Happy spring everyone!

February and March have been a whirlwind of activity here in Guyana. It all started off with the Mash festival. A "celebration of hard work" which emerges into street parades, floats, and celebrating into the wee hours of the night. The street parade was unbelievably colorful and exciting! The on and off downpours didn't damper the spirit of the revelers and the floats became grander and more elaborate as the day wore on. The highlights of the day were the 2 competing cell phone companies on the country; Digicel and GT&T. Digicel has "taken Guyana by storm" and the country is literally dividing itself between the two companies; everyone sporting either red or blue clothing in support of their favorite provider...hysterical! The floats led to some late night socializing at a nearby rum shop, Cita's, which has become quite a favorite haunt. We apparantly are making quite a buzz around town as it is all over the neighborhood how a bunch of "whities" frequent the place. Mash night we learned a few new dance steps and taught some of the locals a few of my favorites as well. :)

Following Mash came Phagwah, a celebration of Spring. Basically this festival consists of covering complete strangers in colored powder and water...just to make sure that it stains for the next few weeks. We still have volunteers sporting green hair!

The Cricket World Cup has grabbed the complete attention of the whole of the country. The games come to Guyana starting on March 28th and the city is buzzing with preparations. We have tickets for the 9th of April and are very excited about attending and hopefully rooting for the West Indies team, which boats a few players from Guyana. It should be a fun time...did you know that Cricket matches last about 6 hours??!!

We leave tomorrow for our trip into the rainforest and our overland trek up to Kaieteur Falls. If you want to check out more info, go to www.rftours.com and check out the 5 day overland trek. I think that Blake has had his bag packed for the last week in anticipation of leaving. We will be meeting up with 7 other volunteers to start our journey early tomorrow morning. What an adventure!

Sorry about the lack of pictures lately. Our computer is sick and we cannot seem to get past the boot up stage. Blake is working with some of our IT geniuses here in Guyana, but we might have to wait until May to get it back in shape, so until then...no pictures! I promise to make up for the lack of as soon as possible.

In other news, Blake has been in close contact with a Peace Corp volunteer attached to Habitat for Humanity here in Guyana and she has managed to set him up with a really exciting sounding position. He doesn't have all of the details and won't begin until we get back from our travels, but it looks like it will use alot of his marketing and business skills, as well as introduce him to some new areas in development. Really exciting!


That's all for now! We hope everyone is doing well! Congratulations to some new arrivals...Cielo and Roman...Congratulations Suzi and Heather! I can't wait to meet them! Talk to you all soon,

Jessa and Blake