First off my apologies to all for the lapse in keeping this travel journal current. I’d like to believe it’s because I’m just so gosh-darn busy, but sadly that’s not really the case. Still, I have accumulate a few stories of peril and hazard and frog infused coffee.
Allow me to begin by briefly filling in the holes from last term:
I was nearly mauled by the caretaker’s dog when I went to hang clothes on his line one morning (with permission). Luckily, I was armed with a bucket of clothing when Betsy came snapping at my ankles followed by “White Eye” aka Pops. So I fell off the planks and into the muddy reeds. After the longest 3 minutes of my life, Mr. Williams came to my rescue and got the dogs. I returned home with the same sopping bucket full of clothes and cried because I was scared shitless. It turned out the bitch was protecting her newborn puppies and Mr. Williams had failed to lock up the “guard” dogs.
Then there was the time when bleach splashed directly on my eyeball while trying to clear a drain. I was quite certain that Guyana and that damn toilet were going to be the last sighting by my right eye. But alas, upon hearing my panicked cry Magda came to my rescue and with her experience around chemicals in the science lab flushed out my eye. Luckily, this was actually a day that we had water running through our pipes.
Another incident, I scraped my foot on a rusted chair that sits out back under the guava tree. Hooooowwwww you might be asking?? I was trying to knock off some fruit for the guard’s 4 year old son and 7 year old daughter. They got their fruit and I got a scrape from a rusty chair, seems fair. Luckily (speaking of, hopefully it doesn’t run out this term), I’ve had my tetanus shot.
In November, Magda and I escaped to the island of Barbados for some much needed R&R. I met some long lost family members and my aunt; and together, we all soaked in the sun and the respite, not to mention the intake of delicious food. We were in heaven.
Shortly after our return to Guyana, Magda finally encountered a story of her own. It was an ordinary morning at Friendship, Magda woke first and began preparing breakfast i.e. boiling water, coffee for her, tea for me, toast and wheetabix, sugar and milk (for me), and jam. Shortly after 730am, we finished so I went for the first bucket shower. Halfway through, I hear Magda spewing profanities like a foul mouthed teenager out of no where. Naturally, I immediately probed her for an explanation of this out burst. Here’s what happened.
Magda takes her coffee black, no sugar or milk that might require stirring. Well this particular morning, a little frog was sleeping in late under the dark brown mug that spent the night turned upside down on the drying rack. When she got to the very last sip of her Maxwell House, she saw 2 teeny tiny eyes and the putrefied remains of a frog staring straight back into her own eyes. Talk about traumatizing. Since that horrifyingly funny (a month later, ok well I laugh at it) experience, we try to stay away from frog infused beverages.
And that my friends, is last term in a nut shell.
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