Happy New Year…apologies for the lateness of my New Year wishes. As most of you know I spent a lovely Christmas and birthday in Guyana followed by a very welcomed break in Trinidad and Tobago, so as promised here follows a summary of the festivities. Christmas day I was awoken as usual by the local equivalent of Battersea Dogs Home (last count we are up to at least 5 dogs residing to the right of my house and at least two on the left….one of these mind you is usually attached to his metal bowl, which he drags around the yard, so he gains a few more noise nuisance points than the others!)…. anyway so waking up was not so unusual and the fact that as usual I was a little hot and bothered meant that it was a little difficult to imagine it to be Christmas day, but I tried….I got up and then left the house for Camilla’s. The previous day Camilla, James (Camilla’s boyfriend) and I went to Nigel’s Supermarket, which is the relatively more upmarket place where you can buy the more familiar food products from home (expensive but nice for treats) any way we had planned out our breakfast and main Christmas feast before hand(Pancakes and lushness for breakfast and chilli and lime marinated fried king prawns and roasted vegetables; a variety, for our main meal) so I was more than happy on my short walk up the road, meeting and wishing people happy Christmas as I went. As you can see from the pictures we had a nice time opening some presents that were sent from home (Thank You!), cooking and eating (phew!).
Fast forward through Boxing Day, which was mostly spent rolling around my house and recovering from the copious amounts of food which was eaten the day before, to the 27th and it was my 33rd (yikes) birthday. I went into work since I was to leave for a 10 day break the day after. This was the first time in my life I had been into work on my birthday but it was nice enough, I met up with some people for lunch and generally chatted about Christmas with my local colleagues all day, which was great. I also got some calls from home which definitely brightened up the day. In the evening I was presented with a Camilla/James Birthday Cake at a local bar/restaurant, completed with skittles and M & M’s! Unfortunately we were not allowed to “consume foods brought from outside on the premises” but it was nice to look at and we smiled a lot at the fact that it was a little melted and becoming more lopsided by the minute!

Friday the 28th and Camilla, James and I headed off to Trinidad. We spent a couple of days in the Port of Spain before heading to Blanchisseuse. We took a minibus up to the village, which was spread up and along several miles of road. The roads were a little precarious but the views were amazing and we quickly got exited about the beaches and views which we were seeing. We spent our first night in what seemed to be the only vacant place in the vicinity but the morning after, for a number of reasons, we decided to persevere and eventually ended up at Laguna Mar Beach Hotel, where we were hosted by Gottfried Franz Zollna. We had a great stay and ended up staying here for New Years Eve (or Old Years Night as it is known here). We met up with a couple of people here, which was great as they had bought the full kit needed for a great nite, fireworks, champagne and a decent camera which could take pictures on the beach.

A couple of days here and then we headed off to Tobago. We headed back to Port of Spain where we jumped on the ferry, which took 2 and a bit hours to get to the smaller island of the two. For those thinking about doing the same and who are prone to sea sickness, then I suggest taking suitable precautions, I was fine but without going into too many details several people weren’t and whist feeling sorry for them I do think they could have made a little more effort to leave my field of vision before doing what they had to do! Anyway Tobago was fantastic, everything we were hoping for, nice beaches, very nice food and very very chilled out people!

So after a great holiday we flew back to Guyana on the Sunday night and were back to work with a slight bump on the Monday morning.
Getting back to work has been great, I feel more familiar with my routines and am starting to see how I might be able to fit into the bigger picture of work here in Guyana. I have just finished my Start of Service Review report (all 22 pages!) and have had my first review with the programme manager, which went well. Last week I co-organised and facilitated the VSO forum, which was held in the Heritage Museum, Meten-meer-Zorg. The forum was over two days so all the volunteers stayed over in the hotel and made the most of catching up. It was especially good to catch up with the volunteers working out in the regions, some of which I hadn’t yet met. As well as learning and perfecting a couple more card games and the art of drinking rum, the forum was a success with activities well received.



And to finish off with some good news…..it looks like I will finally be getting a landline! This means I should be able to receive calls from home and that they won’t cost a fortune, which some of you unfortunately have already spent. It also means that I will be able to get hooked up to the internet, a regular expense but well worth it. I should be able to get going with MSN and webcams etc. for all those who are missing looking at my lovely face! So… I will keep you posted and look forward to resuming better communications with you all shortly.

ps I had some trouble adding pictures to this post. Please look at my online album for more.....