How's life? Out here in 'the boonies', 'the bush', or whatever you want to call it, it's pretty cool. We have lot's of fun here, but it's a different kind of fun, a type of fun you can't have anywhere else except out here in the jungle. Something that we do here that's really fun is paddling in

Sinking a duggout canoe

duggout canoes. These canoes can't sink because they're made out of trees, so we paddle up stream, turn the canoe over and float downstream. It's fun! Anyway, some other stuff that is fun is washing in the river. Every Sunday morning we go out with our pile of clothes and start washing. Of corse we don't sit there and mumble that it's going to take us all morning to wash these clothes by hand. We wash creatively. Like my cousin (Kristen) paddles in the canoe while I'm inside washing or we trade places. She sit's in the canoe while I paddle. And we have to be careful not to tip our canoe or we loose our clothes for good! Another way to have fun while washing is to wash the clothes, slip them on and then swim around. You kill two birds with one stone. You see you're swimming and at the same time rinsing your clothes. It's fun. We also go to the school here.

A NORMAL SCHOOL DAY
We wake up, take a bath in the river and go eat breakfast. Something which we eat alot here and which is a traditional food here is cassava bread or Ekie (it's name in the Akawaio dialect). It tastes like unsalted crackers, but it tastes good.

So anyway after we eat breakfast we walk to school along with all the other kids. At 9:00 the bell rings or at least it's supposed to.

Katrina's School Building

Only the few people who have watches know what time it is, so the kids go at any time, usually real early. Sometimes the teachers don't ring the manual bell on time, but we understand. After the bell is rung we all line up in our groups. There are two groups in the school. The toucans and the Macaws. Kristen and I are in the Toucans and Lina, Heidi and Kara are in the Macaws. After we line up we say the morning prayer and then go inside. When inside, we start doing work.

The bottom floor is the classrooms of the kindergarden children. The upstairs is for what they call Primary 1,2,3,4 and Forms 1,2,3 and 4. At Primary 4 you take a test called Common Entrance and go into Forms. So after working for a while, we go outside for recess. The guys go and play football/soccer (almost every time) and the little kids play jumprope with vines. And the girls

Four neighbor boys

don't know what to do. They play jumprope sometimes, but most of the time they read books from the school library. Then afterward we do more work and then go for lunch at 12:00. Berfore we go for lunch we have a before-lunch prayer. Then we walk home and eat lunch.

We have a gas stove here but before that we used to use a barrel cut out. The barrel is sideways and has three holes in it. Then you fill it halfway with clay and build a fire under it.

Cute Baby Boy

I think it's really awesome to cook with it and I got dissappointed when we got the gas stove. We still use the barrel sometimes though. So anyway, after we eat lunch we walk back up and at 1:30 the bell rings. We line up outside and say the after-lunch prayer. Then we go inside and do work until 3:30. Then we have the after-school prayer and go home.

After swimming and canoeing we sometimes go and play volleyball with the kids. Sometimes when I look at our pictures they look so junglish and it's hard to believe I'm actually here! Anyway life is pretty cool here, except for the longing of ice-cream.

Your Friend,

Katrina Gates

PS. Please write to me sometime

Katrina really would like to hear from you. If you send Email, send it to: gates@andrews.edu
If you want to write to her by regular mail, send it to:

Katrina Gates
c/o Anita Devonish
40 Pike Street
Kitty, Georgetown
Guyana, South America

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Last Updated: March 10, 1997