I volunteer at St. John Bosco Boys’ Orphanage, one of the service sites in Guyana.…
Wildlife In GT
One of my favorite things about living in Georgetown, Guyana is the amount of animals I get to see on a daily basis. A typical walk to work includes passing a herd of goats, a few horses grazing on grass near the canal, and tons of stray dogs and cats along the streets. I can hear the chickens in our back yard ‘cock-a-doodle-doing’ as I get ready to leave in the morning, and driving past cows and donkeys lining the streets is very common. Trailers are “driven” by horses on the streets along with car and bus traffic. Once my mini-bus driver stopped his bus in the street and hopped out to slap a cow on the butt to get it to walk out of the road! Another day I looked up a tall tree in the city and saw a monkey running around on the top branches. My favorite experience (and definitely most terrifying) was seeing a baby alligator run past me only a few feet away. It was about two feet long, but it was big enough for me!
These are definitely not animals I get to casually interact with in the States, so seeing them here and trying to act like it is not big deal is always difficult. I’ve definitely never had to say “watch out for that horse!” while walking through a city before. It’s a whole new animal-filled world here!
Annie Golemboski, Guyana