14 hours to Lethem. We shopped and had a conference. Then 6 hours to our village. All I can say is thank goodness we came in an air conditioned Land Rover – over the bumps and through the creeks (which will be rivers in another month or so), it was the roughest road I’ve been on. Peace Corps brought us out with all our luggage, but from here on out, we’re responsible for finding rides into Lethem to buy supplies and pick up our monthly pay check. Next time, we’ll probably be making the trip in the back of a pickup or on a tractor – especially in the rainy season.

We picked a good weekend to arrive. The community is celebrating 100 years of Christian (Catholic) presence in the South Rupinuni (our region). There were hundreds of people here from the surrounding villages – people walking, biking, and tractor-ing 15-50 miles to come in for the celebration. All over the village there were dozens of hammocks strung in huts, homes, and benabs (round huts). One hundred years ago, Father ___ came to the region from Britian, bringing formal education and health care. He learned the languages and traveled the region for many years. Living in our community now are two British community development workers and a British priest who has been living here for almost 50 years and is over 90 years old. There are 8 churches in the community, each of a different denomination. They all joined together to celebrate. We had an amazing lunch where almost 1,000 people were fed from cooking over the open flame, with the village’s own cattle – beef curry, cook-up (rice, black eyed peas, coconut milk), and limede. We did manage to find some vegetables for Chris. There were also cultural shows with dances, songs, and stories from each village. The Amerindians love football (soccer) and volleyball, so we watched many competitions between the villages. And our favorite part, they brought all the village Toshaos (Too-shaws - chiefs) forward to a yelling competion – who can yell the longest – and then all their wives forward for a laughing contest – who can continuously laugh the longest.

Being in the heart of the Savannah, the people consume a lot of beef, then beans and chicken, supplemented by rice and flour products. We have heard that there is some farming a few miles outside the village, but we have yet to see the produce. We’ve not even found a place to purchase fresh fruits or vegetables, so we definitely plan to start a garden. We actually just found a thyme plant at our back door, growing wild! Next month is going to be exciting – the beginning of the rainy season which will make it very difficult for us to get out, as the savannah will flood and there will be rivers going across the road.  But more exciting, it is the beginning of mango season, and we have heard that there are more mangos than we could all eat. The mango trees here are the mother of all trees – HUGE. And apparently they bear a lot of fruit – it’s going to be a good time.

Yesterday we were able to witness the changing of the government. The village just elected a new Toshao last week, and they had an official meeting, an ‘inauguration’ of sorts, ceremoniously handing leadership and property over to the new leaders. All the property of the village was listed – land, cattle, farming equipment, kitchen and office supplies, buildings, and finances were listed and transferred over. After a very long meeting which was conducted in English and the local language (the older villagers don’t speak English well and the younger don’t speak the local language well), we went to a great party at the new Toshao’s place. We were able to meet many village leaders, and announce that if anyone had any vegetables, pass them our way J

We are cleaning our new place and should move in this week. We have grand plans for decorating and starting our garden. It was a rough trip here and a bumpy first few days, but we are settling in and learning our way around. And far as we can tell, there is no mail that comes out this far, so we are working on an address we can send things to in Lethem and then have people in Lethem forward them on when people are making trips out. We will let you know our address as soon as we secure one. And there is internet here, but it is costly, so we’ll try to update as often as we can. Be good, folks!