Hear Now ... last week was an absolute delight.

I feel it is my duty as a cultural liaison to share some of the fun I experienced this past week. FIRST: I began teaching "drama" at Mercy Wings. I will teach Thursday afternoons for an hour until the school year ends in July. Last week I broke in a group of young men who were a little shy of being on stage with girls - especially in the role of red-hot Romeos that the girls had created for them. So the boys learned about stage presence, memorized the mantra "NO BUTTS!!!" (meaning do not stand with your backside to the audience), learned about standing at three-quarters, and discussed character motivation, upstaging and staying in character. I'll bet they didn't even know they'd learned so much. We had a great time, last week, and for me the feeling carried over into this week. They were attentive, participated without too much prompting from me and were less restrained about doing physical teambuilding activities than I anticipated. They didn't even protest when I asked them to do a character sketch for homework. So I am all smiles about that. Plus we had an EXTREME karate demonstration (which I was very interested in ;o). Three young men came to drum up some interest for an after-school training group. One of these young men is a former Mery Wings graduate. What a great way to give back!

SECOND: I drank the blackwater. The rumor goes that a visitor to the country has only to drink the blackwater and eat the labba (sort of like a rodent of unusual size, for you Princess Bride fans out there) and then that person will return to Guyana to stay. It's an irreversible connection, and Lisa, a former MVC volunteer, is here to vouch for it. She only drank the water during her MVC time (a friend is trying to find us some labba to taste so we'll both stay), but that was enough to call her back. She is living with us right now and visiting all of her favorite haunts - and she's introducing us to some of the best snacks in Guyana, which we somehow managed to miss. For example, I had my first egg ball on our trip back from Splashman's resort: a hard boiled egg wrapped in cassava dough and fried, then smothered with sour (a spicy mango-based sauce). DELISH!!