Life in Paruima. by Laura

"Daaaaddy! Daaaaaddy! Daaaaaaddy!" calls a small girl in her footie pajamas, as she stands on a bench to look out the open window, "Daaaaddy!!!! Daaaaddy!!! Where's my Daaaaddy?" she asks as she leans a little further out the second story window. I warn her to be careful, as I explain to her for the 4th or 5th time, that Daddy and Uncle James have landed at the airstrip, "We have to wait for them to park the airplane and walk all the way through the village. Daddy will be here soon!" I assure her. The hardest time for Kathryn is the time between when we see the airplane fly overhead, and when her Daddy walks in the door. There is always so much to try to take care of and get done while the pilots are in Georgetown, that the plane often arrives in Paruima about 5:15 or so, right before sunset. If there is not enough daylight left of the day, the plane is left to be unload the next day. The pilots make sure the plane is parked and secure for the night, then they walk down the new steps to the river. There are dugout canoes that are usually parked on both sides of the river as that is the main landing for the village of Paruima. Sometimes the pilots just borrow a boat to paddle across the river, and other times there is someone nearby that can go along and return the boat to it's original side of the river. Then they use their headlamps or the flashlight on their phones if they had forgotten their headlamps, to make their way the 15 min walk through the village, and out to the school. For a pregnant lady and a toddler, it takes a lot longer, but the pilots headed home at the end of the day can make it in 15 min. Soon Kathryn is shouting "My Daddy is here! My Daddy is here!" as Edwin scoops her up in a big hug.

I try to have Kathryn bathed, ready for bed, and supper on the table, when Edwin gets home so we can have supper worship and family time. In the upstairs of the girls dorm where we are staying, there are no outlets that I am aware of, and just one light bulb. When we turn out the light for Kathryn's bedtime, it's easy to just go to bed ourselves. I love waking up refreshed in the morning, and looking out the partially open shutter at the palm trees. There are two little birds that perch on the top of the shutter and peer in at us, chirping happily. Those two little birds have become very brave, when they think we are not looking, they hop right in and search the table for crumbs, or peruse my kitchen shelves. One day they helped themselves to a ripe plantain. We call them "our little birds" Kathryn gets so excited when they come to the windowsill to eat the bread crumbs that we leave there for them. I actually enjoy having the wildlife being able to come in, at night there is often a large bat that swoops through, eating mosquitoes. Other than the poop that they leave on my clean, drying, dishes, I enjoy the geckos and their chirping sounds. Several times a week we feel especially blessed when a hummingbird comes into our room for a visit. The biggest annoyance is each morning, seeing how much food the roaches have left us. We went through our first box of bread bags pretty quickly because the roaches bite right through and help themselves to CHUNKS of bread.

We just cut their bites off and eat the rest. But then we have to throw the bag away, rather then being able to re-use it. Roaches like to eat silicone(edges of spatulas, buttons on calculators and the GPS, razor handles etc), and bags too, they eat holes in the new baggies while they are still in the box! Thankfully, our sweet friends, the Williams. loaned us a barrel with a good seal on it, so we can now keep the most tasty delectables out of the roaches' reach! As we get more settled we will find ways to out-smart and or get rid of those BIG hungry roaches!!!

Having no refrigeration is definitely a challenge. We end up having some pretty interesting combinations for breakfast, just trying to eat up leftovers from the day before, so that they aren't wasted. I am so very thankful for the use of a stove and oven. I have been enjoying experimenting with the local foods. I used green papaya in place of pumpkin for "pumpkin cake" yum. I also tried using green papaya to make fajitas to eat with fresh made tortillas. I have discovered that we love ripe plantains cooked to a porridge, with a little cinnamon, cloves and all-spice added and eaten with pancakes and peanut butter. It reminds us of applesauce, (which is pretty much non-existent here) so delicious! Cook-up is a local dish of beans and rice cooked in coconut milk, that I am learning to make, it's so rewarding to make coconut milk from a coconut I found in the yard!

Tuesday is my laundry day. There is a washing machine at the duplex where the Ash family has been staying. Praise the Lord for a washer. Washing clothes in the utility sink isn't so bad, but the wrung out clothes take more then a day to dry. So on Tuesday we carry all our dirty clothes down to the washer. We fill the washer with a water hose coming in the window, when we have added the soap, we start the generator and turn on the machine. We listen for a change in the sound of the generator to indicate when the washer is draining and spinning. We turn off the generator while we fill the washer for the rinse cycle. Then we pull the rope on the generator again so the washer can rinse, drain and spin. There is a large west facing porch that gets the hot afternoon sun, that we all use to dry our clothes. Rainy season adds a challenge because it takes longer for our clothes to dry, but we all just do the best we can to share the line with the clothes that are still waiting to dry.

When we first arrived in Paruima we had a special treat. Humming birds had built a tiny nest, stuck to a splinter of wood on the ceiling where the washer is. While we would be there, the parents would cautiously fly into the room, then dart to the nest and feed the two baby hummingbirds. It was so amazing to see the parents stick their long beak down the small baby's throats! We have seen a sloth, and a group of monkeys swinging through the trees, a couple of times.I have also seen the macaws that live on Rain Mountain, flying over a few times, so majestic! I am really enjoying the birds and wildlife!

I am sorry that it has been so long since we have written a blog post! Getting communication out while we are in Paruima is next to impossible. There is not any internet at the school, there is an internet cafe in the village, but people don't use it much because it's expensive, you have to pay by the hour, and it's slow, like it might take two hours to send one email, type of slow!!! Edwin and others are doing research on possible internet options for the school there in Paruima. Pray that a doable solution is found, the school really needs internet and it would be really nice to have communication with family and friends.

Our initial stay here in Guyana is half over, last Tuesday Kathryn's and my visitor's visas ran out. We all came to Georgetown, because we would have had to take a bus trip over to Suriname if they hadn't been able to figure out our paper work at the Ministry of the Presidency office. Edwin had been there with what we thought was all the right copies, forms and ID photos, and they had said that that wouldn't work, that policies had changed and we needed to have applied before we entered the country..... We thought we would try again, and this time the lady was very helpful, and after looking over our paperwork very carefully, she patiently explained to us that we needed to fill out different forms, and change the wording in a few places to indicate that we are volunteers working with a non-profit organization. Last Friday (Dec 23) Edwin took in the new paperwork, they received it and said, "Come back in two weeks to pick up your new visas! Praise the Lord! We will have to pay $140 each for our 3 year visas, and $140 for Kathryn's visa even though they only give her one year. We trust that because the Lord answered our prayers for our visa application to be accepted, that He will also provide the needed $420 to pay for our visas when we pick them up.

God is so good, living as volunteer missionaries is definitely a faith building experience. When we wonder if we will have money for groceries, the Lord provides. You have no idea what a lifeline you are to us, it's because of your generous, donations and self sacrifice for us, that we are able to stay here and have food to eat, and pay for necessary expenses. Thank you so much for partnering with us in our mission service here in the interior of Guyana. We praise the Lord for you, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts, we love you, and we ask that the Lord will give you a blessing here, and a reward in heaven for your part in this work.