Letter 3 from Guyana

1st November 08
Dear Mum & Dad
I’ve been away for 2 months & a week! So about 41 weeks to go …. No time at all! *Ahem*.
Things that have happened recently:
• Two of the New Amsterdam girls visited us last weekend bringing with them mangoes, dairy milk & large amounts of Rum. We went fishing & sunbathing & swimming at Kamwatta – a village 6 miles away – where there are white sands. It was a really lovely few days.
• We’ve been fishing in the savannah which is an interesting experience as it turns out just to be floating grass – so you can’t stop walking – otherwise you sink.
• Ollie & I now feel completely comfortable talking about puberty, sex, STI’s & HIV in front of people as we’ve spent the middle 2 weekends of October at a Red Cross training program with the red cross youth group.
• The Morucan Red Cross Rescuers held their first fundraiser last night – a Halloween Bingo Night (not that anyone knows what Halloween is!). Bingo is taken very very seriously here – instead of crossing out numbers everyone goes out to collect pebbles to cover their numbers! The Red Cross kids are really really good children … any support would be much appreciated!
• Sophie and Liz (the peace corps girls) held a hallowen party after the bingo. They dressed as secondary school girls. Craig was Harry Potter with a Guyanese flag cape. Ollie & I were clockwork dolls. Drew (Ollie’s boy), Rouel (Sophie’s boy) Hally, Darrel & Larry were there too but clearly made no effort with dressing up …. They came as Guyanese men.
• Cooking has been very exciting! I can make roti: flour, water & baking powder then mix, split into balls, roll flat & rub on oil, fold back up, wait 10 mins. Heat tawa (a round flat metal slab) put on oil then put on one of the (now thinly) rolled roti. Cook either side, take off tawa then toss up & clap then throw down. Repeat clapping … its messy. Guyanese eat this with curry & most things. I’ve made sagaloo, squash curry, aubergine curry stuff …& other vegetable dishes that you would not understand due to vegetables that you’ve never heard of! Did I mention Banopic before? Ollie & my invention: Mashed banana, crushed biscuit, sugar & peanut butter all mixed together ….mmmm
• I’ve learned to love powdered milk. We use it for most things including breakfast which is either porridge or pancakes!
• I have found my first stomach crease line.
• We have complained about the noise next door & their use of an electric iron which affects everyone else’s power & has caused the AKEO to threaten to cut power from our houses.
• Today we plan to order a dugout canoe & then go to a fish fry & lime where we get fish, chips, beer & we chillax!
• I am learning to tolerate Craig’s loud eating noises ….Akg – he is currently slurping soup!
• The harmonica next door has been stolen by Liz.
• There has been an addition to the family next door … they have a wormy, flea-infested, whining puppy.
• We saw a sloth, it was amazing, it looked so weighty, big, fluffy & ancient (almost like Wilf in a tree), it was hard to understand how it got in to the tree in the first place ….
• I try to go for a walk for an hour or so a couple of times a week to explore & try to get rid of some of my flabber while watching the sunset behind palm trees a sight I never tire of.
• I still haven’t received any packages for 5 or 6 weeks.
• I am constantly hassled by young (& old) men (who are usually drunk) to dance or to explain why I haven’t got a boyfriend here, why I don’t want one or how my current boyfriend is. No I don’t have a boyfriend, I believe the term is ‘Stalker’ who is obsessive – he called me the other day to ask why I didn’t dance with him & if we had had a quarrel - he’s a creep … now known as creepy Andy among the volunteers. All because when I was rumfully intoxicated within my first 2 weeks here I danced with him and possibly led him on!
• IT at school is going well .. it’s completely pointless (though when the sun is out one of the computers does work), but it keeps the kids & us busy. When Ollie was showing a group of kids how to use the computer they tried to move the cursor by picking the mouse up!
• The school library has been padlocked closed so that students now can’t use it because they weren’t returning books.
• Biology is going great for one class (touch wood), OK for the 2nd and AWFUL for the 3rd class – who hate me & have no self-respect as they don’t bother trying in any subject as far as I can see. They told me (practically) that I’m a bad teacher! Woop that made me happy!
• I have now read 5 books, just in the middle of the 6th.
• Craig brought his laptop here & so far we have watched: Wall-E, The Sound of Music, Hairspray, Mamma-Mia.
• My camera has died. My waterproof camera has water in it.
• We have now strung up 2 hammocks in the ‘sitting room’ – perfect for hammock wars or propelled swinging.
• I love, love, LOVE the food here. Mmm Craig made some awesome chicken & noodle soup the other day .. actually a week ago now but it still sticks around in my head … & probably my thighs!
So that’s my news of the last month. Or most of it.
I hope everyone is OK, I miss you all like crazy & cannot WAIT to see you!
Love to all,
From Miss Emily xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Useful things/Christmas List - Jen's coming out to see me in December so if you want to send anything with her please let parents know and get stuff to them by 12th:
- Seductive Poison (the book about Jonestown)
- 3 Lush soap shampoo
- Herbs & Spices
- British snacks
- GB Flag (big)
- Bird book of Guyana