Trips to Linden and Kaieteur Falls

October 1, 2012  Trips to Linden and Kaieteur Falls

Missionaries on the bank of the Demerara River

A chicken pen from the Church's Humanitarian Fund.

Linden is a small town with a river running through the middle of it about one and one half hour's drive from Georgetown.  There is a bauxite mine there, but the Chinese own it and they mine the bauxite and ship it to China.  It does not benefit the Guyanese.  One of the member's homes there blew down so the branch was having a service project to help rebuild their house.  After working on the house in the morning they planned a branch social.  The Summers live in Linden.  They are a missionary couple and he is the branch president.  They are probably the only white people in town.  A couple months ago some people caused riots.  They burned down some of the city buildings including all the vital records, and the church.  They weren't targeting the church, but didn't like the owner of the building the church was renting.  The young missionaries were taken out and the Summers spent a month in Georgetown.  They are back now and things have quieted down.  We got there too late to help with the service project, but the social was lots of fun and there were lots of people there.  I made a friend, a cute little eight year old girl named Sasha.  She hung on to my hand and hugged me all through the half hour program.  What a sweetie.  It made my day.  I hope our grandson, Ruston, will be her penpal.

A cute store with balconies.

Branch President Summers and Sheldon, a returned mini-missionary

Youth singing at the branch social

Sasha, my new friend

They had rioting in Linden a few months before we were there.  Government buildings and other buildings were burned.

View down by the river

President Summers was giving some of the youth a ride home and he took us along.  He reminded me of Indiana Jones as he speedily bounced along over the rugged cow trail roads.  It was like the wild west.  I really liked Linden.  It was very rural and peaceful.  It was cleaner than Georgetown.

Trip to the Falls

It didn't feel quite right to take a vacation as soon as we got here, but the other couple missionaries had planned it and they needed to fill up the plane:)  We had hoped to make it to the Kaieteur Falls sometime.  There were four couples who went, the Cooks, Browns, Beutlers, and us.  Another sister missionary was going to go, but couldn't at the last minute so we took Sister Benn, the District President's wife.  We had to be at the office ready to go by 6:10 a.m. , then we waited for 45 minutes for the Tour Company to arrive.  We all piled into a nice little bus, and thought wow, this is going to be roomy.  Then we went to pick up 10 Chinese doctors.  We had a good visit with them for an hour as we drove to the airport.  They are here in Guyana for two years working/volunteering at the General Hospital.  They are all different kinds of doctors.  We sat by two ladies.  One was a pediatrician and one was a gynocologist.  I felt so bad when they told me that they left their husbands and children in China. The doctors will be without them for two years.  One had a five year old son, and one had an eleven year old daughter. Each year they get a month long vacation in China with their families.  They said they were happy to come to Guyana because the air is so clean, even though they work long hours at the hospital.  We talked to them about watching general conference this weekend.

When we arrived at the airport they took us into an executive lounge where we waited for them to get the plane ready.  When they led us out on the concourse we couldn't believe the antique airplane they were going to take us in.  It looked like it was from the forties!  We squeezed in and held our breath as it rattled to life.  We weren't sure it would get off the ground.   

The plane-not too roomy inside

The clouds were beautiful.  We flew through lots of them

They mine gold and diamonds here.

The view from the air was great.  It really did look like broccoli.  We could see lots of rivers, and mining operations.

We saw the falls from the air

On the runway, in the rain.

A small red carnivorous plant

Our guide, Lee

It was a jungle!

Bob on  a ledge!

Nice view of the river at the bottom of the falls.

Deep in a leaf is the inch long golden frog-very poisonous!

The falls were beautiful

Our pilot was good.   We shook some when he went through the clouds, but he landed nicely and did a good job. We crawled out of the plane and he gave us a bottle of water.  We went into the  building which was empty except for a couple people there.  Our guide and his family live there with another family.  The falls are 741 feet high.  They are the highest single drop falls in the world.  It is the end of the dry season, so they are only 1/3 or so as wide as they are sometimes.  They told us not to wear mosquito repellent there, because mosquitos are an endangered species because of all the carnivorous plants there.  We saw the tiny golden frog, and many unusual plants.  The view of the falls was great.  We were tired on the ride back because it got so hot and muggy.    We are keeping very busy and trying to get it together so we can do what we are supposed to do.  We learn a little more every day.