Battle: Ticks

Cooking dinner during black out

Eion

Hello Everyone,

The battle lines had been drawn.  It was either us or them, and we ain't going any where.  Who was the enemy?  Ticks.  The source: The stray dog that hung around our house.  In his life of rooting through trash and rolling in weeds, the dog picked up ticks.  The ticks then spread to all around under our house.  You see, the ticks would feed until they are fat, fall off, lay some eggs, rest or do whatever it is ticks like to do, then reattach to the dog.  The cycle kept going and going.  Under our house and on our stairs are perfect breeding grounds for ticks.  Lots of pilers to climb up on, cracks and crevices to climb into and birth baby ticks. . . by the thousands.  I say no more!  I have unleashed an all out assault to annihilate the ticks from our house.  First: remove the source.  Done; no more dog.  He had a good run.  He served his purpose. I had to take a page from the ancient Israelites in getting rid of the dog.  "You stoned him?", you ask.  No, he was unclean so he is not allowed in the camp aka our property.  Second: destroy the enemy.  I have sprayed some poison.  Today, I thoroughly cleaned under the house and sprayed any cluster of ticks that I would find with bug spray.  So far no tick bites, but plenty of other bug bites.  I am so itchy!  What's that on my foot?

Yesterday, we had our full Sign Language meeting in New Amsterdam. There were 7 deaf from our side of the river that went with us.  All together 63 people at meeting, 30 deaf.  To get the deaf from our side of the river to meeting took a lot of planning, phone calls and negotiating.  It was pretty exhausting.  After all that, it was completely worth it.  We walked in with the deaf from around here and everyone was so excited.  Their faces lit up as they ran over to greet the deaf.  For some of them, this is their first time coming to a Sign Language meeting.  The friends were so happy to see the good turnout.  This was the first meeting for one woman who came with us.  She is Muslim, so her family was not always happy with her studying and were against her going to meeting.  But she is, as they say here "a big person", which means an adult with kids of her own.  She can decide for herself, and she loves studying and learning.  Even though she is learning ASL during the study, her home sign is very clear.  She is good at communicating.  I think it helps that her brother is deaf and another deaf man is friends with them, so she has developed good communication skills.

One last funny thing we have learned.  Here in Guyana, and apparently in England, they pronounce Z "zed".  One day we asked a boy how he spelled his name.  His name is Wizim,  "W-I-ZED-I-M."  Jaide and I both stared at him in confusion.  "Again," we asked.  "W-I-ZED-I-M."  We stopped asking him and just assumed he didn't know how to spell. When Jaide asked him, "What is zed?", he just stared back blankly.  Fast forward to this week, we are on a study and the girl's Grandma is helping her with the sign language alphabet and when she comes to Z, she says "zed".  We asked some friends and they said that is how they learned to pronounce Z.  A mother and daughter from England said they say it the same in England.  So I guess here we should say "we are catching some ZEDs".  Get it?  Because Z's are pronounce ZED.

Love,
G&J

Rick Roll'd

Our Kingdom Hall

 Hello Everyone,

How are you doing?  We are doing pretty good.  
Something I find funny here in Guyana is the range of music you hear.  You do hear a lot of reggae/Caribbean music, and most of that is just irritating.  Awful voices, lame lyrics and DJ's that interrupt the song, not to sing or remix it, but just to repeat the last line.  Spoken word.  Anyways, sometimes you will hear someone playing R&B, Celine Dion, Garth Brooks, Justin Bieber, Fresh Prince, Phil Collins (you hear a lot of old PC) and others.  But today I heard a song that really surprised me.  Rick Astley's "Never gonna give you up."  I thought I had been Rick roll'd.  But no, just someone loved the deep voice of the thin, red headed man that looks like he is 14 years old and his 1987 hit.  If you don't know what it means to be Rick roll'd, you can look it up on line.  Check out his amazing dance moves for yourself.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOU8GIRUd_g.  And, later when we passed the house again they were blasting ABBA.

Today, we visited Eion.  He is a young deaf boy.  Eion is a fun study.  He is next to impossible to get him into a conversation or respond to any question.  He just stares at you, fingers in mouth and baby powder all over his body.   This makes it hard to gauge how much he is learning or understands.  We start doing real basic things,  next thing you know he is signing something that we taught him weeks ago.  He is so smart and soaks it up like a sponge and doesn't forget it.  The problem is he doesn't use it.  Unless we are pointing at something and asking him what, he doesn't sign.  But if you teach him a point from the Bible and all the signs with that point, he will remember it.  He also recently started going to school.  A mainstream school with no interpreters.  We will see how well he does. 

Things I learned this week:  in Guyana, if you find a dead body do not call the police.  They will arrest you for the murder.  Makes sense, right?  There is a dead person, you found the body, that means you must have killed him and put him there.  Off to jail you go.  Brilliant!  Great police work!

Love,
G&J

A Minibus ride with our Brothers & Sisters

Do you like cricket?

Girl doing the sign for Jesus

Hello Everyone,

How is everyone doing?  Has the weather started to change back  home?  My last post, I said it had been crazy hot. But, it actually cooled down.  One night it stormed like crazy.  The noise from the rain hitting the zinc resembles the crinkling of a chip bag, as you dig around the bottom trying to find the last little niblets.  But, much more loud and powerful.  Actually, that morning I was a little chilled in bed.  I needed to get under the sheet to keep warm from that oh so chilly Guyana morning. The cooler temperature lasted a couple of days.  Now its back to melt you into the ground hot.

Yesterday, we had 3 deaf at meeting.  Urijah, Haresh and Jamol.  3 boys.  Jamol, feel fast asleep.  I could not wake him.  Either he is the deepest sleeper I know or he was ignoring me.  Urijah and Haresh needed more attention to help them behave good at meeting.  Neither of them go to school, or really any where that they need to sit down quietly for any length of time.  Its more like interpreting/baby sitting/life skills teaching. It was . . . fun.  They both were good.  Urijah did better at sitting and paying attention to the signing.  It was funny, when Haresh was not looking, Urijah would tell me that he, Haresh, was bad.  The best is when he was about to tell me again that Haresh is bad, when Haresh looked over at him.  Urijah froze.  Hand still on his chin about to flip away and down, what was he to do?  Like a seasoned pro, he just pulled one of those 'I am just stretching awkwardly' moves.

After the meeting, we went out in the ministry to visit a boy and a woman.  Both deaf.  The woman, Indi, was at her sister's house.  While we were there, out walks this guy.  This dude was clearly drunk.  Oh how I love to talk to drunk guys.  The aroma wafting from him, the incoherent speech, the honesty and yes, the touching.  First, he wanted to know if I like cricket, the sport.  Of course, I don't.  After a titillating conversation about cricket and why its important for me to watch, I thought our conversation may be finished.  Nope, now he moved on to confessions.  Also, he moved a whole lot closer to me.  He told me, " I drink rum."  Thank you captain obvious!  He also curses.  The best was when he asked if it is wrong to drink.  I told him, "the Bible does not say that. Drinking alcohol is fine.  But, the Bible says getting drunk is not."  His response, "if you drink you must get drunk."  I tried to reason with him on that point.  Then I realized, 'oh yeah, he's drunk."  Anyways, he says he will bring his family by the Kingdom Hall one day.  He reasoned that if I come visit him in his home, the least he could do is come by the meeting.  I made him promise not to start drinking until after the meeting.

Love,

Dinner
(no animals were hurt in the making of this blog)

G&J  

Macarena

Hey Macarena!

Wizem and Errol doing the sign for monkey

Hello everyone,

How are you doing?  We are both doing fine. Monday, is our day "off."  We do chores around the house and laundry.  We decided to shoot across the river to New Amsterdam to buy a few items that we couldn't find over here.  Everything was going great. We got most of the things we needed, including amazing soft serve ice cream that is served in an air conditioned building.  I know, living the high life.  We were all finished and headed to the area where you catch a bus to go back to Rosignol.  We waited an hour and a half to get on a stupid bus.  Literally, I can see the town we live in across the river from where we were.  It is a ten minute bus ride.  But everyday, the bridge going across the river is closed to traffic to allow big boats to pass through.  So what happened is a large crowd, including us, formed waiting to catch a bus.  This is not an orderly affair.  Once the buses started coming, people were running for them, opening the door as the bus is still driving and jumping in.  People pushing and shoving.  We waited a while to allow the crazy folks to go first.  I had just told Jaide its time to put our manners away and stick our elbows out, start swinging and go for it, when a man who is trying to organize things calls to us, "brother, come."  I don't know if you know this, but we stick out in Guyana.  As people everyday tell us, or should I say call us "white boy" and "white girl." Well, us getting selected out of the group, didn't sit so well with some people in the crowd (mind you, we had been waiting much longer than them). They started making comments about "white folk" getting special treatment and such. This provoked a riot in which the turned the bus over and lite it on fire.  Ok, the last part about the riot is made up.  Anyways, it all worked out.  The next bus Jaide and myself got on, and so did most of the irritated folks.  We made it home, tired, sweaty and with a pound of semi-melted cheese in my back pack.  I hate mini buses.

Sunday, we had 3 deaf come to meeting.  One man showed up right before the end, but he came.  I am hoping he keeps coming because his ASL skill is much higher then most we meet.  You can have a full on conversation with him.  We are not always on the same page, but its good.  He is easy to teach.

Remember Loreen from the last blog post?  I love Loreen.  She uses the signs she learns, she loves her study, you can tell when she gets it and when she is frustrated with herself.  Its great!  Last week she was able to explain how we have the Bible.  Its a joy!  But, one of the funniest things is watching Loreen trying to do the sign for death/die.  It looks like she is trying to do the "macarena."  For you who don't know what the sign looks like, you can look it up on a free online ASL dictionary.  Jaide ends up going over sitting by her and doing it over and over with her.  We both love her study.

Love,
G&J

 

Cannon Ball!

Jaide, Loreen, Jamol

Swimming with the kids

Hello Everyone,

How is it going?  Sunday, we had our first two deaf come to meeting.  Jaide and I did our best at interpreting for them.  Based on Loreen's (one of the deaf) head nodding, we did amazing.  She agreed with everything we signed.  When it was good, she nodded yes.  When it was bad, she shook her head no.  When she was bored she feel asleep.  Great feed back.  Unfortunately,  Loreen does not know sign language or how to sign.  Jaide is currently working on helping her understand that we all have names, and what the sign for name is.   But, she is good at reading our faces and knowing what is good and bad.  Plus she really enjoyed the meeting.  We know she will continue to progress and learn.  We had hoped for 6 deaf, but 2 is a great start.

Today, Wednesday, is our long day in the ministry.  A group of us work our way up, going village to village visiting deaf along the way.  In the last two weeks, I think we have meet or heard about 8 new deaf.  Most deaf here do not know sign language.  Teaching them is very challenging and at times frustrating.  Its hard to help someone who has never learned how to learn, to learn.  It is hard for them to understand that we are trying to give them a language.  So, its small steps that we celebrate.

We had beef tongue curry the other day.  A couple that live down the street from us had us over and put on a feast for us.  Half way through dinner, she asked "what kind of meat do you think your eating?"  Kind of a scary question.  I guessed duck, I had no idea, it was curried and delicious.  I was wrong, it was tongue.  Even Jaide ate it.  If you know Jaide,  you know she could never be on the T.V show 'Bizarre foods with Andrew Zimmerman.'  Meats ain't her thing.  But she ate it up, did not seem to bother her.  I was impressed.   We also went swimming with some kids from New Amsterdam.  The pool was really warm, like swimming in a hot bath.  But it still was fun and refreshing.

Love,
G&J