When one hears that they are being welcome to place of the mosquito, the first things that’s crosses one’s mind is “did I pack my repellant”?
In Guyana we know that mosquitos don’t make joke, I can guarantee that every household owns a can of insect repellent, and religiously uses it to rid the place of those pesky insects. In early 2015, my travels took me to an exciting place, at the extreme south of Guyana, bordering Brazil. I was super excited to visit what we refer as ‘Wai-wai country”, an area of land where the Wai-Wai Indigenous people live. Due to the remote location very few coastlanders would have visited this community, as flying is main mode of transportation from the city unless you favor travelling about 2 weeks on foot from the closest transportation point in the south of the country. Secondly if you don’t have any business there you wouldn’t necessarily go there, even though its extremely beautiful and clean. The Wai-Wais of Guyana are small in number ( when compared to other nations/tribes) and extremely talented in craft making (gotto see their jewellery), therefore the opportunity to be in their midst was something to look forward to. I must add that due to geographic location, it takes about 2.5 hours of flying from the Capital city (Georgetown) to the deep south of the country to get to the airstrip ( a little above Konashen).
The village is about 45 minutes on foot from the airstrip, the walk is undertaken over open savannahs for about 20-25 minutes with rolling mountain ranges in the distance, and eti Palm in the forefront. This tells you that this savannah often floods, as Eti Palms do not grow in dryland, but prefers the environment of the wetlands. In fact we arrived during the dry season, as a good shower had not seen the area in months. The walk continued through semi-covered canopy path over bridges and creeks, with the midday sun beating down on us. Did I mention that we had on our backs whatever we would need for the few days being spent there? Yes so whatever you packed you had to carry. I just buckled up and braced for the walk, since it was my first time I asked my friend how far more we got to go ? The answer was; when we are close to the village we have to go up a hill. My next question was, is it a big hill? one can’t be too specific as in Guyana the sizes of hills vary, and so does people’s description. The answer was “nah is not a big one”. Ok then.
The walk took us to the village eventually, and to a hill over a bridge, so I got excited and asked if this is “the hill”, as it fitted the description of not big. My excitement was soon quelled when I was told ‘nah, nah, you gon know it when you see it (I thought I had seen it) eventually when got to “the hill” that was not so big, I did recognize that it was however steep, some persons decided to take a rest before tackling the hill but I had to push on because I knew if I had stopped it would have been difficult to get up back. At the foot of the hill was a Homestead, built in a circular manners and surrounded by fruit trees. I however did not allow myself to be distracted by what occupied the foothills, my aim was to tackle the hill. After climbing the hill the beauty of the village unfolded in front of us. Rising were buildings and Benabs (indigenous style architecture which the wai-wais are famous for) and animals grazing on the well manicured lawns.
Also at the top of the hill, was a blessed mango tree which provided a most welcome shade with a swing for resting my tired legs and fatigued sun baked body for a few minutes, while taking in my first glympse of Masakenari. Which is by the way, pronounced Masa-ken-yar . I must confess I learnt a lot of new things while in Masakenari, including how to correctly pronounce the name of the village, which literally translates to “place of the mosquito”.
Would I visit again? without a doubt! 🙂
alexi larose 