Settling in

Over the weekend we have been relaxing and getting used to Georgetown. We have had a tour of the shops - that's the veg market as well as the shopping mall which has the only escalator in Guyana. We've had a stroll on the beach which is pretty dirty, so not for swimming. Some of us are clubbing together to join a pool/gym at the posh hotel, which is over the road from NCERD where three of us are working.
On Sunday some of us got a minicab over to the Botanical Gardens, they have a manatee in a pool, we saw its back, nose, tail and find, but not all at the same time. The afternoon was a pot luck supper at a volunteer's flat - we had a chance to talk things over with current volunteers including a blind volunteer [for RNC readers she knows Hetal B!]. I went to the church service at the Anglican Church, it is one of the biggest wooden buildings in the world - it has a couple of pigeons flying around the roof, so is a bit like Marden Church...
I'm getting more used to the heat, certainly for walking around the city. I've got a morning run sorted - that's starting at 6 am when it is cool enough. There is a National Park where there are loads of other joggers so that is a safe place to run and there are shady trees. I've seen loads of weird and wonderful birds, butterflies, flowering plants and trees. Georgetown varies from elegant colonial white wooden buildings surrounded by palm trees, to very poor areas with people sleeping rough, but everywhere are filthy ditches and scattered rubbish. Mozzies are not too bad so far - they are apparently worse in the rainy season which starts around December. I hope to get some pictures loaded soon, but this computer is Windows 98 so does not work. I am asking a friend who has a laptop to help.
Cheers Kate