This week was the observation of two religious holidays in Guyana, Youman Nabi (Muslim) and Phagwah (Hindu). I celebrated Phagwah with another volunteer’s host family. Phagwah is a Hindu celebration of rebirth and spring where water is thrown on people and then they are covered in various colored powder. “Playing Phagwah” as they say is great fun, but quite a mess too! I scrubbed in the shower over and over and I am still stained orange, kinda like a fake tan! Early in the morning I went for a run and a family and group of young boys having parade, yelling and banging pots and pans, got me! They dumped buckets of water over my head before I could successfully save my ipod (don’t worry, it dried out). Then hey rubbed pink and red powder all over my face and kissed me saying “Happy Phagwah!” Then I had to run through the next village and home all phagwahed! My family laughed at me when I returned home!


On Tuesday a large group of Volunteers, families, and Peace Corps staff went to Lake Mainstay to swim in the black water. The water is actually very clean and the color of Coca-cola. The vegetation releases tannins into the water making it a dark reddish-black color and very good for you skin. It was very cool. My host mom came along with a few other moms from my village. They packed great food for us and we had a picnic. We had chicken curry with dhol pori (which is like roti- an amazing Indian flat bread but made with split peas too), channa (chickpeas cooked with onion, garlic and spices), Guyanese baked mac and cheese, chowmein (similar to Chinese), and bora (Guyanese string beans- like ours but skinny and really long!). My mom taught us how to play some games. We had a human tug-o-war (no rope) match and the girls beat the guys! HA-HA! We also played bog and bone, which is similar to steal the bacon. It was a nice day away from training that’s for sure!!!