De Lelie Hills Hotel and Casino Paramaribo

... and water as we would not be able to buy anything later on. (Anna, Inge, Hilde and Huug - they even sold Brinta!) (A cereal I remember from my childhood). The first hour or so was fine as the road was tarmacked and Aniel a careful driver. We passed Bauxite mines and noticed that the soil is almost bright red. (The Saramacca - one of Suriname's three Creole languages - word for Bauxite means 'red earth'). The bauxite is shipped to America, we did not ascertain how much ...

... before he could leave, so I started arguing again and said that this was not what we had agreed to etc. etc. Anyway, it eventually became clear to us that this is in fact normal practice; the fare he had quoted was for a shared taxi!

Peter, who was not following the argument (Dutch is not his strongest point, well actually there is no point to speak of) had meanwhile checked in the guidebook and realised that this was true ...

... The Mosquito Coast' and they certainly like keeping business in the family as much as possible, so new realities 'back home' could have a huge ripple effect (interestingly Koreans will even go places that give the Chinese pause, like Guatemala City and South LA). But here the Chinese influence is even greater than normal. There's a huge Chinese 'Tong' association occupying a prominent corner in town, as large as any in Thailand btw, and they seem ...

... and then we were off. 2 miles down the road we stopped. The driver pointed to two of us and told us to get into another minibus. "It's ok" said the kind lady who had already pointed me in the right direction a couple of times at the ferry terminal. So more intricate luggage loading, and then we were off again. Or were we? No we sat for half and hour then went back in the wrong direction for a couple of miles to pick up some more passengers. Finally, off ...

... but I've already done a draft of an evaluation I want my kids to take so I can figure out where everyone is because I'll be getting a whole barrage of new students. Well I'm going to be absent tomorrow because I have some WorldTeach business to take care of, so I left the draft with the other teachers to possibly become a school-wide assessment. I get the feeling that I won't be able to recognize my own work when the other teachers have finished making changes ...

... zal zijn. Hij pleegt een telefoontje en spreekt zeer beleefd, als ware het de koningin, de Majoor aan. Na een uitvoerig gesprek over zijn welzijn stelt hij zeer beleefd de vraag of hij gelegenheid heeft deze mensen te ontvangen terwijl de dienst eigenlijk al gesloten is. Voor zeilers zijn wij tot vanavond open, is de reactie! Beleefdheid en een overmatige dosis belangstelling schept een band, zo concluderen wij. Om 16 uur betreden wij het bureau. We vermelden de naam ...

... Ethiopia. Fast forward to when it came time to applying, me hesitating at the question that asked where in the world I'd like to serve. Having never traveled overseas and being impatient to see the whole world, I couldn't make up my mind. I could have easily left it all to chance by answering "Anywhere," but in that instant Eastern Europe or the South Pacific seemed like an attractive option, so I checked those. Imagine my surprise when a few months later I get a call. "Hello ...

... other decorations. The names are generally things like Amazon, Chief, Sharpshooter or a woman's name. More interesting, however, are the slogans on the back of the buses. I've posted a couple of examples in the picture section, but wasn't able to catch some of my favourites on photo. Things like "no backbiters here", "no more arguments" and one inviting one that says "sexual healing". All buses travel to and from a central location downtown. They take their place in line, the bus ...

... that is matched to our job posting. Both Brenda and I have a background in management. Brenda is the Executive Director of HIV North in Alberta and came with the HIV/AIDS expertise that the rest of us lack. She is also has a background in events planning and coordination and did some work here in fund development. One of the things she accomplished was getting the Vagina Monologues off the ground for Feb/06. HIV North did the Monologues last year and it was such a ...

... front of her hut with a thatch of sticks. They quite love her and we were fully welcomed as her friends. They were, apparently a bit skeptical when she told them that 2 older women were coming. Do they want to buy something they asked? However, we also took part in their activities and they showed us how to do things and laughed at our attempts at their language, coaching us along. Brokopondo lake is a man made lake, the result of a hydro project in the 50's. There were ...