Hey there, It has been a while since i posted another message here! I have been putting up loads of pictures in the photo album and hope u enjoying the views there and to see what we have been up to so far. We are looking forward to Xmas and New Year in Guyana as it will be very different experience for me as never had a xmas away from the family and cold weather!! I sure will miss the Xmas dinner but i am hoping to make one here as Guyana are into xmas like England do and they do share similar xmas celebration. We will be going to Iwokrama Forest for our xmas celebration with 7 volunteers and we are looking forward to it as it will be packed with so much fun and adventures! Will let u know what has happened during our visit to Iwokrama Forest. To respond to Angela message about the Deaf community here in Guyana. Ashton have wrote some down in the message board and i will write more here to give u more details of the Deaf community from my views! :D The Deaf community is very small and it is very shattered all over the Georgetown as they dont have the place to socialise in the evening which it is making it more difficult for us to meet at one place to socialise with the deaf community. At the moment, the only two places we can meet with the deaf community is at the "church" (Flex Gym) and at Ian's work place. It is the only place we can meet with the deaf community to socialise. It shows that we are very shattered all over the place. We had some of the deaf people visiting at Ashton and mine place to have chat and exchange the stories. They love to tell us about the wars and crimes in Georgetown as they love to tell the story in actions and placement. It was great to hear about it! :D For the employment in the deaf community. Not very many deaf people got the job as they are being rejected by the employers and some of them got the job and it are cleaners, shop workers etc. Not good job and prospect for the future. Only Donetta got ok job at the CBR as she is the office assistance and part time accountant. She might be one of the few deaf people who get good education as she went to trinidad to college to educate further where many of others stopped after school. The school education here for teh deaf children are terrible and the teachers are not well trained to teach the deaf children in education and they have little or none experience at sign language training which it put a huge barrier for the deaf children to access to learning. Many of them have the reading and writing of 8 years old, which it is way behind for their learning process into working world. It is difficult for them to able to get the job etc. Many deaf people still lives at home with their parents or aunt, uncle etc. So the deaf people who lives on their own, do live in poor area where all the problems do occurs, like crime etc. It is difficult for me and ashton to pay a visit to those place. So we have decided to set up the deaf club as we need to have the deaf community to come together once a week to socialise and enjoy the evening of the sign language socialising. we will hopefully to have the club up and running in January or February at least. Yes, so far we go out with the volunteers most of the time as like we mention that there are no socialise place for the deaf people to meet, but will make most of it in new year where we can have the deaf club to bring the whole community of the deaf people together to have fun. So we are working on that to improve the socialise life for the deaf people. Hope it is good enough to explain about the deaf community. please feel free to ask me anything in the messageboard about deaf issues... Love ya all Steven/xxxxxxxxxxxx