A Guyanese Adventure

Do we look like we are ready and excited for an adventure?


Sister Radicka, the New Amsterdam Relief Society president (wearingthe red and white shirt), was really ambitious when she decided to have the RS sisters take a boat ride to Orealla, a faraway Amerindian jungle village that is accessible only by boat.

A group of sixteen of us signed up to go. We were told that it was a 90 minute boat ride. Besides us and the Larsens, the two missionary couples, the group included 7 RS sisters, 3 of their teenagers, 2 of their younger children and the New Amsterdam branch president.

At 6 a.m., we headed for the boat dock … a 90 minute ride from where we live in New Amsterdam.

The tide was out when we arrived so we had a little wait before we could all pile into the boat at 11 a.m. Sister Radicka quickly whipped out her pink nail polish and painted my toenails and fingernails.

The sisters in the branch have just been dying to paint them fancy for me. I've had several offers!

The boat was just big enough for us to each find a spot on one of the side boards to sit.

So we all piled in and found a spot to sit.

Check out all those beautiful smiles!

I quickly noticed that instead of life jackets, the boat was equipped with several umbrellas. I quickly understood why.

The boat ride was very long and we were so very hot. I think those smiles are beginning to fade!

Check out the happy and spirited look on this one!

We splashed each other with river water in an attempt to cool ourselves off.

We munched on whatever food the members of our group brought along, which included cooked rice, chicken curry, oranges, bananas and peanut butter sandwiches.

At one point in our "voyage" this big tanker boat appeared.

Our captain pulled up close to the big tanker boat. I thought we were going to crash into the tanker when suddenly I noticed our captain was tying his boat to it. The next thing I knew we were climbing on the tanker so our boat could hitch a ride for a while and save a little gas.

Here we are climbing back to our boat after our little "hitch".

Can you just imagine how much we laughed and giggled as we floated for 5 sunny hours?

About 45 minutes before we arrived at Orealla, suddenly the captain pulled our boat up to a tiny dock and we all got out. I thought we had arrived but I soon found out we had stopped to eat the rice and chicken one of the sisters had brought.

We found this little house but noone was in sight.

We "borrowed" a few tiny bananas that we found on the ground.

I was a little surprised when the Branch president collected a few oranges for our voyage.

Here we are just before we climbed back into our boat to continue our voyage. Looks like it's Sister Radicka's turn to nap now! Well, now it's time to get back in the boat and float some more!

What happened to her?

Our snail’s pace float lasted for 5 hours before we finally reached Orealla at 4 p.m.

When we disembarked at Orealla, dad stole the show. The women had all climbed safely off the boat onto the dock when suddenly we heard a big splash.

We all turned to see what had happened and discovered someone had missed the dock and fallen 15-20 feet into the river below. Scroll down to find out who.

Whoops!

When dad came up he looked startled but was still wearing his glasses and his nametag ... fortunately!

He was a pretty big fish to pull out of the river.

Here we are taking a breather after our five hour voyage. I wondered if we'd ever get there.

We settled into our large cabin and quickly went for a walk around the village because we knew it would be dark by 6:15. Here's some of what we saw.

Does anyone know how to play cricket?

Men "gossiping" or something like that. Maybe they were all bragging about their cricket game!

I loved the wash on the fence. It really dresses up the fence!

Then, our walk took us down a road and up this steep hill. We walked around on the road at the top of the hill.

Soon it was dark, and we realized we were all lost. We couldn't find this path to go back down and we had no idea how to get back to the village. We found a little house where we could ask for directions.

Two mothers led us down a steep, steep path that included a wild bunch of stairs with no handrail. Sorry, I took no photos because it was pitch black!

When we returned to our cabin, we were instructed by one of the Amerindians that we were not to go out walking again without a guide. There were paths and roads going in all directions and of course there were no street signs.

We all knew we'd be lost again if we did.

We all slept together in this big room. Some lucked out and got the floor! (Just kidding)

Some slept in hammocks. There happened to be 2 double beds for the Larsens and for us.

I fell asleep immediately and the rest of them laughed and giggled most of the night.

The next day we began our adventure at 6 a.m. by finishing off the peanut butter sandwiches I had brought.

Our guide walked us all over the village. There were houses scattered everywhere. Here is a sample of what we saw.

Everywhere the village was clean, clean, clean! It was so much cleaner than where we live “in town”.

It's bathtime for baby!

We saw this pot of food cooking at one of their homes and had to check it out. It turned out that it was the food for the two guys (or girls) in the photo below.

I didn't know you had to cook a pig's food. What do you suppose they season it with?

Have you ever seen how pineapple grows?

After our guide took us to their pineapple field, he found us a few “pines” to cut up and eat.

We found this cute little lady taking her shower. She didn’t seem bothered that I was walking around her yard with my camera!

The children were darling, especially the babies.

Several were playing with their parrots.

There were no cars in the village. There were lots of roads for them to do their logging but there is no road to the village. Check out this bridge and the black water that is the color of Pepsi.

At last we got to go swimming. We were all so hot we just jumped in a couple of times in our clothes in the brown river. None of the Guyanese know how to swim because there is nowhere for them to swim. The rivers are all too big and deep for them to swim in.

Even your dad jumped in! Shock?

Our branch president made arrangements with the family that lived in this house to cook us our lunch of chow mein noodles and chicken. That was the only meal we ate other than what we had brought with us.

By 4 p.m. we were back in the boat headed back down the river holding our umbrellas. I was not looking forward to another 5 hour boat ride back towards home.

Three hours of our voyage was in the dark with no light on our boat. We laughed and giggled so much that the time seemed to go quicker than our voyage the day before.

All the way home, the 43 year old captain of the boat flirted with the Relief Society President, Sister Radicka, who is divorced. When he asked her how old she was, she paused before she answered with a giggle, “I’ll tell you when you get baptized!” When he asked for her phone number, she said, “Come to church and I’ll see you there.”

Our trip was wild and crazy and was nothing like we'd ever experienced before. We were traveling Guyanese style and we had a fun, fun time.

We haven’t even been home a week and the Relief Society is already planning their next adventure to Suriname. Oh Sister Radicka, how could you?