides in miracles.

During the 17 years Peace Corps has had a post in Guyana, over 470 Volunteers have assisted in the areas of health, education, community development and information technology.  Those 17 years span over four decades and, although many things have changed during that time, the basic mission of Peace Corps and its Volunteers remains the same. Friends and RPCVs of Guyana (FROG) would like to take a moment to thank you for committing your time and energy to the service of Guyana and its people.  Your efforts have had an impact on more individuals then you realize. Thank you!

We here at FROG left Guyana with the idea that once you completed your service, the experience stays with you. We hope that you will join us on our mission to maintain our connection with fellow RPCVs, Guyana and its people. Below you will find more information about FROG and how you can join us!

Friends and RPCVs of Guyana (FROG)

In 2007, several Guyana RPCVs joined together to form a non-profit organization that connected former RPCVs with each other, with the greater development community and with new opportunities. Most importantly, we wanted to build on the work we did while Volunteers and continue helping Guyana – a country we love.

Currently, we at FROG are busy developing our infrastructure, gathering new members, fund-raising and developing a strategic plan. If you are interested in staying connected with fellow Guyana RPCVs, participating in Third Goal activities and supporting development projects, please join us! However, as a new non-profit, we are finding our way and learning as we grow. Bear with us, and please, feel free to contact us (support@guyfrog.org) with ideas, help requests, etc. That is why we’re here! Also, check out our new website at http://guyfrog.org!

How to Join

There are three easy ways to join Friends and RPCVs of Guyana!

1. Go to http://www.change.org/frog and click JOIN

2. Join through the National Peace Corps Association. Their membership includes a subscription to WorldView, NPCANews, and discounts on auto insurance, rental cars and more!

1. Go to www.rpcv.org
2. Click on Join/Renew.  
3. Follow their 3 step instructions for signing up with the NPCA.
4. Select Guyana as your Country of Service group!

3. Join us on FaceBook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Guyana_RPCVs/573529771

If you have any questions about FROG, want to keep up-to-date with FROG happenings or would like to get involved…please feel free to contact us at support@guyfrog.org and on our website at http://guyfrog.org!  

Plans are underway for our second annual weekend of FROG events in New York City this July. Join FROG through one of the methods listed above to get the latest details for those events! We hope to see you in July!

Sincerely,

FROG Board of Directors

Timothy Delaney, GUY 12 – President

Michael Geurink, GUY 13 – Vice President

Peter Theis, GUY 10 – Treasurer

Eric Terpstra, GUY 14 – Secretary

Scott Stadum, GUY 12 – Web Committee Chair

Cabul Mehta, GUY 13 – Board Member

Guyana RPCV, Brian Reeves, can be seen in a close-up of the upcoming movie “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” He’s actually the second Guyana RPCV that I’m aware of that has been in a movie. A former PC Suriname staff member has actually won an Oscar for his work in an animation during the 70’s.

Cool stuff, who knew we has such famous RPCVs?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yBhl1_eTPM

From the NPCA:

The National Peace Corps Association is seeking photos of returned Peace Corps volunteers for possible use in in our print and online communication materials.

We’re looking for great photos that capture the diversity and essence of the Peace Corps experience….that show volunteers “in action” both overseas and in their “life after Peace Corps” as they continue to serve by carrying out the Third Goal.

Email photos to me at news@rpcv.org. Please put “NPCA Photo” in the subject line and provide your name, permission to use, and explanatory information about the photo (when and where taken, etc.). High resolution photos taken at closer range work best.

Please let others in your Peace Corps networks know.

(via papercuts.blogs.nytimes.com)

In 1949, a group of concerned women in Darien, Connecticut knew that Americans were throwing away large quantities of books and magazines and that there was a need for all types of reading materials worldwide. These women began collecting used books and magazines to ship overseas in huge cartons, funded largely by the U.S. Army and the State Department. Thus, Darien Book Aid Plan began. …Darien Book Aid Plan’s mission remains the same as it was in the beginning — to build a foundation of peace, understanding and friendship by the free distribution of books to schools and institutions in the USA and around the world.

“I was a recipient of books from Darien BookAid Plan as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Wakapoa, Guyana. When I returned from Guyana to Connecticut I volunteered there and continue to do so when I am in the area. It is a wonderful organization and the books make a world of difference to so many communities where Peace Corps Volunteers serve.”— Posted by a Guyana RPCV

Interesting article in the Economist on growning violence in the Caribbean, check it out.

For more info on CARIFESTA (August 22 to 31, 2008), take a look here.

(via travel.timesonline.co.uk)

Before I discovered Guyana, flying over jungle countries used to depress the hell out of me. It’s always fine while you’re actually on the ground, tunnelling among the lush green caverns of the forest floor.

Down there, you can never experience more than the explosion of life, the sensory overload, which is evident within a few metres of you.

Watching a giant morpho butterfly flitting in the dappled sunlight like an electric-blue handkerchief; being hosed down with wee by a churlish howler monkey; happening across a tiny frog carrying its tadpoles to a bijou pond in a treetop flower… these countless small miracles wrap you up in the wonder of the jungle, and it’s easy to convince yourself that everything is well with the world.

Get yourself up in a flying machine, though, and it’s a different story. Now, you can see the wider truth – that some of the most famous and important jungle reserves in the world are actually smaller than an average-sized city.

Their dwindling islands of forest are surrounded by fields, plantations or burnt and barren land, and logging roads penetrate deep into their recesses. Guyana is very different from that, however. A nation the size of Great Britain, its rainforest remains 85% untouched, and you can fly for several hours and see no roads at all, only rivers, glaring up like serpentine mirrors as the sun flashes across them.

Forest, forest, forest, in every direction, and not a sign of the country’s 750,000 people – because they mostly live in and around the drowsy coastal capital of Georgetown.

I’ve spent nearly two years of my life in rainforests, including time on every continent that has them, but I’ve never experienced one so benign as this – so free from plants that want to rip your clothes off, bugs that want to eat you and tropical diseases that make you spend your entire stay hovering over a long-drop toilet.

That said, I did get bitten by a vampire bat, stung by a bullet ant and shocked by a 200-volt electric eel. But it was still heaven.

For Guyana’s lucky few visitors, the excursion into rainforest paradise usually begins on the Upper Essequibo River, at the Iwokrama reservation, just a few hours south of Georgetown. There is an international conservation centre here, with a gaggle of tourist lodges, and its river journeys offer world-beating opportunities to see jaguars, primates and giant 20ft anacondas.

I received this from the folks at culturecrossing.net

Hope you are well. I just came across your blog on Guyana. Great stuff! I am writing to you because my partner and I are launching a website that will be populated with cross-cultural information about every country in the world. We will be looking to the web community to help do this with all the information being available for free. I was wondering if you may be able to help us out with the Guyana pages. We would love your input. Let me know if you would be open to this and I’ll send along a brief questionnaire. Please also feel free to check out the website, become a member (it’s free!) and add to the guide.

culture-crossing-questionnaire.doc