Good Bye Guyana

I find time passes much too quickly in someways and much too slowly in others. The too quickly involves how much time has passed since I last added to my blog. I have been back in the states since the end of December and have been fortunate of enough to see many of you. During this time once again time passed much too quickly. I would be visiting for what seemed like minutes and it would have been hours. Even though it was hours there had still not been enough time. I would like to tell every one that I saw how much more I appreciated seeing you this time. Unfortunately most of us take what we can do on a frequent basis and categorize it as unimportant and mundane. We tend to think of special as those parts of our lives that occur only occasionally. I have learned that most of what we take for granted is what is really most important in our lives and what forms us into who we are. Of course the best judge of importance is to lose what you have, then you really understand its importance. That, however, is a really hard way to learn. A kinder and gentler way is to try each day to appreciate all that we have, something I am striving to accomplish in my daily life. All of these deep thoughts come for a reason. While I have been home in the states I have had to make the decision about whether or not I would be returning to Guyana for my second year.

The people I have met both Peace Corps and Guyanese have helped to form the new me. Hopefully I have morphed in to a person whose values are now much more family focused and much less ME focused.

I have witnessed how hard the people of Guyana work to improve their lot in life, many without ever complaining. The students, who I taught at the University of Guyana are a prime example. Most of them have family, jobs and are attending classes

full time. You would never know that, when they are in the classroom. they are attentive and eager to learn. My times with my students were some of my favorite times in Guyana. The picture to the right is at their graduation.

Next there are the friends I have made in the Peace Corps. This group of people, and it spanned the decades, from age twenty-three all the way into the sixties, exceeded the norm in selflessness. They would spend many hours everyday with no other purpose than to make someone's life better; not by giving away fish but by patiently teaching how to fish. They included me into their activities with open arms and never any judgement. All this being said, it is easy to see how hard my decision would be. However after much thought my choice is not to

return for my final year. A good part

of my decision not to return is based upon family and some of my reasons will only be known in my own heart. But I do want you to know that if this were last year this time, knowing all that I know

right now I would still have gone to Guyana.

The effect it has had upon me and my, hopefully better understanding of relationships will remain with me the rest of my life.

Having filled you with deep thoughts I would now like to share an anecdote of my departure.

For the first time ever I was stopped at security and told I was carrying a dangerous weapon. the dangerous weapon was a cooking item known as a tawah. This is a small flat metal plate which is used to make roti (a type of Indian flat bread), and also Pizza and open face cheese melts if you are American. It is a really unique cooking tool and I really wanted it. When they took it from my carry on and said they were confiscating it, I knew I had to take action. Pleading with them to

see if I could possibly still get this into my checked baggage, they

finally relented and allow me to try. This involved myself and a very large gentleman, whose job was to carry the tawah, ( I was no longer allowed to touch the tawah, since it had been declared a dangerous weapon) leaving security and attempting to find someone to let us into the checked baggage area. That was the most difficult part, but I finally did talk myself into the checked baggage area and was directed to the area with the large gentleman continuing to follow behind me carrying the tawah. Now remembering that it was December, I had dressed as warm as possible for my trip to the U.S., not realizing that I would be taking a 1/2 mile journey outside in the 95 degree heat to get to the checked baggage. All of my efforts to look

good were immediately drenched in sweat, but the tawah was in my bag, proving that with a little perseverance and a lot of sweat you can accomplish most things.

Now that I have returned to the states I would like to thank all of you for following my blog. I hope that in some way my experiences have helped any one who shared in reading them. I would also like to thank those who sent care packages to me, they were much appreciated. I will be spending the first few months just readjusting to the American pace and also enjoying my little grand daughter, who gets cuter everyday.

This will be my last post. I would love to continue hearing from you, but if not, know that I have enjoyed sharing this journey with each of you and hope that your continued journey in life is filled with adventure and happiness.

My final salute is to my amazing 97 year young mother

who has always been there for me and continues to love her

family and life more than anyone could believe was possible.

Thank you mother for always being there.

Thanksgiving

Well here I sit almost exactly one week before the U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving thinking what does Thanksgiving really mean to me? I have never really thought of it before. One of the things I have come to view differently about my home land is that it is truly a land of excess. Whether it is the supersize portions or the amount of stuff we collect. We are, if we are truthful, a nation of excess. I must confess that I totally bought into it. One reason could be because we can. We are blessed with so much abundance that even in our time of recession, we still have excess, just not as much, which is what bothers us. Examples in my life; never once in the U.S. did I wash out my plastic freezer bags to reuse. They were tossed after one use. Here I wash them not once but until they fall apart. Or have you ever taken all the left overs in your refrigerator and mixed them together to eat and felt delighted that you had something to eat, or even delighted that you had a refrigerator.

Thanksgiving is the appropriate holiday for us for several reasons. As a nation of excess it is the holiday where we eat excessively without guilt, in fact we are encouraged to do so. But in addition I do believe we are a grateful nation and do actually use this holiday to be thankful for all that we have.

Since my last blog I have been totally immersed in my work and other issues at the University. It has also been a time of travel for me in the country of Guyana. Until now I have not had time to do any travel of my choosing inside Guyana because I was so busy traveling to the states. At the end of October I traveled to see a fellow Peace corps volunteer in New Amsterdam over Halloween weekend, another holiday not really celebrated in Guyana. While New Amsterdam is one of the larger towns of Guyana, it pales by comparison to Georgetown. Georgetown having a population of 350,000 to New Amsterdam's 31,000. The town is fairly small consisting of three main roads with about a dozen cross streets.

It has a Mayor and a thriving market. From New Amsterdam you can quickly travel to Suriname, another country

in South America. There are about 5 or 6 Peace Corps Volunteers based there and when I went to visit I had a wonderful time. Being much smaller than Georgetown, it is also much friendlier. The people all know each other and know all the Peace Corps volunteers and want to help them. Unlike Georgetown, where I can honestly say walk 2 doors down from me and I will have no idea who lives there. Being Halloween we did our best to put together some type of costumes, well not our best, as you can tell, but at least costumes.

The week before I went to New Amsterdam I got watch the light parade that is done in honor of the Hindu celebration of Diwali (festival of lights). Cars, trucks and other motorized vehicles are basically wrapped in lights and

parade in mass down the main streets of Georgtown. Some of the vehicles are spectacular, others, not so much. Except for the Esiquibo Coast, New Amsterdam was the smallest place I had visited in Guyana. However since that time I have been to Mabaruma, populations 1500. First you must be told

that Mabaruma is considered remote even Peace Corps standards, so you can imagine by my standards.

Who knew that I could live without internet, TV, electricity, running water, and indoor plumbing? It was quite the adventure, cooking by oil lamp, and hearing the bats fly all over the room while your were safely under your mosquito net. That was at night. During the day, the landscape was magnificient. Beautiful waterfalls are a walk away. Mabaruma is comprised of three towns Mabaruma (the regional capital), Kumaka (the port city) and Hosororo (an Amerindian community). There are a number of other small cities in Region 1. The jungle is literally at your doorstep. Watching a picturesque sunset from your front door,

while listening to the sounds of howler monkeys and macaws can be surreal. Many of the houses are literally next-door to the overgrown jungle. There is one road that goes through town. The greatest challenge I noticed for the volunteers living here is lack of accessible communication and total lack of passable roads. Most of the roads are dirt with large potholes, and those are the good roads. Much of your moving about is done on walking trails leading thru various parts of the jungle to small isolated towns. The person I was visiting is a nurse in one of the health outposts and often spends a great deal of time just walking from one house to another. The reverse is also true, any patient needing a nurse must spend a great deal of time and effort traveling to the health outpost, probably while they are feverish or dehydrated.

The food for most meals must be obtained from a market that ranges from 30 minutes away for some to 2 and 1/2 hours for others. Once the food is obtained it must not need to be refrigerated because there is either no power or power only 4 or 5 hours a day. Creativity is a must and most of the time the food is being prepared by oil lamp light. Baths are taken from a bucket in an out door wash house in the most primitive sites, while there are rain water showers in others. There was no question in my mind that while a week was an adventure for me this could never have been my site. This all being said I must tell you what amazing people I came in contact with. People willing to stop what they were doing at any time to help you or a neighbor in need. I

watched people carry a man who could not walk. They carried him on a hammock supported by a tree limb to the spot where transport could finally pick him up. The people also really know how to live off the land.

In the jungle/rain forest are some of the most beautiful butterflies and foliage. Bamboo grows wild and to heights of 50 or more feet. The look is spectacular. Much travel must be done on the river since there are few roads and this does limit the quantity of things which can be transported. Finally there are wonderful areas of water to swim in such as the one we walked to on the Sunday I was there, called Hosororo Falls.

While it is a simple hour flight to

Mabaruma, it is on a prop plane, carrying 12 passengers, all of whom must be weighed before the flight and who can carry no more then 20 pounds of baggage.

Traveling there at this time of the year gave me much to reflect on and realize how incredibly blessed I have been. For that and for my wonderful family and friends I will be very thankful this Thanksgiving and hopefully for a long time in the future.

Can not end my blog without out at least one reference to my beautiful granddaughter, Sloane. She is growing smarter and more beautiful everyday. Now she is really something to be to be thankful for.

amerindan culture

Well I have been way too neglectful about my blogs. First, I have been back to the states again where I got to spend a beautiful weekend with Julie and Holly, a wonderful time with Jack and Daisy and also of course got to see my perfect grand daughter Sloane. I will say it was incredibly hard to leave all the love I felt. I also have been very busy writing my new course for the fall, Transcultural nursing. I have learned an incredible amount while writing this. I have discovered what should come as no surprise to me, but strangely does that we are incredibly ethnocentric ( being defined as the belief that only our ways are the best ways). As American's it appears we believe our values are the best and it is incredibly hard to make us believe otherwise. While I believe that this is really true of most if not all cultures. Do we all really believe that only our ideas are the best? I think yes, I have observed the Guyanese also believe that their ideas are the best. This does make the melding of cultures more difficult. At any rate learning about other cultures has been very mind expanding. There are so many different ways to look at things. I think what I have have learned is that it is very necessary to respect another's views even if they are not yours. I have listened to all the conflicts going on in America, the only news that I get from the states, and sit here realizing that regardless of our differences we are so incredibly blessed and have so much to be thankful for. I hope all of you realize how incredibly lucky you are to have been born in the U.S. I went to

the annual Amerindian cultural celebration today at a village

called Santa Mission. It takes 2 hours maybe less by boat to go into the village. So you can imagine how difficult emergency medical care is to provide. It is,however, a beautiful peaceful

ride down a calm black water creek. The ride was beautiful not

the boat. I am not sure if black water is unique to Guyana but it is very clean, very black with a reddish hue.

The people of the village seem very content. Their day consists of having enough to eat and then supporting the rest of the village. Can you imagine

a place where all you think of is the welfare of others, interesting. They still make most of their money selling homemade wares which are of the finest quality. I definitely

did a little shopping today.

The Ameridian festival continues all month. Next Saturday I will attend the Amerindian Pageant. The a village I visited has a population of about 300. I was not only

impressed by the villagers but inspired by them. Many grown children come back for the celebration because their values are very important to them. I got to see examples of traditional dress and traditional dances. On Sunday I was included in a break-the-fast celebration for the end of Ramadan held by my Muslim neighbors. There was everything you could think of to eat, and no wonder for the last month they have not been allowed to eat or drink anything after sunrise until sunset. As you can see I have great neighbors. I am going to wait to finish this blog until next week end after the Amerindian Pageant....

Last night I went to the Amerindian Heritage Pageant. I did not stay until the end because today I was getting up early to fly to Kaieteur Falls and was seriously afraid I

would

over sleep. The Pageant is put on every other year by the Ministry of Amerindian

Affairs. It is not a beauty pageant, but rather a pageant promoting education and expression. There are 10 regions

in Guyana and there is an Amerindian representative from each region. I

have include a photo of the opening costume

In the opening number they were dressed as different colored birds. That was followed by a talent show, where most of the girls performed monologues on topics such as drug usage or preserving the rain forest. I missed the Evening gown competition and the question and answer session as well as the winner. In Caribbean fashion the show began late and was running late and probably was not over until the wee hours of the morning. The amazing thing is after the show all of the contestants were going home, which for most meant boats rides in the middle of the night

on a pitch black river into the interior of Guyana.

Today

I flew in a very small 5 seat plane, one of the only ways to get to the falls, the other being a 5 day walk through the rain forest. I must have really wanted to see the falls to get into the plane, but it all turned

out ok. Our guide was a member of the Patamona tribe. They were the first to discover the falls and have always lived by them. There are nine Amerindian tribes: Arawaks, Caribs, Warraus, Macusis, Wapisianas, Akawaios, Patamonas, Arecunas and Wai Wai. The village I visited last week was an Arawak village. The Ameridians have remained in many ways very independent of the modern world and take great pride in the fact that they could go into the rain forest and live with out worry. They know which plants are food, which are medicinal etc. The plane ride

home was a little bumpy and the PCV sitting in front of me "tossed her cookies", fortunately I was fine.

My day finished up by my streaming the Bengals/ Pittsburgh game through my computer and being able to listen to the Bengals defeat their mortal foe for the first time in years. It is amazing what I have learned to do while I have been here. Who would know that you could listen to a football game live on your computer for no cost.

Tomorrow I check on the arrival of the books donated by my Alma Mater, University of Maryland to the University of Guyana Nursing Program. I can not say enough how generous and kind they have been. School begins again next week.

Finally if anyone wants to see more photos they are posted on my face book page. Also to all of my Cincinnati friends I will sending one more reminder of Julie's performance this coming Friday Oct., 2 at the Redmour, to the rest of you bear with me because it is too much trouble to filter my general announcements. Till the next time, go tell everyone you love how much you love them.

Living alone and other changes

SLOANE

I kept putting off writing this next blog because I had not taken the promised pictures but decided that it is better to communicate now and photograph later. I have had an amazing 2 months. First settling and getting to know my site. Followed by an unexpected trip back to the states.

First things first. My everyday life has become what I guess you can call routine. Although nothing here is really routine. From the weather whichchanges hourly to the new fruits and vegetables that I have never heard of, to the visits of little frogs and mice to my apartment, life could hardly be called routine.

The weather -- can go from total sunny skies to drenching downpours to totally sunny skies in a space of 15 minutes or less. The moral is never travel without your umbrella. You either need it to protect you from the sun or the rain. Although the sun and rain situation changes frequently the

sun rises and sets at pretty much the same time year round. Up at 5:15 AM and sets by 6 PM. Likewise the temperature is pretty constant at a very hot 90 ish in the day to about low 80's maybe high 70's at night. A fan is not a luxury but a necessity.

The food I have learned to use sterilized boxed milk for my cereal, no real milk to drink which is surprising because cows are grazing everywhere and constantly walking across the main streets (which was one of the photos I wanted to capture, and I will). Also a herd of goats walks by my street everyday as I walk to my minibus. Keep in mind I am in an urban location. The fruits and vegetables are very fresh as their growing season is 12 months a year. Lettuce, tomatoes (the kind you only get in the summer in the states), cucumbers and scallions are in great abundance. In

addition they have a 3 foot long string bean call bora that I have never seen before and is quite tasty. Two sweet potato impersonators are a veggie call edo and another called cassava. They are both in the yam family and they are major food staples for the Guyanese. Along the street as I walk from my bus home are numerous food stands that sell vegetables and fruits such as Pine

(pineapple), bananas, passion fruit, mangos,star apples, sapodilla ( a fruit which has a taste of a mix of pear and brown sugar) coconut and breadfruit. The fruit is extremely fresh and makes for great smoothies. Meat is not something you eat a great deal of here unless it is at a restaurant. The amount of refrigerator space is limited and so your protein comes from beans and peanut butter and eggs, which are by the way very freshly laid. Also to all my gifters thank you for the American Junk food etc., to which I am very much addicted.

Visiting creatures. I guess you would say I am fairly fortunate in that my visitors are limited to very little lizards, frogs and the occasional visiting mouse. I laugh at myself recalling when Michael and I had an occurrence of mice in our Chumani house and I wanted to move to a hotel until they were gone. How things change. I find myself sitting on my sofa (for which I am most grateful, many PCV's have no sofa) and watching a little mouse come under my door scurry along the wall back to my kitchen to check out if I have left any crumbs on the floor and then leave just as quickly as it arrived. My only reaction is to think, glad my feet are propped up on the sofa. The frogs although a little cuter (not much) are more annoying because they just wonder in and can never seem to find their way out without my broom and some prompting. The lizards are good cardio, because they are always where you least expect them to be and jump out sometimes on you always causing at least my heart rate to exceed 150 BPM. I found out at my last group Peace Corps meeting however that I am very lucky. I really have no bugs, possibly due to the fact that I keep very little food in my house. I also have no rats, yes I said rats, nor snakes or bats, all of which have visited other PCV"s houses.

My work I am just finishing my first class at the University and have really enjoyed my students. They are bright and very motivated. Many of them holding down a full time job, going to class and raising a family at the same time. Makes me sit in awe. They take their final next Friday and then I will begin writing my next course on Emergency Nursing. That will begin in the fall. I am also beginning to work on a web site which will seek tax deductible contributions for my project. I am trying to set up a program which will allow for the shipping of donated medical books no more than 2 years old to the nursing school here, because currently their books are significantly older. I have found some schools willing to donate the books but need less to say do not want to incur the shopping costs. I have determined that if I can raise between 10 /20 thousand in a

protected fund I can set up a book donation program sustainable for 10 /15 years allowing the nursing school a chance to have more current books and get on their feet financially. When I get the web site up you can be sure I will let all of you know. I hope I am not being naive in thinking that I should certainly be able to raise that amount of money.

My House As I have commented before I have been very fortunate in my housing. the peace corps worker living here before me had practically everything and left it for me. She was a little more adept at opening cans with the swiss army knife, which I immediately replaced with a can opener from my visit to NY. I actually just started sleeping in the bed last week

Previously I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor which was tightly encased with a mosquito net because of the visitors. I must say the bed is a level up. I have a dorm sizerefrigerator, and a three burner stove top supplied with gas from tank similar to the

ones we use for our outdoor grills

. I can not believe that I the microwave queen have no microwave and am managing to survive, barely but I am. There is also no oven but baking was never my speciality. Most important is my internet which I actually do know I could not live without. All in all I am fairly well set. I have wonderful landlords who watch over me and make sure I am safe, for which I am thankful.

My trip. My trip started three weeks ago. I was coming home from work and received a call from my son Jack. It seemed his wife Daisy, who had just had a c-section less than 2 months earlier was in the ER with severe abdominal pains, possibly a ruptured appendix. After several calls and realizing surgery was about to happen, I was able to get emergency leave from the Peace Corps to go home and help. Realizing that she would not be able to stand upright,much less lift an 11 pound baby, it was going to be impossible for her to function without someone there all of the time. I would like to publicly thank Daisy for sacrificing her body so I could come home and meet my unbelievable, adorable,fantastic, perfect and beautiful grand daughter Sloane. Not only did I get to spend two unbelievable weeks with Sloane but I also got to be with Daisy, Jack and my daughter Julie, who flew in from LA. Julie's trip was already planned for the end of my two week stay so it was just luck that she was also going to be there. I had seen no one since I left in February and it was wonderful. I got to see all of Daisy's family including her mother, with whom I could continually talk about amazing our grand daughter is. It

is my understanding that Daisy is willing to sacrifice more organs to facilitate my coming

home and for this I thank her. Actually I had already scheduled a trip in September with a non refundable ticket, so the Peace Corps is also letting me do that. So I will be getting to see my little Sloane

in the very near future. I have hardly any pictures of her

on my camera because I was holding her all of the time. Finally I would just like to send a giant thank you to Daisy, Jack, Julie , Holly and Sloane who have stood by me and trusted that I would find my way back out of the black hole. Thanks to them I am once again seeing the light. Much love to all of you reading this. Do me a favor stop what you are doing now and tell the important people in your life how much you love them.

Blonde or Brunette????

Well it has been a month now since I have been at my site. I am beginning to feel a little more settled. My housemate, Hanni is getting ready to depart. She has been here two years and her service time ends July 25.  She is 180 degrees removed from my immediate future.  As I am just settling in she is packing up.  It is a very strange twosome.  Hanni , however has been a godsend. She has directed me to where to shop. Showed me the best DVD store.  Included me in her social life and much , much more.  She is there if I have questions and frankly I don't know how others do this. Everyone should be provided with a Hanni.  

We are getting up every morning at 5:30 and walking approximately 4 miles.  It really feels good to start exercising again .... was that me talking? Yes it actually was, much to my surprise I really missed it when I could not walk.

My job is going well and I feel that I may actually at some point make some kind of impact. It involves teaching nursing students and I am still learning the ropes regarding their standards.  I also needed to arrange for my nursing transcripts to be forwarded, not an easy task when out of the country,but it is occurring, thanks to great help from my former diploma school, Good Samaritan. In addition I must be licensed in Guyana, even though I will be doing no actual patient care. This to has been facilitated by the Ohio Board of Nurses. 

I do find I have had lots of time to reflect, and as you may recall from some of my first blogs, I really needed to do this.  This is a journey in emotions as well as miles. I feel I am already moving forward, from a person who really was 

not planning a future but rather existing day to day to some one who again

 has goals she wants to achieve and multiple plans for my future.  It is crystal clear now what is important in my life, my family and my friends.  These people are gifts that I have been given and I cherish each and every one of you. I watch with envy as a grandmother here holds her grandchild, or the laughter of a group of long time friends as they share stories. Nothing is more important than that. Some events cause blinders to become fixed upon your head, I feel like and hope that mine are being removed. To all those who have stood by my side in my self-centered journey back to life, I thank you.

Life is not all self denial and reflection. Several weeks ago we went to a very nice private pool for the afternoon.  A wonderful lady had us to her house for homemade Lasagna and just this past Thursday myself and another Peace Corps volunteer treated ourselves to dinner out at a lovely restaurant complete with a glass of Cabernet. And finally last night found me a home with Vodka tonics and Great veggie pizza.

On Sunday nights each week we go to a little hotdog stand that has the most amazing hotdogs.  It is the dog , mustard, ketchup and mayo if you want, cheese onion and potato chip crumbs, talk about a meal in a bun.  The dog and a beer, what more could you ask for.

Last weekend we celebrated my housemates birthday with a night of food and dancing. So as you can see I have been busy.

OK so the only picture I will post this time is the comparison pictures of Sue the Blonde, and Sue the Brunette.  This is not a vote.  I have already decided that I will again become Sue the blonde but since this will occur before any of you have a chance to see me, here is the brunette.  Every time I look in the mirror I think who is that woman, she looks familiar, but not quite.  Now yes, you may feel free to comment but know that nothing will change my determination to return to my former look

From Host visit to Swearing in

Gosh I cannot believe that it has been over a month since I last added anything, but I have not had access to wireless or pretty much any internet at all. There has been so much going on.  At Easter time here there is a big celebration on Easter Monday. Most of the people on the coast go to the beach for a huge Kite flying contest.  There is a best kite, the biggest kite, the smallest kite and so on.  The day is a holiday from work and everyone makes their own kite.  Yes even I tried to make a kite but I did need lots of help, but it was fun.  The one picture is the guy completely remaking my kite and the other picture is the actual kite which did fly, I gave it to the grand sons of my host family and they were able to fly it. Easter is not even really celebrated until monday. Coloring eggs and hiding baskets are not so much here. We have been working hard at planning our site work and how we can be helpful in a way that they need. And we have been starting to prepare to leave our host families and be on our own.  I will not be on my own for three months after I arrive at my site because I will be sharing a house with a volunteer who is leaving at the end of July.  In many ways that is helpful because not only is she leaving a lot of things for me but she also has lots of good advice. 

A week after our host visits we went to a preserve called Mainstay and saw an amazing

assortment of trees in addition to the walk thru the forest we also got to see a small examples of how pineapples are cultivated, that is the picture above. Amazing how small the plants are.

Although the pictures do not show it we actually spent

 8 hours everyday in a classroom. Usually the weekends were your own, however even then sometimes things wereplanned. My friend Rachelle and I went up to

Charity market and in doing so completed out travel of the coast line road of Essiquibo. We began in Supranam and went                                                                                   CHARITY MARKET

all the way to Charity where the road ends.  If you go beyond there it is by boat. I t

hink that Charity is the biggest market

 of the Essiquibo coast

THE MISSIONARY FAMILY

  It certainly has every

thing you could need to buy.

The next picture is of the Missionary family 

who took it upon themselves to have us over for Easter dinner, American Style, 

Pot Roast, salad, vegetables, mashed potatoes,gravy and cake and ice cream for dessert. Then the very next week they invited us for spaghetti and meatballs and garlic bread.  It is amazing how homesick you can get for your familiar foods.

We did have another picnic on the beach as a group and

 then before I knew it it was time for the offical swearing in. The Minister of Health and the 

Minister of Education were scheduled to speak but there were conflicts and representatives were sent, however the ambassador fromthe United States did attend and speak as did our country director. This was followed by a short social hour and snack and a group party that night.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       MY ROOM

That was Thursday the 23, we stayed at our host families until Monday the 27th, this is my last picture in at my host family, in my room.

Then we  off to our sites. I was very grateful to be arriving at a house that was already lived in.

 Some volunteers arrived at their house to find nothing at all.

                              

The house is extremely cute and well decorated by my new house mate and I very much appreciate her willingness to share her house with me.

                                                                                                                                       

        MY HOUSE                       When we got to our site I naively thought that some of my life

would become more routine, ha ha. It appears that when

 I got to work I was already three weeks behind.  They had no one to do my job so no one did it.  I am playing catchup but it is starting to happen.I am getting to know where to shop and now have a TV to watch.  While I miss the caring of my host family it was time for me to stand on my own

The best news avery came on the 29th of April.  And although most of you know, my grand daughter Sloane Elizabeth was born at 11:20 on April 28.  Mother and daughter did fine and even though I have no picture on my computer to upload for you, they are in my Kodak Gallery and I do not know how to do that, be assured she is the cutest baby ever.

Since Sloane has been born, all else pales by comparison.  I am learning my way around my site and am staring to feel more comfortable in my job.  And as most of you know have become settled enough to begin a wish list.

Hopefully this brings you up to date.  I am really hoping that by the next blog I will have really good internet.  But that will be a stroy for the next time.

Oh definitely the next time I will show you the new, but very temporary brunette Sue.

Well it is really good to be back I am sorry that 3 of my blogs needed to be PDF'd but couldn't be helped.  It is good to be in Georgetown. 

Here is a little tour

of my house one picture is the living room next is obviously the dining 

room and kitchen. There 

are three bedrooms and one bath. 

 The final picture is laundry day in the city.

The house  has wireless  internet and this afternoon I enjoyed an iced Mocha and chocolate cake at a wonderful little restaurant.

  

   I am doing my best to find a position in G-town.  I have an appointent with the head of the University of Guyana School of Nursing tomorrow and today toured the Blood Bank.  I have also met a number of people at the Ministry of Health. Tonight we are meeting a couple of other PC trainees for dinner and then relaxing at home.  This has been a great experience and confirms my decision to be in a city.  More after dinner.....   

Well.......................................

 instead of after dinner it is two days later.  So much to do so little time.  I had my interview with the Nursing Program and they are very interested.  I will post on the final outcome, but it seems

 to have good potential.  I would be involved as a clinical instructor, something I have already done.

The couple we are staying with are fantastic and hooked me up with another whole aspect of skype,so if and when I get internet I will be able to call some of you for FREE, on your land line

Everything in the city is just convenient.  We walked in the park last night and will do so again.  It is good to be back in an exercise mode. There are many walkers so it is very safe. 

Today they are taking us to the bank and market so we can learn to navigate these things ourselves in the future.

Well I am back from the market and a three 

mile walk in National Park. We are about to make homemade pizza, and chill I am sad that I only have two more days here.  Tomorrow we are invited over to another PCV's house for drinks and then are going dancing.  Should be interesting.

   In my excitement to tell you about Georgetown I forgot to tell you about my very first Cricket Match.  Talk about being confused.  It appears the rules are that you can hit the ball anywhere and then you run up to the pitchers mound with the bat touch the line and can continue running until the ball is able to be thrown at the special line at the pitchers mound or the wickett behind the batter. If you are confused join the club.  They decide at the beginning of the game how many outs there will be and some professional games go one for as much as 4 days. There was not really a Cricket field available but undaunted we used the beach which worked fine for me because I was merely a spectator.  The valient players were great to watch and by the end of the game had endured a major attack of sand flees.

The Pizza we made was terrific.  I should have taken a photo but was too busy eating. We followed the pizza with a Banana/Mango Shake and chocolate....I am in heaven.

Tonight is some drinks and dancing and tomorrow is dinner with some American Embassy People.  Then it will be time for me to take the boat back to Essiquibo.

As this may be my last post for a month. I want to be sure that all of you know I am well and have not forgotten you.  Internet is tough to come by on the Essiquebo Coast and impossible to blog from so it is my great hope that the next time you hear from me I will be posted somewhere with internet access.

I will be informing you as soon as possible about how everything shakes out.

The last thing I want say today is a very very Happy Birthday to one of my most precious gifts...my daughter, she is celebrating today and I want her to know that I love her very much.

Love to all :-)