Christle, IST and Falling Through Stairs

What a title, eh? A lot has happened in the past month and half. One of my best friends here, Christle, was having a hard time and getting triggered by things occurring at her site so she decided to Medically Separate from Peace Corps. (there are many ways to leave, Medically Separate, Medically Evacuate, Administratively Separate, Early Termination, etc etc.) This was a hard decision for her and a hard time for Kelsi and I to see her leave, although we supported whatever she wanted. We went with her to her island and helped her pack and say bye to her host family. It was sad. Really sad. 

 Christle with all of her stuff

Waiting for a boat back to Parika from Wakenaam

Kelsi, Christle and I had a mini thanksgiving together with chocolate cream pie and popcorn! The best with the best!

Education had an IST, in-service training, surrounding literacy and best practices. It was great to get back together with the Education volunteers. We were at the Grand Coastal Hotel for a couple days and they had a separate Annex for the volunteers where we basically lived in a big house together for a couple days. It was like Real World: Peace Corps, so fun! Wish we could do our service from there all together. My counterpart from Laluni, Miss Cindy, came with me and we both really enjoyed the sessions and learned a lot!

Our IST happened over Thanksgiving so we had a little celebration with our counterparts and all the volunteers. It was nice to be together and talk about what we were thankful for.

 GUY 30 Education!

Trying to explain Thanksgiving to Grade one and two! We made hand turkeys and they were pretty cute about all of it!

The past two weeks haven't been the greatest. I had a little accident in Laluni, where one of my stairs broke and I fell through and hit my knee, head and hurt my back. The Peace Corps nurse had to come in and get me and take me to the hospital. Luckily nothing was broken, just bruised and sprained. I've been staying in a hotel in town getting better and while at the hotel I got a staph infection in my armpit. The nurse thinks I scraped my arm on the wood and then got infected somewhere because of that. My friend, Kelsi had two on her legs so we've been keeping each other company with our misery and ailments. Thankfully I'm feeling better although my knee is still pretty hurt. I'm trying to rest it and get it better before we are supposed to hike to Kaiteur, a famous waterfall in two weeks.  Cross your fingers!

"If you think small, your world will be small, if you think big, your world will be big." -Paulo Coelho

Mom in Guyana!

On November 3-11 Mom came to visit me! I arranged for a taxi to pick us both up and then take us to Georgetown, where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast that volunteers love to stay at. We caught up, went to Popeye's for dinner and she showed me all the goodies from America she brought! It was really nice and relaxing to just have a night together before we went to Mainstay.

  

The next day we took a mini bus to the Parika stelling, to take a ferry to the Essequibo coast where Mainstay is. We met John at the stelling, boarded the ferry and found seats for the hour and a half journey!

We arrived at Mainstay Resort, checked into our room and then headed over to my host families house! Everyone was very excited to meet Mom and feed us lots of food! In fact, we never ended up eating at the resort. My host mom, Sunita insisted on feeding us every meal. It was very sweet and I was really glad to be back in Mainstay with my Guyanese family. We went swimming with John at the lake, another volunteer, Carly, came in for one of the days and we just relaxed and gaffed with all my family. They had a big family dinner the first night to celebrate my mom being there and she got to meet the whole extended family! 

My host nephew, Luther! Sunita will say, "Where's Auntie Chels?" and he'll look over at me, it's pretty cute!

Cousins and sisters! Tia, Lorianne, Tiffany and Luther!

Mom meeting Mom! Sunita was very happy to meet Mom, she cried because she was so happy and then we cried! I was really glad they got to meet each other and spend some time together.

Christle, Kelsi, Carly and Bri

After Mainstay we headed back to Georgetown where Mom had so graciously booked us two nights at the Marriot! She even let two of my BFFs from Peace Corps come stay with us to enjoy it's luxury! It was so nice. We got to eat the breakfast buffet, which was amazing, and eat dinners there. The three of us volunteers were amazed and thrilled at everything, while Mom was not as surprised at the Marriot glamourousness. We ended up meeting up with more volunteers at the mall for some dinner and a movie. I was glad Mom was meeting all of my friends and getting lots of perspectives on Guyana life. 

Christle, John, Kelsi and I out to dinner with Mom!

We went to the National Park where there are a lot of manatees, or what Guyanese call, sea cows! You can feed them reeds and grass and they come up and say hi! It was so cute!

Our final stop was to Laluni! Mom came to school with me and met all my students and teachers. The children were very excited to show her their reading skills or for her to read to them. I walked her all around Laluni and introduced her to my favorite families, showed her the creek and made sure she tried all the food,

My host sister Victoria and her daughter, Prescilla came over and we taught Mom how to make a pointer broom out of the palm leaves. It was fun to watch Mom try to make it and meet this family as well.

Showing Mom how it's done!

It was really nice to have her come visit and meet my Mainstay family, Laluni family and Peace Corps family! She got to see a little bit of my life here and experience Guyana. She tried all the food and was a trooper in Laluni without running water and electricity! Love you Mom!

"Life is about not knowing and doing something anyways" - Mark Manson