April May June and maybe July who knows !!!!!

Yes, I am only too aware that it has been too long, but the spin being what it is, I feel damn lucky not to have been flung off into space.

So here we go, April sees, lost horses, lost glasses, Rupununi Rodeo, new thatch on the roof of Shefishs little house on the prairie and the beginning of the rains. Friends, have brought 3 more horses to join good ole manly, and of course the ole boy being himself, could either care less, or see if he couldn’t lead them astray. Most of March was spent either hunting his nibs or trying to find where he had sent them so we could play let’s go find the others. In the process of this one morning I’m following tracks of the get aways on good ole manly through thick brush, when all of a sudden seems the tracks look rather fuzzy, well no wonder, you have lost your glasses! So stop, walk back carefully trying to see where they might have fallen. I waste at least 30 minutes and decide they are a lost cause, and besides I’m on a mission, lost horses. Off we go again, into bush all the way into Lethem. Just as I get near town here stands one of the strays, and of course he’s not going to be caught, won’t be chased back toward home, so follow along he does, by now I starting to get a headache because of not having my glasses………..

Hell lets just leave the horse sh….. for a while and jump into the future, I started this episode back in early may, and a hell of lot of water has flowed under and over bridges since then…. Yes I found my glasses, all the horses were rounded up, “ole Tasso” decided to loose the barrel race this year by acting stupid, and the new thatch roof was in place just before the first major rains. Hell even had a horse barn or shed built for ole tasso when he decides to stay home.

May was a month of total turmoil and confusion, working with SCPDA as a consultant, the project was to last 6 months, and give me enough to take a long needed vacation to Costa Rica to go fishing and relax, but by mid May when I am trying to teach computer basics to 12 Amerindian School drop outs youth, with only my new laptop, I find out that not only has the time allotted for the project been cut in half, but also the 6-10 laptop computers to teach on would not be coming either. The problems encountered with this project would have sent any sane person over the edge, but my already being crazy enough to get involved in the first place only served to make me mad enough to see it through.

The fact that the office in Shulinab had a desktop that should have helped, that is if the inverter, and batteries from the solar panel had been working right, was only the first stumbling block. I had 12 kids who had no idea what a computer or digital camera was, most were scared to death, and what did I mean about interviewing people, asking questions, and writing a report about what their interview had gleaned. With the help of a half dozen dictionaries, and me trying to decipher their 3^rd grade grammar, we slowly began to progress. At least the touch typing program worked ok, that meant allowing each kid 30 min on the computer to type while the rest were trying to learn about what a computer is, or why it is, on and on, by the last of May I am exhausted and finally go back to Lethem to find that I have walking pneumonia and need quiet and bed rest…..yea right, so loaded up with antibiotics I go back and we get ready to move the whole computer thing to Sand Creek where they have a village generator and what!!!! 4 lap top computers we can borrow.

The move is made first of June with only 10 students. One young lady had been sent home for unacceptable behavior, ie. Rolling in the hay (hammock hopping) what ever you choose to call it, there in Shulinab with the touchau’s son. Who was not in the computer program by the way, the other kid, just decided that it was too much trouble to continue. Anyway we get there with a drum of fuel for the generator thinking we’ll at least have a full day of power and computers to run, only to find that the village generator is not in operation, somebody had taken the battery or something, anyway after a couple of days of using a small gasoline generator, till the gas run out, then over to the primary school stage, 5 laptops and a desk top are sit up on a make shift table and run off one solar panel. We hadn’t been there a week when we find that the budget has once again been cut, only this time it’s the food budget, we of course walked with staples, but had been told we could buy veggies, and meat in sand creek. Then word comes, don’t buy anything, no money. I will say one thing the folks there in Sand Creek had the word about this mess before I did, and not a day went by but someone didn’t stop by with some greens, or a small piece of meat or something to keep us going. By this time I’m past really giving much of a damn about anything other than getting these kids through this thing, there were so dedicated that they even worked on Saturday and Sundays at their request.

Needless to say, I worked as hard as possible to get through as soon as possible before what little staples we had brought ran out.

Succeed we did, These kids are now completely computer literate, touch type, competent in Ms word, publisher, some of access and power point. Their grammar and ability to think and ask questions much improved, but best of all they have the self confidence to go on from here and be somebody.

I have since drug my body back to the little house on the hill, and the kabora and sand flies had a big welcome home party, the fact that I really didn’t want to go out doors to celebrate didn’t make any difference, hell they come in the house and carried me out. Fact is there was a crowd gathered holding numbers waiting their turn at what was left. I was about ready to go back to sand creek at least there the only thing that worried you was the mossy at night, and of course the 30+ horses that come into the village at dusk, 30+ mares and of course at least 3 ole boys who spend the entire night fighting over who belongs to who.

But it was good to get home and find my dogs had totally deserted me, Janap was spending her time in town, and poor ole wolf, was still laid up from trying to chew the wheels off a landrover.

Manly, hell he’s so fat he can hardly walk, mangos in season. But his roaming should come to a halt, there is a new fence going up around the place, so that should at least keep him within shouting distance.

I’m back home for a while, at least till the rain and flooding stops then it’s off on another adventure, but in the mean time just to let you know that the spin is still on. Let me ask you this, where else in the world could you be waiting to board a plane out of the middle of no where and see a head on accident between a pickup and motor bike happen in front of you. (of course the fact that both drivers were probably rubber necking the white people waiting for the plane)

Oh Yes the SPIN is alive and well.

Foot note: motor bike pretty well messed up, front of Toyota pickup bent in, motor bike rider up walking around, even after being thrown as high as the cab of the truck, dropping to the hood and then being pitched off to the wet ground.

Shefishs July 2007