Georgetown 
Well Georgetown is the capital of Guyana with a population of 400,000.
It has some beautiful buildings - the standout being Georgetown
Cathedral - the highest wooden building in the world. There are
many fires that strike some of these down though, often related
to political unrest around election time.
It is also criss-crossed by a wide array of trenches which
were put there by the Dutch. No not just because the Dutch loved
building trenches 200 years ago, but an elaborate system to help
ensure the rain water is shoved out to sea at low tide. The city is,
after all, below sea level.
Click here to learn more about that.
In My House...
I live in Georgetown in a house. I shared with my 600 pet
cockroaches - unfortunatley they lacked the close-harmony singing
as exhibited in Joe's Apartment. Mostly it was OK, but on occasion
they have tried to molest me in the shower. They remind me
of my old Uni housemates who used to get up in the middle of
the nights to nick my food. Remembering how bad that was, I
got lots of cans of Baygon in and destroyed them.
I had an assortment of pet rats, but I poisoned them. I do not
miss them, and have no tears to shed. Please note: I do not poison
all visitors.
In fact, there is something moving into my house that could
be potentially worse than a rat....another VSO!!!! Who knows where
it will all end? I'll tell you where - with him moving out after
two weeks. I didn't think I was that bad to live with.
Facilities
For a general VSO house, I've got something
quite well equipped - a TV, electricity, running water and an internet connection.
The only thing it really lacks is hot
water and a bathtub. Giving up all
the luxuries of the England lifestyle to work in the
Third World for Peanuts just ain't what it used to be. ;-)
VSO's who live out of the
main cities tend not to have the same luxuries, and when they
do get them, forget how to use them. The VSO in Lethem,
in the South of the country did get electricity in his house
after a year of going without. He celebrated by plugging hiw 110v
cassette player into the 220v socket, blowing it up.
They do experiance a closer-to-nature lifestyle.
It is great to escape the city and get to the local creeks. But more on them later.
Outside My House...
Georgetown has 15,000 stray dogs. They are usually quiet
unless you are trying to sleep. Initially it was a problem
but I got used to it. Street dogs here are terrified of
people and will usually run off if you approach them. They
are in a pretty poor state - fur diseased or missing from
fights, hunger sometimes forcing them to eat fresh heaps of shit left by passing cows.
The worst possible state for one of these dogs to be in
is dead. Bodies tend to be left by roadsides in the main roads
leading out of town. These are roads I cycle to the
University with, and the dead dogs are roadkill. It's
an interesting lesson in the stages of decomposition - in
general the body lies on the road for two weeks before:
it is cleared up by someone
it is so flattened into the road by passing vehicles that
it is impossible to move it.
The dogs that die in town are cleared up quite quickly. I don't
know it this is done by municipal workers or owners of
Georgetown's many Chinese resturants.
A dog takes some rest on the driveway outside my
house before a hard nights barking
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