Trip to Paruima

There is a village that is a fifteen minute flight from Paruima called Kamarang. This village has a very nice airstrip (in bush terms) and is a central hub for flights into the interior. Since there are no roads that lead to any of the villages in this particular section of Guyana the only option is to fly in. David Gates was planning a flight into Kamarang to continue a TV satellite project he started there and decided it would be a good idea to fly us in with him instead of making James make a whole trip to Georgetown (2 hours one way) just to pick us up. It made sense so Thursday morning we drove out to the airport, packed his fancy little plane with all kinds of stuff (mostly our bulky luggage) and took off.

As we flew through a rather cloudy sky I was thrilled to see the landscape change from the flat jungle we were so familiar with in Bethany to rolling hills and eventually mountains. I realized how much I missed seeing mountains when we beheld the gentle peaks and towering plateaus from the air. It was truly breathtaking. I wish I could have gotten some good pictures of what I saw, but you know how it is, pictures never capture the true image as seen with the human eye. As we neared Kamarang, way off in the distance were two significant plateaued mountains. David told us that if we flew between those two mountains we'd be in Venezuela. Cool! But our course dropped us down to the course runway of Kamarang.

Once in Kamarang, Michael helped David and Mark work on setting up a large satellite dish while we waited for James. There was only one little problem, James still didn't know we were all the way in the interior already. David wasn't able to get a hold of him on the radio earlier so we left without the necessary communication. Gary (one of our other pilots) stayed back at the plane, hoping to catch him on his plane radio before he headed all the way into Georgetown. Though he never got a hold of James directly, Gary was able to get the message to the little airport in Georgetown who relayed it to him once he was on his way. James got the message a tiny bit late, but he turned around and was on the ground in Kamarang in very little time. Boy, were we glad to see him.

We reloaded our luggage into the new plane and it wasn't long before we were airborne. The trip was fairly quick, which was a good thing since I had a fuel container in the tiny bit of leg room I might have otherwise have enjoyed. It made good friends with my shins during the flight. One thing we learned very quickly about Paruima; every trip to town counts. They are so far removed from civilization that on the chance a trip is being made into town, the plane has to be filled to capacity with supplies on the return journey. Standard procedure around these parts.

As the plane circled over the village of Paruima, I was delighted at what I beheld. The village was nicely spread out and neatly manicured with a quaint variety of houses, two football (soccer) fields, and a couple schools including DIIC. It was nestled in the peaceful crook of a beautiful winding river. The river was wonderfully strewn with occasional boulder and dugout canoes. Michael and I were enamored with the boulders. There are absolutely no rocks in Bethany, not even pebbles or stones. Here was a visual feast of them and it was hard to contain our excitement.

Another key feature of the village its beautiful church standing proudly on the highest hill. This church belongs to a hearty congregation of around three hundred Seventh-Day Adventist Amerindian villagers and stands like an inviting beacon, beckoning people to come join in the fellowship.

The airstrip in Paruima is unique to any other I have been on yet. It was all grass! It was a very soft, bouncy landing. I rather enjoyed it. James, who always seems to be running errands of some sort, had to drop us off and leave again to go pick up more fuel in town. We unloaded and carried everything down to the river's edge where we were told we would be picked up. The river was so incredibly beautiful that Michael and I kicked off our shoes and plunged right in. It was cold enough to take our breath away, but it was wonderful! We splashed around in the strong current until we saw a boat coming our way. We assumed this was the school's boat and sure enough, as it got closer we saw two very eager white people on board. The driver was a very cute, older Amerindian man named Shadrach.

It was comforting to know that even though we were in a new place we would have several familiar faces to greet us. We had the rare opportunity of having met the staff of DIIC over the Christmas holidays. Michael and I had spent a couple days in Georgetown at the same time the four missionary teachers from DIIC were also staying at the mission house. We had a nice time chatting with them and getting to know them a bit then. Who knew that we would soon be working together! Two of these teachers were able to come greet us now. Maria, a sweet Austrian girl with a ready smile, and Steve a talkative American in galoshes, lept to shore and helped us on board with our load. I was so happy to be on the water again as we glided through the silky water. I find I am happiest when I'm on the water. It's been that way from the day I arrived in Guyana. We rode past little houses, patches of bamboo and plenty of jungle trees, wondering what our immediate futures would bring at Davis Indian Industrial College.

Preparing for Paruima

The call came fast. One day we were living life as usual at Bethany, the next we were on our way to to the interior of Guyana. When Melissa asked me and Michael if we would be willing to go teach at the school in Paruima we didn't have much time to think things over. It wasn't a hard decision for either one of us though since we have both been wanting to see more of the country. From what I understand it is quite rare for missionaries to get the opportunity to see the other Adventist schools of Guyana. We didn't want this opportunity to slip by. We said yes with very little hesitation.

There are four Adventist schools in Guyana so far (that I know of anyway): Bethany Medical Missionary College (Bethany), Davis Indian Industrial College (Paruima), Kimbia Mission Academy (Kimbia) and Sipiruta Mission Academy (Sipiruta). All of these schools are under the umbrella of an organization called GAMAS (Guyana Adventist Medical Air Services). This organization was started by a very energetic and extremely dedicated man named David Gates. It is cool because all these schools, though very different, have one thing in common. They all have the aim of spreading the good news of our dear Savior all across Guyana.

DIIC in Paruima is where we were asked to teach. It was a bit of a trip to get there. First Michael had to make a trip to Georgetown to work our some banking issues. The plan was that he would fly into the city with James Ash (principle of DIIC), take care of things there and travel back to BMMC by boat with Gilbert, who happened to also be in Georgetown. James would pick up a plane load of supplies for his school and then come back the next day to pick us up.

As is opt to happen, that's not quite how things worked out. Michael went to the city as planned, but late that night I finally realized he wasn't coming home. I went to the Sissons' house to see if they had any information to share and Gilbert said that Michael wasn't ready to go when he was, so he left without him. That was a bit frustrating to me, but I called Michael from their house and luckily he answered so I could get the real story. I found out that plans had changed and James wanted to fly out of Georgetown the following day instead of Bethany. That meant that I had to make sure everything was packed and toted to Georgetown by noon the following day.

I was much relieved that Liz and Alexis were heading out to Parika the next morning too so I would have someone to travel with. It's always nice when you don't have to go alone, plus they would be able to help me carry the two large backpacks I was bringing along. I made it to Parika without a hitch and crammed myself and my bulky luggage in a mini bus that was headed for Georgetown. I was grateful I had remembered my earplugs this time. Mini buses in Guyana are infamous for playing super loud music on their poor quality speakers. But they are significantly cheaper than taxis, so a bus it was.

When I arrived at the drop off downtown, I had to look for another bus that would take me by the mission house on the other side of the city. I threw Michael's fully loaded pack on my back and linked my arms through the shoulder straps of my own pack, hanging it in front of me. I must have been quite the sight! I staggered through the zoo of buses, hoping the number 40 buses were close by. I asked someone where I might find them and it turned out it was about a block away. "Ok. I can do this," I thought to myself. I determinedly hoisted my resting pack back into my arms and began the long walk. As I walked I had several men making all kinds of comments to me like "hey strong white girl!" I politely smiled at them, giving them the attention they were seeking, and walked on thinking, "Oh brother!"

When I got to where I was suppose to find the number 40 buses I realized that there were none parked there as I was expecting. I saw one drive by but by that point I didn't feel like playing the flag down game. I finally conceded to take a taxi. It would be worth the extra cost, my arms were killing me! Upon my arrival at the mission house Michael told me that plans had changed yet again. No big surprise. We would be spending the night in Georgetown and hopefully be leaving the next day. Luckily we had plenty of entertainment for that evening as David Gates himself was in town and also happened to be utilizing the mission house with his travel companion, Mark. They captivated their eager hearers with amazing tales of faith and the incredible work David is currently doing around the world. That night as we settled into bed we did our best to ignore the yapping dogs outside our windows and focus instead on the work we were about to dive into in the far away village of Paruima.

Leaving the nest

Howdy folks, this is Michael, I'm sorry I have to be the one writing to you, as I'm not as exciting as Lauren is, but circumstances warrant it, as you'll see.

Last night we heard a strange noise outside our house, a person calling for us. It's only strange because we are viewed as the grumpy old couple who goes to bed at 7pm, and most people don't come to visit us in the evenings. It turned about to be Melissa, bearing a message from one of the other Adventist schools called Parima. They were looking for someone to teach 7'th graders for about a month until a teacher from the US could get down. Parima is a 2 hour plane ride away, located in the western mountains near Kamarang (click on map to see enlarged image).





It is a very beautiful area with places to hike, waterfalls and who knows what all else. Much different from our flat land existence at Bethany. So we said sure, why not?

Today about 10am James Ash, principal of Parima, also a pilot landed at our airstrip and came to give us some information. It turns out that the Parima area has only one public junior high/ high school, located about 4 hours from the village. All the young people wanting any kind of education have to attend it. Unfortunately, being a public boarding school in a 3'rd world country, it is absolutely ruining the children. The Parima school then has to try to undo 5 years worth of corruption when the kids attend the college there. This year they have started a pilot program to take just the 7th and 8th graders and educate them on the college campus. Support was overwhelming from the village, and many parents begged them to take their kids who were in the upper classes. The problem is that there aren't teachers, so just one grade can be done this year. Next year hopefully more teachers can be found to open it up as a full scale secondary school.

Where we come in is filling in teaching 5 youngsters Math, Science, and English, until a qualified teacher comes in 3-4 weeks. The old teacher just went to Venezuela. In conclusion, you're not going to hear anything from us for about a month, but at the end we should have some really cool pictures and stories saved up.

Howler Monkeys

The other day Melissa was sitting on the toilet... (I know that is a crude way to start an entry, but bear with me) she was sitting on the toilet and gazing out the window, enjoying the gorgeous jungle view. All of a sudden she noticed movement in one of the large trees and became completely attentive. As she peered into the trees she was wild with excitement as she saw an extremely rare sight. It was a family of Howler Monkeys climbing around, chowing down on the little fruits of the tree. She hurried out and shared the sight with others.

Howler Monkeys can often be heard around here in around late dusk and early dawn. We have never been fortunate enough to see these large monkeys though. They are rather elusive. The locals call them baboons because of their size and potential fierceness. I'm sure they aren't too different from their African relatives. They are large and have a good set of sharp teeth that you would definitely want to keep at a distance.

During the time of Melissa's exciting discovery I was on the opposite end of campus, building a roaring fire to heat water for our showers. I was consumed in my task when Michael hastily arrived, almost frantically asking me where my binoculars were. He didn't say a word about why he needed them, but I sensed his urgency and quickly rain upstairs to get them. As soon as I had them Michael took off at a healthy pace, knowing I would follow with the aforesaid binocs. He didn't have to say anything for me to know that I wouldn't want to miss out on whatever distant thing needed viewing. My curiosity got the best of me as I hurried behind him, wondering what on earth he wanted to look at. I typically use my binoculars to trying to spot birds so I wondered if he found some rare bird for me to look at. But then again Michael doesn't usually get that excited about birds, so my curiosity remained.

When we reached the backside of the Sissons' house there was a group of people all staring at the trees. I gave the binoculars to Michael as I looked in the general direction of the undisclosed mystery. I stared hard for a few seconds before I finally saw a mammal of some sort hanging from a lofty branch. The first thought that lunged into my imagination was that it was a sloth. When I saw the creature moving with primal agility I knew that guess was wrong. Someone's comment finally gave light to the mystery and I was delighted to be sharing in the discovery. I saw three of them, two adults and one tiny baby that was clinging to its active mother.

We stood there and watched them until they slowly climbed out of view, into the safety of the jungle. What a cool thing to see! We felt very blessed to have seen them on our campus. They didn't even seem to notice that we were standing there gawking at them either. I really hope they come back for another day time visit sometime.

Rainy Season

Rainy season... a time of glory and woe. A time to readjust your living habits by simple things like carrying an umbrella everywhere you go. If you want to stay dry (drier anyway) you must do this even if the sun is shining and there is hardly a cloud in the sky. The rainy season is a time to revel in the fact that you don't have to water the garden. You are in awe at the tiny little plant wonders that are springing up all around you. The rainy season is a time to become more aware of your surrounding. For example, you must look to the skies to see how fast you should walk from your house to lunch without being caught in a torrential downpour. If the sky has a layer of light clouds, no worries, you can take your time. If it dark with a growing layer of thick storm clouds, you better walk straight and steady. If, by chance, you look to the sky even later than that and you see a thick wall of rain heading your way RUN FOR IT!!!

The rainy season is full of surprises until you get a little more acquainted with it. Once you know it better, you can roll with the soggy punches. One of the unpleasant parts of the rainy season is that things don't really ever get dry. There is so much moisture in the air that things seem to keep perpetually damp. The funny thing is that you don't realize this fact until the mildew starts appearing. I first noticed it on my hat that hangs on a nail on the wall. Little speckles of mildew hinted around the brim and top. I washed it, scrubbing hard on those mildewy spots, and bleached it overnight, but nothing seemed to help. The mildew remains. Our folded clothes have been having problems too. I pick up a shirt to put on in the morning and am almost knocked out by the strong smell. I have tried hanging shirts that I want to wear, and that helps a bit, but is still bad. It is crazy to see everything around you molding from the wet air. Even the wooden rods that hold up our mosquito net dusted in a fine layer of mold. It's disgusting! Thank goodness the rain seems to be lessening by the day. I have a feeling the dry season will be upon us before we know it. And when it's here this girl is going to be doing some serious spring cleaning!


In case I have given you a bad taste in your mouth about the rainy season, don't worry, it isn't all bad. In fact, despite it all, it is a real blessing to have months of rain. One of my favorite parts of the rainy weather is that is is nice and cool. Sometimes it is so cool that I thoroughly enjoy the use of my sweatshirt and pants to ward off the goose bumps. It is wonderful to also appreciate snuggling up with my sheet and blanket at night when I go to bed. In the dry season it gets so hot that you feel like you will never get to sleep. The coolness of the rainy season is WONDERFUL!


Another thing I really like about the wet season is the flowers that have come in bloom. We have a gorgeous flower that grows wild on the outskirts of our campus. This flower is social, growing in groups. Every time I go out walking, I am wished farewell by these beautiful little treasures. Other jungle flowers can be seen here and there too. I love it!

Like I mentioned earlier, it is also super nice not to have to water the ever growing garden. Michael has been working on the garden as he has been able and the fruits of his labor are finally being noticed. He has been extremely grateful to have to help of students and staff alike during the afternoon work periods. It has made the work go quite a bit faster.

We enjoyed the abundance of Bora during the holiday break and now that the Bora is dwindling we are looking forward to a couple other crops that are springing up. Actually we just enjoyed our first meal where everyone got a garden grown ear of corn today. It's a bit of a novelty to have corn on the cob down here. It was very sweet and we were wishing for more. I hear we might all get another tonight. Boy oh boy oh boy!!!



Michael has also counted about 35 pumpkins that are plumping up nicely out in the field that got planted earlier. Pumpkin is a delight down here are you can use it in many different dishes: pumpkin curry, pumpkin pie, pumpkin pone (a sweet and delicious treat), pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes... you can even use young pumpkin like zucchini. I LOVE IT!!! I can't wait until they start getting ripe!

Reading With Yoni

Yoni Thomas is a high energy, but very well behaved 11 year old boy who lives in the village of Bethany. His mother, Ramona, is the village health worker and is well loved by all. His father, Floyd, is a logger by profession and also play the keyboard at church each Sabbath. Yoni has a highly accomplished older brother and a bright little sister. Yoni is caught in the middle in every way, especially when it comes to his reading. Why am I writing about this random child? Because he has become my little student two days a week.

I got to know Yoni when Ramona came to Melissa one day pleading for help. She explained that Yoni was having difficulties with his reading and she was wondering if Melissa knew anyone who could tutor him. I was the first person who jumped to her mind since she knows I get along quite well with kids. She asked me if I would be interested and though I have had absolutely no experience teaching reading I accepted the challenge. When Melissa relayed the request to me she made it sound like poor little Yoni basically couldn't read. I was a bit dumbfounded by this and really didn't know how to start him out. But I decided to go and see for myself what level he was at.

I was pleasantly surprised when, during our first session together, I realized that Yoni can read quite well. He is definitely a bit behind where he should be for his age, but my fears of what level he might be at were quickly dissipated as he fairly breezed through a few short stories for me. His biggest challenge is vocabulary. There are several words he can't read because he doesn't know the word in the first place. He also has trouble getting through some of the longer words, but who doesn't! I write down all the words he has trouble with and really drill him at the beginning and end of each session.

Though progress has been slow, I can definitely tell he's picking up and understanding the new words. His parents seem very pleased with our time together, so I guess I'm making a bit of an impact. At any rate I am getting a bit more exercise than normal during the 2 mile walk to his house, plus I thoroughly enjoying being read to and hearing all kinds of fun and interesting Caribbean stories!

Smoothie in the tool shed

One of my most interesting kitchen experiences took place just the other day. What made it so interesting was that it didn't take place in the kitchen at all. But before I get into it too much I should explain a couple of things to you.

You must first understand that our campus has been having major issues with it's electricity lately. We have a big set of solar panels that charge several large batteries. These batteries are able to feed the whole campus with a certain amount of power. It's a beautiful luxury that we are incredibly blessed to have. But, living in the jungle, things are bound to go askew every now and then. And now is the time for power trouble.

The problem we have been facing is that one of the main fans that cools the inverter is broken, thus the whole system can only last about an hour at most these days. And that amount of time is only if very low wattage is being used (i.e. light bulbs). If you want to run anything that takes a little more juice to get it going you can expect around 5 minutes of use before all the power turns off.

With that little amount of background I have one more thing to woefully explain. Every morning, without fail, we have porridge. It takes the form of three varieties; oatmeal, plantain porridge, and cornmeal porridge. Many times the amount that is made is a vision of grandeur compared to what we can actually eat. Since leftovers are inevitable, the cooks have gotten sickeningly creative. They almost alway make "smoothies" with it. Sounds kind of good right off, right? But what comes to mind when you think of a smoothie? Perhaps a decedent mixture of frozen pineapple, mango, and banana, with some porridge to thicken it? If only. Unfortunately our smoothies are made with blended up porridge as the main ingredient, with Mixed Essence (a poor excuse for vanilla type of liquid), sugar, and, if we're lucky, a couple bananas or plantains.

In my humble opinion it is rather terrifying. Don't get me wrong, it is certainly consumable (if you're feeling brave), but I wouldn't dare call it a smoothie. That's like a sacrilege! SMOOTHIES ARE MADE WITH FRUIT!!! If we called it Porridge Froth Surprise, well then I might be really gung ho to glop it down, but smoothie?!

Anyway, now that that's off my chest I can get on with my story.
Sandra (one of our village cooks and also a supreme fan of the Guyanese Smoothie) asked me to make the smoothie of the day (oatmeal) to have for supper. Since the power on campus definitely wasn't working that day, and would have shut off pretty quick with the blender going anyway, I was to use the generator for the job. We only have one functional generator at the moment and do you think they lovingly put it in the kitchen for us? No way! Our men are constantly doing manly projects with all kinds of loud equipment that run off that generator. So naturally it was nestled tenderly in the tool shed where it was being used for something or another.

As such I had no choice but to make the smoothie in the grimy old tool shed. I can only imagine how silly I must have looked carrying the heavy pot of blended ingredients all the way across campus, going back to the kitchen, and returning a few minutes later with the blender and a pitcher in hand. I felt ridiculous! I pulled a paint-spattered bucket over to set up on and there, wedged in that little tool shed, surrounded by fumes and the roar of the generator, I made our smoothie.
Things are sure different in the mission field!