Kiss The Rain

Another crazy week in Guyana, I spent 5 days in New Amsterdam and had a blast! I love it there, the volunteers are great and my job is going to be awesome! I have a 1bedroom apartment in the city on St. Magdalen's street, it's REALLY green and needs some work on the inside, but it's going to be great. I got back to West Dem Thursday evening and Granny got a call that her daughter Venice had passed away. It's been a tough couple of days, I'm spending the weekend at my friend Ashley's host families in the village of "Farm". I'm so thankful to be staying with them and not be awkward and in the way at Granny's. We have two more weeks of training and I'm so ready for it to be done!
New Amsterdam is in Region 6, east of the Berbice river about 2 hours drive from Georgetown. It's totally different than anywhere I've ever been in my life, I like that there's more people around and I felt totally safe everywhere I went. There's a current volunteer about 4 blocks away and 3 more about 20 min away and 2 from my training group will be about 15 min drive away in the next village. I am so excited to have other Americans so close to me! I'll be working at the New Amsterdam Family Health Center, 3 streets over from my house. I'm working in Mother and Child Care, weighing babies and charting their visits, eventually I'll be doing one on one counseling with new mothers in my office for diet and exercise and nutritional information and starting other projects around town. There's a pool! I'm not sure yet what kind of condition it's in but I'm excited to find out and start organizing programs there too!


Please send any future mail to my new address:
Lauren R. Sanford
Peace Corps Guyana
2127 St. Magdalen Street
New Amsterdam, East Bank Berbice
Guyana, South America

Cross my heart and kiss my elbow,
Love and peace