Busy, busy, busy

A lot is going on, as usual. The mother of one of our good friends in the village recently passed away so we’ve been busy with funeral ceremonies. This is the first time that I have felt comfortable bringing my camera to these events, so I hope you all find them interesting.

In the middle of all that, I traveled to the city to buy supplies for a five week HIV/AIDS education class with the women in my village and two neighboring villages. We had the first class already and it went well! Expect pictures from that project later. I appreciate prayers and good thoughts for success over the next month!

Straight back from the city, we’ve been at end-of-the-school year events as the Suriname summer vacation is starting (during their big dry season). This means no more English lessons at the school for the next 2 months. I am going to take this time to improve the English/Saramaccan workbook that a previous volunteer created before we start classes with the new 5^th and 6^th graders in October.

Two good friends and I are also starting to plan the next CAMP GLOW on our river. CAMP GLOW is a life skills/empowerment camp for girls ages 12-15. I have helped with two already but will be co-leading this one. Wish me luck!

So, here is my picture update. Enjoy!

I have a porch- finally!!!

Our porch is finished!! Our friend Mark came down (who has a degree in Construction Management) and he and Ryan put their heads together and figured out how to complete our porch. It is AWESOME! First of all, it increases the size of our house by 50% and now we have a place to sit that is out of the rain but out of our house which gets very hot from the sun and from cooking anything. They built a bench so we can seat more people and we can also tie two hammocks! I LOVE it. It makes our house so much more comfortable and easier to have people over.

Here is a picture of our house as we found it one year ago:

And here is a picture of our house now:

Crazy, huh?! Thanks my hubby and Mark! I told them this was practice for the porch they’ll build me in America. :) Click here for more pictures of their hard labor.

Corps Values

As service is a huge part of the Pepperdine University mission, the alumni office has been keeping tabs on Ryan and I in the Peace Corps. The Pepperdine Magazine decided to do an article on Peace Corps to commemorate its 50th anniversary. They contacted us to be interviewed and to send them pictures. Take a look here to see the online version. Through this article, we discovered that another P-dine couple is serving right now in Guyana (which is right next door to Suriname for those of you who are geographically challenged). Looks like they might be visiting us and vice versa!