New study and sickness

Hey everyone! Once again sorry it has been so long since I wrote last. I have been sick for a few days. Nothing serious, just so dizzy that I don't have the ability to walk in a straight line. It is not fun. It also meant that I missed Sunday of our circuit overseer's visit, I was so disappointed. Thankfully I have heard it in english and already saw it in sign language. So since I wrote last we have a new addition to our household. Her name is Dana and she is from Indiana. Some of you already know her, she was in Portland sign for a while. She is a lot of fun to have around, and as a plus she has experience in other countries. Not to mention she hasn't been living with us the last month and a half so its a new person to talk to.

So really there aren't too many highlights to update you on, except we have a new bible study. Its a little girl named Davy and she lives up in village 60. She was handed over to us by a sister that lives up in Skeldon. Davy's family recently moved into our territory and Melinda felt that she had better hand it over. You know it is going to be a good study when the person who had it doesn't really want to hand it over. So Dana and I rode a bus up to 60 village to meet Melinda so she could introduce us to the family. What a sight it was when we arrived. We had 6 kids all between the ages of 2 and 15 surrounding us ready to show us that they remembered the signs they learned last week.

While Melinda was showing them the Noah dvd I watched as all the kids stared at the screen randomly shouting they knew the sign for the animal that passed on the screen. To my surprise they all knew the signs for the animals that Melinda showed them. There was a particularly cute little 2 year old boy who would swear he knew the sign but when asked would hide behind his older brother and peek around his legs and smile. Sometimes I just want to take the little kids home with me, they are so cute and sweet. We stayed with them for about 45 minutes and watched as they tried to remember my sign name. One of them remembered because he liked the sound effect he could make while signing it. It was a wacha sound, rather amusing to see the other kids try to make the same noise.

We are very excited to have another little kid study. The kids here are so much easier to study with because they are more willing to learn and pay attention. The adults are more interested in having white girls come and see them. Everyone is very grateful that we are visiting but sometimes it feels like they aren't really taking it seriously.

So a few more highlights of these last few days is that I bought myself my first Guyanese thing other than food. I bought leather sandals from a man at the market. They are brown with a strap over the top of my foot up by my ankle. Then there is a little strap for my big toe and then a leaf connects the two straps. They are really pretty, and very cheap. I bought them more out of neccesity because my service sandlas have broken as well as a pair of flip-flops. My shoes aren't responding well to the weather and how often I wear them.

Oh and I should really finish this blog with a funny story. When we first moved into our house we searched our village for deaf and met a man that lives directly across the road from us, his name is Daniel. When we met him he was really wierd and wanted to have a "bible discussion" with us. This so called discussion included one question from the book of Ezekiel then quickly moved on to our feelings on interfaith marriage. After about 10 minutes there we decided to avoid the man at all costs for the rest of our stay here. We have succeded so far but I do have a rather amusing story about him. So in addition to knowing that he is creepy, we also know that he is a raging alcoholic. His son studies with Tom Sanches in our hall so we are aware of all their issues. He regularly gets drunk and makes a fool of himself in the village. So Dani and I were going to go and get water up at the shop in 47. So grabbed our water bottles and headed for the road. After I walked out of the gate I saw him passed out in front of a post. He was face down on the ground with no shoes on. So we stayed on our side of the road until we were what we felt was a safe distance from him. Just seconds later though we had to turn around because of what we saw. A young girl, about 16 had a stick in her hand and she started poking him in hopes he would wake up and go back to his house. Well after poking him for about 1 minute he still wouldn't wake up. So instead of giving up she started beating him with the stick yelling the words drunk get up. After he woke up she felt that he still needed to be hit to get going. So she continued this until he was almost to his gate. After he got in his gate he felt safe so he started yelling awful things at her and you could hear them yelling at each other until we were able to catch a bus.

I have never seen anything so funny, well I take that back. The man who was standing on the sea wall completely naked fishing was pretty funny. Then there was the night that Dani was being chased around the living room by the big green bug that she had tried to kill with the bug spray. Which by the way, the bug spray only kills the beetles. It seems to give greater power to the other bugs we encounter. In all of the cases I just described I was laughing so hard that I was crying, doing what my uncle Landon does when he finds something particularly amusing. You are laughing so hard that there is no noise, just you with your mouth open rocking back and forth with your face completely red and tears streaming out of your eyes. Yes I guess you could say it is genetic. Well that is it for now, hope to hear from you all soon:)