A Beginner's Guide: Speaking Guyanese

So here we are in our last month of being in Guyana. Where has the time gone?! We arrive home on the Tuesday before our convention, so we look forward to seeing you all there and catching up with you all. We hope the campaign is going well for you! Day one of our campaign consisted of a full on thunder storm so we weren't able to get out.

We realised shortly after coming to Guyana that coming to an English speaking country doesn't necessarily mean speaking English as we know it! We started off not getting much of what people say, as their accent is strong and they talk so quickly, but we are becoming better at it now! We are almost there now with speaking fluent Guyanese.  Here are a few examples....

Don't be fooled by the words 'just now' they are not quite of the same meaning as we are used to. So

if we are to hear the words 'just now' we expect to see the fulfilment of those words straight away,
right? Like if you ask for a bag of flour and somebody says 'I will get it for you just now', we expect
to have the bag of flour in our hands right away. Not so in Guyana, we can replace the words 'just
now', for 'in a while' or 'later on'. For example when asking how far away we were from a place, the reply was 'just now', on becoming Guyana savvy we questioned the answer further, it turns out our destination was over an hour away!

'Me no see she' .... A Guyanese alternative to 'I haven't seen her!'

We don't use 'him' or 'her' over here, instead 'he' and 'she' are used.

E.g. 'She got some bread for him' would be 'She got some bread for he'

Confusing eh?

Colewego (coh-leh-we-go)

This basically means 'come on, let's go!' It is often said very fast!

'Gaffing' is another word for talking. We all like to have a good old gaff don't we! We find that a lot of people use 'and so' at the end of their sentences too, which we quite enjoy and are trying to use ourselves.

So if a person is slightly overweight, they have no problem with labelling him fat. They are no longer

 called by their name, but nicknamed 'fat boy' or 'white girl'', depending on what feature stands out the most! They also like to ask us if we've ever been fat. After we had come back from our holiday in Baganara, we were labelled 'robust'....which we are going to take as a compliment! 

Unfortunately, the name 'fat boy' sticks for life, until you lose a bit of weight. Then you are 'fiiiiiiiiiine boy!' which means skinny! 

Also, when you ask how someone is, many people reply 'trying, trying' which to us means 'I'm alright thanks'. 

So we've mentioned in some of our previous blogs a bit about the special pioneer couple in our hall, 

David and Gilly. They have a wealth of experience, they have been all over the country as circuit overseers, taking pioneer schools, head of construction and chairman for the conventions etc etc, so as you can imagine, we are eager to learn from them! 

We went round to their house for tea the other night, and had a brilliant time hearing some of their amazing stories- one of which we'd like to share with you. . . 

So before they were married Sister Gilly served as a pioneer in the deep interior of Guyana,a place called Baramita, which is extremely remote with very basic living conditions. This is a picture of her in the home made shower that the brothers made for her. Notice the big smile on her face that is never missing! 

This is the kind of territory they were used to doing. Brother David came as the circuit overseer to Baramita, and that's where he met Sister Gilly, living on her own in the jungle conducting 120 studies. She lived in a home very similar to the one on this picture. So no walls, no door, no bedroom. She slept in the kitchen...the same place that the meetings were conducted at. Brother David always took a box of dry snacks on his visits because some of the food deep into the jungle was not good, let's just say!

Many times, the brothers would cook bush meat for him, but before eating, 'they had to remove the rank from the meat because it was so bad'. Needless to say it wasn't pleasant. They said that the joy far outweighed any of the challenges however.

Before Sister Gilly arrived at Baramita, the tribe had no English, no clothes, no civilisation basically. This amazing sister, with Jehovah's help, civilised the whole tribe, making clothes for them,  teaching them how to speak, read and write English, learning their language herself, and then teaching them the truth. She used to hold language classes. She even staying up late at night to translate the literature into their mother tongue with a native girl's help. 

This is Brother David giving the co talk.

Here is Sister Gilly on the way to Baramita. On that little boat, she had her bed, her food and her clothes...her essentials ready for the jungle. She spent three and a half years there, some of the hardest but best times of her life. At one point, she lived on bitter greens (karela...which is this gross stuff we drink pounded up with water for parasite prevention) and she used to collect the very tiny bit of rain water on a piece of tin on her roof and tilt it, so that it slowly dripped into her cup, providing the only water she would drink for that day. How she managed to live over three years in those conditions comes down only to Jehovah! She has brought well over 40 people into the truth over her time. She is the most amazing story teller and often has us absolutely captivated.

They have now been in Charity for about 9 months, and their zeal and love for Jehovah and the brothers continues to shine! They are forever hard working despite some severe health problems. It has been such a joy to work along with them and learn from them. Sometimes we literally take out 

our notebook just so we don't forget everything they say.

We also recommend that you go in the 2005 yearbook which is about Guyana, and check out Brother Frederick McAlman's life story. He is a stalwart elder in our hall who is just brilliant. 

We hope you've enjoyed reading a few of the experiences as much as we have enjoyed listening to them. It really is an eye opener to see the lengths brothers and sisters go in order to spread the good news throughout Guyana!