The Rainy Season in bartica and at the Kaiteur Falls

The rainy season in an area that already has a daily fall of rain and humidity above 90% would appear to hold few surprises except but nothing prepared us for the first intense downpour of the season. It lasted about 25 minutes and in that time the hill behind us was awash with rushing torrents that tore down the side of the house in the concrete gulley and out to the ditch trenches at the front of the house, soon filled to overflowing. The noise on the tin roof was deafening and then just as quickly as it appeared, the rain stopped and the intense sun came out. Within the hour the outside eaves of the house were infested with winged flying insects, small and packed in great clouds and they too disappeared as soon as nightfall came. This is the kind of pattern we can expect over the next few weeks and we just hope that they finish the new gulleys at the side of the secondary school before too long , otherwise they will be washed away.

And so to work. We are running joint sessions with classes of children and their teachers and we have held two meetings with the teachers of the immediate region on the fun way to teach word blending and phonics with action and the importance of reading stories to the children every day. The second session was unexpectedly shortened because the regional Director of Education wanted to talk to the group about year plans – and gave us no notice of this change but what she says goes here and that was that. Nevertheless we will follow up the work in schools and press the teachers to buy books from the Guyana Book Foundation and more teachers are coming to use the centre.


The trip to the Kaiteur Falls (the largest single drop waterfall in the world and 4 times the height of Niagara was supposed to take place on the Thursday but the weather conditions for flying were too poor around the falls and we went the next day . That too was delayed for most of the morning and so we were surprised when we got the all clear to take off in the rain. Flying in a 5 seater aircraft in bad weather over one of the most human free areas of the world was an experience. Yet the flight was not all in cloud, the endless rainforest looked reassuring like broccoli and the sun emerged as we flew over the falls and landed. We were the only 5 people to visit the falls that day (average number of visitors per year is 4,000) and we were able to view the Falls close up…very close up in three different spots. It was a memorable experience - truly a little known wonder of the natural world. The yellow frog we saw in the plant was barely one inch long but deadly to its prey and the several unique species of plants that we say were again testament to the remoteness of this pristine rain forested area. Do check out the link to the article on the falls ion the website and apologies to the photos that give little evidence of the overwhelming size of the falls