A Packed two weeks of Agro-Processing in Guyana!
It has now been four days since I left my F2F assignment in Guyana. The emotions I feel are mixed: sadness from leaving the country right when I was becoming familiar with its rhythms, people, and food; joy for having been kindly welcomed into the homes and workplaces of total strangers; exhaustion from working day & night to complete a years’ worth of work and research in two weeks; and hope for the opportunity to return and build upon the strong foundation of both personal and professional relationships I invested in while on my first F2F assignment.
Within two weeks of finding out about the F2F Guyana
opportunity, I was screened, onboarded, and delivered to Georgetown with an
open mind. I was excited to work with Ashdel Enterprise, a women-led agro-processing company, as a business plan and marketing specialist. I
jumped right in when I arrived. Grace Parris, the owner of Ashdel Enterprise and I made a list of needs much more
thorough and nuanced than the original request: A financial analysis and
past-performance assessment needed to be computed in excel by digitizing
historic sales and expense receipts; an accurate breakeven calculation needed
to be completed to determine KPIs and minimum sales targets while taking local
purchasing trends and buyer psychology into consideration; the breakeven
calculation then led way to developing a process for achieving sales targets at
both local and global levels; to achieve the calculated sales targets, a
resource-sensitive, grassroots marketing action plan was designed. Then, and
only then, could a culturally-sensitive, data-driven, and practical
business plan be laid out. If I had kept
my mind closed at the commencement of the assignment, I would have worked half
as much architecting a deliverable that would have been severely incomplete.
But keeping an open mind and reminding myself that I came to Guyana for a
knowledge-exchange (and not solely for “fun”, although I had lots of
that, too), allowed me to fully apply myself and my skillset to thoroughly
assist the local team with exactly what they needed.
As for fun, I spent my nights enjoying the breeze of the Atlantic Ocean on my skin with a cold Banks beer in one hand and an over-stuffed cheese-y delicious hotdog in the other. I am a passionate foodie, and enjoyed as many local dishes as I could put in my mouth! Every day I ate the best fish dishes prepared all ways with stir-fried cassava, taro & sweet potato (altogether referred to as “provisions”), I drooled over endless curries and roti for breakfast. But my favorite meals of all-time were both fresh beef pepper pot & saltfish and bake. The former is all cuts of beef slow stewed in a complex cassava syrup called cassareep (pronounced “casz-rip”) that is salty and aromatic and sweet all at once. The latter dish is a stir-fried saltfish served with a deep-fried bread pillow (“bake” or “float”). The flavors of both were just amazing and I can’t wait to go back to eat some more of them while trying more curries and soups and stews that the area is known for!
Overall, my short yet seemingly long assignment in Guyana
proved a necessary challenge for me- both personally and professionally. I
learned to keep an open mind and heart and accept the hospitality and kindness
of strangers again after a long period of general mistrust and tension through
COVID-19; I proved that I could actually complete an insane amount of work in
just ten days without compromising quality; And most important, I was reminded
that I can always grow and have new experiences no matter where I am at in the
world.
I am greatly appreciative of my Farmer-to-Farmer experience, and look forward to my next adventure with my new community in Guyana!
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