A day in the life

Since today was a relatively eventful day compared to the last few, I've decided to make my whole post about Guyana rather than add some pictures from earlier. This morning we got up and were accompanying Medex Sampson to a nearby village called Kwatamang to help him with his project which is trying to impregnate everyone's bed-nets with a pesticide to decrease the malaria. It was only about 2 miles away, so we were up and walking to the village. It was an interesting walk to say the least. Here is Stacey and Medex in what was usual for where we were.
Some of the way there and most of the way back we were carrying our shoes and walking through shallow water because it's the rainy season. I actually rather enjoyed this. Especially because usually if we weren't in the water we were in grassy areas where we got absolutely attacked by mosquitos. We've since learned that these types of mosquitos apparently don't leave itchy bites, but it was still not so fun to be swatting whole swarms of them away. The way back we took a different route which was way more water but almost no mosquitos. Quite pleasant in fact.

When we got there, we pretty much just observed a town meeting where the Medex explained what he was trying to do and what he wanted from them. Here is a pictures of a bunch of the people that were there.
Most of the meeting was in english, but some of it was in the local indigenous language of mukushu. It was the first time I'd ever heard it and didn't understand anything (except imported words like mosquitos and bednets and stuff). After the meeting, we asked them if it was okay if we took pictures and all the kids were immediately interested in our cameras. I actually let a couple of them take mine and take some pictures. They didn't really know how to work it though so I got quite a few pictures of the floor. Here is one that I helped them take of me.

Then it became a fun game for me to take pictures of them and then show them. They clearly had never seen a digital camera before and were fascinated to see pictures of themselves. Here are a few of the kids.
Then there was just the walk back here to Bina Hill. Here is a picture I took that I think gives you a pretty good sense of what it's like around here. The donkeys are everywhere and just sort of roam around. But we're told they all belong to someone. Some to individuals and some to entire villages.

And finally, on our way back, we got a nice view of some of Bina Hill from the back.The building you see closest is actually mine and Stacey's room. The two windows on the left are by our beds. The other windows are part of the open part that doesn't really have rooms or walls or anything. The blue and white building that you can see in the back is the main building where the office is and where we spend most of the day. I have better pictures of the area though and will add those some other day. Still 4 weeks left... tons of time for pictures!

Anyways, now we're just doing a couple hours of work before we head out for the weekend. We are going to be staying at the Eco-Lodge near the airstrip and are very excited for a bit of luxury like hot water, hopefully lots of fresh fruit and apparently even a pool! I don't think I'll be on the internet this weekend (although they may have wireless... who knows) so have a great weekend and I'll update again on Monday!

Bye!
Kaila