Welcome Home

I sit here collecting my thoughts like rain as real puddles form by feet, after splashing off my new Milwaukee brewers umbrella.(courtesy of my amazing brother) Three full weeks of happiness at home with people, food and places I love.

Leaving Guyana after 11 months to escape to Wisconsin for a little holiday I went wild!. Wild over luxuries. Indulgence. Lavishness. Guilty pleasure. Slighty spoiled. Culture shock.

Hot shower. Hot bath. My skin gets tingly with the first splash of hot water. I still cant stop the military shower style.

Burger Kind restaurant in the airport, Starbucks, Beef Burgers. I do a double take.I I can’t decide. I just stand in front and stare.I had the lady behind the counter (Shanique) decide.

Im noticing names, I didnt flush when i peed and was greeted with a "EWW gross", what happend to if its yellow let it mellow...guess mellow yellow is just a drink in this country.

Magazines. Entertainment, sports, world news. Fashion and more. Sidewalks. Sleeping. No mosquito net. Cold weather..first time not sweating in months. I sleep under two blankets. I sleep with a sweater on and biggie laying across my body. I missed the heaviness and comfort of being wrapped up.

Basketball. Dancing with the Stars. NBC News. Modern television. I flick and flick and flick.Clean streets. No garbage. Garbage cans. Recycling. People respect the environment.

I keep checking the ground for animal poo. Cow, sheep, dog. I can walk anywhere and poo is nowhere.

White people. I have never seen so many in months.
Food indulgence.

I decide that this is hard. To adjust and be around things that you’ve been without. To get used to something old that feels brand new again. To have a choice and options. Unable to make a decision. To just sit and stare at something because you have no idea what else to do.

Luxuries. My return to the states and lavishness and guilty pleasures and everything that was normal. I wonder what will feel normal again.

Whoopi Goldberg once said, “I’ve strayed so far from normal now, I’ll never find my way back. And the truth is I no longer want to.”


My normal has changed.


I now open my eyes again to the world that somehow feels like home too.

Back to Guyana I went. after a minor-ish confusion at the airport which left my goodbyes to family and friends a bit brief and emotional. The last few hugs from my parents are still embraced into my memory so tight i can feel them anytime I want. I guess thats the luck I have from being given such a wonderful family. Oh where would I be without them I thought as I boarded my flight. Where would I would I be without this Wisconsin state to call my home.
As much as my home and Wisconsin has shaped me, Guyana is pushing those boundaries of ability, dreams, realities, emotions for me.

I got back to my Guyana on a Sunday Morning. The air is so thick that the first thing you do when you get off the plane is swallow it in to welcome it, and make it know you are its friend, not foe. Sweat beads form and I grab my luggage from the piled bags..weaving in and out with 100 lbs of "necessary" items and take a 3 hour taxi back to a hot mess apartment.
Apparently when I was away my landlady decided to rent my place out to....who knows? but I returned to mess, things broken, stolen,misplaced etc. Oh life! What can you do?

I have been cleaning for 4 days straight and I finally feel out of the whirlwind that was this past month of emotions.

Im diving into bigger projects(writing for the newspaper? a community wide parent/child idea, and I even got a phone call from the teaching college wanting me to teach?) Me= Professor?!(please roll your tongue when you say this)

Life is too short to not indulge in all your life dreams at once.

Peace, Love and The New Year!

ooooode to pumping water

Water is essential to living!....being healthy!....and being CLEAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(which not gonna lie, I haven't been lately....=attractive, i know.

Where I live I pay 500 Guyanese dollars for water each month($2.50 US)
I have a huge black water tank which I pump the water into from the city water lines once every 3 weeks or so. I have to hook up the pipes to the pump, which is OH so fun!! and then flip a few switches to make sure it is pumping into my tank and not my neighbors.
The city water lines are on from 6-8 or 9ish in the morning, and from 6-9 ish at night so those are the time I can pump it. It takes about 2 hours to fill my tank, and depending on my schedule , I usually don’t have enough time to fill it all the way and because it is up so high, I can never see how full it actually is.
Well last Tuesday i pumped for an hour and a half and just assumed it was pretty full.

Lesson learned: Never make assumptions.



It's never good to find that out on a Saturday afternoon at 12 after you just get done working out…thirsty and dirrrtyy...i've never felt so attractive in my life


oh and did I mention that sometimes this water just doesn’t come on? Yeah not so good to find that out on that Saturday evening…...


:) gotta love the simple things in life....i know i'll never take running water in my house for granted ever again.



Peace Love and Running Water!(and the ability to be clean!!!)