My Son, Joseph.

What can I really tell you about my son, Joseph? Joey is a real pain in the ass, to be honest.

Aderi and Joseph. (Joey is the one with his hands on his hips)

Hey, I’m only telling the truth, he is a pain in the ass, but to his credit, he is a pain because of all of the things that make him so unique and fun, and I wouldn’t change one thing about him.

Joseph Tyler Nobles was born on September the 10th, two thousand and something (I think 8 or 6 years ago). I was actually in the room for his birth, unlike his sister’s when I was outside of the hospital smoking cigarettes like a fiend while my wife was in the pangs of labor. Nope, for Joey’s birth, I was right there the whole time and watched everything (I still can’t get some of those images out of my mind!). I even cut the umbilical cord with a little pair of scissors, that was super gross! When I finally got to get a good look at him, I noticed that he was really ugly. I don’t mean to sound like a bad father, but it’s true, you can ask his grandparents, he was really ugly. I’m an extremely handsome man, and my wife is kind of hot (when she’s not giving birth to children) so I thought that he shouldn’t look so gross. Then the nurse said that lots of babies are really ugly when they are born, even ones with really good looking Dads, and that sometimes they grow out of it by the time they turn 20 or 9, but sometimes they stay ugly forever. As you can see from the above picture, Joey grew out of his hideousness well before the age of 20, and is even quite handsome. I was very relieved when I realized that although ugly, Joey was healthy and fit in every other way. Well, almost every other way, his head was flat on one corner. The doctor said that happens because of the pressure change from coming out of his mother’s va…womb (Kind of like if an astronaut fell out of the space shuttle without his spacesuit on…only to a different degree). The doctor said that the head thing should clear up sometime and if it didn’t they could strap on an old bicycle helmet and put some screws in it to make it squeeze his head round like it should be.

Well hey, it’s been almost 8 years since he was born and Joey (while his head is still flat on one corner) has become one of our two favorite children. Joey is very social, he loves people especially strangers! He can almost always get them to give him candy or rides in their vehicles! Joey is also very entertaining, he tells great stories and can keep any group of adults or children laughing for hours. Joey is left-handed which I am embarrassed about, because left-handed people are statistically more likely to cannibalize others after a major accident which has left them stranded without any non-human food.

"Left handed people are 10 times more likely to become pirates than right handed people." -Vin Diesel

Seriously though, Joey is amazing in so many new ways each day, that I cannot keep up with them. He has a gift for looking through what people say and recognizing what their real motives are, he has a gift for enjoying every moment out of life. Joey is a musical little boy, he is a dancer and a singer. He isn’t embarrassed to dance in front of people (although if you ask him to do it, he may charge you for it!) and he sings his favorite songs out loud anytime he feels like it. Joey is a care free and beautiful spirit, one of those few beautiful blessed souls who can reach inside your own soul and touch it without even trying. Joey is emotionally strong and intellectually gifted, he has a mind for mathematics and a penchant for art. Despite all of his gifts, though, Joey at the age of 8, still can’t read. After 4 years of school, tireless practicing with his teachers and with his parents, Joey still can’t grasp the concepts of letters corresponding to sounds. Here in Guyana, we don’t have access to any support for dyslexia, we cannot even have him properly diagnosed for the disorder. What we can do, though, is let him know that he is OK, that he is smart, and that he has so many other gifts that he shouldn’t feel bad that he can’t quite get the reading thing down just yet. We still work with him everyday, but not to the point of his frustration, it simply isn’t worth making him feel bad about himself. We had pressured him to learn to read and to “stop being lazy” for so long that it had made him feel stupid and lazy when, in fact, he was trying his best the whole time and is as far from stupid as any little boy can be.

Joseph has a birthday coming up on Saturday and we are going to do something big for him this year, I’m thinking stripper!

Do you think strippers are age appropriate for 8 year old boys (not to own, just for the birthday party itself)? Please comment!

My Home was Broken Into And Burglarized

I haven’t been able to post for the past couple of days because we have been dealing with several very important issues at home lately. One of the biggest has been getting the kids ready for the start of school yesterday.

Aderi (9) and Joey (almost 8), like all other Guyanese students, began their new school term yesterday.  Uniforms are the way of the public school system here, and you don’t go to the store and buy one, you go buy the material and make it yourself (or in our case, pay someone who can sew to make it for you). We waited until the last minute to find someone to make the uniforms, but they were completed in time and looked very good. Next order was to buy notebooks and pencils and backpacks and all of the other necessities of school-going. The schools here don’t use textbooks, the teachers just have a basic outline of what they should teach, and they Very Loosely follow it. No text books, but one of the most important parts of school, as everyone knows is to cover your textbooks(remember, we used to use old newspapers or magazines or last Xmas’s wrapping paper), but with no text books, the students must cover something, right? So the teachers make the students cover their notebooks, really, poor parents are forced to buy a special brown paper that they must then use to cover their children’s notebooks.

This notebook is just begging for a cover.

Why? No one can tell me the answer to that question, but if you don’t cover them, the teacher will send your child home from school. These are notebooks that already have covers, they are simple lined pages that the children write in and when they are full, they are thrown away, but they must still be covered. St. Cuthbert’s School system is the Gem of Guyana!

The opening of a new academic year is usually not such a difficult process, but this year it was my responsibility alone because Rowena was out in Georgetown for the past week selling Paiwarri at the opening of heritage month (a month long celebration of the indigenous people of Guyana). I was left alone to care for the children and myself, to cook for them, make sure they bathe, and brush their teeth. She normally does all of that, so I was totally lost and afraid (not to mention sexually frustrated). Joey’s Hair was long and all of the children here must attend their first day of school well trimmed. I can’t cut hair, you can’t very well go to the barber here in the jungle, so I asked around on Sunday if anyone could cut hair and would cut my son’s for me. Finally, after begging one of Rowena’s Cousins, Indira Simon, she felt sorry for me and cut his hair. Admittedly not the best hair-cut of all times, but he’s not even 8 yet, he barely knows his own name, he doesn’t realize his hair looks bad, and I have fulfilled my obligation of having him trimmed. Win!

Even alone caring for my offspring in the jungle without my wife by my side, things would have been alright… if not for the robbery. Sunday (the same day I took Joey for his super fantastic haircut (that he still thinks looks cool) ) I woke up, took my blood pressure medicine, fixed breakfast for the children (all by myself) and then we all 3 loaded onto the motorbike for the 3 mile ride into the village. Later that afternoon, upon returning home, I discovered my front gate was open and one window ajar! I told the children to go inside first and check the place out before I went in (you know, in cased there were any bad guys with guns or knives or flamethrowers), the children returned reporting that it was safe for me to go inside. After searching the house and checking on my few valuables that someone might want to steal and verifying that they were all still there, I began to wonder if maybe I had left the gate open myself and if I had forgotten to close the window the night before. The next morning, however, I realized immediately what was missing! As I said earlier, I take a blood pressure medicine (atenolol) and the dosage is 100mg, but I can only get them in 50mg size tablets, so I must take 2 each morning. Well, Monday morning when I retrieved the blister pack of little pink pills,

Notice how they are lined up side by side in little daily dose pairs.

the number of pills in the pack was uneven!!! The thief had taken my blood pressure meds, and only 1/2 dose at that! The thief is obviously on a lower dosage of the medication that I am, so now I am left with the choice of either living with unevenly matched blister packs of medication forever, only taking 1/2 dose one day, or throwing away that odd pill. I swear I will find that hypertensive burglar, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday I will find him.

#1 Search Term Used To Find THIS Blog…

Today I see that the number 1 search term used to find this blog is, “are Asian people cheap.”

I think I see a new direction for this blog. Every blogger wants to be read, seen, heard. “PAY ATTENTION TO MEEEEE!!!!!” we scream. When googling the term, “are asian people cheap,” This blog is listed number 23. I expect that after today, it will be somewhat higher!

Don’t worry, my sub 5’3″, body hair deficient, frugal friends, I will not resort to poking fun and making jokes at your expense just to increase my site stats. I will, however, begin to mention Asians more often in my posts as it is evident that Asians tend to increase the search rate of websites.

Now on to more news:

Today, September 1st, signals the beginning of Amerindian Heritage Month here in Guyana. This is the month where all the peoples of Guyana are invited to celebrate the first inhabitants of our great country, their culture, their history, and their accomplishments. I am fortunate to live in an indigenous village and am able to share first hand in the culture and lives of the Taino Arawak people.

A huge part of Amerindian Heritage month in Guyana is the opening ceremonies which will be kicked off tonight in Georgetown’s Sophia Exhibition and will feature Local indigenous peoples selling woodcarvings, straw crafts, and indigenous drinks and foods. As a matter of fact, my wife is in town right now to prepare for this five day event; She will be selling Paiwarri, a local drink made from the cassava root. I must admit to being somewhat disappointed by the people who were in charge of planning this years events because people were not informed of new regulations until the last minute. For example, all vendors are required to acquire a vendor ID to sell this year, my wife’s family has been selling at this event for years and years yet wasn’t informed about the requirement until after the deadline had passed. Another example is this: we have, for years, collected used plastic soda bottles and sanitized, scrubbed, and cleaned them before using them to bottle our drink.My wife was just informed (1 hour ago) that they would no longer be able to do this, they must now buy containers to re-bottle all of their product, and the festivities begin in 4 hours! After spending money to produce,and then transport 100 gallons of this beverage, spending money on lodging and food during their stay out in town for the festivities and after paying for the privilege of selling, the profit margin is already VERY low, but now with the added expense of purchasing bottles, I don’t know how one can be expected to make any profit at all. I hope we do not end up spending more money on this event that we actually bring in. I feel sorry for my wife being out there having to deal with these people and their unreported new regulations.

Thanks for reading, Please comment!

Are Asian people cheap?

The Wooden House and the Wooden Mouse

Some of you seem to have preferred the softer more poetic side of Billy Nobles as displayed in my first post about the moon and stars. For the rest of you, here is a whimsical little poem by yours truly. I hope this poem will inspire, entertain, and enlighten you as to the truth about one of the longest standing rumors about a great American actor.

Enjoy! And don’t forget to Comment or Like!

The other day, my wife and I,

Walked into a wooden house.

Behind the wooden door,

Upon the wooden floor,

We found a little, dead, wooden mouse.

Well, right in my pocket, the mouse, he went,

And on to the next room we did trudge.

I tried the door, and my wife tried the door,

But for neither of us would it budge

Then a smell came up and my wife threw up,

From the smell of disgusting sewer sludge,

Now right in my pocket, my hand it went,

(Clutching my little mouse,)

My wife she ran, and run did I,

To get the heck out of that house.

But the doors were all locked, the windows were blocked,

So My wife sat on the floor and cried,

“We’ll never escape this wooden house,

Or that super gross smell!”

“I know,” I said, “It’s in my head!”

“I’m ringing like a bell!”

Then the floor, it sang…and the ceiling danced,

Circles ’round my head,

The windows whispered and the walls fell down,

Then I awoke to find myself still in bed.

Now the mouse spoke up,

(Though he was dead,)

So I listened quite carefully to what he said:

“Though rumors abound,

And they do entertain us,

No gerbils were harmed,

In Richard Gere’s anus.”

Is it just me, or are all asian people cheap? (The weekend recap)

OK, recapping the weekend:

Saturday was a big day for us, I had a party at my house for my graduating class (I teach a free computer education class for adults and secondary school students, if you want to know more just ask, I love talking about it). At 6:30 am, I left my house by dirt-bike (or “scrambler” as it’s called here in Guyana) to pick up 15 pounds of chicken from one of the local shops and to drop the kids off at their grandparent’s house to get them out of our hair for the day and because one of their cousins was having a birthday that day as well. After dropping the kids off and gaffing up (talking to) a couple of people in the village, I went back home only to jump in the boat and go back out again. My house is pretty far away from the center of the village and people mainly just walk everywhere here, hardly any of us have vehicles, so I had to come pick the students up in my little boat at 9:00am. In the boat, on the way to my house, one of my students said to me that there was some Minister in the village to see me and he had asked her to ask me to come out to meet him later that morning. Now here in Guyana a Minister is not a preacher, but a government official, so I didn’t mind going to see him, if it had been a preacher, I would have blown him off. So after an exciting trip upriver in an overloaded boat with a bunch of giggly girls, I helped to set things up for the barbecue and cut up and seasoned up the chicken and made sure that things were underway before showering and leaving to find out who this mystery Minister was.

Upon arrival back in the village center (again by way of motorbike) I found out that the minister who was visiting was none other than Mr. Manzoor Nadir, the Honourable Minister of Labour. He had come to do a bit of campaigning as this is an election year and to speak to me about our computer education courses and how it will relate and serve as the pilot program for the governments One Laptop Per Family initiative. He and his entourage then loaded up in their black SUVs and followed me back to my house to meet with my students and to eat some barbecue with us! This is the first time I have had the pleasure of meeting with this particular minister, but I must say that he struck me as very genuine, humble, and friendly. It was both an honour and a pleasure to have him and his guests as our guests that afternoon for lunch.

Next item on the Saturday agenda, meeting with my next set of students (whose classes begin on the 5th of September) at 2:00pm. I arrived just in time (by motorbike again) to begin two sets of meetings which I concluded at 3:30pm. I was then informed that the Ministry of Amerindian Affairs had sent a Japanese man who is researching social anthropology to our village and that he was supposed to stay as a paying guest in our home. One of our village leaders had sent out his personal vehicle to pick up this gentleman from Georgetown (our capital city), a 5 hour round trip.

Upon arrival in the village, the Japanese man tried to pay for his trip with $25 USD, it was then explained to him that the hire is $100 USD, not $25. He argued and refused to pay. I wonder if the airline he flew in on allowed him to make his own price for airfare??? Meanwhile, I am purchasing about $50 USD worth of food stuffs to feed this man during his stay with us. I return home just in time to see him leaving in the same vehicle that brought him there, when I asked him what was wrong he told us that our house was too far away, and that he wanted to be where the action was. I told him that I hoped that he found scorpions in whatever bed he slept in and that I hoped a poisonous snake bites him before he has a chance to leave our village. He got a particularly frightened look on his face when I mentioned snakes! Jerk leaves me with $50 worth of perishables and doesn’t even care about it! I have plans for him…

The next day, this man has the balls to ask me to give him a river tour in my boat, but he can’t afford to pay me for it! I told him that I was sorry, but that I wanted to spend that day where the action was. Best of all, don’t ask me how it happened because I swear I knew nothing about it , but the man found a 5 foot tiger snake in his bedroom last night!

So, I wonder if I should be wary of all Asian people referred to me in the future, or if this guy is an exception to the rule. Oh and I am not being racist because I am a minority in this country and it is impossible for a minority to be racist, no matter how racist we my sound. Oh, AND we are allowed to be proud of our Caucasian cultural and racial heritage which is an advantage only afforded to minorities.

If you could have seen the night sky…

IF YOU COULD HAVE SEEN THE NIGHT SKY last night, you would understand, without any question, why I choose to live miles away from civilization in a remote corner of South America.

Don’t you hate it when you wake in the middle of the night from an otherwise perfectly restful sleep with the uncontrollable urge to go to the toilet? I am a light sleeper to begin with and any disruption to my sleep almost always leaves me lying in bed praying for sweet unconsciousness to revisit me. Oh and I didn’t mention that my toilet isn’t indoors. Living in a remote area without running water leaves me to collect rainwater from the gutters and store it in 500 gallon barrels high above the bottom level of my home to have a flush-able toilet and a sink.

This morning around  3:00am I felt the aforementioned “urge” and could only obey it. As I walked down the stairs, I found my self hoping not to find another snake had crawled into the house in the middle of the night or, God forbid, one of those disgusting huge toads hopping around (no joke, these toads are big enough to eat a kitten) on the kitchen floor, and at the same time still trying in vain to stay under the spell of sleep so that there might be some small chance that when I returned to bed I might succumb once again to its warm embrace. After having safely descended the stairs and encountering neither snake, nor spider, nor kitten-eating toads, I opened the door that leads outside and began the short 12-15 steps to the bathroom. Before opening the bathroom door, I beheld a sight so breathtaking that I completely forgot why I had come outside in the first place. Do you know how many stars there are? Neither do I, but I think I must have seen them all last night.

The night scene was framed by exotic plants, both cultivated and wild, with a majestic kokarit palm taking its place in the bottom right hand corner and extending about 3/4 up the frame of my vision. All of the flora was gently lighted by the crescent shaped sliver of the moon resting lazily two hand widths above the horizon to the east. And the stars…oh the stars were all there and they all shone more brightly than I can remember ever having seen them shine. I only wish that I could describe to you with words the sight that I saw this morning.

After returning upstairs, and instead of searching for sleep in my bed, I lay in a hammock on my veranda, facing the east, and watched with a tear in my eye until the stars faded and the edge of the sky turned pink. The sun peeked over the trees and began it’s journey to catch the faint, though still visible, moon.