Hello again,

Sorry for the delay in writing up my posts – things have been a little hectic over here. Now though, I am relaxing after another rather warm days work with a nicely chilled bottle of Kubuli (Scott will hate me for that no doubt).

After Scott and Lisa had left on Saturday morning, I decided to tackle all the little computer related jobs around Rosalie Forest Eco-Lodge and settled down with several notebooks to do a spot of maintenance (you know, the kind you usually ask me to do in the pub which end up taking me a couple of hours) . After a little while, Scott called to tell us that the plane due to take them from Dominica to Antigua had broken down so they might miss their flight from Antigua back to the UK (and he sounded absolutely gutted too). We did what we could from our end, phoning around the airlines, checking in on-line etc., and I’m glad to say they managed to get back safe and sound (although their luggage is apparently still in Antigua).

Once the panic was over, we went back to our Saturday afternoon and managed to get everytthing stowed away ready for the evening.

We had a meal up in the forest on Saturday evening, due to it being Richard’s birthday (he is a volunteer at Rosalie Forest, hailing from French shores originally). Richard insisted on cooking us all a lovely meal which was greatly appreciated along with much wine and other assorted beverages. Joyeux Anniversaire Richard! The geek in me also noted that it was the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight but no-one else seemed to appreciate that one

On Sunday, Jem had planned to take me to see some sights around the island. However, this plan was hindered by 1. The fact there was a party of school children coming to Rosalie Forest for the afternoon for some activities and 2. The fact that it absolutely bucketed it down for most of the day. However, the other Richard who works at Rosalie Forest took myself and another volunteer, Michelle (another Brit, from Plymouth) out for the afternoon for a bit of a tour.

First, we stopped off at “Spanny’s” to go and see some lovely waterfalls. Well, I say see. We saw some pictures of them in Spanny’s shop as it was too wet to go up to the waterfalls. Thankfully, Spanny sold us some Kubuli to keep our spirits up

Next, Richard drove us up to ‘Horseback Ridge’ which provides some magnificent views over the island. Despite the rain, we could still see out over the Atlantic and over the island itself.

Next, we had to stop off for me to look at a computer which had been donated to a local youth group (no rest for the wicked eh?). Thankfully, it only took me a few minutes to sort it out and we were on our way. As it was really throwing some rain down, we decided to head for home and go to see the sights another day.

When we got back, we saw a different kind of a sight though. The bus which had brought the children up to Rosalie Forest was blocking the road just before the bridge over the river. We thought this was odd so we got out to investigate (wondering whether they had broken down). Alas, it was a different matter. The rain had swollen the river so much that it was flowing over the top of the bridge so no-one could risk going over it. The bus driver had moved the bus before it got too bad but the river had risen so rapidly that the children (and everyone else) were stranded on the other side (not a bad place to be, I might add).

We had to wait for the river to subside and then crossed back over to dry out a litle. Thankfully, the children had all taken the ordeal in good spirit and were laughing in the rain as they ran back to their bus.

We decided to have a little entertainment in the evening so Jem and I hooked up his projector to his notebook to watch a film. Jem, Michelle, and I were highly amused to be watching a feature film in a rain forest with the chirping of crickets as background noise.

 Monday meant back to work for me. The gang from the ministry arrived in the bus to collect me and my new assistant, Kemon, and we set off for Grand Fond Primary School which is in a village near to Rosalie Forest. We had 16 computers plus all the necessary cabling and switches to install so we got stuck in and turned it all around in our now familiar style. I must say a big thanks to the staff at Grand Fond Primary for the lovely snacks and superb lunch which they laid on for us.

Once again, I am now back at Rosalie Forest. We just had a lovely meal cooked for us by Michelle and watched another film to help us wind down after another hard day. I’ll try and get some more pictures for you all again through the rest of the week – hopefully it will stop raining.

Bye for now