Greetings from Guyana!

"The contents of this [blog] are personal and do not reflect any position of the US government or the Peace Corps."

And so it begins. The first day of orientation down here in Guyana. Yesterday I arrived and had the day to adjust. That included going for a run. Which turned into a 14 minute slog. Boy it is hot and humid down here! At least for this first week I get air conditioning so that's nice. And buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner; which frankly I cannot differentiate. They all seem almost the exact same. And supposedly this place has the best food in the city. I suspect I will be making most of my meals anyway given my meager food allowance.

Today I started orientation and I now know why things move slowly in the government. There are so many policy and procedures. I realize that most of them are for my benefit but gosh: some of the restrictions are quite limiting. The nice thing that I found out is that Guyana has a lot of national holidays so I should be able to explore the country without using my limited holiday allowance. The downside is that even holidays and weekends count against my vacation time if I leave the country(it seems that they really want me to stay in- which right now doesn't seem like too bad of a deal).

Soooo. It looks like I won't have many opportunities to get out of the country. I plan on meeting up with Kendra in the Caribbean at some point, go to Brazil(maybe to meet my brother), and then I might use a vacation day or two to go into Suriname and possibly French Guyana[Guyane]. I know my real adventure starts next week when I go to the National Psychiatric Hospital and see what state it is.

Until then I will enjoy a few exotic(to me) beers and the nice sea breeze from my hotel.