“Everything that was familiar to me disappeared in the course of 24 hours”

Hazel Hathway (Guyana 08/09) is now a Medical student at Cardiff University (where she has also run the Reggae Society and a refugee volunteer programme) and  but before that she spent here Project Trust year teaching in Guyana. Here she shares with us all that she learnt from that year away – not just about Guyana’s culture and music but also about herself.

My parent’s tales of life in Africa had always seemed in stark contrast to the predictable and frequently monotonous village life of West Dorset. Long before my gap year, I had dreams of travelling the world and working as a doctor. I envisaged settling somewhere exotic. Somewhere I could surf everyday in my bikini. As I got older my dreams were modified to fit what I perceived to be realistic. I decided my dreams of adventure and working abroad could be fulfilled by joining the army as a doctor. I had interviews and work experience with the army and plans to apply for the medical cadetship.

Then came my Project Trust year in Guyana. Everything that was familiar to me disappeared in the course of 24 hours. My only sure expectation was that I would be a science teacher in a secondary school on the coast of Guyana, and that I wouldn’t be returning home for a year. I was an empty book ready to be written by the sights, sounds, people and culture of a unique country.

Project Trust had always encouraged us to fully immerse ourselves in the culture of the country. For better or worse I fully embraced this advice as only an excited, if somewhat naïve, 18 year old can do. For a year I became as Guyanese as a well spoken white middle class teenager from the rural England can become. My nights at the cheesy local disco were replaced with rum fuelled dancehall sessions until 6am. The sweet old dears pottering about the village were replaced with intimidating, gold chain wearing black men with a soft spot for the spice girls: a very Guyanese variety of Gangster. The ‘Good morning’ greetings were replaced by ‘yo whitie’ and the morning bird song became a man made bird song, aimed at attracting female attention – known as ‘sipping off’ to the Guyanese.

My experience over the year became perhaps the most important and a permanent part of my self-identity. My attitudes, behaviour and personality were shaped by my experiences. On return to the UK, I found it very difficult to reconcile these changes with the person I had been before as well as settling back into my old way. I found refuge in the reggae dancehall music which had been a huge part of my life in Guyana. The song below became a favourite as I felt it reflected our experience and helped remind me of the tough reality of life in the Caribbean every time I put on my nostalgic rose tinted glasses. It tells the story of a white man from Norway (I am also Norwegian!) coming to Jamaica and realising that life is not quite as idyllic as it seems in paradise. On return I was excited to find the Cardiff University Reggae Society which I joined and then ran. I joined Student Action for Refugees which gave me the opportunity to meet and befriend asylum seekers and refugees from all over the world as well as teach. I also became involved with Medsin, an organisation which campaigns on global health issues. In these ways I managed to integrate the influences of my gap year into building a new life in the UK.

At the same time I joined the University Officer Training Corps to see if the army was still for me. I quickly realised that the exotic military destinations of Iraq and Afghanistan no longer appealed. I fostered a far stronger dislike for the military elitism and unquestioning subservience and had become too much of a free-thinking hippy to wear any sort of uniform. I had returned with a fresh perspective, conviction in my ideals and the confidence and courage to live by them. I am now about to spend a year studying International health at Bristol University before going back to Cardiff University for the final two years of medical school. Once I have qualified my dream is to set up a health and well-being centre somewhere exotic…with a hospital boat thrown in for good measure…

– written by Hazel Hathway