Welcome in Suriname!

Pappi and Seloch at a Javanese Resturant

Meet Jack the monkey

Hello Everyone!

How are things?  We are doing great!  We went to Suriname this week.  They speak Dutch.  What a crazy sounding language! We tried to learn to speak a few words, but quickly figured out we should stick to sign language.  And everyone wears wooden clogs and all the women are blonde with braids.  That's all the stereotypes I have for the Dutch, now I can continue.

Before we went to Suriname, we spent a couple days with a Missionary couple, Brian and Shannon Geraghty, in Skeldon.  What a blast we had with them. They were so generous and encouraging.  Plus, staying at their house was a treat for us.  They have bug screens on the windows!  The bites on our legs even started to heal.  The bed was perfectly flat, not bowing in the center like our bed at home.  AHH, being forced to snuggle in hot tropical weather...priceless.  Another bonus was meeting their neighbor, Jack the monkey.  He had so much personality.  It was a treat to see how Missionaries live and pick their brain about what they learned at Watchtower Bible School of Gilead.  Awesome time!

After that, it was on to Suriname.  We had heard that once the boat arrives in Suriname, all the passengers gather up at the end of the boat, ready to exit.  And as soon as the gate opens, people run for immigration, pushing, cutting and stiff arming.  We were told that unless we want to wait in line for hours, we had to do the same.  So the time had come for us to show our athletic ability in sprinting for the immigration office.  I had the suit case and Jaide, well she was armed with her umbrella.  We all smashed up against the end of the boat like a bunch of cattle.  Then up the gate opened, and off we went like a bullet out of a gun.  Well, kind of.  It turns out only a few people actually run. I do feel sorry for spinning in circles like a helicopter with the suitcase leveling people, allowing Jaide to get a good start.  They will laugh about it some day.  We got through immigration and customs with no problems.  We spent the next two days a very sweet couple, Pappy and Seloch. They treated us like we were their kids. Seloch always said, "You don't worry. Your Mama will take care of you." Their faith in Jehovah caring for them was amazing.  They don't have much, but they will give you what they have.  Both so happy living simply and serving Jehovah , knowing he will care for them.

Suriname looks a lot like Guyana.  It has better infrastructure and is more clean, quiet and generally calmer.  The people are also more diverse.  You have the Surinamese, Chinese, Javanese, Guyanese and some from Holland.  By the way, Javanese food was delicious.

Hi!  Jaide here. I write this as I sip wine paired with sea salt chocolate. Yes you heard correctly. Sometimes we enjoy the finer things of life.  Travis discovered a shop that sells chocolate from Canada for $1.  It's delicious.  This bar is a bit old, but who's complaining? Not me.  And the wine? A little treat from the duty free shop in Suriname.

Tonight I made hummus. As I poured a can of chickpeas into the blender, I gasped as something jumped out! A frog. Better than a cockroach or tarantula, right? I was motionless as I thought, "Where did he come from? Can he live in can?" I should have acted sooner, because he then jumped onto my freshly made sada roti (it's a lot like pita bread, great for hummus).  After I disinfected everything and tried to clean off as much frog juice from our dinner, I was just thankful that I didn't blend that poor thing into my chickpeas.  I could imagine myself trying to figure out where the extra spice came from. Well, hey its not as bad as grabbing a drowned mouse out of your washing machine like my sister did.  FYI, if you don't have tahini for your hummus, a peanut butter does the trick, or I guess you could try a little frog.

To end, we provide the Guyanese word of the day, "fine." If a girl walks up to you and says, "You're looking fine!", she doesn't mean to hit on you. It means you need to eat some food. You're skinny.

Love you all,

J&G

On the boat to Suriname

Squatty boy, down so!

Our home (pic we had saved on pc)

Hey Everyone,

How is it going?  We are doing good.  We did run out of water for a day. Try to imagine a house with 4 sweaty people and no flushing toilet.  It's even more scary we you discover no water after 2 cups of coffee, some prune juice, papaya and a bran muffin. I have made a horrible decision.  I knew we needed to fill our water tank on Wednesday, but we had a long day in the ministry, then we cooked dinner.  By the time we were all through I figured we would be fine until the morning.  (Our water comes from a 480 gallon water tank that is on our roof.  The water in the house is gravity fed from that tank.  To fill that tank we have to attach a water pump to a pipe in the yard and a pipe that runs into the tank.  Turn on the valve on the pipe in the yard and let the water flow.)  Well, sometimes the water is turned off.  We normally have water available to pump in the mornings for a few hours and in the late afternoons for a few hours.  Thursday morning, I went to pump water and nothing came out.  No problem I thought, it should come on later.  Nope.  We made it through Thursday okay with the water left in the tank.  By Friday morning we were out.  No agua for us.  That means no flushing of the toilet, washing dishes, washing hands or showering.  Thank goodness the water came on about 5:30 that evening and we were able to pump water again.  I am so happy  to have a operational toilet again!  I was kidding about the prune juice, papaya and bran muffin.  Scary enough with just coffee.

Wednesday, we meet another new deaf boy/man.  I don't know, what do you call someone that is 18?  We had been asking the neighbors in the area if they knew anyone deaf and many responded, "yes.  Squatty boy down so."  Or, "fat boy.  He is young, but looks like a man.", while they puff out their arms just to make sure you know what fat means (not to be confused with "big", which means older.  Excited to see what a squatty boy looks like, we went to the house we were told he lives.  There he was, squatty boy.  Squatty means just how it sounds.  Not too tall and thick.  Some friends will go by him this Wednesday to start studying with him.

We also had our first study with another new deaf man, Dennis, we meet last week.  I am going to love this study!  He doesn't know ASL, but is very good at communicating.  Sometimes, he even gets it when I ask him a question.  Its funny, he doesn't want to use some of the signs we try to teach him.  If he has a sign for something already and we show him the ASL sign for it, ask him to sign it, he just looks at us like we are crazy and signs it his way.  His signs are pretty clear, and he does use some of the signs we teach him.  But most importantly, he understands the points from the Bible we teach him.

Guyanese word of the day: Manish.  No, it is not used in describing a manly woman.  It means mischievous.  "That boy is manish!"  Or you could say: "That boy is disgusting!"  Which also means mischievous.  Feel free to use these sayings liberally.   Oh, on a side note, the squatty boy we meet this week, Dennis (the deaf man mentioned above), told me that he is disgusting.

Love,
G&J

BOOOM! goes the bottle

Hello Everyone,

How are things?  This week has been very busy.  It started Monday with a trip to Georgetown, or "town", as it is known here.  We were a bit nervous to roam around the place by ourselves, but it had to be done. We had to go to the Suriname Embassy to get visas for our upcoming trip to Suriname. That whole process was surprisingly simple.  While we were there, we treated ourselves to some of the nicer things "town" offers.  You see, in Georgetown, you can find places and things that remind you of home.  A lot of businesses and restaurants are air conditioned.  They even have a mall.  It is identical to the Galleria mall in Roseville.  Granite floors, Miley Cyrus blasting and expensive stores.  The expensive store was O Navy Store.  Not Old Navy, O Navy.  True they had mainly Old Navy clothes, but at three times the cost as in the states.  (And if you didn't know, I was being sarcastic about the mall being the same as the Galleria.)  We went to the Oasis Cafe for lunch.  It feels like a coffee shop back home.  It has a coffee bar, offering cappuccinos and other drinks and pastries.  There were a  ton of white people eating and hanging out using the free wi-fi. The food was okay.  Jaide thoroughly enjoyed her cappuccino, but the best was the passion fruit cheesecake.  It was so incredibly wonderful!  Somehow they made the passion fruit seeds edible.  After that, we went to Nigel's Supermarket, which seems to cater to the foreigners living in Guyana.  The store has more things that we have in the states, but you're going to pay for it.  The highlight of the trip to Nigel's was that we got sour cream.  OH MAN!  Did it make our burritos mind blowing!  After that, we picked up our visas and headed home.  A successful trip to "town", with no problems.  So we thought.  Then we discovered that our camera had been stolen in "town."  BLERG!  Thus the no pictures on the blog. So you have to use your mind's eye to see us madly devouring a cheesecake.

We also have some guests staying with us for a little bit right now.  A really fun and nice couple, Travis & Kristin Winzel.  They are from Spokane, Washington.  They found out the evening before they were coming to Rosignol, that the house they were planning on renting ended up not working out.  So, they are staying with us until they find a place. We've been having fun playing games and sharing the cooking.  Also, Travis found some delicious chocolate and can make homemade Bailey's.

Yesterday, we went with a group of us went by truck to an area that Jehovah's Witnesses are not able to visit very often.  All together, there was 41 of us.  You can imagine the people's faces as they see a cane-cutting truck pull up with 41 well dressed men, women, and children, instead of 60 smelly cane cutters smashed into it. We were separated into 4 teams and dropped in different areas and went to work.  The goal was to get to all the houses in our area, share a brief scripture and leave a Watchtower and Awake magazine. If someone wanted to know more, or had questions, we would take down their name and give it to the Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses that is closest to them.  It was super hot, but a fun, albeit confusing day. You can imagine trying to organize 41 people.

Also yesterday, I almost had a bottle blow up in my face.  I was burning our trash pile and I threw an empty bottle on it.  It had been on the coals for a few minutes when I bent down to grab a stick about two feet away from the fire and, BOOOM!  The bottle exploded. I felt the pressure from the explosion in my ear, felt dazed immediately and heard pieces hitting things all around me, including landing on the roof of our house, which is a good 40 feet away and two stories high.  Jaide's first thought was "Oh no, his beautiful face!" Thankfully I did not get hit. Dazed and confused, yes.  Hit, no. Happily, we amused the neighbor, who gave  me a enormous shout out of appreciation for the loud explosion.

Back by popular demand, Guyanese word of the day.  Todays word: Bad. It can be used to mean good and bad.  Its not like how sometimes we use bad to mean something is cool.  Here is a example:  "The wind is strong bad", "your talk was good bad", " he is funny bad." I hope you all start adding this new meaning to your vocabulary.

Love,
G&J

Guy Expo

Mario and his picture of the Garden of Eden

Hello Everyone,

Hows it going?  I can't believe it has been 2 months since we got here. Crazy!  

This has been a great week in the ministry.  We meet 3 new deaf on Wednesday and 1 today.  Today, it was by accident.  We knew a deaf woman lived over in this area.  We thought we were on the right street, so we asked a passing man if there was anyone deaf that lived on this street.  Turns out his brother is deaf and blind. We went over and meet him.  He is in his 30's or 40's.  He went blind two years ago because of diabetes.  Talk about feeling unequipped.  How do you teach someone who is blind and deaf?  Okay, actually he is hard of hearing.  If you talk really loud he can hear you, if you're Guyanese.  But over time its only going to deteriorate more.  We struggle with how to teach seeing deaf individuals sign language.  Where do we even start?  I felt bad for the man, just sitting there in a chair.  His sister-in-law would shake him to get his attention.  He has no idea what she wants.  Jaide puts her hand in his and he reacts in shock.  "Who is that?", he asks in fear.  He feels her hand again, then reachs out and feels Jaide's head.  A smile comes over his face and he says, " a girl.  How old are you?"  Jaide shouts back, "27."  Next she has him feel her wedding ring, meet me and feel my wedding ring.  We don't want him getting any ideas.  Then we demonstrated how to tactile sign in his hands.  We will see what happens with him.  All our Bible students are doing really good.  We have almost learned the best way to teach each of them.  They all vary in abilities to sign, communicate and understand.  But, they all are making  good progress.

Last Sunday, we went to Guy Expo 2010.  No it is not an expo to meet single men.  Its like Guyana's state fair.  People selling their goods, loud music, food and tons of people.  We went with a group of Jehovah's Witnesses.  I will be honest, Jaide and I were hoping for some delicious food.  Maybe something from another country.  Well, there wasn't too many food stands from other countries, unless you count Pizza Hut as Italian.  I did get some good sweet and sour chicken fried rice.  One thing we have learned about Guyanese culture is that personal space doesn't mean that much.  If you are trying to get through a crowd, you  are going to have people all up in your business.  Pushing, shoving and staring.  Some people push ahead of you even if there is nowhere to go.  It was a late night, we didn't get back from Georgetown until after midnight.  That made for a really early morning.  You see our neighbors are up around 4 am, cooking and bathing.  It wouldn't be so bad if the man next door didn't have a chronic phlegm condition that he tries to clear up every morning. Hacking and spiting in the wee morning light.  Ah. Stop smoking!

Lunch at Kevin's Cane Juice stand

Love,
G&J

Married Man Pork

Full Sign Language meeting

Haresh

Hello world,

Guess what? It's me, Jaide. I wanted to let you know that I'm still alive. Surprisingly, the mosquitoes haven't sucked all my blood yet.  I may not be as comical as my other half, but here it goes.  Graem does want to add, "What's up cyber buddies!!!?"

During our many young deaf  boy Bible studies, we try our best to keep their little minds learning, which isn't easy, given their one minute attention spans.  Many don't go to school or don't have big people waving their hands in front of their faces trying to teach them Bible subjects very often. The expression "boys will be boys", suddenly takes on new meaning for me, especially since I grew up as one of three very well behaved girls that never got dirty or caused any sort of ruckus.  We better do something fun fast or their little eyes gaze longingly over at their brothers and sisters playing, or they madly flip through books, asking what each picture is. Sometimes they just ask for clay, which we try to reserve for teaching the concept of making something.

 Mark is improving. When Jehovah's Witnesses first started going to him, he couldn't hold a pencil to write (he seems to have mild cerebral palsy). Now we teach him a story by using the signs he knows, asking him to draw each character and what they do.  He's so cute, laughing the whole time. As soon as we're finished, he's off madly riding his bicycle, trying new tricks.

Haresh was starting to get bored, so Graem stood up and enthusiastically is his best ASL, acted out  an evil snake talking, Eve eating fruit, coercing Adam into joining her, and then angels with swords casting them out of the garden to a life of grueling work in the sun. Haresh's face was priceless, like he was watching an action packed movie with all the suspense that this dramatic story entails. If you have ever seen Graem really excited about something, his face can go out of control. He's perfect for sign. Sorry hon, your English talks are just not the same.  We finished up Haresh's study by teaching colors. I have flash cards with colors painted on them. We got  his friend and sister involved and made a little game out of it. Competition also helps. When we were all finished, Haresh gathered up all the cards, but wouldn't hand them to me. "Oh great", I thought, "another battle over who has the upper hand is this relationship."  But then, I was surprised as he came over, shook my hand as he handed me my cards, turned and gave Graem a big grin. Maybe he was hoping that he graduated from learning his colors.

Mark

One benefit of moving to another country, is that I'm learning new foods and new words.  At the market, one can buy married man pork for 30 cents. What is this you ask? No it is not bacon with a ring or your wife's pot roast. It is...drum roll please....basil. Good old basil. It's the other other white meat. It's delicious with pasta.

Love,

J (&G)