Guest Post From My Mom: Arrival in Guyana

After about 24 hours of travel (Chicago to LaGuardia and wait, shuttle to JFK and wait, long and stormy flight to Trinidad and wait), I finally crossed the tarmac at Cheddi Jagan Airport in Guyana to wait some more in the immigration line.

"Where are you staying?"
"I don't know. With my son in a hotel in Georgetown."
"Where does he live in Guyana?"
"I don't know. It's a small village." "What will you be doing here?"
"I don't know. Following him around, I guess. He is in the Peace Corps."

At that, my interrogator gave up and passed me through. Grabbing my bag, I emerged to see David's smiling face. He still gives the best hugs!

"Are you hungry, Mom?" Surprised, I realized I was. The "dinner" on Caribbean Airlines was a distant memory. "Let's go see my sister."

The airport in Timehri is a hopping place even in the wee hours. Music blared from car speakers as we walked around the terminal building to a curry shack where David's host sister works. Dusting flour off her fingers, Sherry hugged me, the traditional Guyanese greeting, and I sat down to a big plate of rice, a bowl of chicken curry and a spoon. "Watch out for the bones," David advised. I was to learn that in Guyanese curries and stews, the chicken is chopped, bones and all, before cooking. The marrow adds flavor and nutrition, but be careful for those bits of broken bone. Sherry then brought me an "egg ball:" a traditional version of Scotch egg with starchy cassava in place of sausage and coated in orange food coloring.

Pleasantly full and fading fast, I followed David to where our driver waited. The route into Georgetown, about 25 miles north, is mostly a two-lane paved road along the Demarara River (which you cannot see at night). We passed the stadium, the Princess Hotel complex, several mandirs (Hindu temples), the El Dorado rum distillery, the Banks brewery, and other industrial and commercial buildings gradually changing to a more grid-like pattern of city streets and sidewalks.

The Status Hotel, on Croal Street in Georgetown's Stabroek section, is where David usually stays while "in town" on Peace Corps business. The night clerk greeted him familiarly and handed him our room key. David flicked on the air conditioning and ceiling fan as I washed and changed. Within minutes, I was fast asleep.