Hi hope to give you what you can expect living in a country like this, having said that I do think we been quite blessed in finding we're not having to big shock or many difficulties. ( Yet ! )
Power, water and health come and go, with Electric we are having power cuts on and off day and night, it so far has come in spells.
With Monday being our house work day, it can throw your plans around a bit, we make a start at daylight, and hope for the best (approx 6-6:30am and at times due to outages finish at 7 pm), the place we rent has a twin tub ( once you get the hang of them are quite good, though a little rough with the clothes), which is a great help, as some do it by hand ( called 'Rub Rub' here, my hat off to you) ( and you can buy automatic's though few and far). And do your ironing when there is power and try not to leave it to just before you wear it. (as you might be powerless)
With Monday being our house work day, it can throw your plans around a bit, we make a start at daylight, and hope for the best (approx 6-6:30am and at times due to outages finish at 7 pm), the place we rent has a twin tub ( once you get the hang of them are quite good, though a little rough with the clothes), which is a great help, as some do it by hand ( called 'Rub Rub' here, my hat off to you) ( and you can buy automatic's though few and far). And do your ironing when there is power and try not to leave it to just before you wear it. (as you might be powerless)
Power some areas 240v others 120v, you can get Voltage regulators to change between the two, but are expensive, and watch out on the Wattage load, a 1000w regulator sounds a lot but you can soon overload them, I blew one up, but very 'lucky' to able to repair only minor damage, but if the coil goes, bye bye
Water, the pressure in the pipes is low, so if your accommodation has a tank at roof level it may need to be pumped, some areas the water is only available at certain times, hopefully corresponding with electric, if the house is mains fed, you might need to store water by whatever means you can for the off period's.
Health, health care is rudimentary, keep as healthy as you can, eat plenty of fruit and veg, have vitamin pill handy maybe with mineral supplements, best ask local brother's for best doctors and hospitals
Shopping, big towns like Georgetown have everything available in the country, just may need help to find what sells what, otherwise a lot of legwork.
Cooking, Best to learn from local families on how to cook local dishes, as 'your normal ingredients might not be available or too expensive', 99% is cooked from fresh ingredients, can take longer to prepare, ( we trying to when we buy 'fresh' meat is to add your herb and spices, bag and freeze it, with veg wash, chop and freeze), Canned sauces, veg is available, the shop's are getting more variety's slowly.
Internet: There's usually Internet cafes, well 'rooms or corners', most places where you can pay from $200GYD for 20-30mins and usually they have a download speed of 1.5MB, we pay for internet at home now, after the line rental about $500GYD the internet is quite expensive $5000GYD for 0.5MB and $10000GYD for 1MB. but even this fluctuates during the day, you can use Skype with video on the 0.5MB, but sometimes you have to use audio only but even then the audio can drop off at times.
The national phone company says you have to use their Modem, we initially bought one when on offer at $7500GYD ( normal retail price $15000,(must be joking)), but comes with 1 ethernet port, no WiFi, you can buy cable WiFi router/switch here at about $4500GYD to attach to the modem to get WiFi.
Some Needgreeters say you carn't use an imported Modem, I fought with one from the UK and managed (i felt sorry for my wife, while i struggled), a Netgear DG834g v4 for over a week, till i got the settings right.
The Modem ADSL settings are as follows
Mutiplexing Method : LLC-Based
VPI: 0
VCI: 35
DSL Mode: Auto
No Password or Login name required
Beware don't bring one that's locked to a ISP in your country as you won't be able to change the ADSL settings
