65 days and counting! Well at least that was what it was when I first started to write… it would seem to some like I am wishing away my last few days and weeks in Guyana and to some extent I guess I am…there is a reason that VSO facilitates two year placements. In hindsight I now fully understand that it needs to be this length of time, so that you can acclimatise to all of the new experiences and expectations of a new country, job and culture. It is only when you have acclimatised that you can start to make a realistic, relevant and valued contribution. That said, two years is equally about the time when most of us start to really miss home and want to enjoy again some of the luxuries that we left behind; and I for one have no apologies about that. Over the last few months I have received a number of emails from perspective volunteers who are considering coming to Guyana…my more recent “summary statement” is as follows; "I have no regrets about coming to Guyana and doing VSO but I am now ready to go home!” It is very difficult to advise someone about their decision to leave home and come and work in a country that is usually very different from their own. I have made a promise to myself to try and stay objective when talking to people who are trying to make such decisions. It really needs to be the person themselves who makes the decision and if you need another volunteer to persuade you or to give you reasons to come then you probably should consider doing something else. It is definitely not easy and in truth it is not always the idealistic experience that some people might have about volunteering in a developing country. That said, I do believe those who make the decision to do VSO and see the experience through to the best of their abilities will be more fulfilled as a result…and as I say “have no real regrets”.

So as for me, how have I been occupying my last few weeks? Well, I had the notion that maybe it would be time to slow things down a little in preparation for my leaving but as usual things just didn’t seem to work out that way! The beginning of June was mainly about preparations for rehabilitation week. I made a few regional visits to various departments to support them in preparing presentations for our professional summit and putting together leaflet sets for awareness raising activities.

One visit took me to Berbice (region # 5/6) with Michelle, where we faciliated a workshop about the assessment kits that were developed with the aid of the VSO ABLE project. Each of the four departments received a bag to aid the work they do during outreach visits.




I have also visited again Cheshire Home and with Michelle did an educational session on running group activities for persons with disabilities. Finally, I got again to visit the teacher training college where another VSO has been working, to talk to student teachers about Speech and Language Therapy and disorders, with the aim that when they eventually graduate they will be more able to recognise children needing extra support and in some cases refer them onto rehabilitation services.

We had a really nice activity at one of the special schools last month. Sometime last year the parents and teachers decided that they wanted to prioritise our services and therefore applied for a school improvement grant to build a purpose built room for rehabilitation. We had a lovely open morning with speeches, songs and dances and the grand cutting of the ribbon. It was such a great example of how some of the service users are really valuing the work being delivered by the people that I have been helping to train and support.





The all important rehabilitation week ran from 21st – 27th June. I decided that I wanted to support some of the regional activities for the first part of the week so went to Suddie, which is in region #2. The staff there did two screening activities and managed to see 110 children and screened them for both hearing and speech and language problems. As a result around 42 children were identified as needing further input.



Back in Georgetown we saw our infomercial being aired daily on the TV, with two of our patients receiving therapy from rehabilitation assistants and yours truly doing the voice over! The add was really good except the same yours truly gave out the wrong telephone number to the station to put out after the add had aired…never mind it was rectified mid week!

Thursday and Friday we had our first professional rehab summit…which was a great success; we had presentation from all of the regions about their years activities. All of the presentations also included their “funniest moments”…these ranged from patients having to put up umbrellas inside departments when receiving therapy, rats eating out clinical notes, and finding worms in ears (not so funny if you ask me!) anyway a few laughs were had and other reminders were noted about how relatively lucky we are to enjoy the services and resources we have back home. I also got the opportunity to talk to staff about Autism in Guyana, which is something I have been really pushing since I arrived.




Rehabilitation week concluded with the ‘night of elegance’. A good night out where we all got the opportunity to dress up and relax after the weeks events. We also had a reward ceremony to recognise the achievements of the rehabilitation staff. VSO got a corporate award in recognition of the support they have given to rehabilitation services over the years…a nice touch, although unfortunately the award plate was actually made out to VOS! - you know what they say? “it is Guyana!”






The last week or so has been all about the paper work; 2010 budgets are now due and reminders are frequent about putting in requests and activity plans. As I mentioned before I thought that I would be ‘calming down’ at the same time as ‘counting down’ but I seem to have committed myself to a final strong wind…a few last visits, workshops and setting up a several more quotations for some last minute resources. All being well a new therapist will be arriving in August and then another soon after, all my plans are now being made with that firmly in mind. I hope that they will arrive and feel that they have the opportunity to now take the service in the direction that they seem fit…as for now my time is done! Obviously with a certain wedding pending to a certain man not so far away, Guyana will now always be a second home so I hope that I can continue to play a small supporting role from time to time…if only as smuggler of Velcro and stickers!

Anyway, for now it is bye again. Will there be another entry from Guyana? We will see, you may just have to wait until the next big event, which will be in Barbados late September…68 days away x