Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Living at the Namilco Compound


In early February we moved to the brand new Namilco building in a large compound in the commercial zone of Lethem.

Namilco stands for the National Milling Company of Guyana.  Namilco brings in wheat from the US and mills it into flour and other wheat products.  The milling is done at its facilities near Georgetown on the coast of Guyana, and the products are sold all over the country.  Recently, the company has begun to sell flour to Brazil.  Trucks loaded with up to 550 45kg sacks of flour grind along the trail from Georgetown to Lethem, where the sacks are unloaded into a bond (storage warehouse).  Then, even bigger trucks arrive from Brazil and carry 1100 sacks of flour off to Boa Vista.  The loading and unloading is done manually – that is, men carry the sacks on their heads or shoulders.

Dayan’s job as manager of the Lethem Branch involves maintaining the bond, promoting and selling the products locally, supervising the loading and unloading of trucks, and doing paperwork and liaising with the Brazilian buyer, the customs officials, and of course head office in Georgetown.

  View from the road.  The left-hand half of the top floor is our apartment.
Note green septic tank below, with overflow emptying directly to an open drain.  Hmmm.
 

 Guyanese truck unloading into the bond.

 Brazilian truck being loaded (note the two extra supervisors on top).

 Bond full of flour bags.

 Typical Guyanese small truck.  Hardy for the rough trail.
Driver catching a rest in the shade!

 Typical Brazilian truck - huge and designed for proper roads,
which Brazil has and Guyana hasn't.

 Hammocks slung in the bond. Nap time for driver and porter!

The bonus about this job is that above the bond is a two-bedroom apartment – the manager’s quarters.  It was so new when we moved in that I had to clean construction debris out of the bathroom and bedrooms, and Dayan had to arrange for a few last-minute finishing off jobs to be done, like getting the water tanks operational, and fixing up the hash job done by the contractor who installed the metal grills over the windows.  I managed to get an extra light installed in the open-plan kitchen/dining/living area, since the existing fluorescent tube was inadequate.  It was also urgently necessary to install some plastic lattice to make the balcony railings less of a death hazard, which were so sparse a large adult could easily slip through, let alone a child.  How the designer thought that smooth tiles (slippery when wet) would be a good combination with a skimpy metal railing on the balcony, which is four to five meters above the ground, I do not know.
 
Balcony railings, pre-lattice.

View to the south from the balcony, post-lattice.
 
Some of the finishing details of the construction appeared to be rather sloppy by New Zealand standards, however the overall effect seemed totally luxurious to us:  tile floors, freshly painted walls, running water, a flushing toilet, insect mesh on the windows, and even a fridge and a gas-fired stove.

Initially the only furniture we had was beds and two plastic chairs.  This state of affairs lasted rather too long, but eventually our solid-wood locally-made furniture began to arrive.  We now have a desk, some shelves and a dining table, which has made life much more comfortable!  More furniture is on the waiting list.

 Open plan living/dining/kitchen.




Curiously, the bathroom was designed with no windows and no ventilation.  This seems crazy to me, but I have discovered that totally enclosed bathrooms are quite common in Guyana and Brazil, even in engineer or architect-designed houses.  (What are they thinking?  Perhaps they’re assuming there will be a housemaid or a housewife to wipe down every surface every day).  Of course, this silly design was disastrous for the MDF cupboards under the sink.  No natural light + humidity and moisture + no air flow + leaky plumbing due to another hash job = mould heaven.  My handyman husband has re-done the sink plumbing and banished the leak, and drilled some vent holes in the ceiling to allow the warm damp air to flow out via the roof space.  The brand new MDF cupboards will never be quite the same again, but that’s a typical lesson for building in the tropics.  Make sure your bathroom has good ventilation, and supervise your plumber carefully.  Oh, and don’t bother with MDF if you can help it.

The kitchen bench and sink were designed at a height perfect for a seven year old.  Rather hard on the old back if there is a large pile of dishes to wash.  I could just about kneel down to do the dishes (‘washing the wares’ in Guyanese-speak).  Or better still, get my seven year old to do them.

 Kitchen corner (sink just out of shot under the window).

Despite our attempts to keep food appropriately contained, ants always want to live in close proximity to us.  They have found ways into the fridge.  They go into the oven.  They have made nests in the electric kettle, the printer (no longer functioning as a result), in the calculator, in and under books, under tins or jars, and in many various spots around the house.  A common cry is ‘Ants’ nest!’  Every day or two we discover a nest and clean it out.  They just start another nest nearby.  On some remarkable days we found four or five nests.  We know we have only a small window of opportunity to leave food unattended before it will be overrun.  Luckily, the two types of ants we have in our house do not seem to be the biting kind.  The little red ones are annoying, the crazy black ones are annoying too, and both are ticklish when they are crawling up your arm.  But we are learning to co-exist with them, since excluding them is out of the question.  With Kalen being three years old, this learning is often ‘the hard way’, as he has a tendency to leave the sugar lid off, and forgets to close food containers properly.  And then the ants have a huge party.

There is one upside to the resident ants.  They clean up messes on the floor, and remove dead insects.  On one occasion I found a small scorpion in the kitchen (yes, a scorpion in the kitchen) and squashed it.  I couldn’t immediately bring myself to touch it to get rid of it, so I just left it on the edge of the bench.  Within a short time, ants had dismembered it and carried the carcass entirely away.

We have a deep drilled well from which water is pumped into two tanks for our water supply.  I presume the water is naturally rock-filtered as it is deliciously pure – unlike the town supply which is only supplied to some parts of the town for certain hours of the day, and tastes awful – so we consider ourselves very lucky.  We use it straight from the tap.

The manager’s apartment comes with some nice bonuses.  No rent to pay, no power bill to pay, no internet bill to pay.  No commute at all for Dayan.  And, one of the best features of all; the balcony, which runs the length of the top floor.  The compound is beautifully situated a full block back from the main road in an area where the neighbouring plots are mostly undeveloped (although there is a small mall being built next door).  The back boundary of the compound directly abuts the buffer zone along the airstrip.  So from our lofty, breezy balcony, we have a commanding view of the airstrip, and beyond that the new housing scheme of Culvert City, which is still mostly bare savannah; and beyond that the open savannah and the glorious Kanuku Mountains.

Aah, the Kanukus!  The most bio-diverse area on earth, I’m told.  The sight of these mountains make me feel completely at home, as they remind me of my beloved Pouakai and Kaitake ranges.  They are a balm to the eyes and an ever-changing work of art of nature.  I especially love to watch them at dusk, when from minute to minute they change from hues of blue and purple to orange, pink or violet.  During the rainy season they are often decorated with rainbows and fanciful cloud formations.  Recently, we saw the ‘once in a blue moon’ rise from behind the ranges, full, fat and fiery.

 A view from the balcony showing half of the ranges.

 Rain on the savannah.

 One end of a rainbow.

 A plane taking off almost in our back yard.

 A small but bright rainbow over Moco Moco.