Home again--a brief review of the last week in Guyana

The tragedy in Guyana, for me, painted the 2nd week for us working in Charity.

(The MV Barima tragedy occurred on July 18, when the passenger and cargo vessel capsized and sank off the coast of Guyana)

Because Charity was the closest port, the survivors were brought into the hospitals along the Essequibo coast, starting in Charity's hospital. Later, the bodies were brought as well as the families coming to identify them. My teaching partner (co-facilitator) Munirah is a lieutenant in the army reserve and was required to support people coming in to identify bodies and to go out to sea, scanning the ocean to find bodies in the area. As I write this, there are still people missing. Munirah's experience, as she told it to me, was so, so, sad for the families that came. So many children.

We became part of the community because we were there. While normally we would have a "Canada-Guyana Night" (cultural exchange with the participants in the program), this was moved to Friday morning as part of the closing ceremonies. On Thursday night we participated in a walking vigil, hosted by the Community Police of Guyana, Charity division. On this vigil, we met and shook hands with the President of Guyana who stopped briefly for a photo op. We learned quickly that the tragedy was a political issue for most of the people we met in Guyana. Our Coretta McDonald who is the president of the Guyana Teacher's Union is also a member of Parliament (for the opposition) and was angry as well as sad, expressed in her speech at the closing ceremonies, and with her fellow parliamentarians on Monday. The captain and two crew members have been charged with murder.

Parliamentary response (youtube) charges in the tragedy

It's so very sad.

The day before we left Guyana, we visited the famous Kaieteur Falls, the world's largest singe-drop waterfall by volume, located in the Amazon rainforest of west-central Guyana. We got there by a teeny, 12 person airplane and walked to three "viewing" spots in Kaieteur National Park with a guide named Sebastian. This beautiful untouched space, amidst acres upon acres of untouched rainforest and "tabletop" mountains was an uplifting and beautiful way to end our trip to Guyana. ❤

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