RED ANTS!

This morning was a typical Guyanese morning: I was scheduled to film the last sequence for the next episode of Health Watch but the producer had double booked himself and had to reschedule. No problem for me, I could have a leisurly morning with Tim. So, we made coffee mochas and used up the last of the Trader Joe's Peppermint Hot Chocolate mix that Lisa gave us. Then we decided to do a load of laundry. Sudsing, scrubbing and rinsing everything was no problem. However, when I went to hang the clothes on the laundry line I was attacked by biting red ants! There must be a nest in my yard under my laundry line because at least 15 ants crawled on my feet, and even hands when I dropped a clothes pin on the ground. These little bastards have a bite like fire! When I get bitten I swell up, then the bite turns into a blister and itches and burns for days. Today I got at least 10 bites and my feet and hands look like lumpy cheese. So NOT fun! I was glad I did laundry but so pissed off at these ants! How do I get rid of them/avoid them in the future? I have no clue. If I had rain boots I would wear them while I am hanging laundry, but alas, I will have to find another solution. Sigh. I do expect this day to get better though. Tim and I are taking a day trip into G/town to go on our 6th run with the Guyana HashHouseHarriers. Four more runs with them and we will be christened with a Hash name (something silly and crude I imagine). Looking forward to it, ant bites and all.

Internet Silence

We haven't been blogging much recently. This could be due to the fact that we don't have our computer right now (Tony brought it back with him to the States when he went on vacation to get it fixed and he isn't coming back until the first week of August. We did hear though that it IS fixed, so YAY!). I think it also just that life is fairly predictable and steady now.

"Life and work as usual". That's how I described this phase in my PC service. Tim and I spent Monday facilitating sessions at the Guy23 (PC group that came to country a year after we did) reconnect conference. Those volunteers, who have only been at site for three months, are feeling the same trepidation, anxiety and frustrations that we were feeling at that stage. Everything then felt new and and was so fraught with BIG emotions. I was glad that Tim and I had climbed over that mountain and arrived at a more pleasant time in our service. I could only offer the newbies words of encouragement that it will get better and, before you know it, life in this strange land will seem normal.

So, right now for Tim and I it is life and work as usual. Not much to report. Projects progress, it is still hot as always, Rasta kitty is doing great, and cold showers don't seem quite so bad anymore. We are looking forward to coming back home in September for a brief jaunt, D+L's wedding, seeing Dal, baby Eevee and family, stocking up on coffee and clothes to last us through the 7 more months of PC servie that we will have left when we return to Guyana. Good times. Hopefully this justifies our relative internet silence and we promise to write more, even life as usual things, when we get our computer back. Love to all back home!

Law School Applications, GACK!

I have officially started the law school application process. UGH! GACK! And other expletives!

Most law schools don't actually let you start working on the applications until the admission period opens in September or October. But, there is plenty to do in preparation before fall. First I had to request that my transcripts be sent from any and all universities I attended. For me thats two, UCSD and Cabrillo, even though I only took two classes at Cabrillo when I was in high school. Okay, so thats done. Check. Then I had to pester the two amazing individuals who magnanimously agreed to write my letters of recommendation. Now, courtesy demands that I send them a self addressed and stamped envelope to mail out my letters. But, oh shucks, I am in Guyana. I don't have any US stamps and even if I did the letter may or may not reach them in any sort of a timely fashion , if at ever. So, I have to get my mom (THANKS MOM!) to print the required forms from the LSAC website and mail them to my recommenders for me. That should be done next week. Yippee.

The other, most loathful, thing I am currently working on is my personal statement. That has to be the most challenging thing in the world to write. Trying to write a persuasive essay on who I am, and showing evidence as to what makes me unique, and why I sould be accepted into law school all in 2-4 pages, double spaced, is torture. I have a shoddy first draft and am going to mangle it up a few more times before I barrage all my friends and family, begging for constructive criticism (another thing I loathe, but I know is good for me). Ugh. Gerr.

I know it will all be worth it in November, when my applications are sent in, well ahead of the February deadline. Then I just get to sit on my hands and freak out for a few months while I wait to hear back from schools, oh and I'll need to start the FAFSA applications for financial aid, oh and apply for scholarships, oh and, oh and....Okay, so maybe I still have a loooong way to go, but at least I am getting started. Sigh. I guess it will really all be worth it in April, when Tim and I embark on our month long trip in South America and we know what school I got into and where we will be living. Only 8 1/2 months....

Happy Birthday, Here's a Sea Turtle!

This past weekends was one of the most spectacular weekends we have had in Guyana so far! We celebrated two birthdays (my friend, and fellow PCV Jillian and America's), spent 12+ hours in speed boats on the rivers in the rainforest and saw 11 leatherback sea turtles!

On Friday Tim and I left Linden with Sara, Amy and her boyfriend Gene, and headed to Georgetown where we met up with 6 other PCVs. We traveled to the Essequibo Coast (where we did our training 17 months ago) where we planned to spend the night and toast to Jillian's 25th birthday, promising her turtles as a gift) before we took a 6 hour boat ride from Essequibo to Shell Beach.

Shell Beach is at the Northern-most point of Guyana, you can practically see Venezuela, and is home to one of the world's few nesting places for sea turtles! The Shell Beach Turtle Project is an NGO dedicated to the protection and conservation of 4 species of turtles. The dedicated folks at the Turtle project patrol the beach twice a night every night, protecting the turtles from predators (poachers who hunt them for meat and eggs, dogs, and birds who eat the eggs etc). We heard that if you go out to the beach you can walk with the patrols to see the nesting process of this endangered species. This month is the last month that the leatherback turtles come to nest so we got our butts out there to see this miracle. I say miracle, because the leatherbacks who are born in Guyana on Shell Beach will always return to nest there and no one knows exactly how or why.

Well, we endured the long but beautiful 6 hour speedboat ride (Tim note:The Rivers here are so crazy! We rode down these huge swathes (and sometimes not so huge) of water surrounded by bush on each side. The mangroves twisting and writhing around each other like petrified limbs remind me of tangled spider legs, while the swamps and wetlands boast both grass and trees intermixed dancing around the mangrove wall.), with our tour guide, and turtle conservationist, Romeo Audley and got to the beach in time for lunch on Saturday. We settled in to the guest house, an open air structure with tents inside and took a swim in the Atlantic ocean (it was salty and brown, but not as muddy as the waters in most places in Guyana). By night fall we were ready for patrol and hoped to see turtles. But before we could do that, we had to protect ourselves from the MOSQUITOES! As soon as dark fell the mosquitoes swarmed like I have never seen before. I was wearing insect repellent and long sleeves but these damn bugs ate through everything, even my jeans! Anyway, we had turtles to see so we would not be deterred.

Right as we were about to leave on patrol, a villager brought a bucket full of 10 baby hatchlings inside. They had tried to get to the ocean but were chased by dogs. The conservationists have trained the local community to help save these little dudes, so they were brought to us and we got to take them down to a safe place on the beach and release them in the sand and watch as they scooted themselves into the ocean to face countless dangers. If they survive, they will come back to the beach in 8-10 years when they are mature to nest. They were so squirmy and cute! I hope they make it.

After releasing the little ones, we walked down the beach for 4 hours, in almost pitch black, since it was a new moon. The brilliant stars above us, the ocean crashing softly to our left, silhouettes of palm trees and jungle to our right and the hope of seeing adult turtles in front of us, we walked. And walked and walked. We saw a whale skull that had washed up the beach years ago but NO turtles. Needless to say, we were disappointed. Back at camp, we slept well but unsettled, dreaming of elusive turtles.

Sunday was spent chilling on the beach, taking photos, swimming and chatting with the turtle project folks, learning about turtles. That night we headed out again on patrol, wishing that we would find at least one turtle so that our trip wouldn't be fruitless. we walked for 2 hours, seeing nothing and decided to sit down and rest our feet for a minute. After about 20 minutes of sitting I was feeling disheartened, thinking we might have to return to camp turtle-less. But then our guide suddenly said, "Look, a turtle is coming out of the water right now." And there she was, a huge mass in the waves, slowing scooting herself up the beach. Right in front of us, as if she knew we were there! We watched in awe as she climbed up above the tide line, then we snuck closer and watched as she dug a hole, over a meter deep with her back flippers and then laid her eggs. When turtles are laying their eggs they go into a sort of trance so we were able to take pictures and even pet her. It was SO cool! Then we watched her bury her eggs (well actually, she thought she was burying them but the conservationists had removed them from the nest, since it was too close to the water and would get washed away, so they moved them to a safer man-made nest). Then the mama headed back out to sea.

I felt so blessed to see this whole process, from start to finish. Only 1 out of 1000 eggs laid will survive and return to the beach to lay their own nests. It is so rare and wonderful and Tim and I got to sit, snuggled up together on a beach in what seemed like the farthest corner of the earth and be part of this phenomenal event.

Then, on July 4th, we all packed up and headed back to our sites, stopping for beers in a small Amerindian village in the river and stopping again on the road to pick up a present that a fellow PCV had made for us for the Fourth; cupcakes with candy hotdogs on them.

It was a stellar weekend! One I will never forget!