Sometimes it can feel like this...

Amazing photo illustrates how it can feel sometimes: this little fella is carrying a huge rock whilst holding on to a branch with his teeth!

Though I love it out here, it sure can be hard some days. Big high five to those serving abroad and an even bigger one to the elders and pioneers having to juggle life and service back home in the metropolis. Don't know how you do it.

No rest for the wicked...

Hello my friends

Well, the campaign is in full swing - our congregation has commenced with a fury and vigor previously unseen, with half the territory being covered in a mammoth afternoon of preaching. The sign language crew have also been hard at work and we are about a third through (we cover two congregations worth of territory up and down the coast). The territory lists have been disturbed and the dust blown off - we don't do maps here, it's so 'developed country' - and following year old directions often leads to houses that are no longer standing or ones that have dropped from the sky.

This season is extremely busy for us. Today we are knocking off some addresses up the coast, then heading off to the assembly rehearsal to be ready to interpret this weekend at our special assembly day. Saturday we are back into our work gear and tool belts to set up the venue and Sunday interpreting our hearts out. Then memorial and special talk all an hour away. I am hoping to be going up river to support the special talk in the Amerindian villages, where there is a little deaf boy - I want to go and interpret for him.

After all of this, the image below is all I want to do: love the picture, from Joseph Richardson (for copyright geeks).

Holi day

Not to be confused with holy day or holiday, today was holi day. It is the Hindu new year and so Guyana is a party zone... Or a death-trap, depending on your point of view.

As you can see from the attached, holi day - or pagwa - as it is called here consists of coloured powder and water being thrown over ones friends as a celebration of the colours of the new year and spring. Apparently the colours have religious significance, but no one could tell us what. It is a national holiday, which is just asking for trouble.

Yesterday I managed to have a brush with this celebration, sitting on a tapir (small jeep public transport thing) waiting to pick someone up right outside a school. Duh. Smiley faces turned into evil as talc was launched at me. It only got me a little, but enough to lament over, that is, until I got home and heard that Amber got soaked and covered in purple! She was pagwa'd ( a new verb I have created).

Today we stayed in the house and tentatively walked to the meeting with pleading eyes so as not to get covered!

Enjoy the photos - not mine, but exactly what we have seen today.

Mangoes!

I love these things. They grow a plenty. I used to think my steak and mango oriental salad was so cosmopolitan, but they literally put mangoes in everything here.

Green little delights