Adventure awaits...

Hi all

I hope all is well and the wet weather isn't dampening (lol) your summer spirits. We are in the middle of our rainy season, so I am feeling your pain. Thankfully, I have finished my hours for the year (!!!) so I am just venturing out when I have to.

Speaking of venturing out, I am off on an adventure next week! I am going to a place called Charity - cue visual aids:






According to our friends at Wikipedia: "Charity is located on the Pomeroon River which provides a gateway to this part of Guyana's interior and Venezuela. Many Guyanese use this waterway to travel back and forth between Guyana and Venezuela where they work. It is a central focus for the farmers who live in this area. They bring their products to this location and from here it is transshipped to other townships such as Anna Regina and Parika, and to the capital city of Georgetown."

Blah blah...

We had our circuit visit the other week and received the visit from a missionary brother, and his wife, based in charity, as our CO was in the interior. It seems that despite Charity being a remote area, they have a blossoming sign language field - tres bizarre. Apparently, someone visited and started some deaf interest and then left (!), but the deaf keep coming. Their Sunday meeting sees about six regular deaf coming and they have no one that can interpret properly. Well, that's not true - two asl sisters have just arrived the, so they have support now.

The brother was telling me all about it and then asked if I would be willing to come up and interpret at their special assembly next weekend. He also asked if I would be willing to spend some time with their sisters and give some advice/training on catering to the very specific needs of the deaf out here (no education, no formal sign language).

So, I am off! Thankfully, I have managed to convince another sign language brother from a nearby cong and a sister to come too, as the trip is ten hours or something silly and on the river. It is quite an expensive trip too, but i am sure it will be worth it. We are going to be gone for a whole week, and are hopefully going to be able to get some river witnessing in too! (this is a dry-run for Jo coming to see if it is worth the effort, but don't tell her!)

We will be taking lots of pictures and you will be receiving them upon my return post-25th June.

Ta ta for now, smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast.

I want to see the Avengers!

I miss the cinema! I miss days off with Tiffany in Streatham, going to the charity shops and sitting with our mini bottles of wine and sushi watching our third or fourth film of the day. I miss Jup for Marvel and Chumpy for everything else, Humps too.

I want to watch the Avengers and so many of the blockbusters coming out. Woe is me. If anyone finds a torrent that is good, or has a good movie, dropbox it for me will ya?

I wish...

1,050 rashers of bacon... We cannot get bacon here, it is a sad thing. On the upside, we found a shop that sells sesame seeds - tahini here we come which is a hop, skip and a jump to hummus! Woop Woop

Hallo

Realized I haven't posted for a little while, so just a quick (and mundane) one to say hi.

Things are really busy here at the moment. Lots of ministry and preparations for the district convention have started, resulting in more work. On the happy side, two of my studies have taken their unbaptised publisher questions and one has begun his baptism questions, which is all vey exciting.

The month of June is going to be hard. Everyone is leaving from here to return for work etc, so it leaves myself and a sister here to do all the interpreting and cover all the studies until Amy gets back here in July. It's going to be mad. I just hope the rain lets up - rainy season here so all day rain and all day black outs at the moment. Not fun. To make matters worse, my laptop picked up a virus and has completely died - wont even start up as the whole hard drive has corrupted. I have lost all my pictures and stuff for work back in the uk: everything. Not happy. Having to buy a new one from the states and get someone to bring it. There goes six months of living here in Guyana and for the time being, my ability to watch knock off DVDs we buy in the capital!

Right I had better get out of bed and get to market to buy some food to cook dinner for the girls tomorrow. They let me pick out of their fridge in the week on the understanding I cook dinner on a Sunday. Recipe ideas would be appreciated... On that note - below is a fruit that grows here called breadfruit. Not sure if we can get it back home. It has a latex residue that comes out of its skin and is a nightmare to cut and peel, but if you get into it and boil and fry it, it is delicious - sort of like bread, sort of like plantain.



Ciao for now.

Doesn't matter where you are in the world...

The rain still finds you.

Two days of rain and blackouts. Walked home in the torrential rain last night with takeaway fried chicken under my arm. Suit drenched but belly full. Hear back home you have had two months rain in 24 hours. Gotta love April.

Technology contradiction

Hello all

I hope you are well.

Things here are busy. I had to take a trip to Georgetown (the capital) on Monday to get a visa for Suriname as I have completed another three months (nine months now and counting!). Interesting news is that they have introduced a long awaited tourist card for Europeans which is easier to get and cheaper, so good news all round. So this week I shall be heading across the waters to visit some friends with another English couple, where the brother will do the talk in the English congregation, which will be a nice change.

This made me laugh the order day. I visited New Amsterdam hall last weekend and took a picture of their phone-in technology - very funny:





Whilst this did not surprise me, something else happened that made me appreciate technology and was slightly scared about how it so easily has become ubiquitous. I was on an English study with friends and they have a deaf three-year old called Daniel. He was a bit unruly and bombastic so I showed him my iPad drawing programme to give him something visual. It was amazing to watch. Within about fie minutes, with some trial and error, he had worked out all the multi-gesture commands (five fingers to close, three to swipe, two to go up a level within the programme and the use of the home screen). It was like he has been a user for years. I didn't have to show him anything. Shows how natural these interfaces are and how toddlers all have a Stephen Hawkings lurking inside of them. I took a video but is too large to upload.

Miss everyone, but not the rain you are all experiencing. We have had our own share, along with all daŷ black outs, but at least it is still boiling hot.

Ciao for now.x

A day in New Amsterdam...

I recently took a trip up the coast to our sister sister sign language group in New Amsterdam to join them for some ministry. We dont know these guys too well, as we only see them at a monthly combined meeting and at the assemblies. I thought it might be nice to spend some time and experience their ministry.




N.A is a very different territory to ours. Whilst we spend most of our time on public transport travelling up and down the coast, they are able to use bikes to get around, saving a huge amount of money. I am not sure about turning up everywhere more sweaty than one must, but for the fiscal benefits, I can see the merits. They do this thing called 'towing' here, where two or more people share a bike. Kortel managed to convince me to do it for part of a walk as we were late - so weird!








In addition, their deaf are quite different. Whilst none of our deaf have ever attended school nor learnt any formal sign language, the deaf in N.A are a mixed bunch. Many have been through the 'special school' in the town, which says it teaches in ASL, but in reality they just write on the board and the deaf copy in English. This results in many of them signing ASL but not having a clue what they are really saying. This is dangerous as foreigners look at them, think they are competent in ASL and teach them as they would back home - which doesn't work!

Below is a picture of Robin preparing his Bible reading for Thursday. He doesn't own a DVD player, so has to watch the film and copy word for word in a drawing-hieroglyph notation. Poor lad didn't have a clue what he was signing sadly.





This was a call of Nikki's (girl from Ireland) in the English. Miss Patsy is her name, thank you very much. Very proper lady who hd some really deep questions. In one conversation we discussed the Seventh Day Adventists, tithing, the Anti-Christ, the rocks crying out and what happens to the sun when it goes into the sea...! Yes really. No disrespect meant, it just highlights the lack of education out here. We had to give her a demonstration about the earth moving and prove to her that the sun stays still - she still isn't convinced.


A great day had. I'm going to try and go up once a month or so to give a different element to my ministry and maybe to try and help give ideas to the brothers on how to teach the younger ones with ideas from work and bethel.

Fun day.