Our 1st week in Guyana

Greetings from New Amsterdam!  Nate & I arrived in Guyana last week and have made it through our first week.

We’ll be using this blog to share stories and pictures with you.  If you have WhatsApp, we have accounts on there with our American phone numbers.  If you have InstaGram, we both have accounts on there as well.

I’ll give you an overview/highlights and then pictures and the stories that go along with them.  If you desire more information about any particular thing, please feel free to email/WhatsApp either one of us.

Last week Saturday, we flew out of Miami into Georgetown on Surinam Airways.  Surinam Air is based out of Suriname which means they speak Dutch.  On our flight, all announcements were made in Dutch and English.  They served us a hot meal and delivered us without much excitement to Guyana.

A sister in the ASL congregation in Georgetown sent a car for us, which picked us up from the airport and took us to her house.  We spent the night with her and then the next morning took a short taxi ride with her around Georgetown.  Then the COBE from New Amsterdam (NA) sent a car for us and we rode the 1 1/2 hour trip over to his house.  Then he drove us to our house.

So Nate wants to me to elaborate a little on these taxi rides.  If you’ve ever been to Paris and riden in a taxi there, then it is like that.  If you haven’t been in a Parisian taxi, then imagine the sequence from the Bourne Identity when he’s in Europe in the Mini.  Each of our rides we were the only ones in the car - more on that later.  Your driver ignores the posted speed limits and passes other cars whenever they like. Single line, double line, dotted line, they don’t matter.  The speed limit is 50 or 80 kph (about 30 or 50 mph), and they go 80 in the 50 and 110+ in the 80.  They drive right up to the bumper of whoever is in front of them, pop to the side to see if anyone is coming, give a little honk or two and pass.  Oh and cars aren’t the only things on the road - there are also people walking, animals walking, people riding bikes, etc.  Our first taxi ride was at night and there weren’t working seat belts in the back.  Later on our ride from Georgetown to NA, the road is under construction.  This didn’t deter our lady taxi driver in the least.  No working seat belts on this ride either and just like our first one, there was a police checkpoint.  Our lady rocked her pink hair, cranked her gospel music and sang along.

We have our own place.  It is a two bedroom ground level home.  The landlady lives above us in the upstairs house.  We are centrally located in NA - 10 minutes from the Kingdom Hall and 10 minutes from the supermarket.  The other evening our landlady made us some dal and some roti.

Guyana is honestly how we expected it would be.  We asked for and were granted a 3 month visa.  This relieves some of our stress since we didn’t know how long we could stay.  The most they say they’ll give you is 3 months but they can stamp it for however long they like.  Our COBE has gotten a visa for 1 week before!

We have mainly been out in service since we’ve been here.  The friends are the only people we know so you get together for meetings and service.  Only 2 people in the congregation have cars so we preach on foot and by hire car (taxi).  To get around in town is $0.50 in a hire car.

We have tried a few different foods and drinks.  It is cheaper to eat out than buy food in the supermarket and cook it.  The supermarket has everything you need for food and drink, except the produce section.  That is found in the market.  Also at the market is meat and fish (there is some meat in the freezer section of the supermarket).  If you buy fruit or veg in the market then we need to clean it with bottled water and fruit/veggie spray so we don’t get sick.  We have 5 gallon water jugs delivered to the house for $1 so we have plenty of clean water.

We haven’t figured out yet whether or not our inside water is the city tap or from the big rain barrels outside.  I’ve assumed that the shower is from the rain water but I don’t know what water I’m washing the dishes with, etc. 

I will post more tomorrow. The internet has been a little bit on and off because our electricity has been on and off twice this evening. More on that later too!